Billy Idol
Legend
You know that with this desire you have here, you basically want the games industry to crash.
And I am 100% certain that this is not how it would have worked.
Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox
- Thread starter BRiT
- Start date
You know that with this desire you have here, you basically want the games industry to crash.
And I am 100% certain that this is not how it would have worked.
Luckily you don't run the business talk about isolating the whole lower income population. Your opinion just isn't reality.
I'am no longer in a situation like that, own two homes and multiple vehicles, but I've been there before....
I think people don't want to think about what the landscape will look like in 4 or 5 years from now, and how this system is much more palatable in an all-digital world. Consumers, specifically Americans, are very much part of an instant gratification culture and resistant to change. Add to that the sensational and inflammatory journalism, and this negative press started to spill over the mainstream, which is a problem. It started to snowball on them to a point where they couldnt dig out from under it. I think they expected for their impressive gmae lineup would quell the noise they were still completely overshadowed by this. It probably impacted preorders, there were rumors of gamestop managers actively pushing PS4, it really was a mess.
But agreed on your point, MS' marketing wasn't great. They could have branded and highlighted the best features of what they were trying to do.
If their system is awesome, let them implement it for DD games first. Then if that really works, demand for selling games on disc with the option to activate a DD version will show up and you can accomodate that easily enough, without having to burn any bridges that currently still have a lot of people on them.
@Hollow: I'm Maastricht on Neogaf. Come there often enough.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Bingo!
Yeah I guess so - people do tend to want to resist change and have the expectancy "I'm used to having that feature, so I expect it from my next one as well".
In the end, the DRM decision was a trade-off - the potential that every console needs to be online to some extend offers some features or potential that otherwise it could not, but with it, comes also a few drawbacks. I was actively against it, until I found out that they were allowing game-sharing in a limited sense and I thought to myself "that actually sounds quite nice". Though I still think that the idea that a console that hasn't checked-in within 24 hours is not usable anymore, is a big drawback, especially when you are promoting it as *the* device in your livingroom. Instead of backtracking completely, I guess viewing myself as a Microsoft supporter, I would have hoped there is a better solution that allows the potential through online-DRM, but does not force you to have your console checkin every 24 hours. Perhaps limit certain features or something.
I guess they can still do that, but the way this is being communicated/marketed is again leaving a lot of room to speculate and misjudge.
If this gen lasts more than five years, I'll be blown away. With people demanding the industry stays pretty much status quo in every respect, including distribution, offline play and not wanting Eye or Kinect in the box, they're pretty much guaranteeing all we'll get is the same games with better graphics. "We want innovation, but not any of the things that enable it!"
What is the value of buying a PS4 over a PC, with the exception of some exclusive games? There isn't one. We saw last gen that multiplatforms are more often than not the best games, and the best sellers.
What is the value of buying a Xbox One over a PC with the exception of Kinect and some exclusives? The only unique thing they have going is Kinect. That's it. Kinect at least enables some things that your PC won't do. Some exclusives too, but same applies from PS4.
The cost of getting a reasonable gaming PC is going to drop. In two or three years, if I didn't have an Xbox One or PS4 already, why would I buy one instead of getting a new PC with whatever comes after Intel's Haswell, or a tablet, Apple TV or whatever? Apple, Valve and some of the indies are going to make a killing. Microsoft, Sony and the traditional console market is going to face tough times.
What is the value of buying a PS4 over a PC, with the exception of some exclusive games? There isn't one. We saw last gen that multiplatforms are more often than not the best games, and the best sellers.
What is the value of buying a Xbox One over a PC with the exception of Kinect and some exclusives? The only unique thing they have going is Kinect. That's it. Kinect at least enables some things that your PC won't do. Some exclusives too, but same applies from PS4.
The cost of getting a reasonable gaming PC is going to drop. In two or three years, if I didn't have an Xbox One or PS4 already, why would I buy one instead of getting a new PC with whatever comes after Intel's Haswell, or a tablet, Apple TV or whatever? Apple, Valve and some of the indies are going to make a killing. Microsoft, Sony and the traditional console market is going to face tough times.
How is checking in every 24hrs innovation? Sounds more like snooping. What's next a self destruction chip in my gaming console because you don't like something I did. When I buy something it is my property and I don't need someone to control its use once I purchase it.
Console gaming hasn't changed much in 20 years, why should another generation of new hardware change it now? Games get more complicated, realistic, larger and look better, that is why new consoles are released, that is why people buy $500 GPUs yet still play games with a KB&M. Things evolve slowing, technology rarely has large discontinuous jumps. After all we are talking about sitting in front of a fixed screens with hand held input devices. Until we get Holodecks, I don't see this changing much in the near future (ignore limited uses of voice and hand waving).
