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Microsoft Studios' creative director has some choice words about always-online

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Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Does always online/connected imply a restriction on used games?

Not necessarily, more anti-piracy than anything. But hey there's no reasoning with some people.
 

Reiko

Banned
Remember this game?

It was called Bionic Commando: Re-Armed 2

It was DRM free on Xbox 360, and Always Online DRM only on PS3.

During the infamous PS3 outage... The game was unplayable.

995377_20110203_screen023.jpg


Now imagine an entire console dedicated to this trainwreck of DRM.
 

jaypah

Member
My hotel's WiFi is crappy tonight .. I'm ok. How are you handling today's developments?

Mixed. I haven't skipped on a major home console since the early 90s but I favor the idea of having my games available to me in the future. I'm not super tied to MS's franchises but I dig them enough to have found my Xbox and 360 worth it over the years so the idea of less games to play is kind of a bummer.
 
If this happens and it fails, what do you think will become of the xbox 1440?
I just wanna see them pull out so it will only be Nintendo and Sony left.
Why would you wanna see Microsoft pull out? They have the biggest wallet and it will only push its competitors. Just look at the PS4. Sony is seriously going all out
 

Arkage

Banned
So in January's CES it was revealed there were 66 millionish 360 consoles sold, with 40 million live accounts. And we can assume the 40 million number is not an equal translation into consoles since a console can have multiple accounts on it.

MS is really willing to lose 26+ million consumers for the sake of all these hypothetical benefits? This really doesn't seem in their DNA. Heads will roll if this turns out true.
 

Sojgat

Member
Always online seems to be the reality at this point.

Can't wait for launch day then, it's gonna be the biggest clusterfuck ever.
 

Sorral

Member
I'm definitely not hoping for anything like that, that's not fair to say just because I'm being skeptical about it in light of this Durango stuff.

I'm not the only one,
that's for sure.

OK. But then, there were these replies to your skepticism and Offline mode for Diabolo3 on PS4:

As replicant have posted and replied to you.

They actually confirmed both of those on two separate and unrelated occasions. Diablo 3 getting offline mode for its PS4 port is also quite telling:

http://www.examiner.com/article/diablo-3-ps3-and-ps4-exclusive-offline-mode-further-explained

And Sony would not keep telling media outlets this over and over to get themselves shot in the foot later, unless we assume Sony is just as idiotic as Microsoft with PR.

Common sense dictates if you are going to tout something all over the media about your hot new product you want to keep that promise.
 

EagleEyes

Member
Serious question, what is the main reasoning, if thats allowed in this thread, that Microsoft would implement an online only console? What would their benefit be to this?
 

Lord Panda

The Sea is Always Right
If I were running a company, I'd ban everyone except my comms. office from using social tools like Twitter. Eventually everyone with access to these soapboxes ends up making idiots of themselves.
 
I tired of my 360 and eventually just sold it. I just hated all of the constant ads and paying for online and barely playing it anymore compared to my PC. I never got a PS3.

My only regret is that I cannot play Geometry Wars II or Bayonetta anymore.

If I do get a console next generation, this pretty much seals me getting a PS4. Microsoft has gone off the deep end.
 

orznge

Banned
******.com/1894791247/guy with zero self-awareness who isn't smart gets mad about NeoGAF posts and risks his job over them
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Serious question, what is the main reasoning, if thats allowed in this thread, that Microsoft would implement an online only console? What would their benefit be to this?

Serious answer:

Huge amount of metrics. Game devs always want to know HOW people are playing their games in all sorts of different ways. Having an always-connected console will give you a huge pool of data. Also, advertising. Also, stuffs piracy. A lot of people don't think it's worth it, but to a dev that's not a horrible deal.
 

tokkun

Member
Not necessarily, more anti-piracy than anything. But hey there's no reasoning with some people.

Piracy on consoles has been a fairly niche activity this cycle. Seems like they would lose more sales to people who don't want to connect their console to the internet than they would gain by thwarting piracy.

Used games, on the other hand, are still a large market.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Does always online/connected imply a restriction on used games?

Yes, if they want the disc version to be able to install and never need the disc, then the console has to validate the game online. Else you could install one disc in two or more places and pull the cat cable out and play.

So the good news (assuming any of this is real) is you can jump back and forth between games without getting up, just like with DD games.
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Piracy on consoles has been a fairly niche activity this cycle. Seems like they would lose more sales to people who don't want to connect their console to the internet than they would gain by thwarting piracy.

Used games, on the other hand, are still a large market.

Yeah, but until consumers respond and we see firsthand that these safeguards aren't nearly as helpful and tasty to the devs as they're being sold, we're not going to be able to let them know. I don't want an online-required console, but I'm not blind to the benefits on other ends.
 

orznge

Banned
Serious answer:

Huge amount of metrics. Game devs always want to know HOW people are playing their games in all sorts of different ways. Having an always-connected console will give you a huge pool of data. Also, advertising. Also, stuffs piracy. A lot of people don't think it's worth it, but to a dev that's not a horrible deal.

cool buzzwords I can't wait for the menu to be upgraded from 70% advertisements to 90%
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
Possibly. If you are always online and they can observe your activity, maybe they have a way to track if a game is used or not depending on the activation code or something?

