At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox – the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
For me, the biggest news about the Xbox One is not how it’s more powerful (of course it is), not that it will focus on TV (which will most likely only be useful to Americans anyway), not that it will force yet another ugly peripheral down our throats that I can’t place anywhere (we knew it would come with Kinect) – no, the biggest news is how Microsoft is making one of the most fundamental aspects of gaming impossible – or at least, very, very cumbersome.
Ever since I got my first console – an NES – I’ve done something all of us have. You find a friend who has the same console as you, and who has different games than you, and you start loaning each other your games. This practice is as old as the console market itself, and allows you to play games you otherwise wouldn’t buy – and thus, expand your horizons.
The best example I know of how important this is was Japanese RPGs. I generally dislike them, and don’t enjoy them at all, meaning I would never spend any money on them. However, one of my friends is a huge fan, and through him, I got to play Tales Of Vesperia – now firmly one of my best games I’ve ever played.
Microsoft is planning to make this age-old practice impossible or at the very least incredibly annoying and costly. The Xbox One will still have traditional game discs, but installation to the hard drive has become mandatory. Once you install a disc to the hard drive (which is, as I said, mandatory), you can play the game without the disc, but said game is now tied to your Xbox Live account. If you want to loan this game to a friend, he will not be able to play it unless he pays a fee (as of yet undefined by Microsoft).
Of course, this ridiculous system will also mean a huge, huge blow to the used games market – another venue through which many gamers widen their horizons on the gaming market. Microsoft has told Wired it will have a solution in place for used games retailers, but they are refusing to unveil just what this is. It’s my guess it will be some sort of official program used games retailers can become a member of so that Microsoft gets some sort of control over the market.
Because of all this, I’m not even interested in any of the other stuff Microsoft has announced regarding the Xbox One. I’m not going to pay for loaned games from friends – Microsoft can go screw itself.
With the massive amounts of piracy I am not surprised.
Also it is a license per machine model that has been around with Microsoft forever.
It isn’t really surprising.
Edited 2013-05-21 21:51 UTC
Proof for console piracy?
Chipping? Been around for ages in various forms.
http://www.xboxmb.com/forum/44-firmware-hack-tutorials/1965-flashin…
Every console so far has been able to be chipped via various methods. While at uni I made a lot of money actually chipping consoles (PSX and PS2).
We could do everything from play dodgy games to emulators of games on other platforms.
I don’t do it anymore after I became a software developer and realized the amount of work required in making qualify software.
Edited 2013-05-21 21:56 UTC
You know quite well that’s not what I meant. You claim there is massive amounts of console piracy. I’m asking you: show me the proof. The fact that you CAN chip a console is not proof of “massive amounts of piracy”.
I can’t show you proof because as you well know it isn’t measurable by any official body.
I know that after living in 3 different countries I know that it does happen and it happens enough of the time that it maybe significant.
What you are asking me to prove is slightly anecdotal and a bit of a Russell’s Teapot, and I accept that.
I am actually counting on you having a decent amount of common sense and have some trust in what I am saying.
Edited 2013-05-21 22:06 UTC
Of course it happens – I never said otherwise. I’m just doubting your statement that there are “massive amounts of piracy” on consoles. Considering the big amounts of effort involved in doing so, I highly doubt this is based on actual evidence.
Oh, and stating I do not have common sense, simply because I’m asking for evidence? That’s rather odd.
I didn’t say you didn’t have common sense. I said you need to approach it as such i.e. we have no numbers on the numbers of pirates and I accept it is a Russell’s Teapot Scenario in a lot of cases.
When I was talking about a “lot of piracy” I was talking about the past (especially the PS2 era)
Piracy happens a lot less because of online services because of Xbox live, this is simply an extension of this. Piracy on the original half life was a lot harder if you wanted to play multi-player and look where that brought us.
As a developer, I think this is a good thing.
Edited 2013-05-21 22:12 UTC
It’s likely the best way to measure console piracy would be an estimate, taken from the number of online active players at any one time, versus the number of unit sales. Sprinkle a bit of market research on just how many people buy used games, and just how many people play online, and you have yourself some very rough numbers of pirating customers.
Or they could eliminate it by making it tied to an account.
TBH this isn’t new, the same thing happened with Half Life with the CD key and multi-player. After that we had Steam.
So go figure.
That would only work for online-games, though, and for online-gamers. It wouldn’t work for single-player gamers.
Everything about it would be online .. offline would be a legacy.
Edited 2013-05-21 22:38 UTC
http://kotaku.com/5988244/bootleggers-explain-why-theres-so-much-vi…
I know this isn’t evidence or anything but it is an interesting article.
Edited 2013-05-21 22:35 UTC
Looks bloody interesting, bookmarked!
I live in Brazil, where piracy hatings are MONSTRUOUS (80% in PC market), and where PS2 pirate games were sold on the streets everyday. I have to say that the statement that piracy is massing IS NOT TRUE nowadays. The pirate market simply shrinked and most people just buy games, but there a a HUGE market of trades and buy for used games. I don’t see this move as a way to stop piracy, in current generation this is NOT the issue, but as a way for console and game makers to meddle into the used games market.
