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EDGE: "How critical and consumer feedback made Xbox One a contender again"

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lmao
 
This isn't about the Wii U though or Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft have very cheap digital games. And installing a retail disk just so you don't need the disk anymore seems pretty useless. That's what digital copies are for no matter how you want to spin it.

The point with MS's original approach was that you still had the option to trade in your installed retail game. You can't do that with digital.
There was also talk of being able to sell digital only games on Xbox One. Once again, an option that isn't on the table from any other platform holder.
 
Xbox One is a weaker machine and costs $100 more. Yeah the launch lineup is way better imo on the Xbone, but who cares? 90% of everything I am playing next gen will be 3rd party and on both consoles. Why not save $100? If I believed MS would have this level of exclusives all through the gen, I'd be all over it.

it's one of those things where if you buy into MS's Kinect vision and believe their online service is better, than it's worth it. If you don't, it's not worth it. Same with exclusives between the two.
 
Here, right now, Microsoft has an edge. The £80 price disparity between the two consoles will be a decision maker for many, but for others, Microsoft’s exclusives are more convincing than anything Sony has shown on PS4 to date. Killzone is no Halo; DriveClub, now delayed, never looked like measuring up to Forza; and Dead Rising 3 now looks like a smarter bet for open-world mayhem than Second Son.


Even a second-tier title like Ryse makes a stronger case for its host hardware’s graphical capabilities, at least, than anything set for PS4’s launch day

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Everytime MS say something they sound obnoxious and disingenuous, I feel like I need to double check everything they say.

Worse still, is when supposedly impartial journalists take the PR spiel as fact. It's really coming to something when the gaming community needs to keep the press in check. In other forms of art & entertainment, there doesn't seem to be this cosy relationship between PR & press.
 
You clearly don't own a WiiU then. It's cheaper to buy retail then buy from the Nintendo WiiU shop in the UK. By a fair bit.

In the UK, true... In the US (currently with the DDP promotion) it's usually cheaper to buy NEW Wii U games digitally (you essentially get $6 digital cash back per game). Of course bomba on titles four weeks later changes this.

Also PSN at least often (at least three times this year so far) runs $10 back on $50 spent.. Which is double the Nintendo offer (though only available for limited times)

Last but not least, Sony PSN sales are pretty good (and downright ridiculous with Plus. Just picked up Remember Me for $14 this week. Technically $12.20 taking into account the $10 for $50 promotion)

The potential for digital pricing to blow away physical right now is there. Especially considering every digital sale is GUARANTEED (for the time being) to never be transferred as used.
 
Install a retail disk then play without the disk. So you then just be left with a useless disk.

To be more accurate, Steam DRM on retail disc games is the one that gives you "useless disks". When buying one, someone has to evaluate whether the loss of resale is outweighed by the benefit of being able to play it without inserting the disc, and having your games tied to a roaming account rather than a single disc

Primedoughnut said:
Sorry, and you approve of that? in what wholly shit of a planet is that even considered acceptable to a consumer????

It's at least a step up from useless retail disc games with Steam DRM.

If you're a consumer that prefers digital libraries (where there are currently pretty much zero resale rights to speak of), but still like discs for getting around download caps, quicker installs, etc., that's actually a somewhat unprecedented step forward, even if it is just "approved retailers". Those discs would certainly have more value than my Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2, and Skyrim discs that I have on PC.

Of course, for those customers who prefer unlimited resale of all their games on discs, that's obviously a big step back. Different customers value different things, which is totally fine.

I don't think one is inherently more "anti-consumer" than the other though, especially if this is something that's known up front when making a purchase. They have different pros and cons, obviously, but "this product has pros and cons" pretty much applies to any product ever.

bishoptl said:
Consumers already had the choice of buying brand new or second hand...and that's without giving up their right to trade/sell with any retailer or Craigslist denizen they preferred.

I currently do not have a choice to buy a disc-based game on my Xbox 360 that acts as a digital game (and doesn't require the disc to play). I am "forced" to buy from a single retailer with no competition (Xbox Live Marketplace) if I want that benefit. Some people might value that ability more than the ability to sell on Craigslist. Depends on the consumer, and their personal tastes.

I'm a developer and even I think that was a boneheaded move. 100% anti-consumer.

I'm a developer too, and I didn't see it as anti-consumer, *shrug*. I saw it as a feature with some pros, but also some big cons (those cons were obviously pointed out by plenty of folks the past few months), and for most consumers, the cons outweighed the pros, so it was changed. But "anti-consumer" seems to imply some sort of lying or deceit. If DRM on physical discs is "anti-consumer", than I guess some of my PC games are "anti-consumer"? Is my inability to sell my Skyrim disc "anti-consumer", even though I knew about it before it was purchased? I'm not entirely sure what that phrase actually means in these discussions. Is "bad value" the same as "anti-consumer"? Maybe that's what's always confused me about the response. I understand someone thinking the previous policies were a bad value, but I never got why the "anti-consumer" phrasing was used so much, unless those are supposed to be synonyms.
 
