Microsoft Xbox Reveal Event - May 21, 2013

[Tap In]

My point is that if you require explicit online deactivation before reselling then the 24 hour online requirement is not necessary. The 24 hour online requirement makes it possible to allow resale without explicit deactivation, with Microsoft doing it automatically next time the xbox checks in.

It of course also adds an extra layer of security against piracy, but that's irrelevant here ... bkillian associated the 24 hour requirement with the ability to resell games, and the only way it's relevant is without explicit deactivation by the user.

it is confused and uncertain still. My guess is this is all a power play to get Gamestop to cut the pubs in on a deal (as bikilian also surmised)

As for the 24 hour thing it could be for piracy or it could be as simple as being able to ensure to devs that the cloud is viable as most all gamers would be online-ish. Or it could be something else entirely.

My feeling from all the pieces I'm puting together and common sense is that the "used game" issue will be far less entangled than some are making it

I am MORE excited if I can buy all my games in DD format and know that I can get some trade value back from them for new game when done. I am done with discs and I can not be the only one who feels that way

If I had multiple Xboxes in house and kids still or several other gamers in my family/friends circle, I can see why leveraging disc sharing is important and again I doubt they will kill that dynamic completely. Unless GameStop and MS and/or Sony do it so no used games can be exchanged except at retail.

 

[function]

We dont know everything about how it will work on either system. If Sony goes the same route as MS (which they probably will) then what? Your back to either succumbing to console policy or forever banished to PC which itself isnt a walk in the park.

If Sony go the same route as MS I wouldn't buy a PS4 either. But it would still be true that the PS4 would be more powerful and give better versions of multiplatform games - so Xbox 1 still loses in that regard.

PC isn't so bad most of the time. And the savings over next gen consoles would pay for some awesome upgrades. I can live with that, especially as my chums are bailing on the Xbox and so we can all enter "free online" Steam land together. 22nm GPUs with 12 GB of RAM next year (not that you'll need more than 2GB to run console ports but a little overkill is nice sometimes) ...

we do not know the details and the message has been confusing as the talking heads said different thing when they were not ready yet, fueling wild speculation and possibly misunderstanding

here is my take on your friend's situation above...

They have already said you will be able to deactivate your own games in the system. (Again we know nothing for sure yet) If you can deactivate your license on your console, you can effectively let someone borrow your game disc.... deactivate it, let someone else activate it online when they insert the disc in their machine as it confirms there are no other users and there you have it. I do not believe they wold design a punitive system, just a system that keeps more than one person "owning" the license at a time and playing one off HDD and one off disc.

If you can deactivate games and re-register them for free without MS generating any kind of revenue then that puts a big hole in the strategy to kill used games sales. All a retailers would have to do is pop the disk in a machine and check it wasn't registered. And it wouldn't stop ebay sales and game-lending, both of which I'm sure both MS and publishers see as theft, murder, crimes against humanity and WMDs.

 

[Tap In]

If Sony go the same route as MS I wouldn't buy a PS4 either. But it would still be true that the PS4 would be more powerful and give better versions of multiplatform games - so Xbox 1 still loses in that regard.

PC isn't so bad most of the time. And the savings over next gen consoles would pay for some awesome upgrades. I can live with that, especially as my chums are bailing on the Xbox and so we can all enter "free online" Steam land together. 22nm GPUs with 12 GB of RAM next year (not that you'll need more than 2GB to run console ports but a little overkill is nice sometimes) ...



If you can deactivate games and re-register them for free without MS generating any kind of revenue then that puts a big hole in the strategy to kill used games sales. All a retailers would have to do is pop the disk in a machine and check it wasn't registered. And it wouldn't stop ebay sales and game-lending, both of which I'm sure both MS and publishers see as theft, murder, crimes against humanity and WMDs.

Killing the used game market was never their announced intention, just a side effect of people contemplating the effects of various restrictions.

I think it's safe to assume that... *most* people will just trade at GS anyway as it's easy convenient and immediate. People who want to share/sell on ebay will still want to do it so.

It is clear that they are allowing buying and selling used games at retail, so the question becomes...

will they block all used sales outside of retail? or allow the majority to trade at retail with new system where they will hardly notice any change in protocol AND let the smaller (vocal) market trade amongst themselves?

this I believe is exactly what they are contemplating right now.

