Offiical XBox (3) Launch Thread

[Bob The Skutter]

Ah but they haven't dropped support for the Wii U. They admitted last week they do have some games in development for it. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/408381/ea-is-developing-games-for-wii-u-says-cfo/

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Seems EA thinks sitting on the couch with a joypad is a more realistic method than standing swing a virtual golf stick at a virtual ball.

Oh well their loss, although it is EA, so i suspect a Wii-U version to become avalible soon after the two main consoles once Nintendo allow them to stick £100 of microtransactions on their eStore for said game. lol

 

[137th Gebirg]

I agree about the HD, if it's going to install to the HD. I would have thought a 2TB HD would be needed. As you say with DLC, save files, if they want it to be a media centre/function perhaps as some sort of DVR that sapce will soon disappear,

Nah. I bet this is laying the groundwork for some bullshit pay-for-play cloud service. Not enough room? Buy cloud space for an additional $30 per month so you can play ALL the games you want. Mark my words - it's coming.

 

[ATimson]

I agree about the HD, if it's going to install to the HD. I would have thought a 2TB HD would be needed. As you say with DLC, save files, if they want it to be a media centre/function perhaps as some sort of DVR that sapce will soon disappear,

Unlike the 360, it'll support USB hard drives, so upgrading later will be fairly painless.

 

[Sheep]

The other thing in all this, of course, is that game prices will increase with the release of a new system. If prices went down on the understanding that secondhand games would no longer be available then there might be something worthwhile in this idea. But they won't do that.

More than anything else, this is the information I'm waiting on.

IF PS4/XBone game prices decrease as a result of eliminating the second-hand games market and putting a big dent in piracy and games go on sale a lot more than they do now (like Steam), then this is cool with me. If Microsoft and Sony are planning on having more or less the same game pricing as the 360/PS3 did with all these additional restrictions in place, they can go fuck themselves and I'm proceeding to beef up my PC.

 

[FPAlpha]

I'd be very surprised if any of these companies would reduce prices of games to give the incresed profits back to the customer.

It is anathema to any company whose prime reason for existence is to maximize profits so i don't expect any significant (rather none at all) price decreases

 

[Sheep]

I'd be very surprised if any of these companies would reduce prices of games to give the incresed profits back to the customer.

It is anathema to any company whose prime reason for existence is to maximize profits so i don't expect any significant (rather none at all) price decreases

You're probably right about this. If this turns out to be the case, this lifelong console gamer is putting his money where his mouth is (something most people can't seem to do and will proceed to bitch about it instead) and not supporting this B.S. in any way.

 

[AlphaMan]

I agree about the HD, if it's going to install to the HD. I would have thought a 2TB HD would be needed. As you say with DLC, save files, if they want it to be a media centre/function perhaps as some sort of DVR that sapce will soon disappear,

Nah. I bet this is laying the groundwork for some bullshit pay-for-play cloud service. Not enough room? Buy cloud space for an additional $30 per month so you can play ALL the games you want. Mark my words - it's coming.

If Microsoft handles their cloud anything like Playstation handles theirs, it won't be all that. The only thing that's stored in the cloud is a list of software you have the right to download. A transactions list. I have about 30 games on my PS3 HDD right now. I have rights to about 100 more that I can download at any time. Same thing with iTunes.

 

[AlphaMan]

Rumor: PS4 Has Used Game DRM

http://kotaku.com/rumor-the-ps4-has-used-games-drm-509969406

 

[FPAlpha]

I'd be very surprised if any of these companies would reduce prices of games to give the incresed profits back to the customer.

It is anathema to any company whose prime reason for existence is to maximize profits so i don't expect any significant (rather none at all) price decreases

You're probably right about this. If this turns out to be the case, this lifelong console gamer is putting his money where his mouth is (something most people can't seem to do and will proceed to bitch about it instead) and not supporting this B.S. in any way.

What i said relates to all companies.. they won't give up profits if they don't have to. At best they'll do it for marketing purposes (and then make a big public deal about it so everyone notices) or simple market competition forces them to lower some profit to remain competitive.

With console gaming the market is pretty limited.. it's either Sony or MS and i guess neither of them will deviate much. Currently MS is in the spotlight due to the most recent unveal and a bit more information that got negative reaction. So far Sony has been pretty reserved in their information and i'd bet everything i have that Sony is paying very close attention to what MS does and how the public reacts.

However time is running out.. E3 is around the corner and production/design has to be nearly finished right now to allow enough production time and internation shipping so i guess Sony's hand will be forced soon. E3 will be very informative i believe, especially on the issue of used games.

 

[Rincewiend]

True, CD/DVD's are cheaper to mass pruduce than cartridges but they got the same pricetag...
And PS3 games pretty much cost the same now as PS1 games cost back then...

