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[Swass]

What? There brand is fine. The thing sold over 3 million by the end of 2013. The things selling more than the 360. Likely over 20 million, and the near 2:1 has more to do with the PS4s much faster sales in Europe other wise it'd likely be 1.5 or less.

Except it's not selling better than the 360 launch aligned/ The only reason the Xbox One is ahead in overall sales at the same stage in the console life is due to a bloated launch. In comparison the 360 had a very slow first year due to manufacturing limitations. I believe it was speculated that the 360 overall launch aligned sales will pass the Xbox One sometime this year.

 

[Voost Kain]

I'm pretty sure this is false, I can remember family sharing coming out well after e3 and the backlash.. it's one of the reasons people are still to this day skeptical it even existed in the first place.. it felt more like something they threw against the wall in hopes to convince people their idea was good for consumers.

I am pretty sure family sharing was before E3. Which btw gad nothing but fames and little info.

 

[Voost Kain]

Except it's not selling better than the 360 launch aligned/ The only reason the Xbox One is ahead in overall sales at the same stage in the console life is due to a bloated launch. In comparison the 360 had a very slow first year due to manufacturing limitations. I believe it was speculated that the 360 overall launch aligned sales will pass the Xbox One sometime this year.

Guy you can't use this same excuse, there wee times in between launch XO was over the 360, it's been almost 3 years now how long are you going to hold on to that claim?

Not only that, the X360 overshipped to reach 10 million shipped not far from the XO in the same time frame if I'm not mistaken

 

[Fallout-with-swords]

OP has some rose tinted glasses, Not sure why they are making it sound like you could buy a physical game "change" it to digital and then trade in the physical game?

And they never detailed the family plan thing until after their 180, which honestly came off as super petty, and made it seem like the rumours of it being timed were probably true. Why wouldn't they explain that upfront if it was going to be so liberal, it seemed pretty likely there was a catch that they were no longer on the hook to explain.

 

[Voost Kain]

OP has some rose tinted glasses, Not sure why they are making it sound like you could buy a physical game "change" it to digital and then trade in the physical game?

And they never detailed the family plan thing until after their 180, which honestly came off as super petty, and made it seem like the rumours of it being timed were probably true. Why wouldn't they explain that upfront if it was going to be so liberal, it seemed pretty like there was a catch that they were no longer on the hook to explain.

I recall them explaining it before the 180.

I also think any miscommunications was legitly because staff didn't communicate with staff which is why guys like MJ nelson, who heard from other staff, thought removing Kinect or turning off the internet requirement was impossible.

 

[Ktsdaddy]

I still hope for this system. I was pissed they changed it because people cried about always online. I am hoping at E3 they release at least a game share plan just like steam has.

 

[Swass]

I am pretty sure family sharing was before E3. Which btw gad nothing but fames and little info.

After googling, you are correct it was before E3, the family share was announced on June 6th on Xbox Wire here. However the Xbox One reveal happened on May 21st with leaks about the policies happening well before the reveal as far back as April with the Adam Orth "deal with it." Backlash was already in full effect by June 6th, though official policies weren't released until the Friday before Microsoft's Monday morning E3 presser.

 

[DasPenguin]

What? There brand is fine. The thing sold over 3 million by the end of 2013. The things selling more than the 360. Likely over 20 million, and the near 2:1 has more to do with the PS4s much faster sales in Europe other wise it'd likely be 1.5 or less.

Yes you know... Europe is part of the world as well. And it has more to with Xbox One selling absolutely nothing in Europe. From a personal experience, it was difficult to find a 360 well after a launch here in Northern Europe, but you need to walk around the stacks of Xbox Ones that were available when it finally reached us second tier folk.

And holding on to the "it's selling better than the 360" is gonna hurt real soon. It's not selling in Europe. At all. U.S. Sales are now mediocre at best. 360 was selling like crazy even in Europe after a few years. That train is slowing down. Or if you believe that One will sell as much as 360 did, you have to be crazy.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

I recall them explaining it before the 180.

I also think any miscommunications was legitly because staff didn't communicate with staff which is why guys like MJ nelson, who heard from other staff, thought removing Kinect or turning off the internet requirement was impossible.