By the way, software here is considered a product by the law, not a service, and trying to force people to pay for resseling is a cause that allows you to legally hack your device, if needed. SO, this move of microsoft has the potential do raise piracy on XBox, instead of lowering it.
You can’t show the proof, because there are no studies that have concluded that console game piracy is at a substantial level. There are a lot of studies on the issue of PC game piracy, however.
Come down to Singapore. I’ll drive you across the border into the southernmost Malaysian town where you’ll be able to find any Xbox360 game for approximately $3.00US. In that country, you’re considered an idiot for not getting a modded console. Heck, I think most of the stores don’t even sell unmodded units.
…and no, I’m not going to bother driving all the way to take a pic as proof for you. Do it yourself, you first-world person.
Edited 2013-05-22 01:07 UTC
And yet when you compare the amount of console titles available with the amount of PC titles, you see why the claim that the console piracy is big is unfounded.
I am from Malaysia and it is harder to find modded Xbox in my area. It is funny since you are just making a sweeping statement / generalizing that everyone buys pirated.
I am not going into the reason why Xbox 360 is not officially available in Malaysia as that will be a chicken and egg story. However majority of Malaysians who do own a Xbox 360 are all original. Most of them care about the achievements and online play. (Playing Black Ops 2 or Halo 4 online)
There is even a HUGE second hand market here, as you can see from our local forums (https://forum.lowyat.net/Xbox) many people buy and trade used Xbox 360 games. What this new Xbox One is going to do in ensure most Malaysians find more better ways to pirate the device. I know the majority of xbox 360 (and even PS3) gamers now started buying original cause they can resell it, if they cant, well then they will look else where. (either at a competitor or pirate it). The average salary for most Malaysians is RM2000-RM3000, when one game cost RM150++, you should know why they need to resell it
Among my friends it’s about 50% and I suspect the percent is bigger in my country since we’re not kids and we all have decent paying jobs – 2nd world country.
Piracy is an industry lie to get what laws they want to force out competition and cling to a dying buisness model.
https://secure.dslreports.com/shownews/Study-Estimates-of-Game-BitTo…
Ever hear of the $8 billion dollar iPod?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0
These companies could learn allot from Amanda Palmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g
People should also start by not using the term “piracy.” It is a creepy corporate newspeak attempt at subverting and shaping reality; Making a digital copy, and taking to the seas for booty and plunder are not the same thing.
Also it is good to remember, that pirate/privateer/buccaneer ships and fleets during certain times and places were state sanctioned incorporated enterprises.
Accusations of “piracy” more often than not is an attempt at justifying pricing oneself out of a market.
Its not a bald faced lie, and its not to force out competition ( unless you believe that piracy is competition) , but yes they do use piracy as an excuse for why their business model is dying.
Its not dying because of piracy ( although its not helping), its dying because of the long tail. With a vast selection of content, everyone finds their own niche. With every one only paying attention to their niche, nothing gets super popular, and they can’t benefit from economies of scale like they once did.
Trust me no one one wants to pirate your software.
Sorry I had to say that, you are being a mega troll.
Nobody wants to pirate my software because I write Bespoke Software 🙂
Troll on OSNEWS == Doesn’t agree with the hurd on here.
True that.
Edit: its not limited to OSNews. If you speak up against piracy anywhere, and you’ll get labeled a troll. Its the sacred cow of the internet.
Edited 2013-05-23 18:13 UTC
If you’ve ever been playing games online with the Xâ– O, then you know that pirates and crackers were pretty much partying on that platform so much that it has almost killed the platform. Online matches are full of cheaters, and the act of running a pirated game on Xbox 360 is almost so easy that anykind of an idiot can do it. DVDs and easy to burn and the software has been cracked to run ISO images from external HDDs. The situation on the Wii is just as or even worse than this.
Publishers and developers were not ready to invest into the platform were it was more than certain that the game would get pirated. And that’s why currently Xbox 360 has practically no flow for new exclusive games. Wii also suffers greatly from lack of the 3rd party titles.
The PS3’s unauthorized software is also broadly available, but the device itself is still pretty difficult to pirate. This is due BD drive and the sheer size of the games only available for PS3. And a few other things. But it’s still more or less easy to do if you know what you’re doing.
The content ID system in Xâ– 1, and the way the DRM is handled in the new Xbox is in my opinion just the next step for Microsoft to try to prolong the upcoming battle against the crackers who want to run pirated games and cheat in online games and do controlled modifications. Not to mention the hackers who want to tinker with the box and run GNU/Linux on it and do homebrew software.
While the overall problem with the unauthorized copies of games and other software might be more significant problem on Windows-PCs, the problem exists for closed game devices as well, and it’s getting worse with more people getting onto those devices.
http://www.osnews.com/thread?562784
Well here we are.
They are fighting down the used-games market, not piracy, with this solution.
Buying games used is NOT piracy.
Piracy will always find their ways, such measures will hurt honest customers in most cases.
Adrian
It also eliminates piracy. Killing two birds with one stone.
This will do nothing to kill piracy. It will do everything to kill the used gaming market and damage total game sales.
I’m pretty damn sure every last one of my friends and relatives will be asking me to mod their new Xbox for them this time around to allow for games to be installed from downloads.
I’ve been modding consoles since PS2’s official network adapter made for a nice integrated storage solution for loading your library to the console to make them better for semi-portable usage.