Nice article here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-spec-analysis-xbox-one

Very early on it was established that ESRAM is indeed incorporated into the Xbox One design - essentially a large, very fast cache of embedded memory attached to the GPU and CPU that helps to make up the bandwidth deficit inherent in using slower memory. So even without direct confirmation, we now knew that the 8GB of memory in Xbox One is indeed DDR3 as opposed to the bandwidth-rich GDDR5 found in the PlayStation 4 (and Wired's internal photography of the One confirms 2133MHz DDR3 Micron modules). Xbox One may well have a latency advantage over PS4 and power consumption will probably be lower, but GPU bandwidth - a key element in graphics performance - is indeed more limited on the Microsoft hardware.

In terms of the GPU hardware, hard information was difficult to come by, but one of the engineers did let slip with a significant stat - 768 operations per clock. We know that both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are based on Radeon GCN architecture and we also know that each compute unit is capable of 64 operations per clock. So, again through a process of extrapolation from the drip-feed of hard facts, the make-up of the One's GPU is confirmed - 12 compute units each capable of 64 ops/clock gives us the 768 total revealed by Microsoft and thus, by extension, the 1.2 teraflop graphics core. So that's another tick on the Durango leaked spec that has been transposed across to the final Xbox One architecture and the proof we need that PlayStation 4's 18 CU graphics core has 50 per cent more raw power than the GPU in the new Microsoft console. Now, bearing in mind that we fully expect PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to launch at similar price-points, how did this disparity come about?

The answer to that comes down to a specific gamble Sony made that Microsoft could not - the utilisation of a unified pool of GDDR5 memory. In the early days of PS4 development, only 2GB of this type of memory looked viable for a consumer-level device. As higher density modules became available, this was duly upgraded to 4GB. By the time of the reveal back in February, Sony had confidence that it could secure volume of 512MB modules and surprised everyone (even developers) by announcing that PS4 would ship with 8GB of unified GDDR5 RAM. The design of its surrounding architecture would not need to change throughout this process - one set of 16 GDDR5 chips would simply be swapped out for another.

 

[TheGodBen]

Ah but they haven't dropped support for the Wii U. They admitted last week they do have some games in development for it. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/408381/ea-is-developing-games-for-wii-u-says-cfo/

They did backtrack a little on that, but his statements there were still critical of the Wii U and strongly pushing the XBO and PS4 as the true future of gaming. Although I suppose that could just be his experience from last gen carrying over to this gen and not some sinister plot to make Nintendo look bad.

Rumor: PS4 Has Used Game DRM

http://kotaku.com/rumor-the-ps4-has-used-games-drm-509969406

Interestingly, there's now rumours that the backlash against the XBO is making Sony reconsider their rumoured anti-used games policy.

“The jist of it is that Sony is listening to the backlash that Microsoft (MS) is getting and they are basing decisions off of this,” he said. “I would assume MS is also, but I don’t know that for sure. But I can say, for sure, that the past week’s PR nightmare for MS has not been lost on Sony and they, in fact, do have a used game ‘solution’ working and have been going back and forth for months on whether to use it. This past week is pushing them strongly into ‘Yeah, let’s not use that.’ ”

In a separate post, he said, “I just heard on Friday that [the used games DRM] wasn’t [coming]. I didn’t want to come right out and post about it because leak-y individuals like myself are getting a bit too much attention. and I don’t care about myself, but I’m not really looking to get my friends into trouble. But I’ve confirmed it with a second person so I got dumb and posted it.”

Obviously that needs to be taken with two fistfuls of salt, but his sources within Sony have been correct in the past and several people on Neogaf have vouched for him.

He also claimed something very interesting in another post: While publishers like these anti-used games plans, they didn't pressure MS and Sony into using them. The drive to implement them was internal to MS and Sony themselves as they're the ones being hit most by used games (because they don't get licensing money from used games). If that's true, it would be easier for MS and Sony to back away from this DRM than we previously thought.

It would be embarrassing for EA though as they'd have to announce the glorious return of the online pass.

 

[throwback]

If this is the direction of the next generation, then people should buy PCs. I understand, already, that there limitations on games when someone plays on a PC.

So, what will set this next generation of consoles apart from all the other devices out there?

Video game sales are on the decline.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/video-game-sales-decline-yet-222002913.html

There is some hope out there that these new consoles will revitalize the industry. I don't know; if the game consoles don't distinguish themselves, this could be the last generation for a while. I have heard of people comparing what is happening now to what happen in the 1980s.

 

[MacLeod]

I wouldn't be suprised aby a fall in video games sales, with new consoles looming many gamers will be looking to upgrade to one of the new consoles later in the year along with some games. So it might be a case of they are saving up for it.

 

[PKerr]

Color me severely disappointed.
It's basically a spy box as it now ships with a Kinect 2.0 in every box that will NOT work unless the Kinnect is attached and on.

Microsoft has filed for patents that allows them to watch you and intend on using to gauge your reactions to movies, ads the games you play and so on, they claim they just want to personalize the system to you, yeah right..

