Shorty Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 I don't see how anyone can have the opinion that the system was done correctly. Yes, there were some neat features but the restrictions were too much sacrifice. It's balance which is needed and I think having the different systems for retail and digital games would have been the perfect solution to this. I think the only place they went wrong was marketing. These were obviously going to be seen as negatives, but they let the bad news slowly leak out and never stood up to sell the positives. This sums it up well, they would've actually been better officially stating something along these lines http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB (pastebin from frustrated employee) I'm just curious, do you often sell used games at independent retailers? To me, these restrictions would've made no difference from the way I currently play games on the 360/PS3. I pre-order new games at launch, I always have an internet connection (even when I move I could tether 3G for a moment to ping my 24 hour access thing) and I'm not a moron so I don't believe that always on is anything but waiting for an "on" command or that Microsoft wants to watch me play Halo and eat pizza.
Sheikah Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 (edited) It's funny that they do a 180 on this just as I was starting to see the positives in the idea. I love Steam and this service sounded a heck of a lot like it. Trading downloaded games, taking my collection with me anywhere without the disks... nobody thought about the positives. They were taking a chance on a new direction and now they buckled before anyone really started to understand it. Hm. Maybe next generation. What pittance you would make from trading in digital titles would no doubt have been outweighed by the fact you're paying far more for your games in the first place. It was a terrible idea - that's why people hated it and that's why they scrapped it. Also bring able to download games on another friend's system instead of taking the disc is just ridiculous. As if you would wait however long to download a 20GB+ title on a potentially shaky internet connection rather than take along a small disk. Edited June 20, 2013 by Sheikah
Cube Posted June 20, 2013 Author Posted June 20, 2013 This sums it up well, they would've actually been better officially stating something along these lines http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB (pastebin from frustrated employee) Trying to compare it to Steam is even worse. Steam is great because it's an option on the platform and not the only way to buy games. Also, if Steam is the "true cost of a game", then why is it cheaper to have it put on a disc, put in a plastic box with some bits of paper, sent to another shop which is making a profit to myself then posted to my house? The "additional license" thing is also complete and utter rubbish. These restrictions would have not affected me, but that does not stop the system being completely wrong. If I didn't buy used games as a kid I would not be a gamer now. The same applies to if there was an online requirement.
Shorty Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Trying to compare it to Steam is even worse. Steam is great because it's an option on the platform and not the only way to buy games. List of games requiring Steam authentication
Cube Posted June 20, 2013 Author Posted June 20, 2013 List of games requiring Steam authentication Even taking that into consideration, you're still not entirely locked into Steam as many, many games don't require it. Steam also has a two-week offline mode (longer if you don't exit Steam). Consoles are supposed to be easy. Just whack your disc in and play. The lack of any kind of authentication (be it serial code, one-time or regular checks) one of the points of consoles.
Shorty Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 (edited) Don't you think that disks are going to die altogether eventually though? We need to get the ball rolling on that, otherwise people who want to trade games to get them cheap are eventually going to have no option at all. Edited June 20, 2013 by Shorty
Cube Posted June 20, 2013 Author Posted June 20, 2013 Don't you think that disks are going to die altogether eventually though? We need to get the ball rolling on that, otherwise people who want to trade games to get them cheap are eventually going to have no option at all. Eventually, yes. But it will be after CDs and DVDs are completely dead, so it's still a long time away. And by then the EU will have fully implemented trading laws for digital games so it will be just like physical games.
Agent Gibbs Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Wow they flip flop as much as British Politicians it seems! Too little too late for me, i got sick of my Adbox 360 and paying to use it online, the Xbone (now forever christened the xb180) just turned me off so much, i don't like kinect, i don't want to be forced online and i didn't want any of their DRM policies reversing those should be a good thing, but all it teaches me is that at a moments notice they can do a 180 on any policy so how could anyone trust them to keep this? all they need to do is wait until they get a large enough install base then switch back to the DRM policies and nobody would be able to argue i wouldn't be surprised if they eventually do an opt in to the original plans, and then after a period say it proved so popular they are just changing it for everyone trust is a big thing with consumers, they destroyed mine, but i'm one consumer so what will they care
Sheikah Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Don't you think that disks are going to die altogether eventually though? We need to get the ball rolling on that, otherwise people who want to trade games to get them cheap are eventually going to have no option at all. Why now though? It would take ages to download the game at a friend's house, you'd just take the disc. Why on Earth are you defending this? Do you not like being able to buy games preowned for £10 or less?
Esequiel Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Reading a few of the things on here it actually sounds better than i first though. This sums it up well, they would've actually been better officially stating something along these lines http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB (pastebin from frustrated employee) This inpaticular caught my eye, if only they priced digital games sensibly it would have been great. I.E £25 for new games. They could offer £12.50 "trade" in for a digital copy and sell the "used" copy for £20.
dwarf Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Graham Linehan on Twitter: "We would have got away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids." - Microsoft.
MindFreak Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Why now though? It would take ages to download the game at a friend's house, you'd just take the disc. Yes. But you do not need to download the entire game before you may start playing it. Just a small portion. Also, it might be run mostly from the cloud (so the friend would require to have a rather good connection, yes).
Cube Posted June 20, 2013 Author Posted June 20, 2013 Yes. But you do not need to download the entire game before you may start playing it. Just a small portion. Also, it might be run mostly from the cloud. I don't recall hearing anything about cloud streaming for the Xbox One. For this "cloud computing", all the game assets still need to be on the console.
