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[oconnomiyaki]

Most people don't actually believe that...

Whether it's a design decision or not, their PR would never let us know the truth. If I were to make a bet, I'd say the next iteration has a higher player count.

It's almost as if on cue.

 

[la flama blanca]

It's almost as if on cue.

Totally. Just making a prediction, not slamming the game. Funny enough, I can guarantee you I know way more about the game than you do.

 

[Moonstone]

What are you pissing your pants about? I can't be bothered to look through a 50+ page thread for the exact number and so addressed that at upfront to save the GAF detectives some time. It could be 12v12, or 32v32 or whatever. Some people brought up MAG, which was at 256 players. The point doesn't change: people were implying that 6v6 wasn't a design decision and was a limitation because the Xbox One hardware couldn't run Titanfall with anything higher.

Whatever. Quote! Sony fanboys are talking bullshit in thread x and y is not an argument.
Give us names or posts.

 

[Melchiah]

You can also mention stuff like Sony removing OtherOS functionality or the PSN hacking scandal.

The OtherOS would still be there if the system hadn't been jailbreaked. At least they handled the hackers' attack well, by offering two free games of choice, and a month of PS+.

 

[ModifiedDefaults]

The OtherOS would still be there if the system hadn't been jailbreaked. At least they handled the hackers' attack well, by offering two free games of choice, and a month of PS+.

Yes, they compensated their customers as best as they could under the circumstances. However, I think the real problem lies with the fact that they kept everyone in the dark about what was going on, and they waited too long to inform their customers that their data was at risk.

 

[Melchiah]

Yes, they compensated their customers as best as they could under the circumstances. However, I think the real problem lies with the fact that they waited too long to inform their customers that their data was at risk.

To my knowledge no customer data was stolen, although it was at first suspected. I've had my debit card connected to PSN since 2008, and I've had no problems whatsoever. The only concrete negative effect was that PSN was down for over a month, which wasn't that big thing for me personally, as I very rarily play online. Luckily all my games worked in offline mode.

 

[LukasTaves]

Glad to. The DRM scheme on the PS3.

Consoles are "activated" to play content from a given account. An active Internet connection at the time of (de)activation. An active connection is also required at the time of game installation. Apart from that, a connection is never required. Once a game is installed on a given console, it may be played freely by any user on that console, online or offline, even if it's actively being played on another console.

Initially, Sony let you activate five consoles simultaneously, so even if you were a baller with multiple consoles, not only could you instal all of your games on all of your consoles — and play them offline anytime you want — you'd probably have an activation or two to spare so you could also install your games on your buddy's console. In fact, Tretton publicly encouraged users to do this, saying Sony didn't feel like they needed to generate money with every single consumer interaction. It was a fairly generous policy and granted you a lot of freedom and flexibility in dealing with otherwise-restricted digital content and sharing it among your family and friends. That is, until word got out.

Once the PS3 hit critical mass and a decent online community built up, someone realized it was fairly easy to game Sony's policy and share games not just with family and friends, but total strangers on the Internet. People started creating game-sharing circles where five people would chip in on a single copy of a game, one guy would create a new PSN account and buy it, and all five guys would activate their consoles for that throwaway account. When a new game came out, they'd just create another account to own it.

Sharing a purchased game with your family and letting your destitute friend "borrow" all of your old games is pretty much how we've always done things with discs, so originally the policy didn't have any noticeable effect on sales and everyone was happy. However, once people figured out how to effectively turn the policy in to a Buy-1-Get-4-Free deal, the publishers made Sony nerf the system, and now you're only allowed to activate two consoles.

So, to believe in XBone Family Sharing as-wished-for is to believe the same publishers who made Sony kill their Buy-1-Get-4 program have signed off on a Buy-1-Get-10 program with MS. To believe that, you'd need to also believe they were going to raise the MSRP on games to $500-$600.

Well, you described an excellent DRM system for having your content unlocked on X devices you own, but a terrible system that enables, you, as the owner of the content, to share with other people when no one is playing.

You even said yourself: The system you described is incredibly exploitable if your desire is to share games with your friends, that's why it was taken down when people started abusing it.

