5 ms·

The price doesn't concern me too much. With Steam I am in control of the hardware. I can build a new, faster, better PC at any time and still play my games. W

by b3b0p 13y ago

The price doesn't concern me too much. With Steam I am in control of the hardware. I can build a new, faster, better PC at any time and still play my games. When Xbox Two comes out and they discontinue production of Xbox One what happens to my games? What happens when the servers are shut down? Are they stuck in the cloud or a computer recycling center someplace? When my Xbox One stops working (I'm sure it will) can I buy a used one on eBay, plug it in and continue to play my games? At least with my PC I can build a new one if it breaks. With my NES I don't need to rely on a server some where in a data center still operating. Also, I still have more faith in my NES lasting and working longer than any console put out in recent years, including the Xbox One (or any Playstation model) even though it's over 20 years old now.

ameen 13y ago
Your analogy doesn't really make sense. Your Xbox account is similar to a Steam account works on PC/360/One and you control the hardware if your One breaks, buy a new one and authenticate it with your account. All your games would now be accessible.
- chrisbolt 13y ago
  The problem is that the One isn't backwards compatible with any of the 360 games I already bought and are stored in the cloud, which leads me to believe they'll do the same with the Two.
  - ewzimm 13y ago
    There's no way any of this will reasonably apply if we stick to this seven year cycle. By 2020, this will all be so obsolete, nobody will care about backward compatibility. Do you care that your PS4 is backward compatible with an abacus?
    - inportb 13y ago
      Do you care that your PS4 is backward compatible with an abacus? I find it handy that different iterations of abacuses tend to be cross-compatible. There may occasionally be minor architectural variations, but it usually isn't too difficult to port your abacus drivers.
      - Heliosmaster 13y ago
        the plural is abaci :)
        netrus 13y ago
        So is abacuses.
    - katbyte 13y ago
      I was just playing a steam games from 2004... in fact i have games from the 90s on steam. And they still work almost perfectly, on any windows computer. So personally, I imagine there are plenty of people who care about it.
      - ewzimm 13y ago
        Some games even more recent than that don't run well on modern versions of Windows. Wine functions better than Windows in these cases, just like ports of old games are often done with DOSBox. It's very easy to emulate the hardware specs needed back then. Accessible computing power is growing much faster than it has been in the last few decades thanks to networking. In just a few seconds, I can start as many cloud servers as I want and stream data directly to myself. I can easily run emulators of every past or present video game console right now on a phone. Sony is vocal about moving their infrastructure to the cloud as well. This next generation is running on traditional AMD processors, and by 2020, I'm sure that emulating the correct environment for their software will not be a problem. Whether you stream your data from Sony or yourself, accessing it and your games will not be a problem. The console itself will eventually be just a DRM device to get you to the servers. The power or compatibility of the machine means very little in that case.
    - moystard 13y ago
      People like you have accepted the fact that they don't own anything they buy. If you are happy to buy a game today, and not being able to play it in a few years because the editor/console manufacturer have decided so, then good for you. On my side, I just want to enjoy what I bought, for as long as I can, and in 2020, I will for sure play 2013 games.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - coldpie 13y ago
      I actually just finished playing Paper Mario again. So yeah, old games matter to me.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Oh for fuck's sake the 360 was a PowerPC arch, and the new Xbox is x86. This is so dumb. You know how PS3 used to support old games? It had the old Emotion Engine (PS2 cpu) built directly into their system--it was a turducken of processing. "wah wah wah i cant run my games from a different processor architecture wah wah wah" this is dumb anyone thinking this is dumb EDIT: Less insulting.
    - to3m 13y ago
      You should get a PR job at Microsoft. I'm sure this line of argument would help convince people.
      - angersock 13y ago
        They seem to be getting along quite well without my wit and charm. :| This particular category of complaint is very, very common to people that don't understand the technology that they use past the "push shiny buttan on the ui" level. Anybody who has ever touched native code in their life knows that porting applications from different operating system versions--much less processor families!--is non-trivial. But to gamers, oh no, they need to be able to play an old game that technology has passed by--and yet, they specifically went out and bought a goddamned information appliance instead of an engine of computation that they could own and maintain themselves. They brought this on themselves. Gamers are always "me me me, i want this, wah wah wah". There is not a single customer demographic I can think of that is less interested in understanding their tools and more vocal about the slightest inconvenience, real or otherwise. The worst of them are the ones that have nothing to do but pass of hatred and vitriol online to other gamers, sometimes even passing it off as "games criticism", like they're fucking Ebert or something. And honestly, we caused this. We catered to gamers, we made their lives so simple and carefree and priced things so low that they are literally the worst customers on earth. My friends in the web business? Look at this. Look at what these people have become, and expect the same sort of shitty behavior from your users in five-ten years.
    - AnIrishDuck 13y ago
      > EDIT: Less insulting. I can't even imagine what this looked like before the edit.
- rmrfrmrf 13y ago
  Where Microsoft and Valve differ is that, while Valve's Steam service is known for its quality of service, Microsoft is known for shutting products down whenever they decide they're no longer in the interest of the company. Oh, right, and without any PR or customer service to quell concerns (see: Kin, Zune, Silverlight, Microsoft Broadband Networking).

