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Pennello: "People just weren't ready for all digital Xbox One". Post #657 = ether.

Trogdor1123

Member
1371680137133.gif

how was he allowed to keep his job after that...
 
Well, I remember stories (and a thread here) that Sony had researched (maybe even patented) technology that would eliminate resale. I think at the very least, many people expected this type of scheme being optionally available on a publisher by publisher basis. I know I was surprised myself when they announced at E3 that ownership of a title would work exactly the same as it does now.

They had that same rumor back in 2006-2007. Didn't they?
 
If Microsoft truly was serious about an all digital future than they would have emulated Apple and Valve and created a sleeker, smaller Xbox one with the disc drive removed and sell it for $300 and without ridiculous "Must be connected to the internet every 3 minutes to access your content" policies.

I mean everybody knows we are very rapidly moving to an all digital world most computers don't even have disc drives anymore and nobody is complaining about not being able to stick a disc into an iPad. I even would say most Vita owners have never once used a disc but having said that the Xbox version of an all digital future ain't happening.
 
Of course you didnt get a chance to have a conversation about it.

You cancelled 99% of your interviews after you announced the policy! And the only interviews you did give before back tracking included gems like "if you want to play offline we have a product for you, the xbox 360".
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Yeah, I agree with you. If Sony had gone with a similar DRM as many expected, I don't think they would have faced as much resistance themselves. Obviously, many consumers would have still been irate at both Sony and Microsoft, but if they both held strong, the argument for the inevitability would have been easier to make. They were clearly caught with their pants down after Sony's E3 conference.

Absolutely. If both systems had the same DRM scheme it becomes a Hobson's choice. Most of us are just going to gnash our teeth and wail as we click the pre-order button.

What I'm really wondering is if they'd have reversed the decision to mandate Kinect functionality (and thus the price disparity) if they knew what Sony was up to on both the DRM and price fronts. MS (sort of) actually has tried to make its case for mandatory Kinect, but I don't really think they've done a great job on it.
 
I dont disslike a digital future. I do have an issue with anti consumer BS. Like DRM, online check ins, no used games and selling digital games for almost the same price as we pay for a physical copy.

Get rid of all that above, sell me the game at a very reduced price then I might be fine with it
 

DrLazy

Member
They are only a step removed. Just require Gold to use any aspect of the console. Gold authentication already requires that you be online, so they get the always-online requirement without explicitly stating it.

Simple.

They just have to convince people that a subscription fee is worth paying for every use of the system, because its all part of the service, and does that idea honestly sound so far-fetched?

They have been conditioning their user base for some time now.

I think there might be some upset kids who get Titanfall for their birthday, put in their machine and then look on in disappointment as they and their parent's realize they can't play the game with a subscription.
 

daman824

Member
Consumers still have choice, and that choice has to be removed first. Then they can really try this to push this through again.
Everyone wants it (sony, ms, nintendo, pubs). And when most people get high speed internet and embrace the benefits that the big 3 are going to offer for digital, retailers wont be able to fight back. And consumers won't feel like fighting back as hard.

Will it happen anytime soon? no. But in two or three console generations, I can see it happening.
 
This cannot be quoted enough. Introducing an all-digital future can be a good thing. Heck, it can be a great thing. But the model MS tried to push was essentially stripping away consumer rights with NOTHING in return. I really wish MS and it's supporters would stop claiming the Could-Have-Been Xbox One was following the Steam model. It simply wasn't.

The benefits were the typical digital library benefit (not needing discs to play games, instant switching) and transferring licenses (whether through limited trade-ins or digital lending), and also being able to buy digital games from any retailer (similar to how you can buy Steam games on a disc from a retailer, and activate it on Steam)

The latter would've been a point in its favor over Steam, since you currently can't transfer licenses there (though Valve is experimenting with that). The problem was that since they tried to involve discs in the digital lending process, they had to have a 24hr check to prevent casual piracy. Of course, there are obvious drawbacks to that, which plenty of people have called out.

I'm not sure why it's such a shock to say they were following the Steam model. They had different pros/cons, sure, and different consumers can weigh those pros/cons in different ways, but the general concept was obviously similar.
 

Nafai1123

Banned
I don't get why Penello is even talking about this shit. Your console launches in 2 weeks, and you really want to bring up your bullshit policies that everyone was furious about and start another fervor? What's the strategy here?
 

erawsd

Member
I think there might be some upset kids who get Titanfall for their birthday, put in their machine and then look on in disappointment as they and their parent's realize they can't play the game with a subscription.