I doubt it will actually hurt total games sold. The Disk is just an alternative to downloading it aka Steam and Steam isn’t doing badly.
On the PS3 I bought online most of the games I own and I haven’t picked up a game on Disk Since StarCraft 2 for my PC.
This was really inevitable with major publishers (EA, Ubisoft, Sony, etc.) already charging for second hand copy access to certain features such as online play, or not allowing transfer/sale at all (Steam).
However, I’m not sure what stake Microsoft has in limiting the used game market. I have to agree with lucas that this is at least partially related to piracy and IP protection.
Actually, this hurts Gamefly, Redbox, and the like the most.
EA recently announced that all future games will not have an Online Pass. Maybe, this fee is what is replacing it.
Yeah they realized they could force more people to buy the new version of a game by simply shutting down the online servers for the 2 year old version.
Online Pass has become technically illegal in the EU too.
Microsoft will have some sort of special programmer for resellers, they’ve said as much on the Xbox One’s FAQ.
If that is the case then they are breaking the law in several countries. Resale of a used product can not be limited without written consent by the customer and can not be enforced by the seller without consent of the judicial body that approved such an contract.
If one gets to resell, then all have the rights to resell.
This might not be the case in the few EULA countries, but in most others.
On the other hand, the expo on the new device made it very clear that it is aimed at the US/CA markets primarily.
Check the articles in Games Developer Magazine, the industry is of another opinion.
Who the heck cares, what the industry thinks? If I buy something, it is mine, I paid for it. If I lend my book to my friend, I can’t read it anymore. So ditto the analogy for the games – lending my game to a friend means, he can play it, I can’t. But – the game has been paid for already.
Why should anyone care, if I sell my game I don’t want to play anymore, to another friend, give it to him/her for free, or just throw it into the trash can?
All this licence, patents and similar crap should be eradicated from the planet Earth, as it is missused by the strong ones, having almost zero common sense in real life scenarios. And in the long run, whoever thinks will win against the common sense, will imo lose in the end …
I agree completely.
This and the rest of the software industry are the only fucking businesses that attempt this kind of bullshit.
Could you see Honda collecting a fee off of every person who sold their used Civic on Craigslist?
Could you see Doubleday collecting a fee off of every person who sold their used paperback Stephen King novel to a local bookstore?
How about Sony Records on every used CD sold at Tower Records?
Of course not! This is just pure greed plain and simple.
In France automobile constructors tried to make pass a law to get a fee on each second hand vehicle sold, because “it kills the market of new product”. When planned obsolescence is not enough…
Kochise
Re-read the article. Then read it back, read it on one leg, change leg then read it again. Have you found the very clue that render Microsoft’s decision absolutely valid AND coherent ?
IF (opposing two exclusive alternatives) user A lend the disk to user B, nothing prevent user B from playing the disk, while user A cannot (because of the physical absence of said disk).
If user A has installed the disk on the hard drive, thus giving user A unlimited access to disk’s content while lending disk to user B, so that both users can play the disk AT THE SAME TIME : forbidden by Microsoft.
So where have you lost track of this little tiny nifty detail that, for some very strange reasons, I was able to locate amongst the surrounding words ?
Kochise
We didn’t lose track. There is no option A where the disc is “removable” and you can play the game. all game discs will be like PC games, a one-time download medium tied to a serial number AND your online account (so at this point you cannot even uninstall and physically hand over the serial key like warcraft or Starcraft used to)
Effectively, these are MORE LOCKED than even Apple’s App Stores that at least let you have 5 copies on ipad/iphones for one price.
If you don’t like what Microsoft is doing, don’t buy it, find alternatives. You are still free to do so.
Kochise
Haha. Missing an argument? So instead of trying to change company’s opinion, about how ppl do feel about their offered limitation, all you can say is just – buy, or shut up and go elsewhere? You must be a genius 🙂
Do you think moaning about past/present/planned Microsoft behaviors here on Osnews would ever -EVER- make them change their mind ? It’s about generating, at least trying to consolidate, millions of revenue, and I think Microsoft can cope loosing some angry video nerds here and there. Their Windows 8 is more under suffering.
If you behold the truth of how a market should be lead, then open your own firm, with freely copyable, lend-able, installable games, on open platform, etc. Ever heard of the Ouya gaming console ? Where it’s coming from, where it’s going to ? Games ? Support ? Dev ?
I’m not a genius, not much more than you are. But claiming to be productive by bashing on Microsoft’s back ain’t any brighter moves from yours.
Kochise
Well, I would refer them to the Supreme Court decision that reinforced the consumer’s First Sale rights!
Oh but I don’t think we should stop there. No sale of used goods of any kind should be allowed. No used cars, tv’s, cd’s, washing machines, computers, monitors etc etc and by jove, we can’t have yard sales. All these things are like stealing from the companies that make new products. I’m certain we can get those disgruntled game developers behind this scheme. Right? Right?
What’s that you say? It’s different? Oh, you say that we should allow all these other used items because, basically, you buy them but not used games. I see….
Sorry Bubba, that’s not how the world works. Grow up and be a man.
I don’t see how this particular method is going to reduce that piracy though. It really does seem much more like a way to reduce the used games market.