In the UK, true... In the US (currently with the DDP promotion) it's usually cheaper to buy NEW Wii U games digitally (you essentially get $6 digital cash back per game). Of course bomba on titles four weeks later changes this.

Also PSN at least often (at least three times this year so far) runs $10 back on $50 spent.. Which is double the Nintendo offer (though only available for limited times)

Last but not least, Sony PSN sales are pretty good (and downright ridiculous with Plus. Just picked up Remember Me for $14 this week. Technically $12.20 taking into account the $10 for $50 promotion)

The potential for digital pricing to blow away physical right now is there. Especially considering every digital sale is GUARANTEED (for the time being) to never be transferred as used.

While all this is true. The advantage of MS's system was that you could effectively trade in your 'digital' copy. We'll never know how that would have worked out in practise but I do like the idea of it.
 
That reads like camouflaged PR article. Money doesn't stink...

It was PR. Anytime a company speaks about it's product with the hopes of convincing you to buy, it's PR.

The article is fine. People getting bent out of shape over someone's opinion that DR3 looks more manic then SS are being silly. The writer doesn't claim it's the better looking/playing game, just that DR3 has the anarchy dial turned up a little louder.

The start of the article gives the nod to Sony for both price and power. The end of the article gives the nod to Sony for it's Indy policies. All told the story just says that where MS looked like they were headed for absolute disaster in May they are looking very competitive leading into launch. Is that really up for debate? I wouldn't say so.

The animosity shown Edge over this article is ridiculous.
 
To everyone talkin about how XB1 has the games, they said so themselves that they will not have indie games until 2014. This means that they said FUCK YOU to indie developers and didn't even bother to even try to release one or two indies for their launch. I guess in their DRM ridden plans, they were going to team up with their big publisher friends and form a monopoly. I WILL NOT support a company with such plans. I don't care if 10 Titan Falls come out on the XB1
 
There are some things I agree with there and others I don't. I don't really care about calling them out as some kind of biased entity seeing as they praised PS4 plenty enough. Can't say I agree on the DR3 over Infamous remark but to each his own.

To everyone talkin about how XB1 has the games, they said so themselves that they will not have indie games until 2014. This means that they said FUCK YOU to indie developers and didn't even bother to even try to release one or two indies for their launch. I guess in their DRM ridden plans, they were going to team up with their big publisher friends and form a monopoly. I WILL NOT support a company with such plans. I don't care if 10 Titan Falls come out on the XB1

MSFT has been around that monopoly road before so their way of handling things and buying success is not surprising.
 
To everyone talkin about how XB1 has the games, they said so themselves that they will not have indie games until 2014. This means that they said FUCK YOU to indie developers and didn't even bother to even try to release one or two indies for their launch. I guess in their DRM ridden plans, they were going to team up with their big publisher friends and form a monopoly. I WILL NOT support a company with such plans. I don't care if 10 Titan Falls come out on the XB1

Lol...
 
While all this is true. The advantage of MS's system was that you could effectively trade in your 'digital' copy. We'll never know how that would have worked out in practise but I do like the idea of it.

The problem here is that reportedly MS controlled all of the prices, not supply and demand. So as it exists today you can hit ebay or craigslist or gstop/bbuy as a last resort. As MS wanted it, you essentially went through MS (or an MS proxy) for everything.

The only way what you are saying wouldn't be a total screw job is if such a service was TRULY third party managed, and available from multiple third parties.
 
That is exactly what's being said here. Sooner or later they will try this again, when it's easier to make the general public accept it.

There wasn't enough hate.
This is the most annoying comment of all. Time and again high ranking MS officials make it abundantly clear - "no, we don't believe the DRM policies were wrong, the timing/messaging was at fault".

Yet the foot shoulders for the Xbox One, (official magazines, sympathetic journalists, low ranking MS employees), talk as if DRM and it's associated policies will NEVER return.
 
lol at DR3 > Infamous

lol at Ryse making the strongest case for the graphical power of these consoles.

Honesty the article seems fairly biased.
 
If you're a consumer that prefers digital libraries (where there are currently pretty much zero resale rights to speak of), but still like discs for getting around download caps, quicker installs, etc., that's actually a somewhat unprecedented step forward, even if it is just "approved retailers". Those discs would certainly have more value than my Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2, and Skyrim discs that I have on PC.

