Still ranting about MS pre-launch policies and U-Turn *spawn

[Nesh]

Maybe it would be simply in bad taste to make an anti-xb1 version...

Ps4 sales are so far in front that criticism is now a good idea. Xb1 needs encouragements and a pat in the back... Good game xb1, no no we're not laughing at your gpu, it's a perfectly normal size.

Well if there are reasons why the XB1 is behind the sales curve then we need to discuss those as well right? If there are rants and improvements they are relevant to customer perception of the product.
Remember when the PS3 was doing like crap when it was released? It was getting a huge rant as well for many reasons. Price, no in game XMB, no party chats, a store that was web based, no ability to run anything else when the console was downloading, no rumble, shoulder buttons that sucked ass? The console improved a lot later on of course, but of course people were voicing the annoyance for what it was doing wrong or not at all

 

[MrFox]

Sure, if the honest goal is to communicate improvement gamers want, there is a much better place than B3D to do that:
http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/

There is a tracking of the most requested features, a mod flagging the firmware revision that implemented them, and the discussion is from the playstation user base.

In the above PS blog feedback system, I see things working as they should. I'm not sure if the emotional pitchfork brandishing is useful at all, it's not like they told us #dealwithit when asking for improvements. This thread, however, is not communicating anything to sony, it's just people venting frustration. Nothing good can come of this (other than a mix of entertainment and sympathy)

"work faster" is not a reasonable request.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Fair enough, these are all good points.

But the MS u-turn was a spcial case. It was after E3, when they saw the abysmal preorder numbers, they ridiculed any criticism as vocal minority until the last minute. The bitching was warranted then, because there was no proper channel, and even journalists were silenced. Angry Joe have a separate video explaining how he managed to pass a question from his readers about DRM, and how the PR attack dogs control all the questions.

Lol, most "journalists" were shamelessly shilling for MS. They were ardently defending their indefensible ridiculous policies and calling protesting gamers "whiny entitled babies" for merely not wanting to have a console that locks them out of content if their box doesn't connect to the internet for more than 24 hours.

I think that period was very revealing, and showed us more about the entusiast gaming press than even MS.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Lol, most "journalists" were shamelessly shilling for MS. They were ardently defending their indefensible ridiculous policies and calling protesting gamers "whiny entitled babies" for merely not wanting to have a console that locks them out of content if their box doesn't connect to the internet for more than 24 hours.

You're recollection of events is at significant variance with mine but it obviously depends which sites you follow. Certainly Eurogamer, VideoGamer, IGN, GameSpot, GameInsider were reporting things without bias. Can you link to any pieces which were referring to gamers as "whiny entitled babies" ?

 

[MrFox]

Sorry for going off-topic, but let me explain what I meant:

Consider the part of interview with mattrick (if you don't like it buy a 360) had to be leaked, this part was edited out in the official interview. That's what I meant by silencing journalism. Those putting up reposts of the leak on youtube said they got DMCA notices, causing the streisand effect.

Angry Joe explained his experience of getting through the profiling with significant planning and manipulation, and explained the PR goons attempting to stop the interview as soon as he went off-script (he promised to ask super friendly ass-licking questions, he created a friendly fanboy character). The pure luck was that Angry Joe was an xbox beta tester, so he managed to get through. He said he'll never be invited xbox press events ever again.

A blunt honest answer to direct questions about DRM would have been something like "I'm sorry, there is no more ownership it's a 100% DD platform tied to our servers, the discs you will see in stores are only to accelerate the download", and try to convince the advantages are worth it. What Angry Joe got as an answer was "Do you want the future? Are you in the future with me? Look up, do you see the future?"

 

[temesgen]

It wasn't just DRM and walled gardens though, we had some in the media telling gamers that resolution didn't matter and that they couldn't see a difference between 900p and 1080p, the public at one point was pretty vocal about some of MS's decisions but some in the media were telling people their opinions didn't matter or worse.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It wasn't just DRM, walled gardens though, we had some in the media telling gamers that resolution didn't matter and that they couldn't see a difference between 900p and 1080p, the public at one point was pretty vocal about some of MS's decisions but some in the media were telling people their opinions didn't matter or worse.

