E3 2013 Schedule

[Icemage]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

Huh? Much as I hate the XBONE, the sharing thing is weird - do they mean between the 2 homes, or within the same home? I'm only asking because you can have up to 10 family members playing the same games on their systems. If this is some neighbors/friends etc loaning discs, then yeah they're SoL.

From what I've gathered the last few days, Microsoft will let you designate any group of Gamertags to share with. Those people with those tags can download and play any game in your library. Yes, that means complete strangers or friends, not just family. The trick is that only one person aside from the primary owner can use any one game at a time from your account.

This is roughly analogous to Sony's early PS3 digital policy of 5 console activations per piece of digital content (which after people starting creating circles of 5 to buy content one piece at a time, was impacting sales). That's why we don't have that policy any more on PS3, because the policy got abused.

Note that Microsoft has reserved the right to change these terms without warning at any time, so I expect basically the same thing to happen to Microsoft's policy. That "10 family members" thing is destined to drop down to 2 or 3 in short order.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

This made my brain hurt.

Why I'm Getting the Xbox One, Not the PS4 (Ugh)

Dude literally stated that he could watch his existing Comcast stuff on Xbox One - stuff he could already watch without Xbox One - as an actual compelling feature, along with other apps i can already get elsewhere without being content-gated by subscription.

I'd be all "You Dawg, I heard..." about this, but it write itself.

[Icemage]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

So if you get banned from XBL with an Xbox One, you lose all your games, period.




Icemage

[cidbahamut]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

I don't think I've ever seen Icemage get this riled up before.

[Malacite]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

Damn, that's harsh.

[Icemage]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

I don't think I've ever seen Icemage get this riled up before.

Gaming is my primary hobby, and what Microsoft is doing threatens everything about what I love about gaming. If they "win" this coming generation, console gaming will be more or less dead, and I'm not OK with that.

There's always PC gaming, but it's not really the same. What a lot of people don't realize when they shrug their shoulders and say "Well, if all the consoles suck, I'll just play PC"... without console gaming, games won't get made with controller-specific inputs as their primary, and that would outright murder a whole host of awesome genres that I love. Mouse and keyboard is great, but it's not a good control scheme for a lot of game types. If the consoles didn't exist, you wouldn't get things like Devil May Cry. You wouldn't get Street Fighter. You wouldn't get twin stick shooters or shmups.

I don't WANT to only play MMO/RTS/FPS/TPS, and if there are no credible platforms that have a controller as a default control scheme, I think we're going to see a lot of great genres just sort of wither and die.

Sure, you can always connect a controller to your PC, but games won't get made with controllers as the default control scheme in mind if there are no console versions because most people don't play PC games with a controller.

I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to how I approach video games. I always take actions that supports the hobby and promotes advancement and improvement in video games. So yeah, I'm somewhat on the warpath with Microsoft because they've basically said a big F-U to my favorite hobby.


Icemage

[DakAttack]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

How often did you plan on getting banned?

[Firewind]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

You do realise that it also means that losing access to XBox live for any reasons means you can't access any of your games right? like say losing your internet connection for any reason. Or Microsoft suddenly deciding to stop supporting it. What about forgetting to renew XBox Live or not being able to afford to do it until next payday?

The way Microsoft has it, you will NEVER actually own a game, you just have permissions to use a software license, a license that they can take away for any arbitrary reason. Seriously, read the ToS that they have for the XBox One some time.

Sony, Nintendo and Valve are far from innocent but nobody has represented all that is wrong with gaming than Microsoft has right now.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

I always take actions that supports the hobby and promotes advancement and improvement in video games. So yeah, I'm somewhat on the warpath with Microsoft because they've basically said a big F-U to my favorite hobby.

You know, its interesting how much you've railed on Mal in previous pages for buying games that support the problem, but you have been rather notoriously patting yourself on the back about "supporting developers" by buying new in the past when they were implementing very similar practices that have led to the creation of Xbox One. Recently before the Xbox One debut, you took a trip to Crazyland to claim that the introduction of Wii's motion controls were far more damaging to the industry than anything EA or other AAA publishers had done.

