Here's a hilight reel, which I found very informative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWgUO-Rqcw
Well, this all seems to have gone over about as well as a fart in a crowded elevator.
Then there's this gem: http://www.videogamer.com/news/don_mattrick_if_youre_backwards_compatible_youre_really_backwards.html
I can understand why you might not want to be backwards compatible, but do you have to be so flippant about it? And as usual, I'd really like to know where he's pulling the "only 5% of people played old games on new hardware" thing, because something tells me if I got close enough to smell it I could probably take a pretty good guess.
Because, really, who wants access to their library of games they've collected over the years when you can buy a new system with maybe two games you want to play on it?
Genius!
Okay, I love backwards compatibility as much as the next guy, but asking seriously.
If I told you that you could have backwards compatibility for the xbox if you all paid 150-200 bucks more, what would you say? "Hey, I could just buy myself a new xbox for that much?"
Probably.
There's always a lot of gnashing of teeth about it and for systems that can do it, it's a real feather in the cap, but practically speaking on both a software and hardware level, backwards compatibility is hard and getting harder and systems are being driven toward being cheaper if at all possible or go extinct. Odds are if you have an awesome library of games, you also have a system that plays them. I understand that space is an issue for some or it'd be nice to just have one thing to handle it all...
But it doesn't come for free and I don't think it's particularly fair to gnash about it to this degree. I suspect that, being that there's a lot of money riding on it, that they probably do have better figures on it, but probably taken now rather than looking historically. Either way, if they were in a good position to offer it as a cheap thing, they'd do that because its easy public appeal. If they're not doing it, odds are its expensive and/or hard.
Sony choked hard on that last generation, and while the presence was super popular, I'm sure they walked away from it for the giant cost add it was to their manufacturing bill.
That's a valid point. Like I said, my main problem was their attitude about handling it. They could have given the reason you gave, and everyone would have been, if not satisfied, then at least understanding. Instead it came off -- intentional or not -- as "people who want backwards compatibility are sillydumb".
I also agree with Drac's point on backwards compatability... for the physical disk backwards compatability, at least.
I have difficulty believing that it applies as much on the digital level. Note that they have specifically stated that you'll be allowed to transfer gamertags, achievements, avatars and Xbox LIVE profiles, as well as video and music content. Just not your digital games.
You can transfer that much else...but not your games. Really?
I don't have a 360 though, and I'm not a programmer of any sort, so I wouldn't really know much if anything about how things work there. Maybe the digital library of games were programmed for windows in the 360 and the new library uses mac. Anything's possible, I guess.
I can definitely see a split for running different physical components that were 8 years apart, but it still seems unlikely somehow that the software would be so radically different that you can't run a digital game now, especially again, when you can run everything else?
Well, your gamertag etc. are a database. They just need the new frontend to talk to it. That takes some work, and probably more than, say, updating a given game to work with the new hardware.
Unfortunately, there is some legitimacy to the fact that the hardware of the original Xbox or the 360 aren't actually 1:1. The PS2 had PSX compatibility because the original PSX CPU was the PS2's I/O controller. Throwing in the extra hardware isn't always going to be trivial.
I do think it's a problem that they haven't stuck with one architecture, or used CPUs that contain all the old instruction sets -- but I'm not hardware-designer knowledgeable, so there could be good reasons for that (aside from the obvious, "We don't want you to use it to run LINUX"). You would think Microsoft of all people would just use the same CPUs we put in desktops, but either they don't, or there are additional factors I don't get. :\
QuoteIf I told you that you could have backwards compatibility for the xbox if you all paid 150-200 bucks more, what would you say? "Hey, I could just buy myself a new xbox for that much?"
For the Xbox? I wouldn't give a shit. For the PS4? Yes, I'd pay it. I would honestly pay an extra 200 for backwards compat on the PS4, esp if it ran PS3 *and* PS2 games. Why? Because in awhile, it won't be possible to "just buy a new one of the old system". They stop making them. I'd really like it if Sony made a special version of the PS4 with full backwards compat and sold it at a higher price, because I would pay that price. Being able to play my older games is kinda important to me, just like being able to watch old movies or read old books.
That said, I'd settle for being able to grab the games on PSN(re-buy them the same way we had to re-buy the movies we had on VHS back when DVD became the thing). But for some of the ones I want to play the most(Monster Rancher 4, Suikoden 3-5, etc) there's not a whole lot of demand for a downloadable version of 'em.
Quote from: Gatewalker on May 23, 2013, 04:52:04 PM[...]Because in awhile, it won't be possible to "just buy a new one of the old system". They stop making them. [...]
