The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

Thorne_sl said:

I really don't see how I was defending anything, but ok. Seems no one wants to wait and see what it might offer.

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The downsides to a console being online only are so huge that I fail to see how its even possible that the benefits would be worth it. In fact, can anyone come up with a list of possible benefits? I can't even think of one that would benefit the consumer.

In a normal situation where I could see some pro's and con's I would agree that freaking out isn't useful. However, this just seems so one-sided and only motivated by anti-piracy and killing off the resale of games.

And if it's completely one sided and offers no benefits then I don't see it selling worth a damn. Could be cool, could suck ass. I will at least wait to see what they say.

Chanur_sl said:

Well this year will be my first Sony product since the PS3 released. Way to go Microsoft!

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This will be my first Sony product... EVER (Sega Genesis, N64, Xbox, 360)

Yeah, but if the xbox totally bombs because of a stupid decision on this, that hurts gamers everywhere. We really don't want to have a console monopoly, at least I personally dont think that would be a good thing.

I actually don't see the problem with a console monopoly. It just means that more developers will focus on the one system instead of having to develop for both. As long as the next generation remains competitive afterward, and Microsoft isn't going to bomb so bad they give up on their gaming division all-together, but maybe some humble pie will be good for them.

The PS2 was a pretty strong monopoly over the first xbox, but that brought us a good Xbox 360. Now that Microsoft has decided to squander their lead, we'll just switch over again.

Antarius_sl said:

I actually don't see the problem with a console monopoly. It just means that more developers will focus on the one system instead of having to develop for both. As long as the next generation remains competitive afterward, and Microsoft isn't going to bomb so bad they give up on their gaming division all-together, but maybe some humble pie will be good for them.

The PS2 was a pretty strong monopoly over the first xbox, but that brought us a good Xbox 360. Now that Microsoft has decided to squander their lead, we'll just switch over again.

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"A monopoly (from Greek monos ????? (alone or single) + polein ?????? (to sell exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity "

this would mean that sony could price things however the fuck they wanted with no worry about losing customers to a competitor... a monopoly would suck

Will be interesting to see. If it truly is "Always online", I will be watching to see how that transfers to sales. PC gamers already have experience dealing with always online, and it hasn't once been a "Good" thing. Will be curious how the the console only gamers(and there are a lot of them) handle/think about it. If sales are drastically effected by it, curious if MS just rolls with it or removes it asap(I would assume a update could turn it off).

But yeah a monopoly would not be good.

khalid_sl said:

Yeah, but if the xbox totally bombs because of a stupid decision on this, that hurts gamers everywhere. We really don't want to have a console monopoly, at least I personally dont think that would be a good thing.

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Yeah, a monopoly would be the worst thing possible. The best situation would be all 3 being competitive with each other, but sadly that won't be the case so the best we can hope for is Microsoft and Sony being competitive.

And Thorne, waiting to see isstupid. If they're fishing for how the public feels for Always Online then the entire internet being vehemently against it is the best thing that consumers can do. Thankfully that's how people have responded in just about every media space and hopefully they take note of it. People are just about unanimously pissed off about it nearly everywhere you go and that's a great thing.

So yeah Thurrott said Nextbox would cost 500$, or 300$ for the subscription model.

Source if interested:http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536163

$300 for a sub model is insane. They need to release at $400 or lower for the non-sub model. I think Paul is wrong on those prices. It can't be that expensive. He is usually right though but I have a hard time believing those prices.

Yeah, those prices are dumb. A 2 Year Contract model shouldn't be anymore than $99.99 or people won't buy into it.

Sony's base model is probably going to be $399.99 to $429.99 and I doubt they're going to go with another SKU unless it includes game pack ins.

Araxen_sl said:

$300 for a sub model is insane. They need to release at $400 or lower for the non-sub model. I think Paul is wrong on those prices. It can't be that expensive. He is usually right though but I have a hard time believing those prices.

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Adjusting for inflation:

The "Good" 360 (with a hard drive) launched at ~$475. (Without any silly Kinect camera.) It should overtake the Wii for #1 this gen in the US.

The PS2 launched at ~$400, and there was a lot less to a system back then (no hard drive to start). It was #1 last gen.

The PS1 launched at ~$455, and there was even less to it. It was #1 its gen.

(Disclaimer: Yes, prices on previous generations dropped much faster than the current gen. But that is, in part, because there's more to these systems now.)

Sure, Sony's made statements that their system can't be as expensive as the last one, but that better PS3 went for almost $700 inflation adjusted dollars. It will not surprise me if we see $400/$500 or $450/$500 at launch. (Especially for the PS4. The RAM in particular isn't cheap. And again, that would be $200 adjusted dollars cheaper than last gen.)