Sure, you didn't like the idea of the online pass, but you still dutifully bought games new and, as such, directly supported the sorts of practices Xbox One embraces. You liked developers like Bioware and Naughty Dog enough to support online pass. I still played their games, they just gave me every reason to buy them used or rent them when they had online passes.

MS banning you from games you own? Bioware started that when people criticized DA2 on their forums. To be fair, you didn't defend that, but you have contributed to the problem yourself.

Only EA game I bought new this gen was Henry Hatsworth.

[Firewind]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

The problem with boycotting publishers is that it sends entirely the wrong message. Losing a few sales is nothing to EA and nine times out of ten, it is the genuinely good games and decent developers that end up suffering because people like EA assume that there isn't much point in doing much than churning out FIFA or CoD clones because that is where they will get their money.

Yes I know that boycotting something gives you that sense of self satisfaction that you for your good karma for the day, and yes I know it's good not to support EA when they are being shitty, but doing the right thing is not the same as doing the right thing. The evidence suggests that what is effective is showing that you are willing to support the studio by picking up the game, regardless of publisher, then hammering the publisher about their bullshit at every opportunity. Just because gamers are complaining does not make them entitled or whiny. There are plenty of cases where that whining is not only the right thing to be doing but is also what causes the publishers to actually listen.

Do you think EA really gave a crap that a few thousand people didn't buy Sim City? No they didn't. Now what about the internet backlash from all of the launch issues which resulted in a number of retailers refusing to stock it?

What about Valve? Valve couldn't give a shit if you buy games from them that turn out to be horrible, yet it was the backlash from angry consumers, not boycotting, that got refunds for GTA IV, From Dust and Advanced Warfighter because the PC versions of those games were so shitty, it was clear that Rockstar and UbiSoft just didn't care. Valve would never have responded and actually given out refunds for those games had gamers not done what they do best and whined, and bitched, and moaned but all for a legitimate reason.

Now look at Diablo 3. Gamers tried boycotting it for all of the shittiness and the RMAH as well as always being forced to play online and look how far it got us there. Look how far threatening to boycott Heart of the Swarm got us with its always online DRM bullshit.

Plus threats to boycott something and actually boycotting something...let's be honest, how many gamers have threatened to boycott something then gone back on it? It's one of those gestures that people say they will do because it makes them look good, except for when the time comes where they actually have the chance to do it, then they back down.

So what about the XBox One, or ECKSBOOONE as the internet insists on calling it? Well it is not entirely the same thing. Boycotting the entire platform is going to be effective as it pushed more profits into the hands of their competition. But gamers actually have to grow some balls and actually boycott the thing, and not just buy it as soon as a shiny new game that they can't bare to be without comes out.

Rhetoric is nothing but hot air if you don't back it with taking action. Saying you are going to boycott something is easy, it's like signing a petition, you sign it because you get to feel like you are doing the right thing, without actually physically doing the right thing yourself, but how many people who claim to boycott things actually do that? Actually taking action as a paying customer who wants to get their message across to a developer to stop being horrible? That is actually tougher than you think but if gamers actually unite instead of being all talk and more action then we would see some change in the industry.

Gamers are as much part of the problem as the Publishers, Retailers, Distributors and Developers are. However being part of the solution or problem is not really all black and white.

[Icemage]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

You know, its interesting how much you've railed on Mal in previous pages for buying games that support the problem, but you have been rather notoriously patting yourself on the back about "supporting developers" by buying new in the past when they were implementing very similar practices that have led to the creation of Xbox One.

Sure, you didn't like the idea of the online pass, but you still dutifully bought games new and, as such, directly supported the sorts of practices Xbox One embraces. You liked developers like Bioware and Naughty Dog enough to support online pass. I still played their games, they just gave me every reason to buy them used or rent them when they had online passes.