Jimbob Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 It sounds like it is too late for them to remove it from launch consoles, hence the need for the day 1 patch. This DRM should never have been implemented like this, but you can have a Day 1 console and not ever download the patch. Xbox One suddenly became a lot more attractive to the average gamer, but good to see the core crowd sticking their ground. I've got a feeling that the price tag is still going to hamper the sales, which is good. They deserve to get fucked for trying to pull this crap. We the people have made our stand, we shall remain true to our word (hopefully). The thing is, Microsoft had something they could have implemented correctly. Download titles could have been put under the sharing to others with an internet connection, but disks remained as they were. What they did was wrong and not what was needed. Don't get me wrong, i like the idea of sharing games. But the way Microsoft's DRM was doing it, it put me way off the idea in general
MindFreak Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 I don't recall hearing anything about cloud streaming for the Xbox One. For this "cloud computing", all the game assets still need to be on the console. True, that might have been me jumping to a conclusion. Sorry. But the first part is true.
Serebii Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 This DRM should never have been implemented like this, but you can have a Day 1 console and not ever download the patch. You can, but it'd be a brick, unable to do anything.
Happenstance Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 To be fair though the Wii U had a day one patch it add big features to the console which should have already been there as well.
Serebii Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 To be fair though the Wii U had a day one patch it add big features to the console which should have already been there as well. At least the console was useable without it
Shorty Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 Why now though? It would take ages to download the game at a friend's house, you'd just take the disc. Why on Earth are you defending this? Do you not like being able to buy games preowned for £10 or less? To your first point, why would it take ages? No different to getting a digital title, which is going to be sped up on both consoles so that you can start playing before it's fully downloaded. To your last point, actually I would prefer Steam Summer Sale style bargains any day, and when you do that, some money actually goes back to the developers, not just to GAME. That means more money back on their overheads, better DLC and fewer unattractive features like online passes and day one DLC.
Nolan Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 (edited) So nobody liked the idea of diskless play, or playing all your games at a friend's house? Or registering 9 people as your family and just sharing your entire collection? That's all well and good, 24 hours was too restrictive though. And hell what if your friend doesn't have a particular system...or internet? You can't even lug the system over to play at their house directly. I know I use to do that with my 360, hell used to not have Internet myself. Phone tethering is all well and good, but some don't have Smartphones, and I know I'm not going to pay the extra $30 Verizon wants for me to be allowed to share the connection. You're all much happier now that GAME can continue to rip you off with £10 in-store credit on that £40 game you bought instead of the developers getting a bit of their money back? That wouldn't have changed....I'm not sure why you think GAME would suddenly pay more for used games? Well, maybe because the license was only transferable once, but I doubt they would. What would happen is any small chain mom and pop stores that survive on used sales likely would lose support. Everyone hated Steam when it first launched because of the DRM, but now it's all SUMMER SALE and PC Master Race and Gaben Gaben Gaben... We could've had that Summer Sale with XBLA games.... Steam had growing pains, same as MS would have, but even on 56K I could use Steam. Can't use a Xbone without 1.5Mbps, well recommended. I'm sure 768Kbps would work just have some sketchy features. I always doubt we'd see equivalent sales. We can already see equivalent sales is MS was truly serious about cheaper games. There is no reason that current XBL and XBLA titles can't enjoy the same level of discounts as Steam...or even PSN, let alone PSN+. This sums it up well, they would've actually been better officially stating something along these lines http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB (pastebin from frustrated employee) I'm not a moron so I don't believe that always on is anything but waiting for an "on" command or that Microsoft wants to watch me play Halo and eat pizza. That looks like the same "Engineer" stuff that was quoted in full earlier in the thread. I responded to it's silliness once. Nice to know that we in the US are Morons for thinking that MS, a company already outed as happily giving info to the NSA, a company with patents that will allow Kinect to stop playback if there are too many viewers, is only planning on using Kinect for games, and saying "Xbox on". Of note to people saying sharing has been killed oh woe is us....http://www.bluesnews.com/s/142637/steam-game-sharing-planned Steam might be implementing sharing judging by some beta code. EDIT: http://www.destructoid.com/an-industry-that-needs-xbox-one-drm-is-a-failed-industry-256643.phtml I like Jim Sterling Edited June 20, 2013 by Nolan Because I can.
Cube Posted June 20, 2013 Author Posted June 20, 2013 To your last point, actually I would prefer Steam Summer Sale style bargains any day, and when you do that, some money actually goes back to the developers, not just to GAME. That means more money back on their overheads, better DLC and fewer unattractive features like online passes and day one DLC. And what's stopping them from doing that with a normal digital store?
Sheikah Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 (edited) To your first point, why would it take ages? No different to getting a digital title, which is going to be sped up on both consoles so that you can start playing before it's fully downloaded. To your last point, actually I would prefer Steam Summer Sale style bargains any day, and when you do that, some money actually goes back to the developers, not just to GAME. That means more money back on their overheads, better DLC and fewer unattractive features like online passes and day one DLC. The play while downloading thing will be really bad. We're talking 20GB+ here to a nation where you're lucky to have 5Mb speeds. I'd be lucky to download that in a day on my current connection, I could easily see myself outplaying the game download. The difference between this and current digital software is that you don't already have the digital software when you start downloading it. If you already have the disc, you'd be mental to rely on a friend's internet connection unless it was superchanged. Carrying a disc is hardly an inconvenience and I don't really see any victory for eliminating the need with a we're-so-not-ready-for-this alternative. And what's stopping them from doing that with a normal digital store? Nothing. They could do all these plans anyway. The fact they haven't so far makes it seem unlikely they have any intention of doing so. Edited June 20, 2013 by Sheikah
Shorty Posted June 20, 2013 Posted June 20, 2013 They can't afford such sales at the moment, the same as Steam couldn't when it launched. Right now used game sales damage the first-hand sales too much for them to be able to afford sales which produce such tiny profit margins. I'm not saying it would've happened, only that it was a possibility - and now it isn't.
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