Xbox One

[nate]

This reveal is pretty impressive.  Just not sure I would have that much of a use for it.  Haven't played a console game in years.

[HaloCory22]

Its impressive, but I'm still getting PS4. Xbox One seems to be trying to integrate too many things into the system and didn't really address any actual performance issues.

[Aaronkv]

Ran on 3 operating systems. Windows, New XBox, and one to make them talk to each other. That's just asking for trouble.

 

I'm assuming PS4 and XBOX One will have the same features anyways. I'll stick with what I know, PlayStation.

[RallyMo]

It's not backwards compatible.

 

I don't get it.

 

How hard is it for them to make that possible?

[RallyMo]

...and you have to pay a fee to play used games:

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/407912/microsoft-confirms-pre-owned-fee-for-xbox-one/

[mrwicked]

this is smart.

they're focusing on living room media (kinect, social, streaming, cloud, etc) capabilities first, game play second.

thats where the future is.

[RallyMo]

Agreed.

 

That's pretty much all I use my xbox for, so I get that. We use the xbox/kinect for ESPN, mlb, NFLX, hbogo, XBL movies, slacker, Rhapsody etc etc etc

 

I just don't see how difficult it will be for them to make it backwards compatible.

 

I remember when the 360 was released, they said that it would only be able to work with a few original xbox games. People said "WTF" and lo and behold, it was magically able to play just about the entire catalog shortly after.

 

I don't think it would cost them all that much more and it might help them to avoid the loss of some people to PS3 that are more focused on gaming.

[nate]

Rally, as someone that worked in the industry for about five years, the backwards compatibility is usually more of a novelty early on when the game catalog is still small.  After six months people completely stop buying games for the older systems, they just trade them all in.  I think the cost is probably more than you would think.  Even if it is only 20 dollars per console, that is quite a bit of money to them when they need to price competitively.

 

Also, they will probably release a bunch of the older games as downloads... of course you would be paying for them again if you wanted to play them.

 

I don't have a 360 anymore, just a PS3 but like Rally and wicked said, I really only use it for media.  My PS3 is just a glorified uPNP and BluRay player.  The thing is, with a Smart TV, a lot of the features they debuted aren't that spectacular to me.

 

I have no allegiance to a console.  Overall I liked the Xbox 360 more than the PS3, only reason I held onto the PS3 was for the BluRay capabilities.

 

Hopefully the next gen console support MKV so I don't have to remux all of them.  TV supports MKV but I would have to hook it up via ethernet because streaming 1080p over wifi doesn't work very well.

[Brandon]

There is actually a lot of reading you can find on the subject. I have been doing a bit because GTA V comes out in September, but the new systems are supposed to be ready around Christmas and not backwards compatible. So I'm curious if I need to keep a ps3 or if Rockstar will make the game available to ps4 or if they will be backwards compatible.

There are two main reasons: 1) controlling the market place. 2) cost to build.

I have one of the og 60g ps3's that were (and now are the only ones with this) backwards compatible, but Sony was actually losing money on every machine. From what little I know, they need a different lens and set up to be backwards compatible. This simply was costing too much.

With regards to the market place, the readings I have come across are that the industry wants to phase out the secondary market....Gamestops, Gamefly, etc. I think when financials were calculated they saw how much was lost due to people picking up used copies. This is why a lot of games over recent years only had one online activation code....someone buying a used copy either couldn't access online or needed to buy a new access code. But the weird thing is EA Sports just came out last week and said they were doing away with these for their games because of their reports and how the consumer base reacted.

But overall it seems they are wanting to eliminate hard copies of games. Most of the stuff I read was from third parties concerned with the speculation that neither system will be backwards compatible or simply not allow used games to be playable.

[mrwicked]

as they should. hard copies are useless with the bandwidth capabilities we have now.

back in the day physical media was required because it was the only way to pass around 100 meg or a gig or 5 gig of data.

now you can download that in no time.

 

if theres no physical media, there is no second-hand gaming market. 

and i think thats fine as long as the games aren't $60 a piece or whatever they charge now.

does anyone care that they can't sell an album they downloaded off itunes, if the album costs $5 or whatever?

or that they can't sell a game for iPad if they paid $1.99?

no.

but when you're paying $20 a CD or DVD and dont want it then you needed to be able to sell it. 

 

but reading those articles the idea is that you can buy it, when you play it it will be downloaded to your hard drive, and attached to your account.

if you want to sell it then the 2nd person will have to pay a little fee too (and likely it ges unhooked to your account, which means it gets deleted from your hard drive)

what this does it prevent me from buying one copy and just handing it around to all my friends, since you dont need the disc to actually play.

im sure they'll be somewhat smart about it.

they made the wise move already to not required an internet connection to play (lol@the sims debacle on that front).

