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Next Generation Console News: Xbox One, PS4, Wii U

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The new ps4 controller.

cyC6kfL.gif
 
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I'm going to rant a bit here...

Who the fuck do the gaming companies think they are trying to block used games? What other fucking industry has EVER been able to block access to used product? Is it going to be fucking illegal to buy a used movie next? What about a fucking couch? It's fucking ridiculous! There's no excuse for them doing this. Who gives a flying fuck if they lose some money because people buy used instead of new! Toyota has been losing money because of that for decades! So has Lazyboy!

What fucking makes game companies so goddamn special?

/rant
 
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I Helped Create The Xbox, But Now It’s Painful To Watch

...
My gripe, my head-smack, is not that the broader content/entertainment business isn't where you want to go with a living-room-connected device. It absolutely is. Indeed, this was the point of the Xbox, that was why it was the Trojan horse for the living room, where we could land and be welcomed by millions of console customers with more hardware and better software and network connectivity than the non-console devices (webtv, cable set-tob-boxes) we had been pursuing. No, more and better content was always the point and the plan. My gripe is that, as usual, Microsoft has jumped its own shark and is out stomping through the weeds planning and talking about far-flung future strategies in interactive television and original programming partnerships with big dying media companies when their core product, their home town is on fire, their soldiers, their developers, are tired and deserting, and their supply-lines are broken.

Xbox's primary critical problem is the lack of a functional and growing platform ecosystem for small developers to sell digitally- or network-distributed (non-disc) content through to the installed base of Xbox customers, period. Why can't I write a game for Xbox tomorrow using $100 worth of tools and my existing Windows laptop and test it on my home Xbox or at my friends' houses? Why can't I then distribute it digitally in a decent online store, give up a 30% cut and strike it rich if it's a great game, like I can for Android, for iPhone, or for iPad? Oh, wait, I can… sort of. Read some of the fine-print at the Xbox registered developer program page (that "membership" would cost you $10,000/year and a ton of paperwork, with Microsoft holding veto power over your game being published), navigate the mess through to learning about XBLA (also costly, paperwork and veto approval) and you may end up learning about a carved off little hard-to-find store with a few thousand stunted games referred to as XBLIG where Microsoft has ceded their veto power (and instead just does nothing to promote your games). This is where indie developers have found they can go in order to not make money on Xbox, despite an installed base of 76 million devices. Microsoft, you are idiotic to have ceded not just indie game developers but also a generation of loyal kids and teens to making games for other people's mobile devices.

Xbox's secondary critical problem is that the device OS and almost the entire user experience outside the first two levels of the dashboard are creaky, slow, and full-of-shit. From built-in update and storage features to what they have allowed through negligence to appear in games, here are just a few of my favourite confusing and exhausting screens and messages:

...Cont'd
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Buckeye Maniac;2305584; said:
I'm going to rant a bit here...

Who the fuck do the gaming companies think they are trying to block used games? What other fucking industry has EVER been able to block access to used product? Is it going to be fucking illegal to buy a used movie next? What about a fucking couch? It's fucking ridiculous! There's no excuse for them doing this. Who gives a flying fuck if they lose some money because people buy used instead of new! Toyota has been losing money because of that for decades! So has Lazyboy!

What fucking makes game companies so goddamn special?

/rant
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It's all rumors and I personally don't think it will happen. Eliminating used games would hurt console sales, especially if the competition decides not to. Plus, it's not like it would eliminate a feature. It would actually cost them money to create the feature and police it. There has also been no confirmation or even a hint from Sony or Microsoft.

I understand publishers don't like used games, although it has been proven the majority of used game money goes right back into games. Yet console makers simply don't have a big enough reason to do this unless one of the huge publishers is pushing them (which is unlikely knowing how big Sony and Microsoft are).

In other words, have a little patience before going on a rant about it.
 
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scott91575;2305662; said:
It's all rumors and I personally don't think it will happen. Eliminating used games would hurt console sales, especially if the competition decides not to. Plus, it's not like it would eliminate a feature. It would actually cost them money to create the feature and police it. There has also been no confirmation or even a hint from Sony or Microsoft.

I understand publishers don't like used games, although it has been proven the majority of used game money goes right back into games. Yet console makers simply don't have a big enough reason to do this unless one of the huge publishers is pushing them (which is unlikely knowing how big Sony and Microsoft are).

In other words, have a little patience before going on a rant about it.
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EA was more the focus of my rage, but DRM was being talked about in here, so I figured I'd put my rant in here. EA has absolutely shown that they won't tolerate used games, and who the fuck do they think they are doing that?
 
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Buckeye Maniac;2305731; said:
EA was more the focus of my rage, but DRM was being talked about in here, so I figured I'd put my rant in here. EA has absolutely shown that they won't tolerate used games, and who the fuck do they think they are doing that?
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Yeah, publishers are the ones trying to kill the used game market. Essentially they see the money Gamestop makes on products they created and believe it should be their money. Of course they ignore the fact that something like 60-70% of the money the consumer gets from used games goes right back into gaming. Sure, an extra 30% or so of the used game market would be a nice plus but very shortsighted. The used game market is a great place for lower income earners to be able to afford gaming. With so many alternative forms of entertainment which are cheaper, including mobile gaming, it would seem to make sense they would want to expose as many people as possible to their high end games. Yet EA and Activision are driven by shareholders, and that of course means upping the short term bottom line.

