XBox One AND PS4 Discussion

[LAking]

I'm tired of debating this

We're obviously just going back and forth and are not going to see eye to eye. I feel like many of you are missing my points and maybe the larger picture but i'm sure you feel the same way about me.

I will say that I absolutely believe that digital is the future and discs are going to the way of the dodo. I do believe that there are a number of benefits that it has over disc based games that ultimately offset the lost ability to sell used games (which, as has been pointed out, would have been possible with Microsoft's original DRM policy). I don't think it will make anyone as unhappy as they think it will. In fact, I think that a lot of people who were up in arms about the MS DRM and who had never really tried DD will realize that it can actually be pretty awesome.

It will be interesting to see how this console generation plays out as it could be the start of a major transition for the gaming industry.

[dbdynsty25]

We're obviously just going back and forth and are not going to see eye to eye. I feel like many of you are missing my points and maybe the larger picture but i'm sure you feel the same way about me.

Or maybe it's just you making poor points if so many of them are missing them? Just sayin. Digital distro is fine for some things...I really don't think gaming is one of them when I buy games that I know I can recoup some of my costs by selling said game. Gamestop is in business because a lot of people (gamers) agree with that. There's a reason why places like Best Buy have started to buy and sell used games...because it promotes the purchase of NEW ones!

[Teal]

If they had never started it, though, it wouldn't be the case. The selling of used games benefits the consumer, for sure, but doesn't do one damned thing for the developers. There's a breaking point to it, and I think we're closer to it than some believe.

[Teal]

There's a reason why places like Best Buy have started to buy and sell used games...because it promotes the purchase of NEW ones!

Nope. It promotes their bottom line, because they'll give you 10 bucks for a game, and sell it for 35.

[TheTruth]

We're obviously just going back and forth and are not going to see eye to eye. I feel like many of you are missing my points and maybe the larger picture but i'm sure you feel the same way about me.

Or maybe it's just you making poor points if so many of them are missing them? Just sayin. Digital distro is fine for some things...I really don't think gaming is one of them when I buy games that I know I can recoup some of my costs by selling said game. Gamestop is in business because a lot of people (gamers) agree with that. There's a reason why places like Best Buy have started to buy and sell used games...because it promotes the purchase of NEW ones!

Exactly! For the past 3-4 years i have hardly had to spend any money out of pocket for my console games. We use a rewards credit card and put most of our expenses on it each month (groceries, gas, eating out, entertainment, etc) and pay it off each month. I can then pull out $40 in rewards to help fund a game purchase and then sell it down the road for $20-$30 if I dont want to keep it. If DD can provide that same benefit in some shape or form, then bring it on. But I am not going to just jump in without me knowing how deep the water is.

And just so you know, I liked some of the stuff MS was trying to do. And only have the xbone pre-ordered. I can't justify buying two consoles. I haven't played PS since the first xbox came out. But I am 50/50 at this point even though I dont have a PS pre-ordered.

[Danimal]

I think a few things are being confused here.

First I love digital distribution, I never buy a PC game out of the box. The benefit WAS they were cheaper than console games. That stopped somewhere in the last year. Even with that I still love it.

I have no experience with the DD model on consoles. I don't know if I can delete a game and re-install it. Can I download it to a new console or like Steam can I download it to multiple machines knowing that I need to be logged into one to play and the others won't work?

My main point is DD on consoles is giving lots of benefits to the people who make games while giving only one (no more discs) to the people who play them. When you have a used games ecosystem (which I stated I am not a part of) you can't expect people to give up that right with nothing in return. You know what would or worked, we're going to a pure DD model and you need to be connected to play the games and you can't resell them but the games will be priced at $49.99 or lower.

To me that would of went over a lot better. The console makers got greedy and it bit them. However I agree with LA on one thing, this is coming. The out cries may have postponed it but once 20 million systems are in homes you can bet your ass this is coming.

[DChaps]

I completely understand the reasons that gamers who have been selling games and buying used games were up in arms about the digital distribution method, but just like Danimal, it is not something I care about at all and it is frustrating to me that it has taken so long for the consumer to benefit from digital distribution. It should be faster than getting it from a retail store, and it should be cheaper.

I guess it does not bother me because I have been playing PC games like iRacing or WOW where I have spent literally hundreds of dollars on subscriptions and content that I can never resell, and if they shut down their servers tomorrow, I would have nothing to play. I guess I have just looked at it more as I am paying for a service.

