Xbox One

Bye Bye Big XII said:
saunders45 said:
Bye Bye Big XII said:
saunders45 said:
Bye Bye Big XII said:
I blame the backlash from the community. If we would've taken more time to think about the pros the combination once a day Internet connection and the DRM instead of just blasting on the cons (some of which are misguided), perhaps this could've led to a better gaming future for the consumer. The article GSG posted from Gizmodo points this out.

Sony took advantage of the people's misconceptions of how DRM works, and it worked. But in the long run, we (the community) will come out on the losing end, again. They forced Microsoft to abandon their vision, and that sucks.
Click to expand...
Nope. Microsoft never came out and explained exactly what you could and couldn't do. Their entire PR campaign was handwaving and vagaries. Even Major Nelson looked dumb in interviews (and I normally like the guy) because everything wasn't spelled out.

I've been a gamer all my life. I grew up playing Lucasarts Adventure titles, did the fps clan thing in the mid 90's, and I saw what happened to PC games because of "DRM" like starforce. People keep comparing Xbone to Steam, but they were in entirely different markets. PC games had huge piracy rates from day 1, and we've had CD keys and crappy DRM solutions for over a decade. While steam isn't perfect, it proved to be a boon for PC games, because they have virtually no shelf space in brick and mortar stores. This allows valve and publishers to run awesome sales, because they aren't undercutting retailers and dealing with those contracts.

Contrast that with consoles, which dominate retail space, and haven't had DRM, ever. Borrowing and selling console games has been common forever. Microsoft's used game deal sucked for consumers, because they were negotiating back door deals with Gamestop and Best Buy for "official" used game deals. They would cut out p2p sales (craigslist and ebay) and have a stranglehold on pricing. Look at the big games on PC (COD, Blizzard games) that have shelf space in brick and mortar stores and they don't drop price at all. Same thing would happen on Xbox one.
Click to expand...
Neither of us knows how it would've worked out. It's all speculation.

For the record, the price of Starcraft 2 has dropped from $49.99 to $39.99, in both the physical and digital worlds.
Click to expand...
I was being somewhat hyperbolic, but still, SC2 is 3 years old. I bought The new tomb Raider for PC for $33 on launch day, because its steamworks. It was $60 on consoles. PC games drop faster in price than their console counterparts, even though the dev costs are normally higher, because they don't have to deal with retail. Microsoft also charges a crap ton more than valve, and there's no way they were gonna pass that on to consumers.
Click to expand...
I agree, and I never for once thought that we would see similar price drops for console games as what does occur with PC games. But, if console games prices dropped somewhere in the $8-$10 to ~$50, isn't that good enough? It is for me.
Click to expand...
It wasn't going to happen. Console games were already staying at $60, while PC games are still at $50 for the most part. The bullsh#t inflation of dev costs is mostly due to marketing (IIRC, activision spent something like 50% of their COD:BO2 budget on marketing). They aren't giving that money back.

This wasn't about offering a deal consumers, it was about control. On PC you have Steam, Origin, gamefly, GMG, GOG, etc.... there's a crapton of digital delivery platforms, and they're all competing. With Microsofts plan, every game (even physical copies) were essentially digital copies that you bought from them. They got their share, cut out p2p used game sales (craigslist and ebay) and "offered" an offical used game sale through Gamestop, Best Buy, etc where they can tack on a transaction fee. Couple that with the fact that their touted "family sharing" was nothing more than a timed demo (remember when we used to get real demos?), and there was actual appeal to what they were offering.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
saunders45 said:
It wasn't going to happen. Console games were already staying at $60, while PC games are still at $50 for the most part. The bullsh#t inflation of dev costs is mostly due to marketing (IIRC, activision spent something like 50% of their COD:BO2 budget on marketing). They aren't giving that money back.

This wasn't about offering a deal consumers, it was about control. On PC you have Steam, Origin, gamefly, GMG, GOG, etc.... there's a crapton of digital delivery platforms, and they're all competing. With Microsofts plan, every game (even physical copies) were essentially digital copies that you bought from them. They got their share, cut out p2p used game sales (craigslist and ebay) and "offered" an offical used game sale through Gamestop, Best Buy, etc where they can tack on a transaction fee. Couple that with the fact that their touted "family sharing" was nothing more than a timed demo (remember when we used to get real demos?), and there was actual appeal to what they were offering.
Click to expand...
You're making the assumption that Microsoft wouldn't provide a platform where you could sell p2p.

 
Bye Bye Big XII said:
saunders45 said:
It wasn't going to happen. Console games were already staying at $60, while PC games are still at $50 for the most part. The bullsh#t inflation of dev costs is mostly due to marketing (IIRC, activision spent something like 50% of their COD:BO2 budget on marketing). They aren't giving that money back.

This wasn't about offering a deal consumers, it was about control. On PC you have Steam, Origin, gamefly, GMG, GOG, etc.... there's a crapton of digital delivery platforms, and they're all competing. With Microsofts plan, every game (even physical copies) were essentially digital copies that you bought from them. They got their share, cut out p2p used game sales (craigslist and ebay) and "offered" an offical used game sale through Gamestop, Best Buy, etc where they can tack on a transaction fee. Couple that with the fact that their touted "family sharing" was nothing more than a timed demo (remember when we used to get real demos?), and there was actual appeal to what they were offering.
Click to expand...
You're making the assumption that Microsoft wouldn't provide a platform where you could sell p2p.
Click to expand...
I'm not making an assumption. This was known and had been talked about since the first info leaked.

 
axNN0YY_460sa.gif
 
Back
Top