Xbox One

[Kenny]

^They're also talking about removing the power that the console reserves for having the menus running at all times. That may be more bullshit for all I know though.


Seriously outside of people who following gaming no one gives a fuck. The internet comments sections and message boards can make things seem like the end of the world but your average joe doesn't follow or care about them. People who really care about games are a tiny amount of the people who actually buy them. That's why people are more willing to go with a cheaper console over exclusives.

Wrong. My mother and he sisters knows fuck all about gaming except Facebook Scrabble clones, yet they knew about the Xbox One DRM shit and told their family and friends that had children to not bother with one of those.

Why do I have a hard time believing that?

[ShenmueTree]

^They're also talking about removing the power that the console reserves for having the menus running at all times. That may be more bullshit for all I know though.


Seriously outside of people who following gaming no one gives a fuck. The internet comments sections and message boards can make things seem like the end of the world but your average joe doesn't follow or care about them. People who really care about games are a tiny amount of the people who actually buy them. That's why people are more willing to go with a cheaper console over exclusives.

Wrong. My mother and he sisters knows fuck all about gaming except Facebook Scrabble clones, yet they knew about the Xbox One DRM shit and told their family and friends that had children to not bother with one of those.

Why do I have a hard time believing that?

I don't know?

[AnimeGamer183]

Its really very simple, Microsoft tried to pull a fast one on the consumers saying you have to have internet for the console to work, and it was so bad consumers revolted and got so angry to the point that ms was forced to change their policy (hmm, jeez, I wonder how many people it takes to revolt before microsoft themselves actually have to step in and change policy due to negative consumer response? A good bit wouldnt you think?), not to mention the bad press that ensued afterwards. Its kind of like if you were to approach someone wanting to buy something from them and the deal wasnt all it was cracked up to be, you know what message that sends to the person buying? Im not going through them again, after they pulled that bs. Same situation here, anything else said on the matter is mindless xbox fanboy loyalism dribble. Microsoft wanted control over everything, and obviously did not care, and if they had their way it would have happened. They knew exactly what they were doing, and if you are stupid enough to believe other wise, god help you. Down play it how ever you want, but the only thing keeping them alive right now is loyal xbox fan boys, and even they are growing smaller in number.

[MiTT3NZ]

You don't get out much, do you?

[AnimeGamer183]

?

[ShenmueTree]

BTW according to NDP, 73% of people prefer physical media over digital, Microsoft's vision would likely have failed. I cannot fault Microsoft for their inspiration though, they want to make money. Sony wants to make money. Nintendo wants to make money. If bad policies and screwing over the consumers makes the most money, and they know people will buy their product, they'll do that.

Fortunately, some companies aren't as arrogant in their abilities to sell products.
Microsoft and Nintendo have a lot to fucking learn. Nintendo really needs to get an unified account system that locks purchases in.

Microsoft is slowly but surely going a more sensible route. I won't thank them for doing what they should have done in the first place though.

[Thief]

Digital media holds no resale value so I avoid it. I sell games often so buying digital makes no sense to me. It's not like I'm gunna run out of shelf space anytime soon...

-- anyway -- Xbox's dream of "whatever" wasn't necessarily innovative and the consumers aren't holding anyone back. Sometimes people have bad ideas and aren't particularly happy when they flop. Focus should of always been on the games rather then the tech.

In the end though, they can talk about kinect free whatever bizz all they want... I still won't care until there're some good games coming out.

[MiTT3NZ]

I personally don't mind digital media. If I buy a physical copy, it can be damaged, tempting to sell, or clutter up my environment. With digital, there's absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, the only downfall of digital is that it works out much more expensive than just buying second hand, although Deal of the Week and the free games with a Gold/PSN+ account (or whatever) is great, as are the numerous deals on Steam and GoG.

I felt that the Family Share idea was one that should've been embraced to give digital an extra push. One of my mates actually shares games with me and a friend of his from Sunderland, sending them through the post. With the Family Share thing, that would've suited us pretty fuckin well. Still though, they all really need to lower the prices of digital content.

As for "focus should be on the games rather than the tech"... that makes zero sense from a technical perspective. The developers of the hardware for Xbox One, PS4, Wii-U, etc. are creating something that game developers can utilise to give players new experiences. Experiences that, from a design standpoint, should be exclusive to a console. It adds incentive for studios to produce games for that console, and for consumers to purchase it.

