7 ms·

Try hard as they might, it's impossible to make those "features" sound good. This one is especially amazing: "You could re-sell your physical disc game to Game

Try hard as they might, it's impossible to make those "features" sound good. This one is especially amazing: "You could re-sell your physical disc game to Gamestop or any participating outlet that opted into Microsoft’s revenue sharing system." Gee, thanks, Microsoft! It's not like those outlets will pass the cost right onto the consumer or anything (oh wait, they will). It's incredible how the Xbox team thought, "Look at that money over there. Let's take it!" What's next, Wal-Mart charging Ralph Lauren every time a customer comes in wearing a Polo shirt (because why should other clothing companies get free advertising in their store)? The other issue? For the author to be completely honest, every "benefit" mentioned in the article should have "for a fee" added to the end of it. It's not very fun or innovative to get nickeled and dimed every step of the way. The fact that the public received 3 different messages about digital sharing costs (the three being no cost, a small fee, and the full price of the game) didn't help matters, either. Another issue I had with the digital system is with the games themselves. Most critics of physical media on Xbox One mention the iOS model, but fail to note how Xbox One is different from it. If I download an app on my iPad, it instantly shows up on my iPhone and my iPad mini, ready for use. I don't have to pay any extra usage fees for multiple devices. The apps themselves are in the $0-$10 range. Most importantly, most apps run in the 5-50MB range, so downloads are quick and my apps are ready to go in minutes. Compare that with Xbox One, where games are likely to be in the 10-20GB range and $60.00 (formerly with fees for sharing and resale). If you consider sharing to be going over to a friend's house, entering your password, then waiting 3.5 hours for a download to finish to be in some way innovative or interesting, then you are clearly not the target market for this device. Gamers want instant gratification, not waiting around for downloads and jumping through hoops. The last point I want to make is this: the author, Jason Chen, is a fool if he thinks that replacing one black box in front of a TV for another is in any way comparable to upgrading from a horse and buggy to a car. The DRM-laden, no-money-left-behind nature of Xbox One in the context of tech in 2013 (a jungle of price fixing, nickeling/diming, credit card storing, and "convenient" subscription modeling) is precisely the status quo that consumers are finally revolting against.

lotso 13y ago
>It's incredible how the Xbox team thought, "Look at that money over there. Let's take it!" What's next, Wal-Mart charging Ralph Lauren every time a customer comes in wearing a Polo shirt (because why should other clothing companies get free advertising in their store)? Could you explain this analogy because it makes zero sense to me. >The other issue? For the author to be completely honest, every "benefit" mentioned in the article should have "for a fee" added to the end of it. It's not very fun or innovative to get nickeled and dimed every step of the way. The fact that the public received 3 different messages about digital sharing costs (the three being no cost, a small fee, and the full price of the game) didn't help matters, either. Could you link to the three different sharing cost messages? >Compare that with Xbox One, where games are likely to be in the 10-20GB range and $60.00 (formerly with fees for sharing and resale). If you consider sharing to be going over to a friend's house, entering your password, then waiting 3.5 hours for a download to finish to be in some way innovative or interesting, then you are clearly not the target market for this device. Gamers want instant gratification, not waiting around for downloads and jumping through hoops. I would imagine they would allow you to play parts of the game without needing to install the whole game, similar to Steam. >The DRM-laden, no-money-left-behind nature of Xbox One in the context of tech in 2013 (a jungle of price fixing, nickeling/diming, credit card storing, and "convenient" subscription modeling) is precisely the status quo that consumers are finally revolting against. How is it different than Steam, other than speculating that Microsoft would never aggressively discount games as much as Steam does now (even though it took them several years for their store to be well-liked by gamers)?
- chaostheory 13y ago
  > How is it different than Steam, other than the point than speculating that Microsoft would never aggressively discount games as much as Steam does now They don't allow developers to self-publish, and Valve is privately owned by a benevolent dictator who won't be prone to public investor pressure for short term quarterly profits. People trust Valve to do the right thing. Microsoft on the other hand has a history of just shutting down their DRM servers without making it right for the customers who bought into their DRM'd products.
  - 13y ago
kayoone 13y ago
> If you consider sharing to be going over to a friend's house, entering your password, then waiting 3.5 hours for a download to finish to be in some way innovative or interesting MS is playing the long game. The console will probably be around for 6-7 years. Back then my internet connection speed at home was about 6Mbit, today its 100Mbits and a download of 10GB usually takes about 20 minutes, so i would really love to do as much digitally as possible. Granted internet speeds arent like this everywhere, but in a few years time they probably will.
- katbyte 13y ago
  I have 100mbit, and while steam can fully saturate it there is definitely a (not too long of) wait for the larger games from 20-40 min.
- Dewie 13y ago
  Releasing something with the strategy that it will be convenient to use for most people sometime during the lifecycle of the console seems like a bad idea. I would think that they would want to sell most of their consoles in the beginning to build momentum around the ecosystem.
sp332 13y ago
I really doubt you'll have to download the whole game before playing. MS has been working on progressive download of binaries for a long time. The last couple versions of Office would let you start using the apps in a couple of minutes, and it would prioritize downloading whatever features you were using. It's pretty smooth, and they've been licensing it for games for a while (under the PlayReady platform).