They didn't explain it. Major Nelson was just asked a bunch of questions about it when the cboat claimed that the sharing was essentially a timed demo and he responded by saying he would make a blog post later detailing the feature. We never saw that post because of the 180.

 

[quickwhips]

I would have still bought one. I don't care if it sold millions or not. Just keep giving me the games I want.

 

[Humdinger]

OP has lots of misinformation and leaves out some very fundamental decisions (e.g., mandatory Kinect) which were highly unpopular. MS's original vision was a huge mistake. Had they kept going in that direction, they would be doing Wii U numbers or lower. They did a frantic 180 almost immediately, because they knew how badly they'd screwed it up.

 

[Woo-Fu]

It's not underpowered though with the Infinite Power Of The Cloud though, right?

The Cloud is platform-agnostic.

I'm not sure it would have been significantly worse if they stuck with the plan. I think simply announcing their original intentions did irreparable damage to their relationship with console fans.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Wii U would be beating it.

No amount of nerdsplaining was going to make this an attractive option.

 

[univbee]

You don't have a smartphone that can tether? Come on now, it's 2016. Unless Xbox Live is down, everyone has a way to connect to the internet as a ONCE OFF.

There, I bolded what the actual problem is. It gets flakey often enough as-is, and this would have been compounded even further with millions of devices suddenly needing to constantly communicate with Microsoft's servers even for single player games.

To elaborate further, until fairly recently it wasn't uncommon for cell providers to flat-out block tethering functionality. It's also still fairly common for data plans to be like 250 megabytes a month-type numbers. Even the most generous mobile data plans in the 6-10 gig range (which for some people even in the U.S. are the ONLY viable internet option at all) are a problem when, say, you bring Halo 5 on disc home and find out it has a 35.5 gig patch to download now.

 

[Voost Kain]

Yes you know... Europe is part of the world as well.

All you had to do is read the whole post. It was only a few sentences.

Btw, in some euro countries, like Germany, apparently, the one is also ahead of the 360 but again, I mentioned Europe in the post you wuoted.

 

[Voost Kain]

They didn't explain it. Major Nelson was just asked a bunch of questions about it when the cboat claimed that the sharing was essentially a timed demo and he responded by saying he would make a blog post later detailing the feature. We never saw that post because of the 180.

Yes I recall them explaining it quite well along with the play on someone else's console for an hour or something.

 

[univbee]

All you had to do is read the whole post. It was only a few sentences.

Btw, in some euro countries, like Germany, apparently, the one is also ahead of the 360 but again, I mentioned Europe in the post you wuoted.

Although the German numbers aren't fantastic, it's worth keeping in mind that Germany was the main import source for people in the "Tier 2" countries back when it hadn't formally launched there yet; Scandinavian countries, Poland, those kinds of places, the people who bought them in those countries pre-official launch (the year following the main Nov 2013 launch) were on paper sourcing them from Germany most often.

 

[Suzushiiro]

Yeah, as others have said, there's nothing stopping MS from implementing the good things that were allegedly going to make the DRM worth it for digital games. Hell, even the PS4 has a variant of the family sharing thing with share play. The fact that they haven't says a lot about how real/good those things were going to be.

Keep in mind that people not as in the loop as we are thinking that the DRM was still a thing- despite the fact that it was only officially going to be the plan for less than a month- was arguably one of the things that caused the XBone to lose to the PS4 so badly in the first place. If they had actually gone through with it, and dealt with the bad PR of people not being able to access overloaded servers on day one to verify their consoles and (worse) people not knowing about the DRM until after putting down $500 on the system, it would probably have been the outright destruction of the XBox brand. Like, I'd be shocked if they managed to out-sell the Wii U in that scenario.

As is that period from May 21st to June 19th, 2013 is a fascinating case study in how quickly and easily you can completely tank a brand, from the "TV TV TV" reveal to the DRM to the (mostly true) rumors of it being underpowered and difficult to work with to the $500 price tag to Mattrick's "we have a system for you too, it's called the Xbox 360" line. They went from the front-runner to a distant second in less than a month, and have yet to really recover.