PS4 was to be the last of the old generation of Consoles. It is hopefully the last of its kind.
Xbox one represented a new entertainment console which included gaming at its core but made everything in your digital entertainment life available to you anyway YOU wanted it. Voice, motion, controller, tablet, phone.
The idea was to colocate your entertainment in single unifed space so that access was one button press, wave or word away.
The old console mentality of having gaming as a wholly separate disconnected part of your entertainment activities is very Blackberry like.
Xbox one represented a new entertainment console which included gaming at its core but made everything in your digital entertainment life available to you anyway YOU wanted it. Voice, motion, controller, tablet, phone.
The idea was to colocate your entertainment in single unifed space so that access was one button press, wave or word away.
The old console mentality of having gaming as a wholly separate disconnected part of your entertainment activities is very Blackberry like.
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Sorry, but I think you've completely lost me. They could be throwing PCs at me for free and I still wouldn't use them for gaming. Why? Because it's a different experience. Consoles were never sold with the intention to hook it up to a PC monitor, but to be used in the livingroom on a TV. I've left PC gaming during the PSone days and never looked back.
Graphics may be nice, but I prefer the experience provided by consoles, thank you very much. The only incentive I would have to play games on a PC is the strategy games that work better at a desk with a mouse in my hands, or the flight sim games I used to play back in the day with a hi-tech Joystick. Apart from that though - I've never looked back since. I might glare over some nice graphics when consoles start to show their age, but all in all, I don't really care. Visuals will always progress, what's more important to me is image quality. Games during this generation have reached a stage that rendered graphics less important because they offer sufficient resolution at sufficient image-quality and framerate (it's the first thing I notice when I pop in a PS2 or a PSone game). This is largely confirmed that the new stuff that is shown for PS4 and Xbox One does not look worlds better than what we have today: Similar IQ, similar resolution, but a lot more complexity.
I'm really not sure why I should be bothered about what the PC offers or doesn't. Even if they had the same games, I still wouldn't care to play them at a computer screen and I'm no way going to put a huge hot PC in my livingroom. No thanks.
I'm way more interested in gaming on tablets and smartphones before I consider playing a game on the PC.
This is just not accurate.
Dropping DRM did not suddenly change the XBox from a visionay, forward looking gift to all mankind to an "old console". If it did, then the XBox was never worth anything to begin with. It really is that simple. DRM does not make a console better. I don't care how much random posters here want to tell me that I should be grateful Microsoft is letting me bend over and take it - as a consumer DRM is really not my friend. DRM exists to protect publishers and devs. Not the consumer. I understand the purpose of course, and am willing to tolerate certain levels to protect the developers - but I will never consider DRM a gift to me.
If the XBox is really a visionary forward looking system, then that should still be true without the DRM. The idea of unifying your media experience should still be viable. Kinect is still there in the US. You can still buy day one DD from the XBox store. All of your other devices can still interact with the XBox. You can still play your DD games on any XBox system. The hardware hasn't changed. All the capability that was there before is still there.
What isn't there are restrictive - and I would argue harmful - DRM policies. So are you really claiming that the "future" of gaming lies in draconian use policies? If so, perhaps this will be my last generation of console.
On the other hand, if the future lies in DD (which still exists on both platforms), motion control (which still exists on both platforms), voice control (which still exists on the XBox), and cloud based gaming (which still exists on both platforms) then it seems to me that both platforms are moving forward. The only question is who will turn potential into reality.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
Camera/motion controls don't enable innovation in gaming. Well not to any meaningful degree anyway. If we get the same games again as we had this gen but with shinier pixels then it is because game devs and the entire home console videogame industry has become creatively bankrupt, and this likely because of spiralling game budgets causing overbloated publishers to become completely incapable of taking any kind of creative or business risks.
Lower income people shouldn't be buying either console at launch. For people bitching about the added cost of kinect neglect one thing that gets lost all of the in the narrative is it's added economic value.
For example, one step voice control of media consumption alone offsets the entire 500 dollar cost of the consol in 3 months for me. How does it do that? I spend at least 10 minutes a week looking for a remote. I value my time at a minimum of $250/hr, so that "costs" me $40/week in opportunity cost. In 12 weeks that is $480 in time costs "saved" just by avoiding time wasted looking for the remote. For people that value their time less, the payoff period is obviously longer. But if you limit it the $100 or increment costs for kinect it doesn't take long for the feature to payoff for anyone the places a reasonable value on their time.