It ties the game to the account, a similar technique pretty much killed piracy with the original half life otherwise you couldn’t play online (counter strike and Team Fortress was massive).
No it didn’t, it just popularized private servers. Which due to their private nature provided a better product then the company could with it’s public servers. The private servers could better police cheaters and cultivate a better quality of multiplayer game then what is possible when any 12 year old kid can jump into the room and start team killing.
Sorry but when I was 15 (when the game came out), nobody my age could afford a private server. Everyone had a proper copy of half life if they played online.
Then you must not have been any good at the games, had you been a decent player, or one in a more prominent clan then someone would have offered it to you.
I never had my own server, but I had been offered access to several for various games over the years. Some geek with a relatively fast upload and a spare box hosts the server, sometimes his clan charges a small fee of like $5 one time for access, sometimes not. The connection and specs don’t have to be all that great either, since at most he’s only got 64+/- people connecting at peak and the server’s requirements are a fraction of those of the game itself, thus you can use an old comp as the server.
With the private server it doesn’t matter that your install is pirated, since you’ve disabled it’s ability to call home.
I only played for fun and I had a 56k modem so ping usually killed me. The odd time I played on a lan, I usually did alright.
In any case Esoteric use cases an argument doesn’t make.
That doesn’t seem to augment your point. You are not 15 anymore, internet connectivity is much more ubiquitous, and a lot of people do have private servers.
Honestly though, I wonder how long it will take before someone just builds a mod chip in that will simply fake the whole “phone home” thing MS is going for. Unlike, say, Diablo III, most of the processing isn’t really taking place server-side for these games, so there would be no functionality lost(other than multiplayer) if someone just duped the system into being offline. And with the system architecture being so much more familiar this time around, I can’t help but wonder if the turnaround time for a mod chip like this will be a lot shorter.
That’s the whole point..
Pirates are not willing to spend money, its a waste of effort trying to get them to do so.
Those who buy used games or lend their games to friends *are* willing to spend money, so you expend effort to screw more of it out of them.
They aren’t? Most of the recent studies actually say that pirates are among the people who spend the MOST money on the same stuff they pirate. Hell, I belong in that same group myself.
Ah but you see, but those studies aren’t sponsored by the entertainment industry and the software giants so they are obviously unreliable.
So what they’ve done is screw people who just want to legitimately lend their games to friends…
Serious pirates will just wait for a mod to come out.
Do you know what wouldn’t be surprising? That not allowing people to play legit games for cheap (rented, borrowed or second hand) led to an increase of piracy rather than the opposite.
The cost of owning a second console dedicated exclusively to pirated games is suddenly not such a luxury if you sum up the price of all the 5 hours long games you can rent, resell or exchange with friends for other equally short games in the current generation of consoles.
The thing is that Microsoft aren’t marketing this for hardcore gamers. They are offering it to casual gamers and put a load of Home Theatre PC Tech in which is what Samsung incidentally is doing with their SMART TV technology.
Most of the people I know that have Smart TVs are between 35-50 and like their gadgets.
They don’t need to market it for hardcore gamers as they’ll already buy into it if they want to play any of the platform exclusive titles.
I’ve so far found Samsung’s SmartTV stuff to be a rather useless gimmick. It looks good on paper but it’s awkward to use and doesn’t actually integrate well with the TV flow, requiring quite a few steps to get to launch a not-that-fast-to-load application that more often than not turns out to not be nearly as useful or fun as you might have thought it would be.
I don’t see the HTPC features of the XBoxOne being really enticing outside of the US, but at least I hope they work better than that (although going by the Verge’s article on the potential desync issues with the IR remote, that might not be exactly the case).
But I disgress… weren’t we talking about piracy?.
I think the Smart TV stuff has a long way to go, it is getting better. Their new SDK can be used with Eclipse and a VirtualBox … I think the interfaces of some of the apps need designing better.
What sorta fee are we talking about? A buck? Ten bucks? Full price of game? TFA is a little light on details…
How does this compare to Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows 8/RT which don’t allow *any* sort of sharing (and don’t have physical install media)?
How does this compare with existing digital downloads on Xbox 360? Is it possible to share those today, or is this actually a lifting of restrictions on them?
No one really knows what a ‘fee’ is or how much since Microsoft isn’t good a communicating what is really going on. Remember the Mojave Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mojave_Experiment
Sharing digital downloads is available on the Xbox360
Read the article and don’t know how this has anything to do with the topic.
Nope.
Word of Mouth is hurting in the Online Gaming Community. Similar to how Word of Mouth hurt sales and perception of Windows Vista. Microsoft needs to really control the message of what is going on with use games. Go check out the Xbox Support Twitter doing damage control
https://twitter.com/xboxsupport1
I currently have Fez on my Xbox360 and my nephews on their own Xbox Live account can play it also. Is that not sharing of digital downloads. My nephews are not on my Xbox Live account either.
Edited 2013-05-21 23:07 UTC
Exactly. Of course, it’s a free shot at Microsoft so lots of people will just pile right on.
With a mobile device it’s much easier (and likely) to share the device itself. And the cost of someone buying the same app themselves if they like it is generally much lower too.
On Android and iOS you can indeed share apps and games between devices as long as you log into the App Store with the same login on both devices. Of course that limits you to sharing among family (unless you really trust your friends).