I currently do not have a choice to buy a disc-based game on my Xbox 360 that acts as a digital game (and doesn't require the disc to play). I am "forced" to buy from a single retailer with no competition (Xbox Live Marketplace) if I want that benefit. Some people might value that ability more than the ability to sell on Craigslist. Depends on the consumer, and their personal
So because you want to avoid downloading games, everyone else should forfeit the right to sell? You have your way to get 360 games without playing off a disc, just download them. If you dont want to deal with the bandwitdh hurdle, deal with having a disc.
 
While all this is true. The advantage of MS's system was that you could effectively trade in your 'digital' copy. We'll never know how that would have worked out in practise but I do like the idea of it.

There are ways to do this without taking away all the things we currently can do with retail games. MS just wanted to control/restrict second hand flow of software. Not surprising since they are a software company. They wanted their xbox games to become like Office or Windows licenses.
 
The problem here is that reportedly MS controlled all of the prices, not supply and demand. So as it exists today you can hit ebay or craigslist or gstop/bbuy as a last resort. As MS wanted it, you essentially went through MS (or an MS proxy) for everything.

The only way what you are saying wouldn't be a total screw job is if such a service was TRULY third party managed, and available from multiple third parties.

Microsoft doesn't exist in a vacuum. The "third party" you're thinking of is all the retailers with their own motivations, all the publishers with their own motivations, all the other consoles and games that exist (PS4/PC/iOS/Wii U/3DS/Vita/Xbox 360/PS3/etc.), and all the other forms of entertainment people could spend their money on.

This idea that Microsoft could magically control all of these entities, and get away with, I dunno, making every game $70-$80 for all of time, doesn't really make any sense

Crewnh said:
So because you want to avoid downloading games, everyone else should forfeit the right to sell? You have your way to get 360 games without playing off a disc, just download them. If you dont want to deal with the bandwitdh hurdle, deal with having a disc.

You could literally make this argument with every single product that's existed in the history of forever. "Because you hate digital games, I should be forced to buy them only from one store, the Xbox Live Marketplace? You should just deal with the 24hr check-in" The whole point is that different consumers value different things. For you, selling a disc freely is super important. For me and some other folks, it isn't. And that's fine. I'm not trying to change what you personally value, I'm just indicating that your personal sense of value isn't necessarily 100% universal (though obviously, your view is definitely common enough for Microsoft to change their policies!)

It's not like Xbox One was the only gaming hardware in existence. We live in a time with tons of gaming options. If this hypothetical Xbox One existed, it would be a good value for some people, and a bad value for others. For those who considered it a bad value, they would seek other outlets for gaming (which are available in numerous supply). Again, just like every other product, ever.

fun fact: people have "forfeited their right to sell" in numerous other areas of gaming, because they felt other features outweighed that loss. So it's not some completely unheard of concept.
 
This is the most annoying comment of all. Time and again high ranking MS officials make it abundantly clear - "no, we don't believe the DRM policies were wrong, the timing/messaging was at fault".

Yet the foot shoulders for the Xbox One, (official magazines, sympathetic journalists, low ranking MS employees), talk as if DRM and it's associated policies will NEVER return.

DRM exists on both platforms... its the nature of the digital market place. It's not like I can buy a digital game and share it with everyone without restriction on either of the consoles. DRM isn't going away.
 
To everyone talkin about how XB1 has the games, they said so themselves that they will not have indie games until 2014. This means that they said FUCK YOU to indie developers and didn't even bother to even try to release one or two indies for their launch. I guess in their DRM ridden plans, they were going to team up with their big publisher friends and form a monopoly. I WILL NOT support a company with such plans. I don't care if 10 Titan Falls come out on the XB1

wtf am I reading?
 
So because you want to avoid downloading games, everyone else should forfeit the right to sell? You have your way to get 360 games without playing off a disc, just download them. If you dont want to deal with the bandwitdh hurdle, deal with having a disc.

That isn't how this works.
 
This is the most annoying comment of all. Time and again high ranking MS officials make it abundantly clear - "no, we don't believe the DRM policies were wrong, the timing/messaging was at fault".

I think it very obviously was a timing fuck up. MS thought the masses were ready to adopt an all digital future when that simply was not the case. If you do indeed go all digital but still sell discs, you'll require certain unpopular measures in order to stop people taking advantage of installing a game onto multiple consoles, thereby pirating the game.

I don't know what the alternative theory is. MS went for DRM because they hate consumers? No that doesn't make any sense.
 
The quote doesn't say that. Read the article.
You're right, the quote doesn't say that - it's actually, a very narrow statement that's cleverly qualified to have deniability on that count but happily leaves the reader thinking otherwise. It's the worst kind of disingenuous editorial.
 