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Draconian is loaded word bandied about by people INSISTING that what MS was trying to achieve was by its very nature negative and intrusive.
The ONLY thing about MS' former DRM policy thats was heavy handed was the shutting off of all game access after 24 hours without checkin. There were/are alternatives to THAT particular policy to enable offline gaming.
Beyond that what? 24hour pinging? To get up in arms over that is masturbatory. Every device you have pings either your local gateway or through it to a corporate server. Tablets, phones even your cable box... no signal no service.
What we lost with this U turn does not exist anywhere else.
- Sharing your digital library exists on no other system.
- Getting a cloud version of your games with every physical copy exists on no other system.
- Cloud does not exists on PS4. Publisher servers do but not cloud.
- Motion control does not really exist on PS4. You need TWO devices to enable it (move and PSeye)
Its not the same. Not in the least bit.
I'm kinda wondering if MS should have gone digital only for their games and launched with the blu ray drive disabled and forced consumers to pay 50 bucks to unlock it. They could have knocked the price down by 50 dollars until you paid to have it unlocked which would have helped make up the price point difference and made the DRM policy look more coherent. The drive could have been used for DVDs and CDs without the key.
I think Rancid made the point a couple days ago that the drive is in part what makes their DRM approach look so bad.
I think Rancid made the point a couple days ago that the drive is in part what makes their DRM approach look so bad.
This is an excellent point, if one looks at Hollywood they can see why the AAA titles in gaming play out in predictable ways. Nobody is going to take the risk of spending $$$ on an unknown, unproven concept and hope it goes well. In part that is why indies are so important to gaming and why I'm glad we are sorta in a good period with these small studios at the moment.
I saw maybe 3 or 4 titles at E3 that genuinely made me excited to play them, even The Last of Us which looks like it will be a good game with high production values doesn't appeal to me the way it would have 3 or 4 years ago. I'll end up buying when its 15 bucks used.
The cliches in gaming are well known to all of us; you get to the end of a stage and we cut to FMV with a new creature/boss who's bigger has new weapons all while we see shaking and falling debris which lets us know we can't backtrack or the door we entered glows and again we know we can't get out. Once you start the fight your normal attack which you've been using is ineffective and you have to master the pattern of his attack and aim for the head or tale or shoot something in the ceiling which will drop down and stun him and make him vulnerable to normal attacks. Its all very derivative and motion controls aren't going to change that. Yes motion controls can make it play out in ways which seem more immersive but fundamentally the script itself won't change.
From the end user's perspective:
- Forced checkings every 24 hours or loss of all gaming ability
- Restrictions on how you could sell / lend your game disks
- Restrictions on who could count as a "friend" for gifting/transfer purchases
- Restrictions on WHO you could sell your used games too.
- No guarentee that third party studios would allow resale, transfer, or trade
- Built in ability of third party studios to restrict transfer, set up transfer fees, and prohibit resale.
Etc. Basically, Microsoft said "We own any and all rights to the game from the time it is purchased on. You must cede those rights to us in order to play these games. But don't worry - we are good guys and won't restrict you too much.". That is draconian.
Once again the part you gloss over is fairly glaring: People feel like they own physical disks. While there are still licenses attached, courts have supported people in that assumption in the past. Microsoft was trying to say that Microsoft owned the content - even when it was purchased in physical form. That was the heart of the DRM debate. This "it was all about the 24 hour checking" crap that keeps getting thrown out is a bit ridiculous.
As for your list:
- I can currently share my games on the PS3. The restriction is tighter (only 2 people instead of 10) - but it most certainly currently exists. Maybe I'm just special, or maybe this has existed for a long time. As we don't even know what Microsoft's final implementation of this feature would have been - there is no way to know if their service would have been better.
- This is currently available on the PC through Steam for most games. Both Microsoft and Sony could implement this on their machines if they chose to do so.
- Gaikai - look it up. I know you want to define cloud gaming as "whatever Microsoft does, and only what Microsoft does", but in this case Gaikai is most certainly cloud based gaming.
- Move is motion based gaming. Once again, it is just plain dishonest to define motion based gaming as "whatever Microsoft does, and only what Microsoft does". The basic concept is that the games are controlled through movement rather than controllers. The Wii, Wii U, PS3 Move, PS4 Move, XBox Kinect, and XBox One Kinect all conform to this type of control. You can argue strengths and weaknesses of different implementations, but to say "It isn't motion based gaming if it isn't like Microsoft does it!" is not accurate.