Yup the media got a lot of things wrong.

Like, you wouldn't be able to sell used games. Wrong.

Family sharing was just going to be demos of the games. Wrong.

You had to be connected constantly. Wrong. Just once per 24 hours.

At least with the resolution issues, at living room distances with TVs at the time 40-55" the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between 900p and 1080p if the UI was rendered at 1080p. Especially if they didn't know ahead of time. Once they know, there's built in bias and suddenly, oh no, it's obvious. But in a blind test, the vast majority wouldn't be able to tell.

But a lot also came down to some MS's public facing individuals. Mattrick just could no relate to gamers and gamers couldn't relate to him. That one guy that got fired for his posts on Twitter/Facebook, OMG, the damage he did. Phil Spencer is much more relatable and much better at explaining things to the public in a non-confrontational matter.

I don't think that would have changed much, however. The console world just wasn't quite ready to follow the rest of the gaming world yet (predominantly digital sales) and wants to hang onto it's old and dated distribution paradigm. Thankfully, that's changing in a significant way this generation so next gen console gaming might be ready to leap into the future with the rest of the gaming world.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shortbread]

The console world just wasn't quite ready to follow the rest of the gaming world yet (predominantly digital sales) and wants to hang onto it's old and dated distribution paradigm. Thankfully, that's changing in a significant way this generation so next gen console gaming might be ready to leap into the future with the rest of the gaming world.

Regards,
SB

Thank God I'm still one of them. I still love the fact I can purchase a hardcopy of a game for my PC/PS4/PS3/XB360. I have nothing against pure digital content consumers or the devices purely designed around them. That being said, I don't see physical disc going away anytime soon... but I do see periodical DRM online check-in growing out of control. Which is sad...

 

[temesgen]

Yup the media got a lot of things wrong.

Like, you wouldn't be able to sell used games. Wrong.

Family sharing was just going to be demos of the games. Wrong.

You had to be connected constantly. Wrong. Just once per 24 hours.

At least with the resolution issues, at living room distances with TVs at the time 40-55" the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between 900p and 1080p if the UI was rendered at 1080p. Especially if they didn't know ahead of time. Once they know, there's built in bias and suddenly, oh no, it's obvious. But in a blind test, the vast majority wouldn't be able to tell.

But a lot also came down to some MS's public facing individuals. Mattrick just could no relate to gamers and gamers couldn't relate to him. That one guy that got fired for his posts on Twitter/Facebook, OMG, the damage he did. Phil Spencer is much more relatable and much better at explaining things to the public in a non-confrontational matter.

I don't think that would have changed much, however. The console world just wasn't quite ready to follow the rest of the gaming world yet (predominantly digital sales) and wants to hang onto it's old and dated distribution paradigm. Thankfully, that's changing in a significant way this generation so next gen console gaming might be ready to leap into the future with the rest of the gaming world.

Regards,
SB

At E3 many publishers didn't even have the details of MS's plans and in fact it wasn't until after the very public failure to communicate their plans for DRM and the feature was shelved that we got some of the details which are so often brought up as reasons why it was a such a good idea. Truly eyebrow raising stuff from a division in MS that historically has done a very good job staying on message and executing their gameplan.

 

[MrFox]

The console world just wasn't quite ready to follow the rest of the gaming world yet (predominantly digital sales) and wants to hang onto it's old and dated distribution paradigm. Thankfully, that's changing in a significant way this generation so next gen console gaming might be ready to leap into the future with the rest of the gaming world.

You are repeating the same empty PR lines from Microsoft about "the future". It is empty bullshit with no argumentative value.

Gamers chose a media for specific reasons and they expressed their position very clearly. These reasons should be the focus of the arguments.

 

[McHuj]

I swear I never get tired of reading about this topic. The period from the May reveal through launch was just so incredibly fascinating. I bet there were plenty of "good" stories about the planning and design of the console itself as well. I hope we get to read about them one year. I can't believe how MS just pissed everything away from the previous gen.