On Android you can even back up your .apk files and install them on a different device with a different login. I did that when I switched from Android to iPhone; my wife ended up with the few games she enjoyed from my collection since she prefers her Android phone. Granted, the legality of that is hazy but considering we live off of the same income I saw no moral problem with it. After all it’s not like I play those games anymore; they are still only being used by one person.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you market DRM: take a useful feature, such as loading games to the hard drive and make that feature mandatory under the guise of attempting to improve the user experience. The side-effect of crippling the used games market is just collateral damage for this modest feature. Well the good news for Microsoft is that I will not be buying any used games on the XBox One, but the bad news is that I won’t be buying any new games either, let alone the console. Congratu-fucking-lations, Microsoft – you’re about to find out just how beneficial the used game market is to a platform by watching your own platform suffer from the lack of it.
So the stuff that the Xbox One is doing… how is it different exactly than Steam? Can you take a game you bought on Steam and install it on a friend’s PC? Can you sell a used copy?
Yes, you sign onto YOUR account and download the game to THEIR computer to play while you are there. No extra money required. The catch is that once you log out YOUR account they cannot access the game.
What happens if I buy a used xbox one? lol
Probably something similar to what happens if you purchase a 360 that’s been banned from Xbox Live. You wouldn’t have access to anything that’s already downloaded to the hard drive; you’d have to erase everything and have the serial number of the unit associated with your own Xbox Live ID.
Now I have the perfect excuse to not lend my games to anyone.
Because all that is apparently remembered from this event, is most of the negative points.
– Pay fee for playing with another account (I don’t know how it would be on the same xbox as the “owner” account).
– Connectivity required.
– Pretty much US centric functionalities.
A gaming PC look more and more attractive to me, and for a cheaper alternative I will look at the Wii U.
* On a different machine, if you use the same xbox with another account you don’t have to pay. If you bring you game to your mates house and sign into the account you don’t have to pay either.
* Online only to activate the game.
How all of this is massively different to Steam I don’t know.
Edited 2013-05-22 20:50 UTC
The game you buy on a PC are not always “Steam powered”,
And I can still play Solitaire when offline
No they don’t have to be but most of them now are. Steam is pretty much dominate and the only other stores are UPlay (which is shit) and Origin (EA) … which are just Steam.
What about GoG? Or Desura? Or Impulse?
I know that Steam is, far and away, the most popular online system for the purchase of games, and will probably remain such for a long time.
That said, Steam allows you to sign off and use the games offline indefinitely and generally charges significantly smaller fees for their wares, in addition to having numerous sales. The reason people aren’t as vitriolic towards Steam about the destruction of the used games market: Steam makes it significantly less necessary.
Not to mention that there appear to be moves being made on Steam to create something of an ersatz used games market through the Trade function. It is, in NO way, perfect, but a combination of thrift and functionality is what makes Steam the exception to the hate(which isn’t to say people don’t hate on Steam, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it is with the console guys).
If they are implementing a trade function, then fair point.
Edited 2013-05-25 18:43 UTC
If it’s locked to an account, what happens to families who may have multiple accounts etc? Are they expected to buy a copy each of any games they want to play?
Hell yeah… That’s what they’ve been wanting us to do. They want a family of five buy five separate chess kits if playing together is part of the plan. The twins must not borrow their older brother’s kit under any circumstances because that’s equivalent to stealing. That’s how they foster market growth.
Just realize that the new generation of consoles is nothing more than glorified PC’s and you will gladly forget about said consoles and marry your PC.
Maybe I am getting too old, but I am yet to see a console worth buying since the last generation.
And I am not going to spend lots of euros on a fancy TV, just to be able to plug a HD games console to it.
The PS2 was the last console worth paying for.
I don’t think this is a very good move by Microsoft.
The nice thing about Nintendo that you can always play games from the previous console or your new one. So buy a new generation console and still enjoy your old games.
You can’t with the Xbox One. So you need to buy new games and it will be harder to resell them.
If I was a console gamer I’d check out the Nintendo and Sony offerings first or just go PC.
That’s why I’ve held on to my Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP and DS Lite for so long. The former still plays original Gameboy games, and the latter plays Advance games and works with peripherals like the Guitar Hero controller and homebrew adapters.
It’s a great “idea” from Nintendo and it makes you wonder why others haven’t adopted this. Not only is this good for the customers, but I think it makes them sell more consoles too. I’m sure most people have a few favorite games they’d surely miss if they buy a new console that can’t play them.
You have pretty modern Game Boys. I have a Game Boy Color!
I also have a Game Boy Pocket, which I was playing Donkey Kong Land on almost causing us to miss the bus in Spain back to The Netherlands.
Somehow I expected you to have older portables than me.
No to disappoint you, I recently acquired this one:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=753
It runs on 4 AA batteries and has a cell backup battery. The cell battery just drops on a big hole, which led to some confusing on my part if I had the right battery. Of course this doesn’t work really well and I had to shuffle it around in the hole a few times before the computer stopped complaining about the weak battery.
Even stranger, it didn’t work very well at all. Some keys didn’t seem to work and when I managed to get in to a diagnostics mode it turned out some keys send different codes each time pressed.
But the next day it started to work better, the day after that I could do even more with it and the final day all the keys worked. So now it’s fully operational!
