XBox One AND PS4 Discussion

[LAking]

Just to check, but does everyone realize that this "check-in" will be automatic? You don't have to turn on the xbox and then hit some "check-in" button once a day or it's going to ban you from your xbox. As soon as the xbox is turned on and is connected to Live it will do the check in the background. It may even do it in sleep mode as a tiny background task for all we know.

Exactly. Of all the things mentioned this is by far the one I just don't get why people care.

Seriously who here has a console that is not connected to the internet?
When is the last time you had an internet outage that has lasted more than a few hours? Or better one you even noticed?
Who really lugs their Xbox to a relatives house or on vacation? Don't most people just entertain themselves with an iOS device or a handheld?
When is the last time you turned on your Xbox and didn't sign into Live automatically?

I hate the Kinnect integration and I'm not happy about the used games policies but this one I just don't get.

Bottom line is that this is an additional +X ways over last generation that you can be separated from your games, for no reason other then the DRM.

Servers hacked, you do go offline, etc...

My main concern is end of life for the system. All your games can become useless should MS decide to go the 'pull the plug' route, and then your system is a big expensive hunk of plastic. This question has been asked of MS and reps (Major Nelson, etc) and they side-step it all of the time. Do you trust MS to support legacy issues with old platforms? Anyone try to get XP support from them lately?

And to answer your last question, I turn on my xbox and play single player games all the time without logging in. Why bother waiting the extra time if what you are playing doesn't need the connection at all? My last few sessions of State of Decay were offline.

I fully expect MS to keep these servers running well into the NEXT next generation. They will probably be using the same exact system. Why wouldn't they? Also, I don't know about you, but I haven't played an xbox game since maybe playing Tony Hawk 2 on the 360 with backwards compatibility. Any games that are older than that I'm playing as an HD remake, Steam, GOG, or an emulator. Are people really dying to play 10+ year old games again?

XP support? Really?

Digital distribution is happening folks. It's already been successfully implemented on PC's and Consoles are next. It's not evil. This is coming from someone who used to buy, sell, and trade used PC games back in the day when EB and Gamestop allowed it. I was worried about not being able to sell my used games when Steam first started. Now I don't miss it one bit. It changes the market. Sales become more common place because of a number of reasons. First, they need to entice people to buy games that they won't be able to resell. Second, and i think this is the bigger reason, they can get you to make a lot more impulse purchases when you see the daily deals when you sign into Live/Steam/PSN. The check in is just part of making a digital distribution system work. I can see MS possibly expanding the check in time to a few days or a week, but it's still necessary to prevent piracy in this kind of system.

[wco81]

What about power outage. In this part of the country, there aren't hurricanes but about once a year, there are still strong storms which leads to some people going without power for days.

What happens if you miss a 24-hour check-in? You can't play until you log back in the next time your power or Internet is back and everything is authorized again automatically? Or will you have to call MS and explain that you missed the check-in for whatever reason and ask them to reauthorize your account?

The major change is that you have to have it on all the time and they want you to use it as your main input, kind of like a receiver or a HDMI switching box. Some people may not turn on their consoles for days or even weeks.

[Danimal]

What about power outage. In this part of the country, there aren't hurricanes but about once a year, there are still strong storms which leads to some people going without power for days.

What happens if you miss a 24-hour check-in? .

Is this a serious question. In the event of a power outage what happens if you miss the check in?

YOU DON'T HAVE ANY f***in POWER. Is your console on a backup generator for f***'s sake.

What about a tornado or earthquake or asteroid hitting the earth. These are all things that can happen and might happen but not every week or even month. I can't speak for anyone else but if I lose power for a few days playing a video game is the least of my worries.

[Teal]

What about power outage. In this part of the country, there aren't hurricanes but about once a year, there are still strong storms which leads to some people going without power for days.

What happens if you miss a 24-hour check-in? .

Is this a serious question. In the event of a power outage what happens if you miss the check in?

YOU DON'T HAVE ANY f***in POWER. Is your console on a backup generator for f***'s sake.

What about a tornado or earthquake or asteroid hitting the earth. These are all things that can happen and might happen but not every week or even month. I can't speak for anyone else but if I lose power for a few days playing a video game is the least of my worries.

Hear, hear.

[wco81]

Yeah what happens if you miss a check-in for ANY reason?

Are you locked out of your games or everything works again the next time you connect?


