Xbox One - Where Microsoft actually listens to consumers

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by gottabekd

I guess the thing is, a couple days before reversing the DRM they were saying "We absolutely won't change anything", so it's hard to know what to believe.

Yeah, hard to believe anything Microsoft says these days. Hell, even their "family-sharing" program is looking more like a half baked last minute token promise more than anything real.

I really hope people stop crying about this "lost" feature that never really was and more just a half assed promise trying to placate people so offended by the DRM restrictions in the first place.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/21/44...mored-features

The feature would have allowed Xbox One owners to share their game libraries with other family members, regardless of their location. However, the engineer reveals that Family Sharing would only let family members access a "demo mode" of the game for between 15 mins and 45 mins, and in some cases an hour.

EDIT: All of this and the obvious fact that developers would never allow 1 game to be freely shared to 9 nine other people. That is just idiotic for somebody to believe or claim as realistic in the first place.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I really hope people stop crying about this "lost" feature that never really was and more just a half assed promise trying to placate people so offended by the DRM restrictions in the first place.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/21/44...mored-features

The feature would have allowed Xbox One owners to share their game libraries with other family members, regardless of their location. However, the engineer reveals that Family Sharing would only let family members access a "demo mode" of the game for between 15 mins and 45 mins, and in some cases an hour.

EDIT: All of this and the obvious fact that developers would never allow 1 game to be freely shared to 9 nine other people. That is just idiotic for somebody to believe or claim as realistic in the first place.

It's unconfirmed, officially denied, and as such can be considered speculation, so no, no one has to stop complaining about the loss of the feature. What would be the point of giving people the ability to play basically a time-limited demo? They already offer those today.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

It's unconfirmed, officially denied, and as such can be considered speculation, so no, no one has to stop complaining about the loss of the feature. What would be the point of giving people the ability to play basically a time-limited demo? They already offer those today.

Sure you can complain about it - Microsoft can still put it in for people that make online purchases. What is stopping them? It is fully their choice.

But if you, or I, or anybody else is looking for solid facts and plans about the Xbone 180 - we should all avoid official Microsoft representatives. They have both confirmed and denied the same things this whole way though. Including changing anything about their officially announced policies about DRM and such.

Seriously though, I found this one hour timed demo "speculation" from multiple Verge sources interesting though. Remember at the console launch, they mentioned how you had to call in every 24 hours for permission? But at a "friend's" house the time changed to 1 hour? That was the family share program - it was in front of us this whole time!

^ just my speculation and thinking out loud. I doubt the Verge would accept me as a source!

[McG]

another post from a "heartbroken" m$ employee.

http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

[Violator]

Originally Posted by McG

another post from a "heartbroken" m$ employee.

http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

So when you buy a game used you're hurting developers much more than say a movie studio. Many gamers fail to realize this when they purchase these preowned games.

My god what have we done how will we sleep at night

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by McG

another post from a "heartbroken" m$ employee.

http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

Wow, how did the industry survive until now if used games are so evil!?!?!?!

[Fire]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Wow, how did the industry survive until now if used games are so evil!?!?!?!

By providing a huge amount of overpriced DLC that could have been part of the original game!

[drPepper1]

Why can't they just allow offline gaming and make kinect optional. If a customer wants to play online they can check in to insure it's a legitimate game.

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by drPepper1

Why can't they just allow offline gaming and make kinect optional. If a customer wants to play online they can check in to insure it's a legitimate game.

well they have now...

but trying to make sure players are using valid copies of games isn't limited to just playing multiplayer online.... they want to ensure that offline play is using legal games too

[3 Justin 3]

I have to seriously laugh out loud when I see a Microsoft employee say "So when you buy a game used you're hurting developers much more than say a movie studio. Many gamers fail to realize this when they purchase these preowned games."

It would be nice for them to stop lying to consumers. Used sales hurt the publishers, not game developers. Game developers (the studio itself) make s*** money even if the game is a relative success.

Also, that entire rant from a "heartbroken employee" is complete bollocks. A) You didn't do a good enough job with your vision because you never explained it because you guys are all tech geeks who have no understanding of PR, business, the consumer desires and B) it was never a good idea in the first place as evident by the pre-order sales and the massive outcry from the community.

If it were a good idea, they would still implement it, but alas they have no clue what to do other than to follow their competition.

[Spinoff90]

Glad they changed some of the policies but still hoping they address the Kinect scenario.

First with the stuff they changed I didn't have a problem with it because I couldn't trade my games and stuff. My problem was I am a big gamer so I buy a lot of games and I like to know that if I get the urge to pull out an old system and games I can do that as long as the system is still operational. Much like how I still pull out my SNES. The last SNES game was released in 1998 so it has been 15 years since you could say the system ended. The last Xbox game was released in in 2008 and they shutdown XBL for it in 2010. Only two years and they shut it down. If they were to do that with Xbox One that would have meant it was a paperweight with coasters only two years after the final game for it. So I am glad I will be able to play the single player portion of games whenever I should so desire after the Xbox One's run comes to an end. It is why I won't buy any new full price games on Steam ever and only use it when there are really, really good deals.

With the online check in thing I didn't have a huge issue with that but there have been a few times where XBL has seen outages of more than 24 hours as well as ISP's. So that could have created some problems. I was also part of a handful of gamers who couldn't use our accounts for more than a month. We were a group that reached a certain number of games played first (Can't remember what the exact number of games was when it happened) that the profiles were not ready to handle so it corrupted our profiles preventing us from getting online, recovering our profiles etc. Basically first world problems to the extreme. In that case we were able to use another account in the meantime but if that were the Xbox One with these two policies we wouldn't have been able to play our games. Obviously I don't expect something like that to happen again though.