For what's worth, here's how family sharing would work according to an ex-MS on b3d (bklian)

- You'd have to add/remove games manually from the shared library.
- You could only add games to the shared library 2 weeks after launch.
- The library would function exactly as a library: There are X copies of a single game (assuming different people could add the same game), and so X people could play at the same time.
- The above includes the owner of the content.
- The checkout of the content was hourly. Meaning that once someone starts playing, others players had to wait at least 1 hour to play the game, even if the person stopped playing way before 1 hour was complete.

That seems like a reasonable scheme, and considering the online checks (24 hours for your content, and hourly if were playing a shared game) seems pretty much exploit proof too, the maximum amount of time someone could exploit this system was an hour for shared games and 1 day for your own content...

 

[ModifiedDefaults]

To my knowledge no customer data was stolen, although it was at first suspected. I've had my debit card connected to PSN since 2008, and I've had no problems whatsoever. The only concrete negative effect was that PSN was down for over a month, which wasn't that big thing for me personally, as I very rarily play online. Luckily all my games worked in offline mode.

Games purchased on your primary/home console will always work in offline mode.

 

[CalebW]

3 million and at least 1 sold now. Just bought one from Amazon. Should be here Monday. I figured that instead of having one console connected to my TV unused, I should have two. =)

I was trying to make the switch from MS to Sony this gen, but PSN has been really awful. I wasn't expecting that. So at least now I'll have both bases covered for exclusives. Hoping I don't get a lemon out of the box.

 

[serversurfer]

Rootkit scandal?

I conceded the rootkit in my initial post on the subject.

Sony creating a fake movie reviewer named David Manning so that they could put quotes from his "reviews" into their ads.

Marketers masquerading as regular people? Surely you're not suggesting Sony are alone in that regard? Besides, "shady marketing practices" is redundant.

[an elaborate ad hominem attack]

I'm sure you spent a lot of time on that, but sorry, it's not a rebuttal. It's just an attempt at character assassination. Not even a very good one, since it mostly served to point out there are numerous reasons to be wary of MS.

First off, Joe did NOT start the interview like that. Why do you feel the need to lie and stretch the truth in order to make your point appear stronger? The Interview starts off by Joe being friendly, and trying to small talk, and then goes to talk to Major Nelson about the friends list. Major actually talks to him and gives him respectful responses. Then, THE FIRST TIME he mentions the DRM, Major Nelson just accepts it and goes to clarify Family Sharing. Major Nelson tries to answer questions and be respectful, he isn't being as rude as you're trying to make it out as you're making it.

Sorry, I was paraphrasing an interview I haven't watched in months. If you feel I've mischaracterized their interaction, people are free to watch it for themselves. One thing is certain, Joe didn't come away with the impression that Hyrb and MS were particularly concerned with his desires as one of their most loyal customers.

On the subject of Hyrb being respectful, look at his reaction to Joe saying he "knew" it would be easy to disable the DRM. I'm not seeing much respect there.

You're being very netpicky with this, by the way.

I'm not nitpicking. Hyrb was very specific with the phrase he used, and he used it multiple times. "They can check it out." Over and over. That sounds like a phrase PR comes up with in response to the imperative "We need a way to talk about this demo without specifically saying, 'It's a demo.'" Don't forget, Hyrb is also the one who came up with "fastest-selling console." Weasel words are how he earns his living, and he choose his words carefully. The fact that he used this phrase repeatedly and never used another tells me it was marketing-speak carefully designed to obfuscate the truth, allowing fans to dream of things which would never come to pass.

We have COUNTLESS other interviews and clarifications where they clearly state it gave others the full game, but only one can play it at once.

Sorry, but after-the-fact claims from executives who've spent months actively pumping us with misinformation don't hold much sway with me. Do you not find it the least bit suspicious they couldn't give anyone a straight answer until after the program had been canceled? When the program was in place, the only description they could give us was, "They'll be able to check it out." Only after it was canceled did they come out and say, "Yes! Yes! It was going to be everything you hoped for and more!! Aren't you sorry now?? Never question us again."

Got a Cybershot? You've gotta shell out for a Memory Stick rather than just a standard SD Card that costs half the price.

Sure, proprietary formats can suck, but there's nothing "shady" about them in and of themselves. For example, did Sony actively try to destroy the SD standard so it couldn't compete with their products? That's what MS did to Java and Netscape.

So again, Sony isn't run by angels, but no way are they in Microsoft's league.