The guys making the tech aren't making games, and with the growing number of indies out there atm, then it makes perfect sense for the manufacturers to sell their consoles on their tech, and let the non-exclusives speak for themselves.

Then there's also the current trend of everything being in one place. Smartphones. Think of the amount of things that they can do, and imagine how many items you'd need to do them if smartphones didn't exist. Everyone seems to like things condensed atm. By having consoles that can multi-task, be it watching films, browsing the net, interact with friends, etc., then the manufacturers are simply giving the people what they want. People already know that it's gonna have games with better graphics than the previous console, they're not stupid. And, as previously mentioned, games tend to sell themselves, and most nowadays are multi-platform.

So, if your job is to sell a new console, what are you gonna do? "Well, we sell a console that plays the exact same games as that other one, except for X Y & Z... they're awesome, check em out!"

No, that's retarded. There's already someone else selling that game. What's the point in doing their job for them? It's just a waste of time and money. The best way of selling a console is to say "Doesn't matter if it plays the same games, we give you the better experience. Better controller, better servers, you can jump straight from a game to a TV show without having to put down your gamepad. Run out of batteries? Just talk to this device! Why spend money on video capture cards when you can just use this feature instead? Hey, you thinking about getting a new TV for it? Why buy that other one when you're not getting the visual quality that TV's built for? Ours guarantees you won't have to compromise! Now, over to Bob to show you how you can enjoy this experience!"

The consoles themselves are built around you playing a game. It's already established. It's up to the developers to make a good game. It's up to the manufacturers to accommodate those games and give you the best experience whilst playing it. Do DVD Player manufacturers sell their products on films? No. Does Apple sell the iPod on music? No. If all you wanna do is play games, then that's fair enough. When it comes to my TV, all I wanna do is watch a film or TV series, but I wouldn't begrudge the company for trying to sell a better TV on the basis it can give you surround sound, 4K resolution and a cinema-like experience. Hell, look at Virgin. They know they can't compete with Sky when it comes to the channels on offer. Sky has the exact same ones that Virgin does, but double the amount, so Virgin sell their packages on the fibre-optic broadband, TiVo, the amount of evening & weekend calls you can get on your phone tariff, a discount on your mobile contract, etc.

And yes, consumers do hold them back when their message is "I don't want this". That doesn't drive anyone forward. "I want this" does. All "I don't want this" does is remove an option. I also find it slightly humorous that this example isn't considered a negative move, whereas a console manufacturer allowing customer feedback to directly influence the future and direction of their products isn't seen as a positive one. Well, I say console manufacturer, what I mean is Microsoft. People seem to have the opposite opinion with Sony. Maybe it's because feedback from the PS3 influenced the PS4, and it's just flat out not cool to wait a generation before implementing changes.

"Gamers", eh?

[Thief]

It's up to the developers to make a good game. It's up to the manufacturers to accommodate those games and give you the best experience whilst playing it. Do DVD Player manufacturers sell their products on films? No. Does Apple sell the iPod on music? No.

That's a really poor example and it doesn't work the same way for video games. There's a standard for DVDs, Blu-ray, et cetera. When you buy a DVD player, you expect it to be able to play just about any movie (minus shitty VHS flops). When you buy a PS4 you can't expect it to play Xbox One games. If you want your console to be desirable you should probably make some fuckin' hits that people can't live without.

So, if your job is to sell a new console, what are you gonna do? "Well, we sell a console that plays the exact same games as that other one, except for X Y & Z... they're awesome, check em out!"

Exactly -- focus on in house development of really good games exclusive to my console while providing friendly support for 3rd party developers.

Regardless, I'd rather companies focus on official backwards compatible emulation on personal computers and do away with consoles all together.

And yes, consumers do hold them back when their message is "I don't want this". That doesn't drive anyone forward. "I want this" does. All "I don't want this" does is remove an option. I also find it slightly humorous that this example isn't considered a negative move, whereas a console manufacturer allowing customer feedback to directly influence the future and direction of their products isn't seen as a positive one. Well, I say console manufacturer, what I mean is Microsoft. People seem to have the opposite opinion with Sony. Maybe it's because feedback from the PS3 influenced the PS4, and it's just flat out not cool to wait a generation before implementing changes.

"Gamers", eh?

That's fine but change isn't necessarily good -- clearly people thought this was shitty.

yes "Gamers"

Your post is too long dude. Less words. Tiring. Wanna die.