I think Sony is a foregone conclusion on some form of DRM as they do not want a disc reliant machine either IMO, but it becomes will one or both block the trade among friends/ebay market?

 

[function]

Killing the used game market was never their announced intention, just a side effect of people contemplating the effects of various restrictions.

Yeah, what I meant was "kill used game sales that they don't authorise / take protection money from". I was using it as shorthand. They don't mind they the disks being used but they want the "lisenses" to be new and authorised by them.

I think it's safe to assume that... *most* people will just trade at GS anyway as it's easy convenient and immediate. People who want to share/sell on ebay will still want to do it so the question becomes...

When I was a school, back in the day, when all of this was just fields, trading in games was an established practice but it was probably more common to borrow/lend games that trade them in. That is to say, you might lend a game to one, two or three friends but you only traded it in once. If you really liked a game you might offer to buy it off your friend when they were done with it.

Perhaps this kind of behaviour isn't so common now?

will they block all used sales outside of retail? or allow the majority to trade at retail with new system where they will hardly notice any change in protocol AND let the smaller (vocal) market trade amongst themselves?

I don't see how MS's plans can work consistently unless they do block used game sales outside of their authorised procedure, or game shops could just use that process (unless it was so slow and cumbersome that it was uneconomical to do it on a large scale).

I think Sony is a foregone conclusion on some form of DRM as they do not want a disc reliant machine either IMO, but it becomes will one or both block the trade among friends/ebay market?

Yeah. It's kind of hard to see how one could resist doing what the other does, but hopefully we'll still have a choice.

 

[bkilian]

By the way, are you going to return to Microsoft someday? I don't know you personally, but darn, you seem to be a very honest and crystal-clear person -as you proved to those who fully trusted you-, it's something that I find admirable.

I can't predict the future. I have nothing against going back to MS, but my ultimate plan is to be able to retire to somewhere in the caribbean before I'm too old to enjoy it, and MS stock does not appear to be going anywhere in a hurry.

 

[Tap In]

Yeah, what I meant was "kill used game sales that they don't authorise / take protection money from". I was using it as shorthand. They don't mind they the disks being used but they want the "lisenses" to be new and authorised by them.



When I was a school, back in the day, when all of this was just fields, trading in games was an established practice but it was probably more common to borrow/lend games that trade them in. That is to say, you might lend a game to one, two or three friends but you only traded it in once. If you really liked a game you might offer to buy it off your friend when they were done with it.

Perhaps this kind of behaviour isn't so common now?



I don't see how MS's plans can work consistently unless they do block used game sales outside of their authorised procedure, or game shops could just use that process (unless it was so slow and cumbersome that it was uneconomical to do it on a large scale).



Yeah. It's kind of hard to see how one could resist doing what the other does, but hopefully we'll still have a choice.

good points, yes will be interesting to see how this all plays out...

 

[dagamer]

I can't predict the future. I have nothing against going back to MS, but my ultimate plan is to be able to retire to somewhere in the caribbean before I'm too old to enjoy it, and MS stock does not appear to be going anywhere in a hurry.

Probably get some OK dividends, though their stock is at a 5-year high even though people still see Windows 8 as a flop.

 

[DrJay24]

I think Sony is a foregone conclusion on some form of DRM as they do not want a disc reliant machine either IMO, but it becomes will one or both block the trade among friends/ebay market?

Mark Cerny already said the game is played from the disc with some form of caching to the HD right? If the disc is required, that is the DRM.

 

[Tap In]

Mark Cerny already said the game is played from the disc with some form of caching to the HD right? If the disc is required, that is the DRM.

So they are not allowing discless hard drive play from disc purchase? How will they allow quick switching between saved game states?

Could have sworn they mentioned that on their reveal unless they meant you can switch between apps/games but not games/games?

I guess it's not that important if you need to change discs between games but my understanding was as living room devices they would eliminate that need and make them more like the other digital devices we use in our world today

 

[warb]

Mark Cerny already said the game is played from the disc with some form of caching to the HD right? If the disc is required, that is the DRM.

I hope there is the option for no discs, as with DD games. Even if you need to be online to start them.

 

[Grall]

So they are not allowing discless hard drive play from disc purchase?

They haven't said either yes or no on this, just that the console will automatically mirror games to HDD while you play. It doesn't mean you can't play discless once the mirroring is completed...

How will they allow quick switching between saved game states?