Is it possible that the Xbox 720 launches like a tablet does, and has Wifi/network connections, but also a 4G/3G service? That would tie it into a subscription service just like a cell phone, allowing them to actually market a ~$600 piece of hardware and get it in consumers hands for $199 or less. I know there has been a lot of talk about a "subscription" discounted XBOX this time around, why couldn't that include a data plan? That would be the end of people complaining about "always on". When was the last time you were in someones home or a hotel room or whatever that didn't have Wifi or a 3G/4G signal?

Consumers are already very used to the business model used by cell phone companies, I don't see why Microsoft couldn't piggyback on that idea. Hell, most people are used to purchasing a new $500-$700 phone every year or two because of their carrier's upgrade/subsidized pricing, I don't see why a game console couldn't be in the same price range.

You pay $500-$700 for the console and it works just like the XBOX 360 does now. Stick it on your home wifi/network and play games. OR, pay $199 after committing to a 2-year contract that also gives you 3g/4g data access for your console to cover you in the times that wifi/ethernet isn't available(just like a phone)

Alternately, there could be a version of the console, the "always online" version of the console that functions much like a tablet. Has no cd/dvd/bluray drive, you download all games via a steam-like service. Your controllers interact with the tablet/console via bluetooth or whatever, and its easy enough to stick a mini HDMI out port or whatever else on it for plugging in your TV. Would be small and easily portable and have 3g/4g access for gaming wherever you go (car TV, hotel room, whatever). I'm not sure if we're quite to the point yet that the hardware specs of an XBOX 720 could fit inside a tablet-sized device, but I bet we're damn close. How do todays top-end tablets compare in horsepower to the PS3 and XBOX 360? I bet they're damn close, and tablet tech is moving forward a LOT faster than console tech is.

Sean_sl said:

Yeah, a monopoly would be the worst thing possible. The best situation would be all 3 being competitive with each other, but sadly that won't be the case so the best we can hope for is Microsoft and Sony being competitive.

And Thorne, waiting to see isstupid. If they're fishing for how the public feels for Always Online then the entire internet being vehemently against it is the best thing that consumers can do. Thankfully that's how people have responded in just about every media space and hopefully they take note of it. People are just about unanimously pissed off about it nearly everywhere you go and that's a great thing.

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I absolutely understand what you are saying. But I'm sure this shit has been planned out to the dime for 5 or more years now, I doubt any amount of outrage is going to change anything. This is going to be a very interesting generation. I honestly think the type of gaming we have been doing this generation can't be sustained. Budgets are going higher and higher, one release that doesn't sell 5 mil copies puts studious out of business. Something has to change. I just hope it doesn't completely suck for us gamers when it does.

I think budgets are going to belessof an issue this next generation. The X720 and PS4 being X86 architecture is an absolutely huge boon to game developers. That is such a ridiculously massive cost cutter for multiplatform development. Development costs for the X360 and PS3 titles have been so huge due to their extremely custom architecture and trying to make games look better and better on their extremely bottle-necked bandwidths and pipelines. They spend aninsaneamount of time and money trying to make current games work on those machines and QAing all the different hardware platforms. The PS4's extremely high bandwidth 8GB GDDR5 RAM plus X86 CPU are going to alleviate a lot of these problems that drive development costs up. From what rumors we know the X720 will hopefully have a similar effect with their GDDR3 RAM that's paired with an EDRAM chip that makes up for a lot of the bandwidth discrepancy. Though the X720 GPU is rumored to be a lot less powerful.

Another good note is that Sony is throwing major support behind smaller developers and indie developers with letting them set their own pricing on digital distribution and being highly supportive with development tools and letting people have very low level (not as API restricted), unrestricted access to the hardware in the PS4. Sadly, developer relations with Microsoft are currently dogshit and I think that's really going to bite them in the ass. Plus, they're reportedly having much more closed off hardware access that's very API restricted that's likely to cause at least a bit of performance loss in multiplatform games (especially with a less powerful GPU). Hopefully Microsoft's less powerful machine (if it's true) doesn't hinder multiplatform development too much and drive up costs a lot.

I think that games will be the biggest factor in this next generation and that Sony will have them in spades. Sony has the strongest first party studio support, even stronger than Nintendo at this point imo. They've really put a lot of work into building those development teams up and they are going to shine. Sony's also getting a ton of support from the indie developers who are saying that Microsoft is nothing but frustrating to work with.