In the end gaming is definitely entering a new era, and the major publishers are clinging to their old ways. That is failing and instead of innovating they are trying to squeeze as much as they can out of their old business model. Even when they try and branch out into new ideas like free to play they mess it up by introducing pay to win models (EA even released a report showing people spend more money if it's "pay to win" missing the fact their games in that area are failing in market share vs. the competition). In the mean time there are companies truly innovating the future of gaming. Valve (a privately owned publisher/developer) is doing some pretty cool stuff with free to play. They have 2 major free to play games right now, Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 (still in beta so it needs an invite...if anyone wants one let me know). Both only introduce cosmetic items or (in the case of TF2) items that are different but balanced (although they sometimes need tweaking). The beauty of their model is they let the community design items, and if they become approved actually share the sales with the creator. There are people making over 6 figures creating items for Valve games. They also give development tools to the consumer instead of locking them out like EA did with BF3 and other publishers have been doing with major releases.

Sorry for the tangent. Not sure anyone will want to watch this whole thing, but this is a video of Valve founder Gabe Newell discussing the business model at Valve (it's over an hour long). Really interesting. I don't agree with all of it, but you can see he is all about productivity and creating value no matter where or whom it comes from. That in the end benefits both the company and the gamer.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU"]Gabe Newell: Reflections of a Video Game Maker - YouTube[/ame]

Best line in the whole thing is Gabe saying "We can't compete with our own customers" when talking about creating content for their games.
 
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Bucknut24;2305742; said:
true, but like on Steam, a lot of PC games aren't always $60 as they always mark it down for a period of time
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PC gaming, especially digital distribution, is a great example of meeting demand and creating maximum value. In fact it often mimics used game sales.

For example...

a poor to mediocre selling game will go on sale very quickly on PC gaming. For console gaming, the new game will stay $60 for a very long time but the used games will drop in value quickly. On the other hand, PC top sellers (like COD or Skyrim) will stay at their maximum value for a long time ($60 MSRP but rarely is that the average price a consumer will pay). For consoles that is true too, but used games will be sold almost near that $60 mark for a long time also.

So in essence, even though PC gaming does not have a used game market, distributors like Valve are able to meet consumer demand more accurately through variable pricing. This is also done for consoles, but through used game sales. Yet console publishers are not looking to eliminate the used game market and then introduce a system like you see on Steam. They just want their games to sit around for year at $60 no matter how many sell and then maybe discount all the way to $20 when they want to liquidate their inventory or sell as much as possible prior to a new version (like in sports games). By that time they have lost out on all the consumers that would have purchased the game a few months after launch for $30 or $40.

Once again, I digress. Yet the PC market, Valve in particular, does a much better job of meeting customer demands. So while there is no used game market, the demands of the consumer are still being met through other means.

BTW...another wonderful statement by an EA exec was Steam devalues the products by doing their sales, which is just another example of the ignorance at EA. Ironically, EA's own service Origin does major sales too although not as frequent or effective as Steam.
 
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Not trying to shift the conversation away from the used vs new game discussion but I recently purchased a Roku and while it's nothing groundbreaking it's pretty cool and easy to use. I was looking at a few new channels they recently added(to Roku) and was thinking to myself that the next gen Xbox could easily absorb Roku and already is, to an extent, on the current system. I like the level of control I have over the Roku -If you want the channel you add it, if you don't like it it's just as simple to remove- you don't have to wait for it to be approved for the system like on Xbox. But the apps and channels that they both have in common, like Netflix for example, is better on Xbox IMO, partly because I can use my Astro A40 headset for great sound quality. I think the future it really bright for stream content and its growing quickly. I would like a little more freedom with the next Xbox to port in content as long as it's legal content.
 
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scott91575;2305739; said:
Yeah, publishers are the ones trying to kill the used game market. Essentially they see the money Gamestop makes on products they created and believe it should be their money. Of course they ignore the fact that something like 60-70% of the money the consumer gets from used games goes right back into gaming. Sure, an extra 30% or so of the used game market would be a nice plus but very shortsighted. The used game market is a great place for lower income earners to be able to afford gaming. With so many alternative forms of entertainment which are cheaper, including mobile gaming, it would seem to make sense they would want to expose as many people as possible to their high end games. Yet EA and Activision are driven by shareholders, and that of course means upping the short term bottom line.
Click to expand...

Not to mention that cutting out the used game market doesn't just eliminate the ability to purchase, it eliminates the ability to re-sell. How many people are going to be less likely to buy a game at all if they don't have the ability to recoup part of the considerable sum they paid if it turns out the game sucks? I know publishers don't care about whether I recoup money on a crap game, but they should care about whether I'm willing to take a risk on making a purchase in the first place.
 
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