This is the part that's on my mind the most, actually. What _will_ I do once I can't get a PS2 anymore? Because Sony announced an end to production on them in February.... Then that old library is useless, or I'll have to buy either a used PS2 or a seriously marked up unopened one.
I suppose Sony's stance on that is, "Then the devs can repackage it for sale on the new system, and you can buy it again!" But having my entire library suddenly be decorative isn't such an awesome thing, and while emulation is a real thing, it's not an officially supported one. :\
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/publishers-to-receive-cut-of-xbox-one-pre-owned-sales-at-retail/0116137
Hummm. Only really works if they do sell cheaper games, in my mind. Otherwise the gaming public will generally not bite, I suspect.
Quote from: Gatewalker on May 23, 2013, 04:52:04 PM
QuoteIf I told you that you could have backwards compatibility for the xbox if you all paid 150-200 bucks more, what would you say? "Hey, I could just buy myself a new xbox for that much?"
For the Xbox? I wouldn't give a shit. For the PS4? Yes, I'd pay it. I would honestly pay an extra 200 for backwards compat on the PS4, esp if it ran PS3 *and* PS2 games. Why? Because in awhile, it won't be possible to "just buy a new one of the old system". They stop making them. I'd really like it if Sony made a special version of the PS4 with full backwards compat and sold it at a higher price, because I would pay that price. Being able to play my older games is kinda important to me, just like being able to watch old movies or read old books.
That said, I'd settle for being able to grab the games on PSN(re-buy them the same way we had to re-buy the movies we had on VHS back when DVD became the thing). But for some of the ones I want to play the most(Monster Rancher 4, Suikoden 3-5, etc) there's not a whole lot of demand for a downloadable version of 'em.
Noted. Agreed, it sucks that at some point the old system stops being manufactured and Emulation is not a complete handling.
The thing is that at the beginning and middle of a system's life-cycle, those of us who:
1)Have a large collection of previous gen games.
2)Have a non-functional old gen system or are worried enough about that happening soon to pay for it.
Is a small group. It will be years before the availability of getting a PS2 system for under 100 bucks is an issue. PS3 will have an even longer window. The practical reality that most people that really want backwards compatibility already have a functioning system that plays the game (and the company still sells the product that plays it for a number of years still)
My oldest system in my house is 20~ years old, and does still run games. And if it died tomorrow?
http://www.nintendosforsale.com/nintendo-nintendo-consoles-c-45_12.html There are refurbish speciality shops that can easily provide it.
In most cases, the console manufacturers are getting hit from both sides. There's a lot of the audience that wasn't and still isn't keen with how high the price points got last generation. Every dollar added to the cost cuts more and more of these folks out of even looking at the console for years. There's the other side that looks and says "If you are upping the cost 200 bucks for backwards compatiblity, I can just go BUY one of the old systems right now for that price new." (Not yet for PS3, but i can't see it holding that 250 price point forever)
A pretty high powered laptop can easily be gotten for under a thousand dollars. Is 500 dollars an okay point for something that just does games and television? It's a rough time for speciality hardware and a lot of the designs are reflecting that for better or worse.
This is the market reality that gets looked at :\ It's not pretty. I really hope that this generation is setting the foundation that since the games are digital products and hopefully the hardware is more standardized under the hood so that games can be transferred. I don't hold a lot of hope there though. *eyes the enormous number of studios closing over the last few years as an indication that the money is simply tight everywhere*
Edit:
I should mention, that the actual cost of adding Backwards Compatibility is often rather huge. It might come down to just 20-200 dollars per person spread among all people who buy the system, but it's much larger if just put against people that want backwards compatibility. That's an unfortunate scale thing :(
Actually, one problem becomes evident from this. And that's the fact that console costs are climbing, in an era when PC investments for gaming systems are lasting longer and longer.
I'm speculating that this could be a tipping point where for value of investment, the PC is the better choice over a console.
'cause, look at all the problems we have with the PC library's backwards compatibility. Since we have DOSBox, well....
...yeah.
While it was also just speculation, I read that this generation (PS4, XBOXone) of hardware might very well be the last.
Considering that, I'm starting to agree.
Quite possibly.
And it remains hard to see good sales figures for many things in the PC space. Hacking together things quick or long tail FTP/MMO systems seem to consume an awful lot of the potential paying base and a lot of games that historically have been pretty cool just would never work in that model.
Microsoft has announced that they 'can,' but have not yet offically decided to, use the new Kinect's face identification as a DRM device.
The new Kinect can recognize your face and how many people are in the room, and if you have too many people, or whatever restrictions Microsoft decides to use, the XBox One will not play the game or movie.
They also announced that XBox One Kinect's microphone will always be on, and that the XBox One will not function without the Kinect.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/24/xbox-one-will-kinect-2-use-visual-drm
"The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken," it reads.