Internet providers don't always come back after the power comes back. The electric company has prioritized residential over commercial customers, or vice versa.

[Teal]

So...somebody might get their HEAT turned back on before someone else gets their internet turned back on?????

The inhumanity....

It's been repeated more than a couple of times in this thread, and even in the last page or two-the check in can happen with your 3G or 4G phone, so it's really a non-issue. Of course, if you are without power for a significant amount of time, I'd refer you to Dan's post above. These are entertainment mediums, dude, not life-and-death issues.

[LAking]

What about power outage. In this part of the country, there aren't hurricanes but about once a year, there are still strong storms which leads to some people going without power for days.

What happens if you miss a 24-hour check-in? You can't play until you log back in the next time your power or Internet is back and everything is authorized again automatically? Or will you have to call MS and explain that you missed the check-in for whatever reason and ask them to reauthorize your account?

The major change is that you have to have it on all the time and they want you to use it as your main input, kind of like a receiver or a HDMI switching box. Some people may not turn on their consoles for days or even weeks.

Once again, i'm going to ask if people even understand what they mean by a "check-in"? It means that if your xbox does not have a network connection for more than 24 ours you will not be able to play your games. It does not mean they are deauthorizing your account for good. You don't have to call anyone. The moment you have network access it will do the check and and everything will work as normal. It's not like missing a credit card payment. You aren't getting dinged for it and you don't have to explain anything to MS. LIke Danimal pointed out, if you don't have power you can't turn your console on in the first place so there is no problem. How often have you gone without internet for more than a day at home?

Let me explain the situation MS is trying to prevent. Let's say you and I decide we want to buy the latest FPS, Ultra Kill Death Squad 4. We don't want to pay full price because we are cheap bastards. We decide we can split the cost and then share one of our Live accounts. I'd install the game on my system then turn off my console. You would then use my credentials on your xbox and install the game on it. After the game has been installed you could then disconnect your xbox from the network and play "offline". I could then sign back into my Live account and play the game at the same time. We've just successfully payed half price for the game and can play it at the same time, in two separate places since there is no disc. Now imagine if we did that with ten people splitting the cost instead of two. That's nine sales a publisher/developer is missing out on.

[Danimal]

Yeah what happens if you miss a check-in for ANY reason?

Are you locked out of your games or everything works again the next time you connect?

Did I miss something? Has this ever been said. You miss a check and you need to reauthorize? I've seen nothing to indicate if I don't connect I lose access to my entire system. I understand it's a legitimate question but why do we speculate the worst scenario?

If I missed something and it's been said that your system won't work then please post a link.

[webdanzer]

Are people really dying to play 10+ year old games again?

Speaking for me personally, yes. I just played the original Parappa recently with my sons, and broke out Diddy Kong Racing on the N64 as well.

XP support? Really?

Really. Been working on a migration project (to get to newer software, ironically) and MS basically told us to take a long walk off a short pier. Once they are done with a platform, they are DONE with the platform. I really don't see them maintaining services for old platforms once they are another console or two down the line.

Digital distribution is happening folks. It's already been successfully implemented on PC's and Consoles are next. It's not evil. This is coming from someone who used to buy, sell, and trade used PC games back in the day when EB and Gamestop allowed it. I was worried about not being able to sell my used games when Steam first started. Now I don't miss it one bit. It changes the market. Sales become more common place because of a number of reasons. First, they need to entice people to buy games that they won't be able to resell. Second, and i think this is the bigger reason, they can get you to make a lot more impulse purchases when you see the daily deals when you sign into Live/Steam/PSN. The check in is just part of making a digital distribution system work. I can see MS possibly expanding the check in time to a few days or a week, but it's still necessary to prevent piracy in this kind of system.

Well, they missed their first chance at this value, as listings for the console's titles are coming up the same price as they are for PS4. If you give up ownership and cede some level of control about when you can play your games as well as what you can do in resell, lending, etc, your game is inherently less valuable than the same game on the other system that doesn't impose such restrictions. From the start, then, the Xbone games should be cheaper. I'll believe the sales when I see them. MS has run the games for windows live store for some time, and people have been reporting that they in no way approach steam in terms of frequency or value of sales there. Not sure why that would suddenly change, but your optimism is refreshing.

Even in the current generation when there are sales on full-game releases on Live, they usually don't approach the value I can get by walking into a Gamestop and buying a title (used, yes, but also new but older) there.