Are you sure they will? I haven't heard anything on this, but then again maybe I simply haven't been looking hard enough. If they haven't said, just waiting for E3 will probably clear this matter up.

my understanding was as living room devices they would eliminate that need and make them more like the other digital devices we use in our world today

Having to stick in a disc in a drive before playing a store-bought/physical copy of a game is such a first-world "problem", I really don't think it's worth bitching much about. It's either that, or requiring the console to rat you out by going online to authorize your games before you play them like xbone will/steam has done for years. Anyway, I wasn't aware that sony is going for the "livingroom device" angle, I thought that was more microsoft's strategy. PS4 seems more a games console with media playback capabilities, than the other way around.

 

[Npl]

Mark Cerny already said the game is played from the disc with some form of caching to the HD right? If the disc is required, that is the DRM.

If you can use any copy of the game, then its no right managment, its just plain old diskchecks without any servers and other crap where you have to prove your identity.

 

[Tap In]

They haven't said either yes or no on this, just that the console will automatically mirror games to HDD while you play. It doesn't mean you can't play discless once the mirroring is completed...


Are you sure they will? I haven't heard anything on this, but then again maybe I simply haven't been looking hard enough. If they haven't said, just waiting for E3 will probably clear this matter up.


Having to stick in a disc in a drive before playing a store-bought/physical copy of a game is such a first-world "problem", I really don't think it's worth bitching much about. It's either that, or requiring the console to rat you out by going online to authorize your games before you play them like xbone will/steam has done for years. Anyway, I wasn't aware that sony is going for the "livingroom device" angle, I thought that was more microsoft's strategy. PS4 seems more a games console with media playback capabilities, than the other way around.

first world problem or not I believe it is annoying and not in line with current media devices. I think Sony knows this as well.

As.for what is considered a living.room.device and/or gaming device?


Tomato, tomatto... .


I think some may be mighty surprised about that comparison when Sony shows their whole hand

 

[dobwal]

I hope there is the option for no discs, as with DD games. Even if you need to be online to start them.

The moment you offer disk download with no disc required for use, is the moment online DRM becomes required unless the manufacturer offers a DRM free ecosystem or you don't mind your disk collection becoming obsolete the moment you have a console failure.

 

[DrJay24]

So they are not allowing discless hard drive play from disc purchase? How will they allow quick switching between saved game states?

Could have sworn they mentioned that on their reveal unless they meant you can switch between apps/games but not games/games?

I guess it's not that important if you need to change discs between games but my understanding was as living room devices they would eliminate that need and make them more like the other digital devices we use in our world today

No system lets you quickly switch games, it is app(s) and a game. Vita does this and the recent XB1 memory usage says they do the same.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/the-five-possible-states-of-xbox-one-games-are-strangely-exciting/

3) Suspended: The game is loaded in memory but is not running, meaning that the system has stopped scheduling all threads in the game process. The game has no access to CPUs or to the GPU processing power, but it still has the same 5 GB of memory reserved.

You can't have one game suspended and one running, that is 10GB of RAM.

 

[Tap In]

No system lets you quickly switch games, it is app(s) and a game. Vita does this and the recent XB1 memory usage says they do the same.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/the-five-possible-states-of-xbox-one-games-are-strangely-exciting/



You can't have one game suspended and one running, that is 10GB of RAM.

ok thanks for the info... still I want to be able to boot up my next game without having to go to entertainment center to change discs ... could be Sony will still do it that way though if they want to avoid a DRM scheme of any kind

 

[XpiderMX]

No system lets you quickly switch games, it is app(s) and a game. Vita does this and the recent XB1 memory usage says they do the same.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/05/the-five-possible-states-of-xbox-one-games-are-strangely-exciting/



You can't have one game suspended and one running, that is 10GB of RAM.

You're right, it is multitasking between game and apps, not between games.

But even if not "multigame switching" is allowed, I guess games will load faster, at least the last played game.

This is interesting:

2) Constrained: The game is loaded in memory and is still running, but it has limited access to the system resources. The game is not rendering full screen in this state; it either is rendering to a reduced area of the screen or is not visible at all. The user cannot interact with the game in this state. System resource limits in this state are four CPUs, 5 GB of memory, and 45 per cent of GPU power if the game is rendering to a reduced area of the screen, or 10 per cent of GPU power if the game is not visible.

Multi window (stacked)?I don't like the the user cannot interact with the game, because I would like playing a game while Skype is in a side.