It includes BBC BASIC!
/me was trying to put NES cartridge into SNES w/o luck :/ Same goes for SNES to N64, and N64 to GameCube…
Ah, I don’t know about those.
I do know Game Boy, game Boy Pocket -> Game Boy Color -> Game Boy Advance -> DS, DS Lite -> DSi XL -> 3DS.
And GameCube -> Wii -> Wii U.
Atari also did it with the Atari 7800 which could play Atari 2600 games.
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive had a peripheral to play Master System games on it.
Sega GameGear also had a peripheral to play Master System games on it, since it was basically a portable SMS with more colors.
While not *exactly* the same, the concept is similar.
In case anyone missed the broadcast, here is a short summary for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWgUO-Rqcw
TV, TV, TV, TV, SPORTS, SPORTS, TV, TV, TV lol….
Edited 2013-05-22 08:55 UTC
I watched the thing live and can confirm this is what it sounded like (with lots of marketing BS in between). Also “rocket science level stuff”.
Sony, this is your chance – you can snag the majority of the not-casual gamer market if you play your cards right.
It seems that they expect the games to offload tasks, like AI, to their servers.
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-microsofts-super-geeks-r…
That’s an amazingly bad idea. Yeah, I’m sure having a remote computer doing things for millions of users is much more effective, and will work much better, than having the console doing it for one user. That’s not even taking into account bandwidth issues and the fact that your game wouldn’t work without a connection.
There are good cases for a client-server model with processing on the backend but this isn’t one of them.
Epic design failure.
That’s an “Awesome” article, btw:
Hi, I’m Dan and I write about technology but I really don’t have a single clue. Really, everything in this article just screams “incompetence” or, alternatively, paid shill.
Instantaneous. Sure. Except for, you know, the internet.
Because relying on a remote server in order to change the channel of your TV, that sits right in front of you in your own home, makes sense. well, i guess it does if you don’t know wtf you are doing.
Seriously, how out of touch with reality are these people?
Oh, you mean tasks like physics, AI and rendering?
Really? Is that so? Because in the heat of battle one second is a REALLY long time and a lot can happen during it.
Please, for the love of God, stop writing already.
“A couple”? More than one? Why would it have that?
Wow, that’s …impressive? Normal?
Microsoft “supergeeks”: making standard features sound like rocket science.
I just facepalmed myself into next week.
I seriously think reading this article made me stupider.
Most of the gamers Microsoft is targeting will gladly bend over as far as they can just to play the next Halo or football game. Never mind that if they actually want to play football they can get off the damn couch, go buy a ball, and play it themselves for much cheaper. Try putting DRM on that.
Challenge accepted! They could patent the rules, or the field specs, or the ball design.
Than the next step is to fight piracy and only allow playing at official fields with official balls. The balls could be made to “expire” (explosively) 3 hours after the first use.
Any then, they should go labeling people criminals (especially abroad) because they don’t care about the IP and the American JOBS.
Like it?
You do realize that Football is the most monetized Sport in the world?
I know one gambling company in the UK recently payed in the tens of millions for advertising during the Champions League, Premier League and International Matches.
So if they could do that … they would.
… but has anyone considered that it might not be Microsoft themselves that are the main driving force behind this lockdown? We’ve seen in other entertainment media markets – music, books, video – that it’s the publishers that are the ones demanding these sort restrictions. It’s entirely possible that companies like Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard are the forcefully requesting this action from Microsoft. While Microsoft does benefit, the publishers have even more to gain. And as much as we think of Microsoft as a console giant, it wouldn’t be too hard for the big publishers to bring them to their knees with sanctions of major franchises.
I’m not saying I’m right, and I’m not saying Microsoft’s hands are clean even if I am. I’m just saying there may be more parties to blame here than just Microsoft.
I’m sure most publishers would prefer the console to be locked down as much as possible.
Those two words look silly next to each other. They can request the console manufacturers to put these restrictions in place, but they can’t do anything to force the change. Sure, they could threaten to stop creating games for consoles that don’t have this restriction, but I think the console manufacturers would call their bluff. But your whole argument is without merit because Sony has already stated that there are no restrictions for playing used games on the Playstation 4, so the fact that it appears Microsoft may be requiring this is just a dick move.
Yes… that was kind of the point.
No, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a least some merit in there somewhere…
Just because Sony shows no sign of having bent to external pressure does not mean external pressure wasn’t there. And Sony has never gone back on anything they’ve stated, or even outright sold (backwards compatibility, Other OS come to mind).
This, we agree on.
This is stupid!!! very very stupid.
The console itself is interesting, it is a nice media integrator, but how many of those services will work in every part of europe is still to be seen.
And for the gaming aspect I don’t give a fXXX if it has 8 cores and million of polygons, if it restrict me to validate the game online, and why not something connecting just to be sure that it can annoy me about not being always on, and restrict me for lending games to friends I won’t buy that!
“We can confirm that the article stating Xbox One will charge fees to play used games is NOT correct. ^PJ”
Source:
https://twitter.com/XboxSupport3/status/336924786410278912
Wrong.