But if I'm wrong and Xbone ends up being drastically cheaper for all games at almost all times, as I said before, I'm probably in. I'll wait until that happens, though.

And yes, digital distribution may be the future, but that doesn't mean everyone has to jump aboard the first plan to get there. G7 has mentioned a better plan to get there, and heck, even giving gamers the option of getting there this generation rather than forcing them to do so would have been a better option. Enable disk check for physical media and check in for digital. if the benefits of digital are so much more readily apparent, folks would switch over by choice instead of by force, right?

Someday in the future we all may have personal flight devices, but I'll wait the extra two years to get a portable jet pack than go with the guy who is going to cut off my legs and replace them with rocket boosters tomorrow.

[Inuyasha]

Say your moving to a new town and your xb1 is packed away for a month? When you log back in everything should work like before or you have to jump thru hoops?

[webdanzer]

Say your moving to a new town and your xb1 is packed away for a month? When you log back in everything should work like before or you have to jump thru hoops?

Everything should work.

[wco81]

Yeah what happens if you miss a check-in for ANY reason?

Are you locked out of your games or everything works again the next time you connect?

Did I miss something? Has this ever been said. You miss a check and you need to reauthorize? I've seen nothing to indicate if I don't connect I lose access to my entire system. I understand it's a legitimate question but why do we speculate the worst scenario?

If I missed something and it's been said that your system won't work then please post a link.

Maybe I'm confusing it with some scenario discussed about being banned from XBL may de-authorize all your games.

If you're locked out of your games only until you're online again, then it's not as bad, though in the scenario where 10 installs are made from one disc, how would they determine which installation belonged to the legitimate owner?

[ddtrane]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Could we all just get a grip here? All this speculation about these systems is downright crazy. Those who know about the systems don't tell, and those who tell about the systems don't know.

[LAking]

Really. Been working on a migration project (to get to newer software, ironically) and MS basically told us to take a long walk off a short pier. Once they are done with a platform, they are DONE with the platform. I really don't see them maintaining services for old platforms once they are another console or two down the line.

Not to get too off topic but we are three generations removed from XP at this point. Vista, 7, and 8. Looking it up right now and according to the MS website XP is STILL supported until April of 2014. That's nearly 13 years since it was first released. Also, everything you could ever need to know about XP is on the internet already. What kind of support do you expect to get from them?

Well, they missed their first chance at this value, as listings for the console's titles are coming up the same price as they are for PS4.

I was referring to sales after a game had been available for a few months. Games on Steam don't just go on sale the moment they are released other than maybe a couple bucks off of a pre-order now and then.

[Inuyasha]

Digital distribution is happening folks. It's already been successfully implemented on PC's and Consoles are next. It's not evil. This is coming from someone who used to buy, sell, and trade used PC games back in the day when EB and Gamestop allowed it. I was worried about not being able to sell my used games when Steam first started. Now I don't miss it one bit. It changes the market. Sales become more common place because of a number of reasons. First, they need to entice people to buy games that they won't be able to resell. Second, and i think this is the bigger reason, they can get you to make a lot more impulse purchases when you see the daily deals when you sign into Live/Steam/PSN. The check in is just part of making a digital distribution system work. I can see MS possibly expanding the check in time to a few days or a week, but it's still necessary to prevent piracy in this kind of system.

Interesting. I have no experience in the PC Gaming world. Can someone else validate what LAking posted above?

[Inuyasha]

Mattrick today : http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/17/44383 ... delivering

Don Mattrick argues the Xbox One's $499 cost is, if anything, on the low side. "It's a lower number than some of the analysts had forecast," Mattrick told Bloomberg TV. "We're over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days, you look at it: $499 isn't a ridiculous price point. We're delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, and I think they're going to love it when they use it.

WTF does this mean?

[LAking]

Digital distribution is happening folks. It's already been successfully implemented on PC's and Consoles are next. It's not evil. This is coming from someone who used to buy, sell, and trade used PC games back in the day when EB and Gamestop allowed it. I was worried about not being able to sell my used games when Steam first started. Now I don't miss it one bit. It changes the market. Sales become more common place because of a number of reasons. First, they need to entice people to buy games that they won't be able to resell. Second, and i think this is the bigger reason, they can get you to make a lot more impulse purchases when you see the daily deals when you sign into Live/Steam/PSN. The check in is just part of making a digital distribution system work. I can see MS possibly expanding the check in time to a few days or a week, but it's still necessary to prevent piracy in this kind of system.