Some of those patents allow them to use the Kinect to see how many people are sitting on your couch, if it's too many in their oppion they may charge you more money for the movie you rent.

http://kotaku.com/5958307/this-kinect-patent-is-terrifying-wants-to-charge-you-for-license-violation

They have also added 285,000 additional servers on top of the 15,000 they already have bringing their grand total to 300,00 servers.
They claim it's so you can save your game saves and they can give you updates via the virtual cloud, funny this is, all that works just fine now on the 15,000 servers they have in place now.

Microsoft has already been caught spying on private Skype conversations.

http://www.w3bsecurity.com/microsoft-caught-spying-on-private-skype-conversations/

These articles might be interesting to you too.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/microsoft-nsl-revelation/

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-spying-users-free

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...04".PGNR.&OS=DN/20120278904&RS=DN/20120278904

You can ask anyone that knows me, I LOVE MY XBOX but there is NO WAY on God's green earth I will be buying anything that allows anyone to tape me in my own living room.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

The other thing in all this, of course, is that game prices will increase with the release of a new system. If prices went down on the understanding that secondhand games would no longer be available then there might be something worthwhile in this idea. But they won't do that.

I actaully expect them to increase game prices and state the implementation and running costs of THIER new second hand games market has to be subsidized by new games hence the price increase in game prices.

And they are doing it all for us.

Anyway i am glad i am out of all that, the Wii-u is awesome, what about that Zombie U game, if it were any more intense i would be backed into a corner with a gun in my mouth and horders od Zombies just feet away screaming at me. lol

 

[throwback]

I was watching the Jimquistion on Escapist. He mentioned a fact that I didn't know. Gamestop makes about $2 dollars for every new game purchased. The other $58 goes to the game developers. Gamestop earns its profits from the used game market.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7370-When-The-Starscreams-Kill-Used-Games

I don't believe what I am hearing - if the used game market is killed, then the new game prices will go down. In fact, I believe the reverse will happen - the new game prices will go up - and this will create a smaller number of people who can play these games.

Greed and stupidity seem to go hand-in-hand.

 

[FPAlpha]

Color me severely disappointed.
It's basically a spy box as it now ships with a Kinect 2.0 in every box that will NOT work unless the Kinnect is attached and on.

That's about my biggest gripe.. i don't like being handled by companies where i'm a customer. I don't want to be forced to use features i don't want or need to use the whole item.

Why does the Kinect 2 (or at least its microphone) have to be on the whole time if i just want the XBO to play games? What about my total disinterest in the Minority Report style computer control and my total lack of ambition to control it via voice?

For me these are gadgets to wow friends at first but i believe they will not be this precise and effective as the marketing campaign makes them out to be so you will be stuck with a system that works 50-70% of the time whereas my non-motion/non-voice remote control works 99.99% of the time and i don't have to wave around like an idiot or speak to a machine (granted.. it's the holy grail of Science Fiction but this old fart just isn't used to talking to machines and issuing commands).

MS needs to come up with some really good news and convince me they won't use the technology in my living room to gather data. I simply don't trust any company to abide by common decency. Maybe they fear the backlash of using the Kinect 2 as a spy tool (because it will be revealed very quickly if it does that) but they may not be able to resist (and maybe give themselves the rights to do so in the EULA in some vastly hidden passage).

Sorry.. the more i hear about MS plans and the features of the XBO the less i'm interested.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I was watching the Jimquistion on Escapist. He mentioned a fact that I didn't know. Gamestop makes about $2 dollars for every new game purchased. The other $58 goes to the game developers. Gamestop earns its profits from the used game market.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7370-When-The-Starscreams-Kill-Used-Games

I don't believe what I am hearing - if the used game market is killed, then the new game prices will go down. In fact, I believe the reverse will happen - the new game prices will go up - and this will create a smaller number of people who can play these games.

Greed and stupidity seem to go hand-in-hand.

Remember the promise that digital delivered content would stop piracy and second hand games, and cut the middle man out, and those saving would make their way to the consumer.

 

[AlphaMan]

Xbox advertisement:

"From the people who brought you the Red Ring of Death... Comes... The Always On Xbox One!! What could possibly go wrong?"

I just saw this on Kotaku... Microsoft is tinkering with the idea of giving acheivements for watching TV. Maybe it's just me, but I'm hugely opposed to this idea. When I got back into gaming, the idea of trophies and acheivements really appealed to me. Playstation Trophies moreso. This little tidbit tells me a lot about the people I meet online. Are you a Call of Duty/Madden NFL weekend warrior? Do you like old school platformers and RPGs? Or are you an Action Adventure junkie? By looking at someone's acheivements, I can pretty much tell. By giving away acheivements to people for watching TV... Not only is it pointless, but it mucks up the entire games acheivements innovation... Of which Microsoft is the inventor of!! The idea of it is kind of repulsive!!

http://kotaku.com/microsoft-thinking-about-giving-you-achievements-for-wa-509961989