by b3b0p 13y ago

ameen 13y ago

Your analogy doesn't really make sense. Your Xbox account is similar to a Steam account works on PC/360/One and you control the hardware if your One breaks, buy a new one and authenticate it with your account. All your games would now be accessible.

chrisbolt 13y ago
The problem is that the One isn't backwards compatible with any of the 360 games I already bought and are stored in the cloud, which leads me to believe they'll do the same with the Two.
- ewzimm 13y ago
  There's no way any of this will reasonably apply if we stick to this seven year cycle. By 2020, this will all be so obsolete, nobody will care about backward compatibility. Do you care that your PS4 is backward compatible with an abacus?
  - inportb 13y ago
    Do you care that your PS4 is backward compatible with an abacus? I find it handy that different iterations of abacuses tend to be cross-compatible. There may occasionally be minor architectural variations, but it usually isn't too difficult to port your abacus drivers.
    - Heliosmaster 13y ago
      the plural is abaci :)
      - netrus 13y ago
        So is abacuses.
  - katbyte 13y ago
    I was just playing a steam games from 2004... in fact i have games from the 90s on steam. And they still work almost perfectly, on any windows computer. So personally, I imagine there are plenty of people who care about it.
    - ewzimm 13y ago
      Some games even more recent than that don't run well on modern versions of Windows. Wine functions better than Windows in these cases, just like ports of old games are often done with DOSBox. It's very easy to emulate the hardware specs needed back then. Accessible computing power is growing much faster than it has been in the last few decades thanks to networking. In just a few seconds, I can start as many cloud servers as I want and stream data directly to myself. I can easily run emulators of every past or present video game console right now on a phone. Sony is vocal about moving their infrastructure to the cloud as well. This next generation is running on traditional AMD processors, and by 2020, I'm sure that emulating the correct environment for their software will not be a problem. Whether you stream your data from Sony or yourself, accessing it and your games will not be a problem. The console itself will eventually be just a DRM device to get you to the servers. The power or compatibility of the machine means very little in that case.
  - moystard 13y ago
    People like you have accepted the fact that they don't own anything they buy. If you are happy to buy a game today, and not being able to play it in a few years because the editor/console manufacturer have decided so, then good for you. On my side, I just want to enjoy what I bought, for as long as I can, and in 2020, I will for sure play 2013 games.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - coldpie 13y ago
    I actually just finished playing Paper Mario again. So yeah, old games matter to me.
- angersock 13y ago
  Oh for fuck's sake the 360 was a PowerPC arch, and the new Xbox is x86. This is so dumb. You know how PS3 used to support old games? It had the old Emotion Engine (PS2 cpu) built directly into their system--it was a turducken of processing. "wah wah wah i cant run my games from a different processor architecture wah wah wah" this is dumb anyone thinking this is dumb EDIT: Less insulting.
  - to3m 13y ago
    You should get a PR job at Microsoft. I'm sure this line of argument would help convince people.
    - angersock 13y ago
      They seem to be getting along quite well without my wit and charm. :| This particular category of complaint is very, very common to people that don't understand the technology that they use past the "push shiny buttan on the ui" level. Anybody who has ever touched native code in their life knows that porting applications from different operating system versions--much less processor families!--is non-trivial. But to gamers, oh no, they need to be able to play an old game that technology has passed by--and yet, they specifically went out and bought a goddamned information appliance instead of an engine of computation that they could own and maintain themselves. They brought this on themselves. Gamers are always "me me me, i want this, wah wah wah". There is not a single customer demographic I can think of that is less interested in understanding their tools and more vocal about the slightest inconvenience, real or otherwise. The worst of them are the ones that have nothing to do but pass of hatred and vitriol online to other gamers, sometimes even passing it off as "games criticism", like they're fucking Ebert or something. And honestly, we caused this. We catered to gamers, we made their lives so simple and carefree and priced things so low that they are literally the worst customers on earth. My friends in the web business? Look at this. Look at what these people have become, and expect the same sort of shitty behavior from your users in five-ten years.
  - AnIrishDuck 13y ago
    > EDIT: Less insulting. I can't even imagine what this looked like before the edit.
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
Where Microsoft and Valve differ is that, while Valve's Steam service is known for its quality of service, Microsoft is known for shutting products down whenever they decide they're no longer in the interest of the company. Oh, right, and without any PR or customer service to quell concerns (see: Kin, Zune, Silverlight, Microsoft Broadband Networking).