That news is yuck.
Almost as yuck as the blatant fanboyism in the comment section.
500 dollar launch price.
They're insane. Completely insane.
Didn't PS3 launch at that price?
Edit: Yes, it did -- for the cheaper (smaller HD) version. Bigger HD was 600$.
Yes, and it was a bad choice that dramatically weakened their position in the marketplace for years to come?
I'm not getting the cut of your argument. I understand you think that they're stupid, but do you think they're selling too low and will bankrupt themselves? Selling too high and won't make sales?
For contrast, the PS4 has been confirmed to be releasing at a lower price point than the PS3 (http://ps4daily.com/2013/05/gamestop-playstation-4-will-launch-at-lower-price-than-ps3/).
Is Sony more, or less insane?
I don't think that question mark was meant to be there.
For clarity:
I think the price is ridiculously high for a console and will deflate early numbers by putting a high barrier on early adoption.
Should there be another thread for the Playstation 4 stuff? I'm not sure, so I'm just going to post it here, because it can always be moved if need be.
So, I guess no DRM, no anti-used measures, and a $399 price point. I honestly haven't been this pleasantly surprised in a while. I'm not saying this makes Sony suddenly the ultimate good guy, but it sure puts them above Microsoft in my books at the moment.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/kWSIFh8ICaA
The fine print disclaimer really undercuts that joke.
"You can't 'share' your digital (non-physical) copies."?
While being able to share digital games would be a neat idea, I ... honestly can't agree. They're saying, "You can give a disk to a friend, just like you've been able to since you were swapping NES carts as a kid." It's specifically trolling/mocking X1 for being so stupid.
It's unfortunate that Sony is being lauded for not taking away something we've always had, but it's more unfortunate that X1 is taking it away.
There's that, but I meant it more in the sense that:
The joke: PS4 allows you to share your games easily, unlike X-Box.
Disclaimer: Unless you're dealing with non-disk games, multiplayer, Playstation Network, PS PLUS, blah blah blah legal boilerplate text.
Setting aside whether Sony or Microsoft is the good guy in this round of the console wars, I'm just decrying bad joke construction that ruins a good jab from Sony toward Microsoft. I'm sure there are reasons why the disclaimer is there and I understand that non-disk games must have issues that disk games don't, but cramming that banner into the joke turns the narrative into "Ha ha, X-Box is complicated, and we at PS4 are simple (Disclaimer: TONS OF COMPLICATED PS4 LEGALESE)".
It makes the joke inconsistent, and unless you take time to think it through, a little hypocritical.
Nnnnnoo, the only limitation on trading is that it only works for discs. The disclaimer also mentions that you have to have an online account to play online, which seems to be an anti-stupidity warning. "If you've got a plus account, and loan your game to someone who doesn't, they can't play online."
That 'complicated PS4 legalese' is shorter than twitter's limit. :\
Quote from: BrianNnnnnoo, the only limitation on trading is that it only works for discs.
Sure, but that's implicit in the joke where one guy is handing over a disk. Further explaining that limitation in a text disclaimer makes the joke less pithy.
Quote from: BrianThe disclaimer also mentions that you have to have an online account to play online, which seems to be an anti-stupidity warning. "If you've got a plus account, and loan your game to someone who doesn't, they can't play online."
Adding an anti-stupidity warning to a joke isn't necessary if Sony's in it to make the point and get a laugh, assuming that the audience of the joke is people who would follow console news and thus have a decent grasp of the difference between disk and digital. It's necessary only if Sony's trying to protect itself legally. Adding something extra to a joke to protect oneself legally undermines the joke.
Quote from: BrianThat 'complicated PS4 legalese' is shorter than twitter's limit. :\
Which is still too long, and too complicated, for that joke since it's trying to emphasize PS4's simplicity. As I understand it, the narrative goes like so:
XBox One: Many complications to sharing your games. (http://www.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/Used_Games_and_Rentals)
PS4: One step to share your games.
Adding any legalese to PS4's one step weakens that narrative.
(http://i.imgur.com/BNTnV3V.gif)
I could watch that .gif for hours.
You may also enjoy:
(http://img2u.info/ckgni/i/g06480429.gif)
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbox-One-Games-E3-Were-Running-Windows-7-With-Nvidia-GTX-Cards-56737.html
A general case of Microsoft being Microsoft. The bits at the end about Windows 8 are meatier than the first part, but it still fits here.
eh, Sloppy, but smoke and mirrors are expected at this point. For reasons I can't go into, it'd be a bad time to show things running on actual dev units for both consoles and in either case, not really representative of what they'll be at launch. That isn't a comment on whether either will be good at launch or other things, but just that for either team, running on the live hardware was unlikely to be the right choice with many months before ship.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/16/why-oddworld-is-coming-to-every-platform-except-xbox/?partner=yahootix
I'm personally tired of hearing how 'indie is the future of gaming', but ... what the hell? For one thing, it seems off to me that Oddworld is an 'Indie' franchise, considering they used to be considered at least AA titles, possibly AAA, but that aside-- Microsoft is 'Anti-indie'?