lotso 13y ago

>It's incredible how the Xbox team thought, "Look at that money over there. Let's take it!" What's next, Wal-Mart charging Ralph Lauren every time a customer comes in wearing a Polo shirt (because why should other clothing companies get free advertising in their store)? Could you explain this analogy because it makes zero sense to me. >The other issue? For the author to be completely honest, every "benefit" mentioned in the article should have "for a fee" added to the end of it. It's not very fun or innovative to get nickeled and dimed every step of the way. The fact that the public received 3 different messages about digital sharing costs (the three being no cost, a small fee, and the full price of the game) didn't help matters, either. Could you link to the three different sharing cost messages? >Compare that with Xbox One, where games are likely to be in the 10-20GB range and $60.00 (formerly with fees for sharing and resale). If you consider sharing to be going over to a friend's house, entering your password, then waiting 3.5 hours for a download to finish to be in some way innovative or interesting, then you are clearly not the target market for this device. Gamers want instant gratification, not waiting around for downloads and jumping through hoops. I would imagine they would allow you to play parts of the game without needing to install the whole game, similar to Steam. >The DRM-laden, no-money-left-behind nature of Xbox One in the context of tech in 2013 (a jungle of price fixing, nickeling/diming, credit card storing, and "convenient" subscription modeling) is precisely the status quo that consumers are finally revolting against. How is it different than Steam, other than speculating that Microsoft would never aggressively discount games as much as Steam does now (even though it took them several years for their store to be well-liked by gamers)?

chaostheory 13y ago
> How is it different than Steam, other than the point than speculating that Microsoft would never aggressively discount games as much as Steam does now They don't allow developers to self-publish, and Valve is privately owned by a benevolent dictator who won't be prone to public investor pressure for short term quarterly profits. People trust Valve to do the right thing. Microsoft on the other hand has a history of just shutting down their DRM servers without making it right for the customers who bought into their DRM'd products.
- 13y ago

kayoone 13y ago

> If you consider sharing to be going over to a friend's house, entering your password, then waiting 3.5 hours for a download to finish to be in some way innovative or interesting MS is playing the long game. The console will probably be around for 6-7 years. Back then my internet connection speed at home was about 6Mbit, today its 100Mbits and a download of 10GB usually takes about 20 minutes, so i would really love to do as much digitally as possible. Granted internet speeds arent like this everywhere, but in a few years time they probably will.

katbyte 13y ago
I have 100mbit, and while steam can fully saturate it there is definitely a (not too long of) wait for the larger games from 20-40 min.
Dewie 13y ago
Releasing something with the strategy that it will be convenient to use for most people sometime during the lifecycle of the console seems like a bad idea. I would think that they would want to sell most of their consoles in the beginning to build momentum around the ecosystem.

sp332 13y ago

I really doubt you'll have to download the whole game before playing. MS has been working on progressive download of binaries for a long time. The last couple versions of Office would let you start using the apps in a couple of minutes, and it would prioritize downloading whatever features you were using. It's pretty smooth, and they've been licensing it for games for a while (under the PlayReady platform).