Interesting. I have no experience in the PC Gaming world. Can someone else validate what LAking posted above?

Visit Steampowered.com on a daily basis. Look at the deals they have on games. Look at the amount of indie games for dirt cheap. The holiday sales are downright insane.

For example. Civilization V was on sale for the weekend of June 7-9. First the game was free to play that entire weekend. You could download and play it for free, no limitations other than once the weekend was over it would stop letting you play. Civ V Gold Edition (includes all the expansion packs and DLC) was on sale for %75 off. The gold edition is normally $50. Plus they let you pre-purchase the newest expansion pack for 10% off. These kinds of sales are not uncommon on Steam.

We can't be sure that MS will have the same kind of deals that Steam has but I do think they will have to offer more deals now that renting games and used game sales will be limited. Also, they will be competing for your dollar with Sony. Of course this is all just speculation on my part.

[LAking]

This article is a few years old but it's a great example of why I'm truly excited for the promise of the xbox.

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/for-p ... 453117063/

Some more interesting tidbits: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xbox-One ... 0894.shtml

[Danimal]

Mattrick today : http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/17/44383 ... delivering

Don Mattrick argues the Xbox One's $499 cost is, if anything, on the low side. "It's a lower number than some of the analysts had forecast," Mattrick told Bloomberg TV. "We're over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days, you look at it: $499 isn't a ridiculous price point. We're delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, and I think they're going to love it when they use it.

WTF does this mean?

This guy needs to learn a lesson from Sony's guy last gen and shut the f*** up. His attitude is doing more harm to MS PR then the console.

[Naples39]

I'll back up LAKing on Steam. It's fantastic. I much prefer it to dicking around with used games and ebay and weak retail store sales.

Recent purchases;
-Dishonored, today at $20
-Bioshock Infinite preorder at $60, included copy of Bioshock 1 and Xcom
-Civ 5 Gold Edition, $12
-Tomb Raider, $25
-Assassin's Creed 2 Deluxe, $5
-Far Cry Franchise pack, $40
-Rage, $5
-Arkham City GOTY, $7.50

You get the idea. And all this never going to the store. You can even buy the game from your phone or office computer, and have it remote download so it's waiting for you when you get home.

IF Xbone delivers a digital distribution service comparable to Steam, and actually takes advantage of Kinect2 and "cloud computing", I have no doubt it will be a superior product to PS4.

A big "if" though.

[Aristo]

I bought Tomb Raider, On Demand for the 360, for $30 last week. Microsoft is testing lower prices, and I think we will see them even more on the XB1.

[dbdynsty25]

Yes Steam is awesome but unless the game is markedly better on the PC (far cry 3, bioshock infinite, etc) I still want to buy most games on the console so that I can recoup some of the investment on eBay later on. Deals are great and all but I usually don't wait for games to come down in price to buy...so the advantage of the sales are really moot to me. Tho I should wait to buy given how little I game these days. I still like the way the Ps4 is shaping up in that regard. I don't give a s*** about the online check in stuff...who really cares if its your game and you are on the up and up? I know I don't.

[Teal]

The people who are trying to feed their families by making the games you play do. And you can not care, like a number of the loudest complainers don't, which is fine, but it numbers the days of the industry, and the spiral has already begun. Software sales were down 44% last quarter, and if something isn't done to curb the stupidity of a few, the many will suffer.

[Rodster]

I also like Steam and I prefer to wait for sales. I recently bought F1 2012 for under $10 and I had the chance to buy Football Manager 13 for $7.

[dbdynsty25]

The people who are trying to feed their families by making the games you play do. And you can not care, like a number of the loudest complainers don't, which is fine, but it numbers the days of the industry, and the spiral has already begun. Software sales were down 44% last quarter, and if something isn't done to curb the stupidity of a few, the many will suffer.

Um, I think you misread my post if you're speaking to me (tho to be fair I could have elaborated a bit). I am saying I don't care about the check in stuff because I am going to be buying legit games and it'll be no big deal if the console has to dial home each time I boot the thing up to validate that. I'm saying it's a fine practice and it doesn't matter to me that they do it. I'm not complaining about it at all.

All that bothers me about the One is that I will have a harder time selling my games I purchase. That, and an exclusive of MLB the Show are the two reasons I'd go PS4 if I could only have one (and the wife might dictate that, lol).