And thats when the parent runs out and buys a subscription... at that point there is no turning back. Its the modern day "Shit, I didn't know/forgot it needed batteries"
 
I'm quite the cynic but the idea that they'd try it again on a mass scale (instead of just say, Halo5) is farfetched even to me.
Yeah. They didn't like the answer they got, but its a resounding NO for this generation. For this console.

But who's to say just how long it'll be until we see the next console?

Everyone wants it (sony, ms, nintendo, pubs). And when most people get high speed internet and embrace the benefits that the big 3 are going to offer for digital, retailers wont be able to fight back. And consumers won't feel like fighting back as hard.

Will it happen anytime soon? no. But in two or three console generations, I can see it happening.
Maybe. I'd like to think this whole walled garden nonsense is something that we'll all snap out of at some point.

Now if this all becomes an offer of a digital future with real consumer choice, value and common sense expectations and protections? Sure. Bring it.
 

Teletraan1

Banned
What ever happened to the "weve listened" crap they were spouting a while back? I assume they are no longer doing so?

They listened to early pre-orders. That was it. I have a feeling that the moves they made increased their pre-order numbers from cataclysmic to acceptable so they are shifting back to their original thought process. Who knows though, their message is all over the place and contradicts itself constantly.
 
All digital IS the future, like it or not.

I don't think any rational person would argue with that, but given the state of the current infrastructure and how that infrastructure is regulated, that future is still a ways away. It most certainly won't come about within the lifetime of these new consoles. Maybe next-next gen?
Probably not.
 

jmls1121

Banned
Of course you didnt get a chance to have a conversation about it.

You cancelled 99% of your interviews after you announced the policy! And the only interviews you did give before back tracking included gems like "if you want to play offline we have a product for you, the xbox 360".

Its like they knew that it was going to be unpopular, but they gave it a shot anyways.

Lends more credence to the idea that the XBox has been a loser from a profit perspective, and Always Online was a move to make the XBox a higher margin business sector for Microsoft. This ploy may have been their last hope.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I dont disslike a digital future. I do have an issue with anti consumer BS. Like DRM, online check ins, no used games and selling digital games for almost the same price as we pay for a physical copy.

Get rid of all that above, sell me the game at a very reduced price then I might be fine with it

All-digital isn't the "problem" so to speak, its the fact that you can't just force it onto market like this. As I said before, MS probably envisioned digital being a Hobson's choice for consumers. If they hadn't, I think they would have been able to use XBone as a transitional generation much better. Transitioning the entire business model is something that I think is relatively difficult to do on consoles simply because of the fact that we have 5-8 year long generations in which we don't buy new equipment. The transition to digital on PCs was inherently a lot smoother process.
 
True on the first two points. You can lend games to friends now though. They also don't require a 24-hour check-in, so that's a big one. You can always buy games and then just go offline for however long. As far as Valve going out, you can always crack your games if such a thing happens. You can do no such thing if (assuming it was still DRM-enabled) something like that happened with the Xbone. You already mentioned the killswitch.

Valve also allows other stores to sell Steam keys, creating more competition. I doubt Microsoft would have allowed such a thing.

No one here is saying Valve's system is perfect, but it's far better than what MS was offering us with the Xbone.

Thanks for this, didn't consider that whilst technically illegal (I think, though hardly the worst of crimes) you could crack the games.
 
I want to buy an Xbox One next year but comments like this make me very wary of doing so.

I can handle all digital but what I don't get is why they can't do both. Both physical and digital have their pros and cons. Let the consumer decide.

Well, I get why they won't. I just think it's stupid.
 
You had 2 major keynotes and dozens of interviews to explain your vision. You also had MONTHS to explain it before launch. Wish they had the balls to man up and admit familyshare was nothing but a demo. Which was the only feature that had people in delusion of how awesome DRM was going to be.

Nobody fucking wanted it. Stop trying to spin it that the DRM was an awesome idea but we the gamers were too stupid to understand. If you really want to go all digital leave the console business go back to GFWL so we can all laugh at the failure.
 

Goldmund

Member
They don't want the future, they want the perpetual present. The future is exactly that which isn't yet set, hasn't been realized; it can't be thought of as realized "too soon" unless in their minds it's long been destroyed and replaced by an interminable sequence of what we already have in meaningless variations and now can never get away from. They are the ones left behind and living in the past; they can't even imagine a future that isn't fully contained in and explained by what we already have, how we already operate. They're afraid of the future, not their consumers. They want to end time now that they're still relevant, so that they continue to be, as they fear, and maybe with good reason, that otherwise the future would end them.
 

bebop242

Member
I don't get why Penello is even talking about this shit. Your console launches in 2 weeks, and you really want to bring up your bullshit policies that everyone was furious about and start another fervor? What's the strategy here?