Sorry, but what?

I don't like the idea of online passes, but it's mostly because it seemed like a waste of time for all parties involved. As EA has admitted themselves, the revenue generated wasn't worth the negative PR, and they dropped it.

You could argue that they were planning to do so because they thought both Sony and Microsoft were going to have restrictive DRM on their next boxes, but that seems less likely since (a) they had no idea where Sony or Microsoft were going with DRM until they announced their plans and (b) they've been quietly dropping the price of online passes on their existing games to zero.

I said it at the time when we discussed them a while back that I thought that EA and Sony would likely drop online passes if they didn't make any financial sense, and I'm firmly convinced that is what has happened.

Recently before the Xbox One debut, you took a trip to Crazyland to claim that the introduction of Wii's motion controls were far more damaging to the industry than anything EA or other AAA publishers had done.

I still hold that opinion. Going for the Blue Ocean motion control strategy has effectively torpedoed Nintendo out of this entire next generation because those actions led Nintendo directly to the arrogant thought they could grab lightning in a bottle again with the Wii U.

The gaming industry is less vibrant when Nintendo isn't at their best, and they are NOT at their best right now. Far from it.

The gaming industry will survive just fine if EA goes out of business. Someone else will pick up the reins on sports games, etc. That's more or less what happened to THQ, and most everyone just shrugged and moved on. But losing Nintendo as a serious contender for the next five+ years sucks. We as consumers win when the console manufacturers give each other solid competition, and what Nintendo and Microsoft have been doing lately disappoints me to no end.

MS banning you from games you own? Bioware started that when people criticized DA2 on their forums. To be fair, you didn't defend that, but you have contributed to the problem yourself.

Only EA game I bought new this gen was Henry Hatsworth.

I've bought zero online passes. I bought games new, but you can't possibly equate buying a game new to someone buying a used game and paying the extra fee to activate an online pass. EA got zero extra money from me for those passes, so where do I "contribute" to the problem?

Also, you lie because I know you bought Shadows of the Damned.


Icemage

[Firewind]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

Two interviews with Major Nelson and zero questions answered:

Any time he is asked a question about a flaw of the 360 we get a canned response amounting to "Well it's early days" or "We need to get the system in place first". It just comes across as them having no idea how their own product is even supposed to work. He keeps insisting that they're "future proofing" and they have a "family sharing library" of games.

You know, that great feature that we asked for...A feature that- Oh hang on! We already have a way to share games among our families don't we Microsoft?

[Icemage]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

To be fair to Microsoft, they DO have something interesting with the family member sharing idea. From what I've gathered, you can designate 10 gamertags to have access to your entire library of games, and people on that list can download and use any game in your library.

The catch is that only one copy can be active at a time, so it's not quite as cool as Sony's earlier 5 activation setup (which publishers whined about because people were abusing that system).

I'm not sure it will tangibly affect sales either way; what you lose from game sharing you might get back from new sales due to reduced piracy and curtailed used games. Of course, that assumes they sell a healthy number of launch units.

Reports are coming in that retailers in North America are receiving much larger allotments of pre-orders for PS4 than Xbox One (about 3:1 for GameStop from the many, many people chiming in who work at GS across the USA). Haven't heard what's going on in Europe yet, but it can't be looking any prettier over there.

EDIT: Spotted this just now.



Guess people in the UK (the other Xbox stronghold) aren't any happier than we are in NA. Though that specific poll seems a bit disingenuous. You can't technically play PS3 games on PS4 without Gaikai, and Sony have yet to show any of that working.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

It says right on there "streamed online but not PS3 discs"

[Icemage]

Re: E3 2013 Schedule

It says right on there "streamed online but not PS3 discs"

Sure but Gaikai isn't ready for prime time yet, and Sony has emphasized that it will not be a system feature at launch.

EDIT: WTF I didn't even notice the launch date. Since when has Sony confirmed a Nov. 21 launch?


Icemage