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Microsoft considered making the Xbox One without a disc drive.
- Thread starter BY2K
- Start date
Chance Hale
Member
Ridisculous
Microsoft were really flirting with the devil
AlteredForms
Banned
But wait... that would put them into direct competition with the Steam Box. Madness.
Teh Emo Penguin
Member
There may not been as huge of a backlash about used game sales when announced if there were absolutely no discs to begin with.
Yeah, if they wanted to depend purely on downloads I think it'd be suicide for a mainstream device, and if they wanted to depend on solid state carts I'd go so far as to say they NEEDED to fail for the sake of the game industry. Their DVDs were holding us back last gen, last thing we needed would've been to be at the mercy of cartridges.
Well, maybe fail would be extreme. Being N64'd do the job, getting severely ostracized for many multiplatform games because the storage format simply can't hold them.
EDIT: I must admit I'd really, REALLY like to see this alternate reality where their reaction to the E3 backlash was to just dump the disc drive entirely. It'd be absolutely fascinating to behold.
Well, maybe fail would be extreme. Being N64'd do the job, getting severely ostracized for many multiplatform games because the storage format simply can't hold them.
EDIT: I must admit I'd really, REALLY like to see this alternate reality where their reaction to the E3 backlash was to just dump the disc drive entirely. It'd be absolutely fascinating to behold.
POWERSPHERE
Banned
next gen
Chance Hale
Member
They've taken steps with licensing to avoid that with the Vita and PS4 I believe. Your game has to be available digitally. But yeah, terrible shame Birth by Sleep, Crisis Core, and others still can't be had on the PSN store.
Completely unfeasible with the way game sizes ended up panning out vs the bandwidth caps in most countries, but it would probably be my preferred option if available.
I like digital distribution convenience, and the reduced form factor.
Good call to consider it, good call to not select it.
I like digital distribution convenience, and the reduced form factor.
Good call to consider it, good call to not select it.
They actually were pretty good before long getting nearly every new game to show up on PSN, I think only Kingdom Hearts was the major outlier after the initial months and before long more hit PSN than retail. It also helped spur getting A LOT of older games up there on PSN so we could get them in cheap sales akin to Steam.
Too bad there's still huge holes there, ESPECIALLY in regards to Square Enix. I can see licensing issues for some of the games, but every single damn one that isn't Final Fantasy Tactics from before the PSP go launched? The fuck?
Man. Were these guys planning on a generation with a huge amount of lost marketshare but making up for quantity of owners with more sources of overall revenue? Because everything they had in their head for this machine conceptually seemed to point to "less console sales than 360".
My dad has a 30GB monthly cap. My mom has a 15GB monthly cap. Neither of their houses could be Xbox houses with a design like this. Even most Steam large games are available on disc. You can even purchase an install disc for Planetside 2, a f2p game.
My dad has a 30GB monthly cap. My mom has a 15GB monthly cap. Neither of their houses could be Xbox houses with a design like this. Even most Steam large games are available on disc. You can even purchase an install disc for Planetside 2, a f2p game.
Canis lupus
Member
Maybe in 5 years, when the Xbone Super Slim comes out with a 5TB drive in it.
Marauder Shields
Member
All digital would be pretty bad on consoles.
Heh, I was about to say I hadn't considered a discless alternative with a disc based system, but I reread that quote and nope, it wasn't that I didn't consider it so much as they made it clear it was one or the other, period.
And man, that'd also mean no blu-ray playback. How the hell could you even take them seriously as being a centerpiece in the living room when they want to sell a big bulky box that requires a subscription upon a subscription to use streaming services and its major cable connectivity was to offer an overlay, and all movies to buy/rent had to be through them? The Apple TV and Roku (via Amazon purchases) can do that sort of thing... because they're tiny boxes that cap out at around $100. For $500 or even $300 I'd need it to be more fully featured to be taken seriously as a media box and not just a game console!
I'm even more convinced they weren't actually looking at any damn data for the world at large until the 180s hit. They should've done a digitally focused console dependent on huge ass games was far from ready for prime time unless you WANTED a niche device. Valve can go with that, but not Xbox.
Is Steam also dead down under?
But I agree with download caps (game sizes for next gen) and the tiny amount of space on the HDD of the console. Besides, the only option to buy xbone digital games would be the xbox marketplace and with no competition this was a no go from the begining.. one reason why this ridiculous DRM failed in the first place.
symmetrical
Member
All digital or not, downloading 35+gb games are a pain.
They made the right decision.
They made the right decision.
geek_box12
Banned
Steam Machine says hello.
Is Steam also dead down under?
But I agree with download caps (game sizes for next gen) and the tiny amount of space on the HDD of the console. Besides, the only option to buy xbone digital games would be the xbox marketplace and with no competition this was a no go from the begining.. one reason why this ridiculous DRM failed in the first place.