Seriously. Makes zero sense to me.
 

denshuu

Member
I've been digital only for so long at this point that I forgot that the outcry against digital only was actually a thing recently.
 

Vashetti

Banned
What ever happened to the "weve listened" crap they were spouting a while back? I assume they are no longer doing so?

People actually believed that?

They saw their pre-order numbers and thought "well fuck".

Please be under no delusion that they really think "your opinion matters".
 
This is what it came down to:

"DSL connections that allow download speeds of at least 3 Mbps make up less than 20 percent of the fixed connection subscriptions in the U.S., and less than 9 percent of 5 Mbps subscriptions."

Internet speed is atrocious in the US. The idea of all digital is laughable when most people can't even watch video properly. And keep in mind there are often multiple people using the internet on one connection, so take the already slow speed they probably have and divide it up into even smaller pieces.

Meanwhile ISPs, rather than making any effort to modernize, are trying to go backwards by getting rid of net neutrality.
 

coolasj19

Why are you reading my tag instead of the title of my post?
Hey! It's Angry Joe. I feel like this interview cost him ever getting another interview ever again. If I was a PR rep I wouldn't let him within 2 feet of anyone with information. Because there's lots of other Youtubers.
I don't get why Penello is even talking about this shit. Your console launches in 2 weeks, and you really want to bring up your bullshit policies that everyone was furious about and start another fervor? What's the strategy here?
Maybe. Maybe he's trying to ward every one away? Maybe he does care about us and is trying his best to passive aggressively make people not buy an XB1.
 

Qassim

Member
Valve also allows other stores to sell Steam keys, creating more competition. I doubt Microsoft would have allowed such a thing.

The Xbox One was going to bring all the competition from retail and apply it to digital games too. How? Well every retail game you bought had all but one advantage of digital games.

Steam does this now in that you can buy certain physical games and redeem them on your account, but only certain games support that. *Every game* on the Xbox One would have supported this.

That is why I was excited for the Xbox One's system, I'm sick of the dependence on physical media because it's annoying, I'd have been able to take advantage of the only benefit to me, which was the pricing and get the stuff I actually care about (convenience and speed of getting in and out of my games), not this clunky optical media rubbish.
 

Zephyrus

Banned
Everyone wants it (sony, ms, nintendo, devs). And when most people get high speed internet and embrace the benefits that the big 3 are going to offer for digital, retailers wont be able to fight back. And consumers won't feel like fighting back as hard.

Will it happen anytime soon? no. But in two or three console generations, I can see it happening.

what the?

Companies want it. I don't. In case you do not know, I have more power than all those companies combined. We have more power than them all. We simply do not buy the product. It's just as easy as that. A polished turd is still a turd. Would you buy a turd?

I wouldn't. Then again I'm not an idiot. Unfortunately I'm part of a minority.

For all the benefits they give, none matches the one they take away from us. Our freedom to chose what we want to do when we want to do it.

Do I want to be online?
Do I want to borrow a game or lend it?
Do I want to sell it?

This is vital to me. I should never be forced to do anything I don't want to in order to play a game on the product I bought. It's bad enough that paying for online play is now the norm in the industry when it comes to console games. We shouldn't even be obligated to do that, but alas the Xbox Live numbers showed people were okay with it, so others have jumped on it. We bought the game. We already paid for the privilege to play it online. It should've stayed that way.
 

Moonstone

Member
"We may have been right. What we were wrong about was that it's just too soon. People just weren't ready to make that leap right away."

People weren't ready ...
What he is actually saying is, that "people" aka their customers were too dumb to understand their grand vision.
If Albert was humble, he would admit that MS never explained what they tried to do and accomplish.
"We never got the chance, to explain it" because Sony-Bots on Gaf and reddit jumped in? That is revisionism.
They never even tried to explain it! Their message was:"All your games are gonna be locked (and are belonged to us)! Why this is a benefit for you, we will explain on a later date. Xbox One!"
Seriously ... they don't even get it now? Even Albert?

I'm not against an all digital future. If they had explained it honestly, things would look different. But they never did. It's the secrecy, dipshits. The attitude that your customers are idiots and that you have to feed them the information at the right time is the problem.

Just be fuckin honest, be real!
 