Seriously, are they trying to make their console fail? Do they have some crazy switcheroo planned where they think that they can win adoration by suddenly reversing these stances? I swear -- it's like they're trying to become a parody of themselves....
That company has been releasing games for longer than I've been in the industry. If they can't get marked down as publisher for self-publishing, I have trouble buying that it is microsoft's fault there.
Microsoft though is currently fighting hard to retain it's title: Worst PR job in the history of the industry.
Just imagine the possibilities if they were to buy EA.
It seems that the 'no indies' thing may be overblown hype. If I find out more, I'll add that. In the meantime, Hal found this gem:
https://twitter.com/XboxSupport1/status/345338828606812160
And I felt the thread deserved a rename.
Yeah, not surprised. Not sure what's worse: The policy makers or the marketing team.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/19/4445984/xbox-one-policy-reversal-changes
Linking anywhere non-kotaku.
Well, thats 1 less stupidity.
• No more always online requirement
• The console no longer has to check in every 24 hours
• All game discs will work on Xbox One as they do on Xbox 360
• Authentication is no longer necessary
• An Internet connection is only required when initially setting up the console
• All downloaded games will function the same when online or offline
• No additional restrictions on trading games or loaning discs
• Region locks have been dropped
You know, I'm really not at all surprised. It does beg the question of how convinced they were they could sell it in the previous state.
From Iddy:
(http://i.imgur.com/RTX6TYN.jpg)
I haven't seen confirmation on the price drop, but it'd be the smarter move on Microsoft's part.
And now there's a bunch of people complaining that they liked it the way it was.
http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-one-just-got-way-worse-and-its-our-fault-514411905?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
From what I understood, the ability to lend your game that you weren't playing to someone else easily was kind of cool. I don't know if there's a compromise to have that _and_ retain the ability to resell the games, and to avoid easy-mode piracy, the checkins would be needed to support it.
But any of those unwanted features could just come back in a late update, tied to other, more desirable features. "Want to share games? You just need to add this service (which neatly requires daily checkins), and so does the friend you want to share the game with! It's not built in, so there's also a fee!"
Edit: I am now massively suspicious of this. Something isn't playing right; that link you gave, Grahf, points out sharing of digital content, not just physical disks. There is absolutely no reason for them to take away the potential of sharing digital content, and having disk-based games just work off disks. They could even bundle the 'daily checkin' as an incentive to enable digital sharing, so people could have the best of both worlds and either not subscribe to the DRM, or opt-in and get 'perks'. Something about this scenario is very, very wrong.
There's lots of rumors on that going around.
*fishes out the original press release*
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update
It seems to say they are. But this is the Microsoft of LEGENDARILY BAD PR COMMUNICATION.
Quote from: Brian on June 19, 2013, 10:31:00 PM
Edit: I am now massively suspicious of this. Something isn't playing right; that link you gave, Grahf, points out sharing of digital content, not just physical disks. There is absolutely no reason for them to take away the potential of sharing digital content, and having disk-based games just work off disks. They could even bundle the 'daily checkin' as an incentive to enable digital sharing, so people could have the best of both worlds and either not subscribe to the DRM, or opt-in and get 'perks'. Something about this scenario is very, very wrong.
That's what a few people have picked up on already regarding this. The whole point of not needing to take away the functionality but not making it mandatory either. Like if you want to play the game discless, check in once a day; if you don't do that then you have to use the disc. It was something simple, and also something that didn't need the 24 hour check in to be absolutely mandatory either. Other aspects are being called into question as well, such as how many games will still force people to be online via cloud gaming, and of course the largest concern is whether or not Microsoft plans to reintroduce all of the limitations via patches that are lawyer jargonized to hell and back.
Well, they can't have unmitigated feature-reintroduction strategies, simply because you can choose to never update. This may block you in to games that are compatible with x version (which is pre-lockout, or whatever), but at least in theory, you can keep your console and some games from being taken away from you. Well ... other than the onetime activation. That would prevent rolling back, actually.
Also, waffling back and forth like that in a non-optional manner with legal forms backing it will be complete lawsuit bait. It wouldn't even be a hard one I suspect as the documentation from Microsoft's press release's would indicate that they were advertising certain realities, and EULAs saying the opposite would basically leave a lawyer to just point at the two and slam dunk their fraud case. There's no way they wouldn't get sued for that.