PS3 already has this tech with how they implemented it in Sly 4 with the Vita version.
 
Lots of people online right now posting on GAF are awfully mad about this big problem of being online...
Yeah but no, but... like, we don't wanna be confined to always being online man!

Some of the concerns raised in this thread are so funny. Deployed troops not being able to play. That huge military market that MS might miss out on. Fighting game comps.
KuGsj.gif


You can load a page between outages you know. At least here you're not booted to the main menu.
Well sure we'll worry about that when MS actually confirm that's what will happen instead of speculating and acting like it's fact.
 

syko de4d

Member
That's what I'm thinking too: what the fucking fuck are they going to do to prepare for launch day?

console launch day?
Every CoD launch day will be the worse, and if the console is always online you can be sure you only can start playing a new game at 00.00 Launch Day.

So 2-4mio CoD players hit the servers on the same minut and what is the result? Error 37 for all Xbox Players.
 

dokish

Banned
Lots of people online right now posting on GAF are awfully mad about this big problem of being online...

I often see and post on GAF on my 3G...

Did you read the arguments defending the non-always online AT ALL?

Also, GAF is a website. We are talking about consoles features. Are you serious?
 

pargonta

Member
Lots of people online right now posting on GAF are awfully mad about this big problem of being online...

i can go shut off my internet and experience whole creative content on my computer for sure.
your example is a false equivalency, but it's a common example of it.

Jcreasy my man
 

Azull

Member
Yeah but no, but... like, we don't wanna be confined to always being online man!

Some of the concerns raised in this thread are so funny. Deployed troops not being able to play. That huge military market that MS might miss out on. Fighting game comps.
KuGsj.gif

So because there isn't a huge military market for MS they shouldn't be allowed to play? What?
 

Usobuko

Banned
So in January's CES it was revealed there were 66 millionish 360 consoles sold, with 40 million live accounts. And we can assume the 40 million number is not an equal translation into consoles since a console can have multiple accounts on it.

MS is really willing to lose 26+ million consumers for the sake of all these hypothetical benefits? This really doesn't seem in their DNA. Heads will roll if this turns out true.

I think I read somewhere that a previous Xbox founder(?) once said that you don't make money through the hardware? It's all about digital sales & services and Live subscription fees. If Microsoft sees the benefits ( to them ) of this move over the loss of these consumers, who knows? It's also kinda hard to gauge the impact since among these 26M consumers, there might be some who prefers Xbox for whatsoever reasons ( IPs, Controller, User Experience ) and are willing to overlook this.

Personally, it doesn't affect me but I am reluctant in supporting such practices.
 

MrDaravon

Member
Serious question, what is the main reasoning, if thats allowed in this thread, that Microsoft would implement an online only console? What would be their benefit be to this?

-Forces everyone into their ecosystem/store
-Prevents piracy (or makes it considerably more difficult)
-Gives them the option to prevent used games, or to charge you a fee to play used games
-Ensures that everyone who has a console is seeing dashboard ads, etc
-Will likely also ensure 1:1 (or higher) console to XBL Gold sales, since there's no way they won't charge for that

There are some potentially interesting or positive things that always online can do, but I don't think the infrastructure is there yet in the US for a mass market device, and while MS in all honesty probably has a better shot of not having their servers explode than EA or Blizzard no one is 100% infallible, see the Amazon servers going down for a few days last (?) year.

The real question is that if this is true is does potentially gaining more sales of things online as well as potentially curbing piracy and used games outweigh forcibly excluding some of their potential market who can't/won't be online all of the time? You'd have to think they have crunched numbers on this, so maybe they honestly believe they'd come out ahead, and since no one has done anything this ballsy yet that may or may not be true.
 

Sponge

Banned
My fanboy side wants what my fanboy side wants.

Not to mention there are bitter fanboys like myself who've been burned by Microsoft. I have them a chance, I was hyped after their Banjo teaser in 2006. I even bought Nuts & Bolts and enjoyed what it was, then the company was restructured and forced to make Kinect games.

That's where I felt burned. As a Rare fan who jumped from Nintendo to Microsoft, I quickly turned tail after that restructure and haven't looked back.
 
Yeah but no, but... like, we don't wanna be confined to always being online man!

Some of the concerns raised in this thread are so funny. Deployed troops not being able to play. That huge military market that MS might miss out on. Fighting game comps.
KuGsj.gif
I just hope not being able to use your console when it's not connected to the internet wasn't one of those funny concerns for you.
 
Serious question, what is the main reasoning, if thats allowed in this thread, that Microsoft would implement an online only console? What would their benefit be to this?

Mandatory Xbox Live means more chances to show you ads and more opportunities to pitch you Gold membership at $60/yr.

But given that there's half as many Free/Paid XBL accounts as consoles shipped this is a dumb ass idea though.
 
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