It is confusing because two different statements have been made –
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/21/microsoft-rep-we-are-designing-xb…
Plus, this article from this AM clearly states things are in the works and gives details on ‘paying’ for used games.
http://www.qj.net/xbox-360/news/microsoft-details-fees-for-playing-…
Do not underestimate the bandwidth of a blu-ray disc going from store to home
I know plenty more people who buy used games, than people who buy used consoles. I can’t imagine why Microsoft would want to limit the used game market. This will put off many people from buying their console at all, which means reduced revenue for MS. I believe this situation to be inevitable, but I figure the game publishers would be doing something along these lines, such as limiting content without an online key.
Why is the default position when you have a lack of information, to engage in immediate pants shitting? ‘Wait and see’ is the only sensical action until the details on how used games will be handled and what the cost will be.
Also, what’s with the comments that the focus on being a living room centerpiece is really just for Americans. Are we the only ones who watch tv? That’s an odd notion considering how many more providers Europe has than the Americas.
Just settle down. Panic when there’s actual reason to panic. I hope you guys aren’t this premature in other aspects of life as well!
There are numerous conflicting reports.
It is not panic to simply have learned not to trust companies like Microsoft. After all those of us who have been around longer than they have know the score.
Of course Microsoft would never block other DOS from working with Windows 3.1. Don’t panic Dr. DOS. Of course Microsoft would never use their desktop OS position to monopolize the browser market. Don’t panic Netscape. Of course Microsoft would never replace their office document format that had become a world wide defacto standard. Don’t panic Office XP users just because your .docs open in Office 2007 but their .docx won’t in your version is of little concern. Of course Microsoft would never say original Xbox games would be compatible with the Xbox 360. Don’t panic if a list comes out on which ones and some you just need to rebuy for the 360. Of course Microsoft would never deny that the 360 had serious hardware issues with overheating GPU’s. Don’t panic all of your RROD users – just buy a new one.
The move forward is walled gardens, downloadable games and applications only, cloud interaction whether you want it or not, and the one media device to rule them all.
It is not panic. It is that sinking feeling that yet again Microsoft will screw over its customers who keep on believing that maybe they won’t this time.
There’s a difference between having reservation but waiting until you have all the facts, and freaking out right from the start while lacking the facts to justify it. I’m not suggesting anyone be convinced everything will be fine, I’m simply saying don’t be convinced of anything yet – let’s wait and see when there’s actual tangible proof one way or the other. Deciding, at this point, this will be a disaster is silly — and equally so is deciding it will be the opposite.
BTW, I was one of the RROD victims. Microsoft neither denied any issues, nor recommended I buy a new unit. The truth is they were extremely accommodating. I had a replacement 2 days later at no expense to myself. That was one of the quickest & easiest resolutions I’ve ever had.
Then you lived in an alternate reality, bought an Xbox 360 quite late in the first round, or just got really lucky.
360 was released in 2005. RROD appeared quickly thereafter. For two years Microsoft denied that it was a big issue – fell within standard failure rates, they said. In 2007, a VP at Microsoft acknowledged an issue and provided an extended warranty service. In early 2008 they said all was fine again. In 2009, a class action lawsuit started in CA. In response Microsoft simply changed their hardware, i.e. they fixed the problem with the new Jasper motherboards. In 2010, they just abandoned the original fat 360 and came out with a slim.
So for five years, Microsoft knowingly sold a faulty gaming unit that failed for tens of thousands (maybe more) people. They still to this day have not released a technical reason why this happened. Shall we also discuss the ‘scratching disc’ problem with the 360?
You were very fortunate – others were not. I own both units. I have fixed both units problems. I have fixed them for others. Microsoft doesn’t have a great track record with their gaming hardware. Why should I now trust them around gaming DRM, cloud servicing, media hubbing, etc?
There are more than enough facts coming out for gamers to know what is going on and will be going on. Looking at the rest of the software industry also gives us more than enough clues to see where this is likely heading.
I don’t recall when exactly I purchased my first xbox360 (I also own a slim version) but IIRC the replacement fell under the extended warranty. It comes as no surprise others have had a much different experience. The exact same is true for practically every warranty service — for some it’s a piece of cake, for others it’s a nightmare. However, I wouldn’t call myself lucky. I know 3 other people who wound up with RROD and none of them had any problems getting it resolved either. I haven’t had any problems with my xbox360 slim.
The scratched disc thing is inexcusable. That being said, none of my games have suffered from it. My consoles sit flat on solid surfaces. Maybe that has something to do with it.
You shouldn’t ever trust any for-profit company. Or any entity that wants your money. In place of the illusion of trust, yes you can consider a companies track record but you should also rely on current facts. If there aren’t any/enough, you should reserve judgment until there is. It’s not as if that advice is insane and I question anyone who would dare call it bad.
This is where our opinions really part ways. While you prefer to believe in a crystal ball & fortune-telling future events, I prefer to hang tight until the realities of the Xbox One are actually revealed. It’s amazing that anyone would think waiting for all the facts to come in is a bad idea.
As much as you think you’re right, you have to concede that you can be wrong and that alone makes “wait & see” more sensible.
There is a high probability I am right because my predictions are not based on a crystal ball but on the facts as presented, the companies history, the current industry trends, etc. It is called analysis, not fortune telling. It is used in many fields, but you probably know this.