 

[dave_d]

Family Sharing would have allowed up to 10 members(household or not) to have access to the entire game library of the main account. On any designated Xbox One(any of the 10 selected), as long as the main account is logged in, up to 10 Xbox Ones could access the entire library at once. The main account holder could still access any of their games and also play online with anyone of the designated members. You could literally buy one copy of a game and share it with up to 10 people in your country. Anyone outside of your country would then be subject to the loaning policy.

I was telling my brother about the family sharing thing that they were originally going to do. He thought it was too bad since he probably would have gotten an XboxOne since we borrow each others games all the time.

 

[aristotle]

Yes I recall them explaining it quite well along with the play on someone else's console for an hour or something.

You really need to save some of the Kool-Aid for the rest of them.

You "recall" alot. Where's your proof with dates other than your memory?

 

[TheSpoiler]

You really need to save some of the Kool-Aid for the rest of them.

You "recall" alot. Where's your proof with dates other than your memory?

 

[RandyRaceCar]

You know I fail to see what's anti-consumer, literally everything they did was done on PC, or was already done on consoles digitally. They just combined it all.

I mean if they just said vaguely that it was basically jsut like Steam/origin, without saying anything else and having people make stuff up, it likely would have blasted off.

The only thing arguably wrong was always online.

 

[SteamyPunk]

There, I bolded what the actual problem is. It gets flakey often enough as-is, and this would have been compounded even further with millions of devices suddenly needing to constantly communicate with Microsoft's servers even for single player games.

And imagine how many "lizard squads" would be constantly trying to take down Live if this draconian DRM would have been in effect...

I don't get why some people say "I have good internet, I don't care." That's only one part of the system. Your great internet won't save you if Live is down.

 

[Bastables]

You know I fail to see what's anti-consumer, literally everything they did was done on PC, or was already done on consoles digitally. They just combined it all.

I mean if they just said vaguely that it was basically jsut like Steam/origin, without saying anything else and having people make stuff up, it likely would have blasted off.

The only thing arguably wrong was always online.

So if they just lied/obfuscated about their plans to the consumers, things would have worked out? This lieing to consumers would also not have been anti consumer as it could have been construed as "PC-like".

 

[RandyRaceCar]

So if they just lied/obfuscated about their plans to the consumers, things would have worked out? This lieing to consumers would also not have been anti consumer as it could have been construed as "PC-like".

Well it isn't really lying. it's being vague, is was a combination of digital and steam.

That is what it actually was. but they tried to sell it up to people, and they wanted to fight off some of the rumors instead of just saying one thing and making it obvious most people that were talking were speculating.

The only part they needed to mention and remove were the plus sides and the always online.

 

[LOLCats]

It be worse off than wii u.

 

[Cthulhu_Steev]

You really need to save some of the Kool-Aid for the rest of them.

You "recall" alot. Where's your proof with dates other than your memory?

At least he'll never forget the day he got juniored on gaf.

 

[Bastables]

Well it isn't really lying. it's being vague, is was a combination of digital and steam.

Bullshit is bullshit, if you think that Microsoft needs to polish the turd by lieing and being vague, you are literarily arguing for them to be anti consumer. Always on is not a feature of steam, steam will not brick my entire PC.

 

[RandyRaceCar]

Bullshit is bullshit, if you think that Microsoft needs to polish the turd by lieing and being vague, you are literarily arguing for them to be anti consumer. Always on is not a feature of steam, steam will not brick my entire PC.

Again, what I just said isn't a lie. You calling it one doesn't make it one.

 

[TheSpoiler]

Again, what I just said isn't a lie. You calling it one doesn't make it one.

You are playing semantics, but being vague is pretty anti consumer regardless.

 

[Resident_UA]

Once you install the game, you would no longer be required to use the disc to play. The disc would be "ripped" to your Xbox One and you could store the disc and avoid the usual wear and tear(adds resell value).

What resell value? Wasn't the idea that you will only be able to use the disk once and then the game would be tied to your account? (No used games, no rentals, etc)

 

[Matt]

No it wouldn't, they would have done $30 at a higher profit since they were originally charging a good deal more than production, and once sales went up as opinions changed that would have set them up for the next one to do better though there plans would cap how much they could grow world wide unlike now.