 

[MrFox]

I know these thread spinoff are usually my fault, but it's not my fault this time!

Spoiler

 

[turkey]

At E3 many publishers didn't even have th etails of MS's plans and in fact it wasn't until after the very public failure to communicate their plans for DRM and the feature was shelved that we got some of the details which are so often brought up as reasons why it was a such a good idea. Truly eyebrow raising stuff from a division in MS that historically has done a very good job staying on message and executing their gameplan.

Did not have any idea or simply read the public better and had a pr team who correctly handled their public communication?

 

[tuna]

Yup the media got a lot of things wrong.

Like, you wouldn't be able to sell used games. Wrong.

Family sharing was just going to be demos of the games. Wrong.

You had to be connected constantly. Wrong. Just once per 24 hours.

MS could turn on family sharing on non-disc games now if they would like to.

You would not be able to sell used games to a stranger on EBay.

Also, you would probably need to be connected every time you started a new game.

 

[tuna]

At least with the resolution issues, at living room distances with TVs at the time 40-55" the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between 900p and 1080p if the UI was rendered at 1080p. Especially if they didn't know ahead of time. Once they know, there's built in bias and suddenly, oh no, it's obvious. But in a blind test, the vast majority wouldn't be able to tell.

Do you have any data to back this statement up?

 

[iroboto]

At E3 many publishers didn't even have the details of MS's plans and in fact it wasn't until after the very public failure to communicate their plans for DRM and the feature was shelved that we got some of the details which are so often brought up as reasons why it was a such a good idea. Truly eyebrow raising stuff from a division in MS that historically has done a very good job staying on message and executing their gameplan.

It was likely all incomplete. No approval, direction wasn't solidified. When it get burned they talked about what it was supposed to do.

Why it got burned is going to stay internal. If by the end of the generation it does return by magic stance, then I would conclude it took them X years to resolve the logistical, financial, and political issues behind it.

 

[temesgen]

It was likely all incomplete. No approval, direction wasn't solidified. When it get burned they talked about what it was supposed to do.

Why it got burned is going to stay internal. If by the end of the generation it does return by magic stance, then I would conclude it took them X years to resolve the logistical, financial, and political issues behind it.

Perhaps but then again some of the good stuff people like to point to wasn't even shared with the public until after it was dead which suggest to me anyway that publishers weren't entirely on board which is consistent with the fact that coming to E3 many were caught completely unawares and not just indies. That said the inclusion of external hard drive support and some of the OS functionality suggest MS really was expecting their vision to be accepted. It would be interesting to get someone on the record regarding what happened.

 

[Nesh]

I dont own an XB1 yet so what do you guys think now about the console? It has went through a lot of improvements in my understanding. What do you think it needs in order to reach that "perfection" status?

 

[iroboto]

I dont own an XB1 yet so what do you guys think now about the console? It has went through a lot of improvements in my understanding. What do you think it needs in order to reach that "perfection" status?

Perfection? Whoa. We'll certainly it's going to be a moving goal post but consoles should strive for simplicity and stability. Ensuring that their services are always up, etc. once the fundamentals are down and people can use their device on demand with high up time, I'd probably like the company to
A) address the long install times.
B) revisit their Kinect vision
C) get going on some apps that people care about, or follow through on games via universal app platform.
D) continue iterating the OS and its all-in-one media position
E) more integration with other services or devices
F) additional iterations with their smart glass technology.

From a services side of things, where I think is probably most key, find a way to get the community working together again. People are absent and non talkers online. There's no way to chat or communicate with the community. XBL feels really empty at its core despite the active player base.

 

[BRiT]

Unfortunately if MS goes ahead with the NXOE release on the 12th they will need to focus on fixing everything that breaks for the next 3 month before they can get around to doing other needed changes. Expect to see major failure articles around their touted TV feature and Party Chat system in addition to missing features in comparison to the current dashboard. This will make it into failure blurbs on the local news casts.

Only after they fix the issues introduced by NXOE can they focus on improvements.

Background music playing.
Improving install/load times.