Sadly, Microsoft has really let their third party support fall into the shitter and that was what made them successful in the first place. I didn't buy an X360 at launch. I bought my X360 when I saw a bunch of games were coming out for it and no where else and I absolutely had to have them. I bought mine when I saw Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were being released. I got them, and then I got Tales of Vesperia, the single best RPG of this generation (and probably my hands down #1 game of the entire thing). I also got other great exclusives like Ace Combat and a bunch of mid-tier Square RPGs, and quite a few other exclusives. Not to mention Xbox Live Arcade was amazing for quite a while. The non-exclusive third-party games also ran better on the X360 for quite a while. There was no question in my mind that the X360 was a must have system for the first half of its life.

Now Microsoft has nothing but Halo, Gears, and Forza. They haven't had any real third party exclusives foryearsat this point and they've totally alienated the smaller developers who built up XBLA and made it a bitch to even find the Indie and XBLA section in the dashboard. I really do not see how they're going to sell a brand new, expensive console on their incredibly weak first party offerings, a complete lack of major third party exclusive title support (outside of 30 day exclusives on CoD Map packs), and the small/indie dev scene throwing their hands up in the air in pure frustration. Not to mention their console reportedly being the weaker of the two hardware wise.

Hell, at this point I could see myself buying a WiiU as my second console choice of the next generation if Nintendo gets their act together and starts showing us real games (and not Wind Waker HD Remakes). Sony is without question my #1 choice in the coming generation just based on the library that Iknowthey will have.

Thorne_sl said:

And if it's completely one sided and offers no benefits then I don't see it selling worth a damn. Could be cool, could suck ass. I will at least wait to see what they say.

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It's not like we haven't had any examples of "always on" that haven't bombed or been totally fucked. In fact, the ones that we have had, are quite famous for being god awful. (Diablo 3 and SimCity.)

So you say, we'll wait and see, could be cool, could suck ass. But this is like being fed shit previously, understanding it's shit...then they say, hey here's some more shit and you're gullible enough to think it won't taste the same.

People aren't crying wolf; we already understand the non-benefits and consequences of an always-on game/system - these are educated responses to the news. We also can understand why a company would do it, and it certainly is not for anyone's benefit but Microsoft's. Trying to spin it like it's GOOD for the consumer is adding insult to injury.

It's always interesting when I mention the new xbox to someone and mention the always-on; it's *always* a disgusted response.

Now, I always used to recommend the xbox to people who wanted the online experience - that won't change. If ALL you do is go online for multiplayer then you're going to go for the xbox still - but even the people who are "x-bros" don't want to always be on. Or at the very least, they want the option to be able to just chill without being online.

It's just such a disaster.

I guess I'll put it like this. Every game you now buy for the xbox, whether you talk to another person or not, will only let you play on someone else's time. Xbox servers having connectivity issues? Oops. Your internet connection having issues? Oops. Spend 60 dollars to look at a case on a shelf because your internet connection is down? Yea.

So would always-on be worth it if we got an experience like Steam on PC? Downloadable launch-day games that pre-load ahead of time, crazy sales, huge indie community, etc. Steam is basically "always on" and us PC gamers praise it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I'm no Microsoft fanboy, I've owned every Playstation and Xbox to date(and every Sega machine and many more in my 30-ish years of gaming), I just don't see any point in condemning a product before anyone even knows ANY details whatsoever. Bunch of chicken littles swearing that this is the end of the Xbox and such before we even know anything concretely.

joeboo_sl said:

So would always-on be worth it if we got an experience like Steam on PC? Downloadable launch-day games that pre-load ahead of time, crazy sales, huge indie community, etc. Steam is basically "always on" and us PC gamers praise it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

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Except we know this won't happen, Indie devs have flat out said that Sony is supporting them and that they don't like working with Microsoft at all and find it to be extremely frustrating. There's no way that the X720 is going to have a huge indie community.

joeboo_sl said:

So would always-on be worth it if we got an experience like Steam on PC? Downloadable launch-day games that pre-load ahead of time, crazy sales, huge indie community, etc. Steam is basically "always on" and us PC gamers praise it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I'm no Microsoft fanboy, I've owned every Playstation and Xbox to date(and every Sega machine and many more in my 30-ish years of gaming), I just don't see any point in condemning a product before anyone even knows ANY details whatsoever. Bunch of chicken littles swearing that this is the end of the Xbox and such before we even know anything concretely.

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Also, a lot of games will still let you load them even if you are offline. There are a few that won't, but the majority of them can be launched from their own icon without the steam client in the event of an outage.

The way microsoft is doing things, that won't even be an *option*. Hell, even Origin has retarded issues - not online? It can't tell if you actually have DLC for specific games and thus, you can't play the DLC while offline.

I'd really like that to NOT be the majority of games.