I wish these interviewers would do this

Why do some of your games not run at 1080p?

Why does Kinect take up 10% of the GPU, since it isn't mandatory?

You say you have a stronger CPU than Sony, I can't find an official statement on Sony's CPU can you provide me with a link or source for this claim?
 
I can understand why a steam like environment on console such that you could have your entire library of games on the hard disk and play any one of them at any time without any disk swapping would have been fantastic.

Can we please stop with this retconning BS?

Digital/digital-like disc DRM on a completely closed system ≠ Steam.
 
Feel like people are placing too much importance on launch line ups. I look at the first party networks of both and I'm pretty sure I know which one will be able to provide a steady stream of high quality exclusives for years to come.
 
The problem here is that reportedly MS controlled all of the prices, not supply and demand. So as it exists today you can hit ebay or craigslist or gstop/bbuy as a last resort. As MS wanted it, you essentially went through MS (or an MS proxy) for everything.

The only way what you are saying wouldn't be a total screw job is if such a service was TRULY third party managed, and available from multiple third parties.

I understand the issues but It still doesn't detract from my view that a system that would have allowed you to install of your games to the hard drive and play any of them at any time without the initial install disks being required would have been a pretty neat thing.
Especially given how fast the Xbox One boots up now. Perfect for having a quick 10 minute blast of something between other activities.
 
Perhaps, but it is also pro-retailer.

As we drift closer and closer to digital only exclusive releases and then the digital only future games retailers are going to start dropping like flies.
They are already wilting

It is beneficial to certain retailers, not all

MS had full control on what retailers would be allowed to accept used games

The industry complains about how used games at gamestop is killing it. Do you really think Gamestop wouldn't be on MS's partner retailer list?
 
I'm not sure what is going on, gaming has been almost normal lately (read: mods only had to lock one xb1 thread this weekend..which is progress)

Whole lot of flaming going on today for some reason

I don't necessarily think its flaming,but the displeasure from the article is palpable. Some of the claims they made (or can be seen to have made) are downright idiotic. At least we haven't seen any 'hurr hurr xb1 is shite, ps4 ftw!' haha.
 
You're right, the quote doesn't say that - it's actually, a very narrow statement that's cleverly qualified to have deniability on that count but happily leaves the reader thinking otherwise. It's the worst kind of disingenuous editorial.

Maybe for the knee jerkers' but my reading comprehension seems more then capable.
 
It was PR. Anytime a company speaks about it's product with the hopes of convincing you to buy, it's PR.

The article is fine. People getting bent out of shape over someone's opinion that DR3 looks more manic then SS are being silly. The writer doesn't claim it's the better looking/playing game, just that DR3 has the anarchy dial turned up a little louder.

The start of the article gives the nod to Sony for both price and power. The end of the article gives the nod to Sony for it's Indy policies. All told the story just says that where MS looked like they were headed for absolute disaster in May they are looking very competitive leading into launch. Is that really up for debate? I wouldn't say so.

The animosity shown Edge over this article is ridiculous.

Well, its pretty obvious what's going on when you look at who's taking issue with the content of the article. Anything remotely positive or, at least, not negative concerning MS/X1 ruffles some feathers just by default now. Edge called MS out harder and in a much higher profile manner than any other gaming news outfit dared to. Their print article and cover are easily the biggest feather in Sony's PR cap, driving the related long-running GAF threads into hundreds of thousands of views and nearly as many posts, all included. But when, all of a sudden, they find an updated, better informed middle ground to walk that takes into account the changes MS has made since, the reasons to become upset and start throwing out accusations of shilling for MS come flying out from people who are themselves looking quite obviously in the tank for one side, by post histories, alone. Edge, like any hits-driven business, are playing all sides in an attempt to appear useful to all sides on the issues. Wouldn't want that subscription number to go down nor would they want the hits to stop coming from all of the big topics originating from their pages, electronic or paper. I mean, they [correction: Eurogamer] host Digital Foundry, a feature factory that thrives off of the hits it generates for the console warrior crowd. They know their readership. Shit, GAF must be the single-largest referrer to their site with the bigass threads that attract in the neighborhood of six figures, in terms of views. Not shitting on Edge or any game sites or mags, because, you know, they gotta eat, too. I don't understand the frothing anger from some corners when this isn't even a particularly strong piece nor is it really all that positive or sympathetic to MS and X1. As for the DR3/Infamous: SS comment, what's the big deal? It's not a final judgment or review. DR3 seems very ambitious for a launch title sequel that evolves the past games' signature features while the Infamous sequel due out in February looks to be an equally nice evolution of the past Infamous games that came before. What's the problem?
 
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