Yes it would have. Obviously that number would have been awful for MS.

 

[Barkley's Justice]

I feel like the market is large enough to accomodate a system like that, even if it were a hypothetical fourth console party.

But honestly? Despite the market being large enough, the gaming community is far too immature. This is the same community that gave way to Gamergate, that voted EA "Worst Company in the World" on multiple occasions, that downvotes Youtube videos for "Reason"...and somehow thinks that it matters.

Gamers just can't flat-out handle it. Maybe the next generation that were raised on digital mobile games...I dunno...

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

There, I bolded what the actual problem is. It gets flakey often enough as-is, and this would have been compounded even further with millions of devices suddenly needing to constantly communicate with Microsoft's servers even for single player games.

To elaborate further, until fairly recently it wasn't uncommon for cell providers to flat-out block tethering functionality. It's also still fairly common for data plans to be like 250 megabytes a month-type numbers. Even the most generous mobile data plans in the 6-10 gig range (which for some people even in the U.S. are the ONLY viable internet option at all) are a problem when, say, you bring Halo 5 on disc home and find out it has a 35.5 gig patch to download now.

I'm not suggesting you tether for online play and downloads. Just for the the "check in", whch to this day, I wonder if the home console actually would have needed.

 

[RandyRaceCar]

You are playing semantics, but being vague is pretty anti consumer regardless.

No it's not. They would list the details later, they clearly tried to tackle more at the wrong time, and even their own staff wasn't notified, be prepared.

For before they listed out the details they could have been vague, but describing the main changes (like always online, trade-ins, and the benefits.) and then once everything was ready to be explained and prepared and everyone or msot people at MS knew what was going on then boom.

They tried to do too much to early, and it seems that also some people got conflicting information. Which may be why Xbox Support twitters went from answering questions to saying there isn't any information yet please wait for more details.

 

[Philippo]

1984

Spoiler

The Game

.

 

[RandyRaceCar]

What resell value? Wasn't the idea that you will only be able to use the disk once and then the game would be tied to your account? (No used games, no rentals, etc)

There was used games contrary to popular belief. it was just controlled. but MS has people saying the wrong stuff, which is why the used game thing was considered ZERO.

 

[Matt]

I'm not suggesting you tether for online play and downloads. Just for the the "check in", whch to this day, I wonder if the home console actually would have needed.

Don't wonder.

 

[Gamezone]

I still hope for this system. I was pissed they changed it because people cried about always online. I am hoping at E3 they release at least a game share plan just like steam has.

It wasn't the always online alone, but the entire crappy packet.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I feel like the market is large enough to accomodate a system like that, even if it were a hypothetical fourth console party.

But honestly? Despite the market being large enough, the gaming community is far too immature. This is the same community that gave way to Gamergate, that voted EA "Worst Company in the World" on multiple occasions, that downvotes Youtube videos for "Reason"...and somehow thinks that it matters.

Gamers just can't flat-out handle it. Maybe the next generation that were raised on digital mobile games...I dunno...

The old Digital Choice Switcheroo fallacy, but now with GG as explanation!

Lord give me strength...

 

[TheSpoiler]

No it's not. They would list the details later, they clearly tried to tackle more at the wrong time, and even their own staff wasn't notified, be prepared.

For before they listed out the details they could have been vague, but describing the main changes (like always online, trade-ins, and the benefits.) and then once everything was ready to be explained and prepared and everyone or msot people at MS knew what was going on then boom.

They tried to do too much to early, and it seems that also some people got conflicting information. Which may be why Xbox Support twitters went from answering questions to saying there isn't any information yet please wait for more details.

Much of the confusion came from the revisionist history seen here and MS flipflopping around after the fact. There are straight up terrible details that were anti consumer (like being online all the time) that aren't going to magically change the minds of people who don't like that shit, because of various factors.

I feel like the market is large enough to accomodate a system like that, even if it were a hypothetical fourth console party.

But honestly? Despite the market being large enough, the gaming community is far too immature. This is the same community that gave way to Gamergate, that voted EA "Worst Company in the World" on multiple occasions, that downvotes Youtube videos for "Reason"...and somehow thinks that it matters.