Here is a funny but accurate summary of the new Xbox One:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KbWgUO-Rqcw
This article/interview gives us more information about how always-on will eventually be a reality:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-microsofts-super-geeks-r…
And the OSNews posted AnandTech article backs this up. This console is not a new generation gaming console like the PS4. It is a risky ‘one media box’ to rule them all gambit. They want to control the entire eco-system.
The always-on is coming. New reports are stating that the console ‘must’ phone home once a day to ‘verify’ the DRM games. And the cloud hardware integration will have us expecting games to quickly take advantage of this ‘feature’ and wam bam thank you mam, we are into the always-on internet access is required for this game title scenario which was predicted (and denied).
Waiting for all of the facts could mean that by the time you have them, the reality has hit you in the face. Facts plus analysis plus trending gives you the best of all possible worlds. Sure I might be wrong on a few points. But I am prepared for all the contingencies. And if I want to ‘shape’ my own life, I can make these educated guesses, avoid the One, go back to the WiiU and watch Nintendo.
Looks like I predicted correctly with little magic ball.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/publishers-to-receive-cut-of-xbox-on…
Wait, aren’t you technically prematurely panicking about other people’s supposed premature panic as well?
Of course not because, 1) they’ve already done it so my response can’t be premature, and 2) unlike them, I’m not panicking about anything.
Incidentally, the people you’re accusing could make a similar case: they are not panicking, and they are just responding to something they perceive.
such is the irony of the men of straw…
No, they couldn’t make that case as their actions say otherwise. Even in an imaginary world where you
making a point is a possibility, panic is a form of response is it not? Yes, the irony indeed.
so are you talking about your response, or other people’s response? Trying to keep up with the levels of irony within irony we’re digging into…
(Oops. Please delete this whomever has the ability to do so.)
Edited 2013-05-22 18:14 UTC
Well then for me this is pretty much long live my PC with Linux, WiiU and my future PS4.
Considering you will still have to pay extra to play online for xbox live gold (on top of your internet bill, the games and the console itself) + all this extra crap me as a gamer doesn’t even care about…
My PS3 has served me well so I will stick to what works and what seems to actually be focusing on games.
My WiiU is pretty fun for retro games with the virtual console and for the few exclusives it will get are quite fun too so I like it.
The Xbox One seems like a super flashy locked down media centre that plays games as well….no thanks.
Would you all like some CHEESE with your WHINE! They even said you could use the game at their house by logging in as you, and they are working on a game trade mechanism. I just hope we will all be able to weather this terrible travesty!
All I can say is that with terms and conditions like these opportunity knocks for a new player to get a foothold. Maybe not a dominate hold this generation, but a hold regardless. Of course Sony could find a way to take advantage of this as well, or perhaps MS is just testing the waters and might decide to retract some of these claims.
Another sick DRM. Xbox > /dev/null.
So… if other family members want to play the game on the same console under their username… will they have an activation fee too? Sounds greedy? Will they be dropping the price of games now that they have prevented all this “lost” revenue from missing their bank accounts. 360 games were exactly 2x as much as I wanted to spend, so I was pretty fussy about what games I bought new. At a lower price point they probably would have made up the money in volume. Forcing me to the higher price point makes me not want to bother with this console at all.
It has underwhelming hardware, invasive DRM, could not give a crap about its TV integration, It looks like it should play betamax tapes, and the damn thing watches you all day like Hal. I think I’ll pass on this one.
Also, it should be noted that Microsoft recently patented the process of using the Kinect to determine the number of people in the room and disabling games or access to movies if the number of people exceeds a number allowed by the media license (e.g., you can rent a movie, but the license might say it’s only good for up to 4 people, and the movie will stop if there’s a 5th person in the room).
I wasn’t aware of that, that’s a neat thing to be aware of. Is there any word out if that’s actually enabled on the system or no? Not that I was going to buy an XBOX One anyways, but I know a few large families that would find such a system terribly limiting.
Holding a patent is one thing, having that as policy is another. People should worry what the policy is, not what the patent covers.
This idea sounds exceedingly idiotic. I’m not sure if it’s a reason to laugh or the reason to be upset that such idiocy is even considered by someone.
Well, when you can’t break into new markets (phones, tablets), you milk the old ones for every cent (Windows, Xbox games). Ce la vie.
i can’t tell if this is going to be fun or a massive face plant of a flop. i think ill wait this one out. unless if ps4 doesn’t force something like this down peoples throats. i think i’ll get the ps4 anyways actually. games need to be made in open GL. the more that are are easier to port to the mac. and mac’s are my chosen system. if not a mac then i’d use linux.
I’m kind of wondering what Sony will do with this:
Right now, MS is taking a lot of flak for this, and Sony might be wise to avoid the debate altogether and do nothing to limit the used games market(and, supposedly, piracy).
But they could just as easily see that since MS is taking most of the heat for this, they could just introduce a similar function, get less of a stink raised over it, and not run the risk of people flocking over to MS because of improved functionality.
I personally have long since been moving to a computer-based gaming library(mostly backwards compatible and more customizable hardware), so maybe this is the time to simply lift myself out of the console market altogether. Other than a few indie games, The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, and The Last Guardian(which I’ve all but left for dead at this point), there really isn’t anything on the upcoming console market that is exclusive that I want(unless Wii U really does make that Eternal Darkness sequel).