 

[Cyan]

Don't forget that there's always an influx of new 'traditional' gamers, as new people are born. Some traditional gamers have started 20 years ago, but others may be 2-5 years into the business only. And a lot of the traditional guys are leaving gaming altogether, or change focus as they get kids, and so on.

I also think you overestimate the number of core gamers in the X360/PS3 user base.

There is another category Microsoft defines as the super core guys, who -according to MS- buy everything.

http://www.videogamer.com/news/xbox..._they_will_buy_everything_says_microsoft.html


I suppose that most of the people who have a PS3 and a X360 is core.

In my case, I began playing consoles in the Xbox era, my first console ever and it was a pretty hardcore console back then.

Besides that, most early adopters are hardcore gamers, so they shouldn't be underestimated, imho.

Even so, what surprises me the most is that the Xbox 360 has been the #1 selling console worldwide for the last 2 years.

And I wouldn't say it was the hardcore customers who drove those sales.

 

[Cyan]

I can't predict the future. I have nothing against going back to MS, but my ultimate plan is to be able to retire to somewhere in the caribbean before I'm too old to enjoy it, and MS stock does not appear to be going anywhere in a hurry.

I guess judging by your words that you bought stock shares by the bagful then.

I dreamt -or used to- that if I had to retire in the distant future that I'd retire to a place where I had bought a house in a quaint beach town, living with my cats, family and maybe some cows. But you never know.

Yeah, what I meant was "kill used game sales that they don't authorise / take protection money from". I was using it as shorthand. They don't mind they the disks being used but they want the "lisenses" to be new and authorised by them.



When I was a school, back in the day, when all of this was just fields, trading in games was an established practice but it was probably more common to borrow/lend games that trade them in. That is to say, you might lend a game to one, two or three friends but you only traded it in once. If you really liked a game you might offer to buy it off your friend when they were done with it.

Perhaps this kind of behaviour isn't so common now?



I don't see how MS's plans can work consistently unless they do block used game sales outside of their authorised procedure, or game shops could just use that process (unless it was so slow and cumbersome that it was uneconomical to do it on a large scale).



Yeah. It's kind of hard to see how one could resist doing what the other does, but hopefully we'll still have a choice.

I think we should have a choice as diverse as possible. It is very important, and that's not an easy task for Sony, Microsoft, etc, to create a model which can cater to everyone while avoiding piracy at the same time.

There are a few services like Gamestop, Game and Gamefly which also use this as a business model, and there is a lot of uncertainty, they decline to comment for now, because both Sony and MS haven't confirmed anything yet.

Will Xbox One Ruin GameFly? GameFly Won't Say.

http://kotaku.com/will-xbox-one-ruin-gamefly-gamefly-wont-say-510180460

 

[Cyan]

it is confused and uncertain still. My guess is this is all a power play to get Gamestop to cut the pubs in on a deal (as bikilian also surmised)

As for the 24 hour thing it could be for piracy or it could be as simple as being able to ensure to devs that the cloud is viable as most all gamers would be online-ish. Or it could be something else entirely.

My feeling from all the pieces I'm puting together and common sense is that the "used game" issue will be far less entangled than some are making it

I am MORE excited if I can buy all my games in DD format and know that I can get some trade value back from them for new game when done. I am done with discs and I can not be the only one who feels that way

If I had multiple Xboxes in house and kids still or several other gamers in my family/friends circle, I can see why leveraging disc sharing is important and again I doubt they will kill that dynamic completely. Unless GameStop and MS and/or Sony do it so no used games can be exchanged except at retail.

The cases of some games are a work of art -I really like the Forza 5 one-, and now that Blu-Ray is a standard, downloading games that take up more than 10GB of space is going to be common.

However, the problem with digital downloads is the same old problem of the cloud and such things based on the worldwide web.

There are several disadvantages of cloud gaming that will need to be addressed by any company planning to offer cloud gaming services.

Potential customers may avoid cloud services because they may feel they are paying for something that they do not own. Buying a physical game gives you a sense of ownership, that you have bought that game and can play it at any time.

With cloud gaming you are paying for a game that you will not have a copy of - if the service goes down or goes out of business then you will be unable to play any of the games that you have paid for

.

Read more: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Video-Game-Evolution--Cloud-Gaming/4525124#ixzz2UdGG6aRV