~~Hasan~~

Junior Member
I do not want your future digital where I have to login to the net every 24 hours.

and I am glad you people told me you still think that this is the future, this way I will avoid the Xbox and never support it. this is not a future I want.

digital games should be much less expensive than physical copy because there is no printing on blue ray, there is no resale value. nothing. I am stuck with it. and in 10 years from now or whatever when the next gen is out, and this gen is dead, I will never be able to play my games since I will no longer be able to re-download them once you guys shut down the server.

your future digital has something to do with me paying 60$ to rent a game for few years. not actually own it.

I will never support this digital. and if ever consoles went this way. I am sticking with steam. at least I know I will be able to get games for cheap AND play them on any generational pc I have.
 

Arklite

Member
The "fee" you're referring to was simply buying the full game. The idea was that If I brought a game to your house, and I'm logged in on your console, we could play the full game. Once I log out, it's still technically installed on your machine, but since you're not the "owner", you can only play part of the game. It's basically a time-limited trial (probably a 60 minute timer or something). If you want to get the full game on your account, then you would buy it from there without having to reinstall or download or whatever.

I think the Steam family sharing idea is basically the same thing.

I see, and I think the disconnect with the consumers is that if they still had a hold of a friend's disc then that would be 'proof of purchase' which would allow them to play, even if they themselves did not own it. The physical part of the deal ends up feeling very restrictive otherwise. I believe a part of the problem is how the consumer frames the policy. If you have a disc, and you have a drive, it should work. If there is no drive then all the caveats of digital content apply instantly, consumers understand those restrictions today. Microsoft awkwardly put one foot into all digital when it may have been far clearer to jump in.
 

Sydle

Member
My gosh, it's like they cannot help but be self destructive. The UI walkthrough gets positive impressions and on the same day they bring up old shit that infuriated gamers.

Penello, please back away from the mic.
 
What is exactly so infuriating he is saying? I'm missing it.

Personally, I don't think it's infuriating. However, I do think it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding about what went wrong, and doesn't seem to properly accept the amount of responsibility they have for why their vision wasn't met with resounding applause. The sentence "I do feel like we never got a chance to have a rational conversation about what we were trying to do" I think shows a certain lack of humility on their part to understand that the idea may have been fundamentally flawed, and instead there's a desire to spin it as though they were just ahead of their time. Now, does this send me into a rage and have me wanting to call him foul names? No. But it does strike me as a situation where I don't think he truly "gets it."
 
People would be ready if you didn't:

  1. Permanently Ban people for minor infractions such as downloading games off foreign marketplaces, making people lose all their digital purchases and thousands of dollars spent.
  2. Make games only available online, the DRM system should have been the exact same as the 360 where you can play those digitally purchased games offline on the console you purchased them on.
  3. Allow people to sell games on a user marketplace, similar to steams Item marketplace.

I think those three things were what people had major issues with. I would have bought into their all digital future if they had just fixed those three issues.
 

jetsetrez

Member
So many people are up in arms about this now, and hate Microsoft for saying anything relating to this "future," but it's going to happen whether you complain about it or not. If you continue to want to play and enjoy video games as a hobby, you're going to either have to accept it or find a new hobby, because it is the reality and it is going to happen.

If there is another generation of consoles, Sony will do the exact same thing, and they'll be doing plenty of it this generation as well as it goes on. And it isn't just games, it's the same thing with all entertainment mediums.

As someone that loves Steam and PC gaming, and digital entertainment, I find all of this drama to be pretty meaningless.
 

Zephyrus

Banned
People weren't ready ...
What he is actually saying is, that "people" aka their customers were to dumb to understand their grand vision.
If Albert was humble, he would admit that MS never explained what they tried to do and accomplish.
"We never got the chance, to explain it" because Sony-Bots on Gaf and reddit jumped in? That is revisionism.
They never even tried to explain it! Their message was:"All your games are gonna be locked (and are belonged to us)! Why this is a benefit for you, we will explain on a later date. Xbox One!"
Seriously ... they don't even get it now? Even Albert?

I'm not against an all digital future. If they had explained it honestly, things would look different. But they never did. It's the secrecy, dipshits. The attitude that your customers are idiots and that you have to feed them the information at the right time is the problem.

Just be fuckin honest, be real!
You have a typo there. Think you meant they weren't too dumb to eat their bullshit. No worries there pal. There are plenty of imbeciles out there.
 
"I do feel like we never got a chance to have a rational conversation about what we were trying to do," Penello told Engadget.

& what, exactly, prevented this from happening? duct tape? or maybe the fact, as has been demonstrated numerous times over the last several months, that ms is just incapable of conversing rationally?...

this guy really needs to drop it, & go away for a while...
 
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