[Thomas]

The used game feature for the new Xbox shouldn't be a big surprise anyone. They declared that GameStop was a bigger threat to the industry than pirates. But as this change is being pushed by the game developers themselves I'm still gonna be shocked if Sony doesn't equip the PS4 with similar features by the time the PS4 is released. If the Kinect 2 comes close to meeting the promise of the Kinect 1 that I think Xbox has an advantage on that front. I am just not sure with all the different delivery systems for television how they're going to actually deliver the promises they gave at the reveal. And damn is it a big ugly machine. And this is from someone who loves big ugly technical machines.

[Thomas]

I wonder how they are going to address multiple users on the same console with the new used game feature. I mean if one of my kids want to play one of my games, such as grand theft auto or something else violent, then do they have to use my account to do so?

[nate]

I wonder how they are going to address multiple users on the same console with the new used game feature. I mean if one of my kids want to play one of my games, such as grand theft auto or something else violent, then do they have to use my account to do so?

 

Yes.  Games will be tied to Xbox Live accounts.

[Thomas]

Yeah but what I wonder is if they pushed something their family accounts or some other tied accounts so that there will there be ways of getting around that legitimately.

[nate]

There are already parental controls with the Xbox 360 that require passwords for games rated above whatever level you choose.

[Thomas]

Wasn't so concerned about the parental controls as I was just the fact that people most likely prefer to play on their own accounts for achievements and similar. But as now that fee is in question entirely I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[nate]

Wow... the camera is pretty amazing: http://gizmodo.com/kinect-2-full-video-walkthrough-the-xbox-sees-you-like-509155673?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[Brandon]

as they should. hard copies are useless with the bandwidth capabilities we have now.

back in the day physical media was required because it was the only way to pass around 100 meg or a gig or 5 gig of data.

now you can download that in no time.

if theres no physical media, there is no second-hand gaming market.

and i think thats fine as long as the games aren't $60 a piece or whatever they charge now.

does anyone care that they can't sell an album they downloaded off itunes, if the album costs $5 or whatever?

or that they can't sell a game for iPad if they paid $1.99?

no.

but when you're paying $20 a CD or DVD and dont want it then you needed to be able to sell it.

but reading those articles the idea is that you can buy it, when you play it it will be downloaded to your hard drive, and attached to your account.

if you want to sell it then the 2nd person will have to pay a little fee too (and likely it ges unhooked to your account, which means it gets deleted from your hard drive)

what this does it prevent me from buying one copy and just handing it around to all my friends, since you dont need the disc to actually play.

im sure they'll be somewhat smart about it.

they made the wise move already to not required an internet connection to play (lol@the sims debacle on that front).

I can completely live with this whole post. I don't think I play enough backwards compatibility to worry about some nominal fee to stream it or download it from some online store. I only worry about some aspects of control and kind of what Thomas is alluding to with users.

As it is I already want to get rid of all my tangible media as the likes of Homeward Bound and the Spin Doctors just collect dust and take up space.

I would love to see a lower price and just hope they are fair and user friendly with user accounts.

I'm actually curious of when everything is downloaded if there will be some torrents or illegal downloadable games.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

It's not backwards compatible.

 

I don't get it.

 

How hard is it for them to make that possible?

 

Same old Microsoft. Force you to scrap what you like and what you're used to, so they can increase sales.

[Thomas]

Wasn't so concerned about the parental controls as I was just the fact that people most likely prefer to play on their own accounts for achievements and similar. But as now that fee is in question entirely I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Vague but sort of an answer.

http://ow.ly/2x3WIk

[nate]

http://bgr.com/2013/05/22/xbox-one-used-games-sales-policies/

[RallyMo]

Sooooo, based on what I've just read it seems that once a game is disassociated from an XBL account, it can be sold/given to another Xbox user for use on their account without a fee.

 

It'll be interesting to see how this works in the "marketplace," if you will.

[sneaky_flute]

what an underwhelming presentation. who cares about tv and ANOTHER damn call of duty?

[mrwicked]

i think it would probably be wise to short gamestop now.

[Thomas]

what an underwhelming presentation. who cares about tv and ANOTHER damn call of duty?

Not sure about the TV functionality, though it looked neat, but the Call of Duty is stupidly popular in the mainstream. I don't get it either but you can't argue the numbers.