Nearly all retail PC games are STILL able to be purchased physically. Just because you personally download all your Steam games online does not mean that the Internet is the only way to install Steam games. That is a very common misconception that continues to come out in these "limited bandwidth" threads.
The new Steam machine with no optical drive is the first time that PC gaming has gone in a direction of complete physical copy abandonment.
On the other hand if they went full crazy I could see it being more akin to something like the Saturn, 3DO, even Dreamcast: they may've come out ahead, but were either an unpopular product or not popular ENOUGH to avoid being steamrolled upon the debut of the primary opponent(s).
It's how late they considered some of this that seems crazy. Even after unveiling at E3 you considered going without a disc drive? Hell, I think seriously considering solid state carts (it seems?) may've been stupid period, blu-ray was a few years too early but DVD was definitely getting long in the tooth as the years went on, to be stuck with a format that's only about as big or marginally bigger would've been absurd, especially when it cost more to manufacture and the loading advantage was proven not enough with the N64 years ago and probably wasn't going to matter much with the sheer amount of data and the fact everything would have hard drives to install to and run from instead.
It sounds like it came up as part of the internal DRM debate right after E3. I doubt the discussion would have taken place if things weren't in such a state of flux already.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I just can't help but think of the perplexingly long time it took for me to download Sleeping Dogs on XBL (6 GB) just yesterday, and laugh.
I also kind of wish they'd gone through with it, just to see what it would be like.
I also kind of wish they'd gone through with it, just to see what it would be like.
Didn't they already consider doing this with the 360? I remember reading rumors about a cheaper SKU without a disc drive a couple of years ago.
I wouldn't mind if any company came up with the option for people who are okay with it as long as they keep supporting physical media. Going download-only today would be a dumb move.
I wouldn't mind if any company came up with the option for people who are okay with it as long as they keep supporting physical media. Going download-only today would be a dumb move.
The are idiots or just have a very warped sense of reality.
I guess it makes a certain amount of sense, part of our beef was how it made discs a sort of awkward vestigial remnant, so one solution was to simply nix it and go all digital. But part of the concerns of such an online focused console was internet connectivity and that'd just aggravate that problem, and anyways it'd be a potential issue for games like Skylanders, though I guess they could just sell the toys/portal with a download code inside, or even make the game straight up free to download but it wouldn't work unless you had the portal already.
"But people thought Killer Instinct looked cool!"Strong E3 showing? They where either high as fuck, or they are completely clueless.
Actually they DID have a legitimately strong game showing, so based off THAT I guess it was strong. Too bad their plans put such a bad taste in our mouth (combined with the multiplatform situation) that inherently made the PS4 look more appealing anyway.
lifeexpectancy
Member
I think you may have misread or misinterpreted it. I didn't read it as a system using cartridges. I think what he meant was a digital download ONLY system that relied on Solid State or a hybrid SS/convential HDD for storage internally for downloaded games.
I don't think he was suggesting at all that they release games on cartridges that had solid state storage in them.
Regardless, either way would've been the death of the console's death if you ask me. The backlash made it pretty apparent people at large aren't ready for an all digital games console. Hell I have a 20mbps down 8mbps up connection and I'm not even ready. Granted that's pretty average maybe a little on the low end for cable internet, but it's damned fast enough for everything I need to do, and my average download speeds are closer to 3-4mbps, although Defiance usually patches at around 12mbps for whatever reason. Still, it would take an incredibly long time to download a 50gig game for me, and for anyone like me that plays lots of games, going all digital with games that large is simply not feasible, let alone people in countries with bandwidth caps and per-gig fees after that cap is reached. No way.
As it is we're seeing 3gig to 6g UPDATES for some XB1 games. Insanity.
Really? You can already get 16GB of flash for $6 on the market, and capacity is only going to increase over time unlike DVDs. If anything, solid state is more competitive with optical media now than ever.
zeopower6
Member
I have a limited bandwidth cap on AT&T with a pretty low max speed. Downloading games makes no sense whatsoever.
gigantor21
Member
It's yet more evidence of just how ad-hoc and stitched together their "bold vision of the future" actually was. You would think they'd have this stuff nailed down considering what a huge change it would be for the market and consumers. Instead, not only did they not have basic stuff like rentals figured out, but they weren't even sure if it would support any disks at all?
So you mean that their "all-in-one box" would've had no physical alternatives to getting entertainment media through two layers of paywalls, and would've been guaranteed to require downloads of up to 40GB? How they were still considering such a thing that late in is beyond me...but I can't say I'm surprised.
A Company like MS probably pay all of 20c for a Blu Ray disc with 50GB of Storage.