And even though that was one of the things that pushed me over to the PS3 as my primary console and it was frustrating at the time I do have to give Microsoft some credit. I mean normally when you get only a handful of people calling you about a problem I am sure it just gets pushed aside as a non-issue. Which the first few calls did result it since obviously the basic customer service would be totally oblivious to it. But after a few days we did get contacted by somebody that actually worked on the Xbox and not just a customer support agent. So between the group of us and him in constant contact we were eventually able to work it out. In the end they had to send us fixed accounts on memory cards and it was the year the big fall update got slightly delayed since they added a fix for that problem to ensure it didn't happen to anybody else. Plus gave us a free year of XBL which isn't bad for only a month lost Oh and they installed a free game on the memory card with the fixed profile but I don't think they thought that one through considering the problem was we had played too many games and of course all of us had the game

When it comes to the Kinect I am not one of those people wearing a tin foil hat worried they will be spying on me. I just don't want an ugly camera sitting above my nice big screen TV all the time. I enjoy the Kinect as a fun way to mix my love for gaming and exercise together but I only pull it out for that. And even then if a game supports the controller for menus like Dance Central I will navigate with it. That is what I want my Kinect use to remain as. You just can't help but notice which company works with televisions and which company is primarily involved in the PC market when you look at the systems. Sony make a small (Although ugly) system to go nicely in the home theater with a thin TV. Microsoft design a giant box of a console and then want you to always have an ugly camera hooked up above your TV. Honestly I don't even know what I am going to do with the Kinect. When I use it with the 360 I put it on a ledge that is much higher than the TV so the cords dangle down. Obviously I don't want that when it is also hooked up though. And I am sure they will have some kind of mount for the TV but like the Kinect and PS Eye mounts available now those don't work out with a lot of newer sets either since so many companies are going for bezeless designs that you would have to clasp those to the screen itself.

All that being said I pre-ordered both systems the second they went up for pre-order despite the policies Microsoft had so them changing policies doesn't change that I was getting it anyway. I can't resist Forza 5 over some policies I may or may not like. Especially with all three Top Gear hosts involved this time around

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

I have to seriously laugh out loud when I see a Microsoft employee say "So when you buy a game used you're hurting developers much more than say a movie studio. Many gamers fail to realize this when they purchase these preowned games."

It would be nice for them to stop lying to consumers. Used sales hurt the publishers, not game developers. Game developers (the studio itself) make s*** money even if the game is a relative success.

To be fair you are forgetting a key part of that. The game developers get paid by the publishers no matter what yes. But a game doesn't make the publisher enough money and what happens? The developer gets shutdown while the big publishers keep going on with business as usual. So in the end it does hurt the developers more even if they are not getting the money from the sales.

Used sales need regulated in some form is what needs to happen. Companies always try to take actions that impact the consumers negatively with DRM and stuff when the real issue comes from places like Gamestop that have turned used game sales into a billion dollar industry and a far cry from the days of two kids trading a NES cartridge on a playground. What they need to do is fight for some kind of regulations that would see stores like Gamestop have to share 10% or something from every used sale with the publisher. 10% of the billions Gamestop make from used sales is still billions so hardly going to put them out of business while that money could help the publishers get the money they want to keep the developers in business.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

I have to seriously laugh out loud when I see a Microsoft employee say "So when you buy a game used you're hurting developers much more than say a movie studio. Many gamers fail to realize this when they purchase these preowned games."

It would be nice for them to stop lying to consumers. Used sales hurt the publishers, not game developers. Game developers (the studio itself) make s*** money even if the game is a relative success.

Also, that entire rant from a "heartbroken employee" is complete bollocks. A) You didn't do a good enough job with your vision because you never explained it because you guys are all tech geeks who have no understanding of PR, business, the consumer desires and B) it was never a good idea in the first place as evident by the pre-order sales and the massive outcry from the community.

If it were a good idea, they would still implement it, but alas they have no clue what to do other than to follow their competition.

Except that the publisher is the one who funds the game in the first place, so it's up to them whether the studio gets funding for more. Awesome games like Heavy Rain end up in the hands of tons of gamers (as seen by their data), but sales don't reflect it. Had the raw sales been higher, perhaps we could have seen a sequel.

[Hack&Lube]

Whoa! I found Don Mattrick on CBC in 1983!

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Digital+Arc...rt=MostPopular

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Whoa! I found Don Mattrick on CBC in 1983!

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Digital+Arc...rt=MostPopular

At first I was surprised that a guy who is such a ###### was Canadian....then I read his bio and saw he was from Vancouver.

[photon]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multime...ne_Emerge.html

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by photon

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multime...ne_Emerge.html

So huge! And it still has a separate power brick. Lots of room for future iteration (smaller) sales though.

[TorqueDog]

Internal power supply = more heat, also means if the PSU dies, it isn't user-replacable.

Also, looks like non-proprietary connectors for the HD, so I'm sure the mod community will have a way to swap the HD to a larger size.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Internal power supply = more heat, also means if the PSU dies, it isn't user-replacable.

Also, looks like non-proprietary connectors for the HD, so I'm sure the mod community will have a way to swap the HD to a larger size.

Hell, Microsoft should make it even bigger then.

Good catch on the HD. Sounds like they'll do their super expensive hard drive upgrade option again. Glad the PS4 is easily upgradable without this nonsense like the PS3.

[TorqueDog]

I don't think they will offer a hard drive upgrade that isn't a different hardware SKU entirely (Pro, Elite), to be honest, unless the final hardware has an access panel to accommodate easily swapping the drive. :-/

Cracking open the case like that is enough to get your warranty voided with nearly any hardware manufacturer.

[chemgear]

It took me a while to upgrade the PS3 hard drive but with PS+ you kinda have to with all the free games. I'm pretty impressed with how slick/smooth the upgrade is. And the warranty isn't voided either.