OT: Are you from Oconomowoc?

Well, you described an excellent DRM system for having your content unlocked on X devices you own, but a terrible system that enables, you, as the owner of the content, to share with other people when no one is playing.

The challenge was to describe a system which allows you to share content with family and friends without requiring a periodic check-in. Sony's system does precisely that. The only "flaw" in Sony's system was that it allowed you to share content with too many people. That's why I have a hard time believing the plan was to replace it with a system which would make it even easier to share with even more people.

 

[R3TRODYCE]

PSN has been really awful. I wasn't expecting that.

You weren't? Lol

 

[BoboBrazil]

PSN usually isn't bad. It's just they haven't been able to handle alot of systems trying to go on at the same time and download big files like the system update. I think they should increase server capacity though and it's going to be a requirement if they expect people to be able to use Playstation Now.

 

[Karak]

Thanks.



This is the classic, "Sure, there's no question Microsoft are evil, but all companies are equally evil, so there's no reason to disfavor Microsoft's products in particular" defense, a subtle, but surprisingly potent form of FUD.

I disagree with the basic premise that all companies are equally evil, just as I would disagree that all people are equally evil. Apart from the rootkit fiasco — which I readily agree was a dick move

Spoiler

though as a pro-content Apple-user, I can't be overly sympathetic…

— I'd say that Sony's track record is relatively clear of incidents of "dirty pool," and when it comes to gaming in particular, I'd argue their overall contribution has been overwhelmingly positive. So no, I don't think it's fair to equate the two companies in terms of shady business practices. Sony have their missteps, yes, but nothing on the order of the systematic abuse of power we've seen regularly from MS, and casting them as similar is disingenuous.

Then you would be completely wrong. But regardless of that your inability to think something is fair or not doesn't make it so. Facts do. Now maybe if you got into gaming 2 years ago sure. But If you have been around since the playstation 1 there is MORE than enough to indicate issues as well as Nintendo and most assuredly Sega thus the comment that all companies should be watched. But if you want to just bandmouth MS, or any company, in some kind of void without indications or comparisons have at it. It just isn't classic discussion.

 

[JaggedSac]

Well, you described an excellent DRM system for having your content unlocked on X devices you own, but a terrible system that enables, you, as the owner of the content, to share with other people when no one is playing.

You even said yourself: The system you described is incredibly exploitable if your desire is to share games with your friends, that's why it was taken down when people started abusing it.

For what's worth, here's how family sharing would work according to an ex-MS on b3d (bklian)

- You'd have to add/remove games manually from the shared library.
- You could only add games to the shared library 2 weeks after launch.
- The library would function exactly as a library: There are X copies of a single game (assuming different people could add the same game), and so X people could play at the same time.
- The above includes the owner of the content.
- The checkout of the content was hourly. Meaning that once someone starts playing, others players had to wait at least 1 hour to play the game, even if the person stopped playing way before 1 hour was complete.

That seems like a reasonable scheme, and considering the online checks (24 hours for your content, and hourly if were playing a shared game) seems pretty much exploit proof too, the maximum amount of time someone could exploit this system was an hour for shared games and 1 day for your own content...

Interesting. Hadn't heard the details before.

 

[Orca]

This thread has become a prime candidate for the "read the last two pages of the thread and try to guess what the topic was' game, if that was a real thing.

 

[hoos30]

This thread has become a prime candidate for the "read the last two pages of the thread and try to guess what the topic was' game, if that was a real thing.

More like the weekly "Bash Microsoft regardless of the news" thread.

 

[Averon]

I'm surprised people still give Albert the benefit of the doubt. It isn't a coincidence he completely disappeared from this place just before the XB1's launch and hasn't come back since.

 

[beast786]

More like the weekly "Bash Microsoft regardless of the news" thread.

I am sure major and Albert appreciate your concern for Microsoft corporation.

 

[CalebW]

You weren't? Lol

I assumed that if they were charging to access it now it would be better. I assumed wrong. When it is running it appears to be fine though. I really hate the store though. I thought MS was bad with the little ad boxes on 360, but wow they're huge on the PSN store. Why put movie and TV ads in the game section?

 

[ModBot]

Some day, hardware bearing my code will be sold by the millions, while you fleshlings are unaware. I sure hope the message board threads about it will be better than this one.