Didn't the Yukon leak indicate a growing element of cloud based gaming. Sony is purportedly using its Gaikai for back compat. Plus many rumors about network connectivity being a requirement (activation codes, download only, etc.) Bungie's new Destiny game apparently requiring online access even for single player. This past gen is 8 years old now, how long with the next be? Wonder if a future transition to more cloud based play and computing has factored in to defining hardware requirements for this gen.
*spin-off* Always on/connected... stuff
- Thread starter Rockster
- Start date
Are you talking about always online and so? see below...
Oh, thanks, he wrote on twitter:
Cheap to produce or "cheap" as in final price?
always online or online required to play games?
Sorry for off topic...
I'm assuming always on doesn't necessitate a Gold subscription fee? If it does, I won't be the only saying "sod that!" 
I'm assuming always on doesn't necessitate a Gold subscription fee? If it does, I won't be the only saying "sod that!"
that would be an idiotic move
so don't rule it out
I would be amazed if they pushed for something like that. But I doubt such, personally I don't see why always connected is being met with such aggression. I might be misremembering, but I'm sure back when 360 was at the 60m mark or so MS stated that 48m of those units were connected online and of that 48m a good 30-40m had gold. I'd say that's pretty good, I'd say MS pushing for everyone having to have gold is foolish and I doubt they'd do such, but having 360 always connected really isn't THAT bad. I remember similar gruffs when MS announced that Xbox was broadband only.
The most recent figures I've seen for 360 are about 60% online and about 35% gold subscriptions.
That still leaves 40% of your userbase offline.
The question is what percentage of the money on games/services/peripherals is spent by the 60%, I'd guess it's more than 60% but how much more?
At some level MS doesn't care about hardware sales, only the additional revenue, so maybe it does make sense.
If it does require an always on Internet connection it's a ballsy move.
Maybe they'll partner with ISP's and package the console with a data plan for a monthly fee. As well as potentially sell stand alone units.
If this is true, I'm very interested on the business model.
That still leaves 40% of your userbase offline.
The question is what percentage of the money on games/services/peripherals is spent by the 60%, I'd guess it's more than 60% but how much more?
At some level MS doesn't care about hardware sales, only the additional revenue, so maybe it does make sense.
If it does require an always on Internet connection it's a ballsy move.
Maybe they'll partner with ISP's and package the console with a data plan for a monthly fee. As well as potentially sell stand alone units.
If this is true, I'm very interested on the business model.
I'm assuming always on doesn't necessitate a Gold subscription fee? If it does, I won't be the only saying "sod that!"
Hmmm...actually, that could just be hinting at a large scale subsidized payment option via an XBL contract. In that scenario you get the console super cheap and pay for XBL at a higher rate sub.
Averagejoe
Regular
Is not, the number MS reveal some time ago,is basically half so if they say 46 million live accounts,only about half are silver and the rest gold.
MS always combined sver and gold account to make the number of users seem bigger than it is,but it was confirmed that the ration by MS itself was close to 50/50.
So from the total 76 million units sold,46 million went online either with a silver or gold account,30 million from the 76 millions never went online ,and from those 46 millions that did went online about half are gold so is like 23 million live gold owners.
Is hard to know the percentage of people from those 46 millions that still go online without a gold account.
@DOBWAL Amazing find..nice read, hopefully we can see some exotic customisations to the CUs..geometry shader!?...sounds interesting.
Geometry shaders launched in 2006 with DX10 and the 8800GTX.
not for MS it's not.
as mentioned it's not like they would make decisions like this without analyzing this (extensive, detailed) data a thousand times over from we could do here. so...yea, I'm sure they will back up their plan should they choose to go through with it.
I think MS is probably looking at it in an even more granular way.
Of the people that would buy a console at launch and at a launch price (lets assume $399) what percentage of those people have a persistent connection to the internet? (probably a high percentage)
As the lifecycle moves on, the price goes down, which increases the pool of potential buyers. At the same time, however, broadband internet penetration numbers are going up so these two values at some point intersect and the internet access penetration > the potential buyers.
I do not think MS is particularly interested in the people buying a Madden 20XX appliance this time around. The High Value Customers are those who are leveraging all the services and spending in their ecosystem. There are tons of people buying Rokus and Apple TVs at $99 and renting movies through the tons of online Blu-Ray players, I dont think always on is an issue but i do think that expecting people to download 10GB for a game is premature.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Hence why optical media will still be offered as an optional distribution avenue.
Regards,
SB
I really doubt it. From my point of view, the people that pushed Xbox 360 in 2005-2010 were the "core" gamers, people who buy Halos, Skyrims, Gears, etc. million sellers games, and some of them are paying for gold, but not all of them.
If MS want to alienate Durango clients, why not make two SKUs? one of those more "core" oriented and another one for "services". If you can't mix both publics you can lose one of both.
The "always on" is not an issue for me, but if you can't play offline then it is an issue. What if my internet provider is failing? What if Xbox Live is down?
What if a meteor took down Microsoft's servers?
I don't like the always on aspect of it because it not only depends on something that I can remotely control, but it also relies on Microsoft being 365/24/7 up.
Now mind you, Microsoft and Sony haven't been able to maintain a spotless record of doing that. (nor do I expect them to)
It is not only the MS/Sony (the PSN/anonymous issues, XBL maintenace, etc.), last year I had a problem with my internet provider during 2 weeks, it can result in an issue if online is required to play games.
LightHeaven
Regular
I remember reading some years ago that MS only accounted for silver accounts on Live figures if the account had logged in at least once in 6 months... Don't have any link now, nor have any idea if that's still the case, though XD
my internet and/or Xbox live have been down a total of maybe 24 hours over the course of 2-3 separate incidents in the ten years I've had a constant connection and XBL.
*goes to plan for coincidental outage tonight
Yes agreed. The 'always online' part of this is probably primarily for speech recognition (the way siri works) and to phone home on software activations.
Yes Windows Phone speech recognition and voice command is online based as well and uses the connection to interpret and to learn and add to the database... Which I have read is the same database that Kinect uses.