Gamers just can't flat-out handle it. Maybe the next generation that were raised on digital mobile games...I dunno...

Yeah, you don't. That post was a mess.

 

[Swass]

There was used games contrary to popular belief. it was just controlled. but MS has people saying the wrong stuff, which is why the used game thing was considered ZERO.

The used games idea that they proposed would have been far worse for those reselling games than what gamestop currently offers and would have eliminated selling on ebay, amazon, craigslist, to a co worker, or any exchange not governed by Microsoft.

If you want any idea of what Microsoft thinks you should be able to get out of a digital license, look no further than their survey from a month or 2 ago where they asked if you would sell back you games for 10% of their value.

Because Microsoft controlled the point of sale for trade ins and resell they could set the trade in price as well as the resell price.. it would have been a disaster..

Let's also not forget renting would not exist, basically getting games from Redbox and GameFly would be a thing of the past.. and if you buy games on the cheap from either of these companies that would also not exist either.

 

[Gamezone]

Well it isn't really lying. it's being vague, is was a combination of digital and steam.

That is what it actually was. but they tried to sell it up to people, and they wanted to fight off some of the rumors instead of just saying one thing and making it obvious most people that were talking were speculating.

The only part they needed to mention and remove were the plus sides and the always online.

It wasn't like Steam at all. People like Steam because it provides them with benefits. Insane deals, and there is no always online that bricks their system if Steam isn't working.

Jim Sterling explained this very well.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7586-Why-PC-Gaming-Gets-Away-With-It

 

[Curufinwe]

Cut their current sales in half. Their plans were very unpopular with the mass market.

 

[Cranster]

There was used games contrary to popular belief. it was just controlled. but MS has people saying the wrong stuff, which is why the used game thing was considered ZERO.

Because they obviously had no clue what they were doing, let alone they were obviously making stuff up as they went along because of the hate they were getting.

The original vision for the Xbox One was horse shit, especially since at that point I was an Xbox customer for 10 years.

 

[Curufinwe]

Guy you can't use this same excuse, there wee times in between launch XO was over the 360, it's been almost 3 years now how long are you going to hold on to that claim?

Not only that, the X360 overshipped to reach 10 million shipped not far from the XO in the same time frame if I'm not mistaken

When are we going to get actual sales numbers for the Xbone?

How can you claim it's ahead of the 360 when MS are hiding how many units have been sold?

 

[Pyramid head]

There was used games contrary to popular belief. it was just controlled. but MS has people saying the wrong stuff, which is why the used game thing was considered ZERO.

The "wrong stuff" MS was coming out with sounded like a convoluted and unworkable load of old bollocks, much like every other messaging disaster they were dribbling out over that period.

 

[Arklite]

No it's not. They would list the details later, they clearly tried to tackle more at the wrong time, and even their own staff wasn't notified, be prepared.

For before they listed out the details they could have been vague, but describing the main changes (like always online, trade-ins, and the benefits.) and then once everything was ready to be explained and prepared and everyone or msot people at MS knew what was going on then boom.

They tried to do too much to early, and it seems that also some people got conflicting information. Which may be why Xbox Support twitters went from answering questions to saying there isn't any information yet please wait for more details.

You're going out of your way to make excuses for a company's own badly thought out and undercooked ideas, like they had some brilliant and solid plans that they couldn't put into words. Nothing seemed concrete because once the PR side had to deal with promoting the DRM dream machine that no one wanted all they could do is try to stall or lie or deflect with other non-existent promises until the whole thing crumbled onto itself as they backtracked.

 

[Gamezone]

There was used games contrary to popular belief. it was just controlled. but MS has people saying the wrong stuff, which is why the used game thing was considered ZERO.

The family sharing stuff was something they made up along the way because of the hate they were getting. It was never their plan when they announced the system.

 

[RandyRaceCar]

Much of the confusion came from the revisionist history seen here and MS flipflopping around after the fact. There are straight up terrible details that were anti consumer (like being online all the time) that aren't going to magically change the minds of people who don't like that shit, because of various factors.



Yeah, you don't. That post was a mess.

That was pretty much it though, almost every other issue that was flying around from what I saw was false, or had some truth to it but was wrong in how the information was sent out.