[MiTT3NZ]

Okay then, put it this way...

The guys who make the consoles aren't the same guys who make the games.

The guys who make the operating systems aren't the same guys who make the games.

The guys who make the apps aren't the same guys who make the games.

Games are their own thing, and are marketed regardless of the console.

It therefore makes sense to market the console on what it does besides the games, as that base is already going to be covered.



And change isn't necessarily bad either. People are more likely to voice a negative opinion than a positive one, making those opinions louder by default.

[Raithos]

As for "focus should be on the games rather than the tech"... that makes zero sense from a technical perspective.

So, if your job is to sell a new console, what are you gonna do? "Well, we sell a console that plays the exact same games as that other one, except for X Y & Z... they're awesome, check em out!"

No, that's retarded.

But there are two different perspectives to consider. I know everyone is different, but that is exactly what sells me on a console. Exclusives I can't get anywhere else. If I want cutting edge tech I go to my PC that's been doing everything these new consoles can, and has been for years. That's why I loved the original Xbox. Games like Otogi 1+2, GunValkyrie, JSRF, Panzer Dragoon Orta, KoToR 1+2 (also on PC but exclusives console wise), Steel Battalion, Phantom Dust, Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders and the list goes on and on. But the 360? Hated it, hardware failures aside, I had Tales of Vesperia... nothing else I even remotely cared about. I had the better version of Star Ocean 4 on PS3. Fable 3/ME1 played/looked better on PC, it becomes a broken record after that lol. Without good exclusives, why even consider a weaker machine? If they play the same games that is. There are soooo many people that buy consoles based purely on the games. Those are the people who could care less about 720 vs 1080, 30fps vs 60fps. If the game is good they'll buy it. I know the tech matters to a lot of people, and it should to a certain degree, but that doesn't mean they should concentrate any less on developing/publishing exclusives that could sway people to their console over another. On that note, the list Henry posted of possible support the X1 is getting when it launches in Japan totally shows they care equally about the games this time around. I'm interested to see what titles show up on it now. First bit of interest I've had in the X1 since it was announced. Not saying features and tech aren't important, but games should always be the number one priority for a console.

[Thief]

@Mittenz I understand that but I disagree with you that the console should be marketed on what it does besides the games. Like really really really disagree.

[MiTT3NZ]

@Raithos: I agree, but what I'm saying is treat em separately as they are doing, don't just focus on the games, because then you'll easily be overshadowed, and relying more on word of mouth to sell the other features. When you're showing off the console, show off what you're getting for your money "out of the box". Show what it can do and how great it is. The games will be seen at E3 or TGS or wherever. That's what those events are for.

Ignoring the possibilities of a games console is just stupid, as is actively deciding not to market those possibilities.


@Thief: No, I think you're getting me wrong. I'm not saying one or the other, I'm saying market both. I remember watching the reveal of the PS4 and the Xbox One. Sony showed off some multiplatform games, and I thought "why?" Microsoft just showed off the features of the console, and I thought "when are they getting to the games?"

I thought it was a ridiculously smart move to show off the console itself separately from the exclusives. Build up hype for the possibilities of this new machine, then blow em away a few months later with some awesome games. Unfortunately though, it was executed poorly, and the games looked bland and boring.

At the end of the day though, it depends on what they want people to go away thinking about. People who saw the One reveal went away thinking about the features. People who saw the PS4 reveal went away thinking "Yeah, but what does it look like?"

[Thief]

I guess I did misunderstand you in a way. Although I had assumed you meant both, I also was under the impression that you meant for mostly marketing towards those features and tech that are separate from the games themselves. There aren't any games that justify the purchase of an Xbox One, and with their failed tech (which I think wasn't because of a resistance to change but rather poor or poorly implemented ideas), they need to have some sort of exclusive software that will make someone choose Xbox over PS4.

Yeah, showing off multiplat games is pretty stupid.

[AnimeGamer183]

CVG: A quick word on Kinect - I presume there will never be an Xbox One sold without it. You are doing this for developer-related reasons as much as your own. You want all developers to know that they can always implement Kinect technology because it always comes with every system. Would that be correct?

Phil Harrison: Correct. Xbox One is Kinect. They are not separate systems. An Xbox One has chips, it has memory, it has Blu-ray, it has Kinect, it has a controller. These are all part of the platform ecosystem.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/42 ... es-charge/


they really have no idea what the fuck they wanna do with this system. My goodness... smh