That is what is so great now about the different premium streaming music services. For $9.99 a month I have access to all the music I could possibly hope to have (for the most part). If I decide to stop paying, I don't have access to it anymore, no big deal. I no longer have to hunt down music in stores (however it was fun back in the "Mom and Pop" record store days), and I don't have to store it anywhere, and it is available on all my devices (phone, tablet, pc), and it only costs what it used to cost me for one CD. Perfect.. That is the kind of consumer benefit that the console makers need to start working towards if they really want to sell digital distribution.

What is amazing is just how long it has taken to even get to this point. Back in Dec 1993, I spent several days trying to connect to the Apogee BBS to download the Doom demo and I remember thinking that this was going to be the way of the future. No more having to go to stores and loading 3 1/2 floppies and having to type in code encryption from user manual or code wheel to play the game. Of course, if you wanted the full version of Doom, it still involved buying a game with floppies, but the amazing thing was that you had this awesome, seemingly full fledged game, that downloaded to your PC for free and then had you wanting to buy more content (episodes). With bandwidth and disk storage no longer being limitations, there is no reason that this model should not be flourishing, but my guess is that part of it is due to having to support both models.

Case in point, I love the idea of the On Demand purchases available on Xbox Live, but I went looking for an old game, DIRT, that I just had not been able to find at Gamestop or Amazon for what I considered a reasonable price and in decent condition. I found that DIRT is in fact available in On Demand, but it is $29.99! I bought Dirt 2 from On Demand for $9.99 when they had a sale, and it currently sells for $19.99 while Dirt is $29.99. Ridiculous. I also saw that the motocross game MUD is available On Demand for $49.99. I paid $39.99 for it the day it came out at Gamestop and it was not on sale. All these On Demand games should be at least $10 less than their retail counterpart.

Completely off topic, but I got nostalgic talking about the 20th anniversary of Doom and found a pretty cool book that talks about the release and the whole shareware/freeware model. Check it out:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/id ... ltext;xc=1

[Zeppo]

I have no experience with the DD model on consoles. I don't know if I can delete a game and re-install it. Can I download it to a new console or like Steam can I download it to multiple machines knowing that I need to be logged into one to play and the others won't work?

From what i could understand, the Xbone was going to be set up as follows. Whether or not you bought a disc at a store or bought the game digitally online, you could then download and install that game as many times as you wanted onto as many machines as you wanted, and could play it whenever you signed in with a profile linked to the XBL account that bought the game. So the kiddies could, for example, take their profile to their friends' houses and be able to download and play any and all games linked to their profiles and play them on their friends' machines. Even if the game had initially been bought on disc, it wouldn't make any difference and you'd never have needed the disc to access the game and dowlnoad it and install it on any machine. It could be played on whatever machine as long as a profile linked to the XBL account that purchased it was signed in there.

Also, and I may be wrong about this, with the elimination of the family accounts, up to ten profiles could be linked to one XBL account, and all XBL gold services would be accessible for all those profiles. Meaning you could buy the game once, digitally or disc it wouldn't have mattered, and install it on multiple machines in your household, and any profile liked to your XBL account could play all of those games no matter where the main profile was at the moment. So multiple people in the house could play online in the same game, you having only had to purchase that game one time.

Now a lot of that kind of atuff will no longer be possible with disc purchased games, because one wilil have to put the disc in the machine even if the game is installed in the HDD, just as you do now. I do believe with digitally purchased games, these features will still be available.

[dbdynsty25]

I have no experience with the DD model on consoles. I don't know if I can delete a game and re-install it. Can I download it to a new console or like Steam can I download it to multiple machines knowing that I need to be logged into one to play and the others won't work?

From what i could understand, the Xbone was going to be set up as follows. Whether or not you bought a disc at a store or bought the game digitally online, you could then download and install that game as many times as you wanted onto as many machines as you wanted, and could play it whenever you signed in with a profile linked to the XBL account that bought the game. So the kiddies could, for example, take their profile to their friends' houses and be able to download and play any and all games linked to their profiles and play them on their friends' machines. Even if the game had initially been bought on disc, it wouldn't make any difference and you'd never have needed the disc to access the game and dowlnoad it and install it on any machine. It could be played on whatever machine as long as a profile linked to the XBL account that purchased it was signed in there.

Also, and I may be wrong about this, with the elimination of the family accounts, up to ten profiles could be linked to one XBL account, and all XBL gold services would be accessible for all those profiles. Meaning you could buy the game once, digitally or disc it wouldn't have mattered, and install it on multiple machines in your household, and any profile liked to your XBL account could play all of those games no matter where the main profile was at the moment. So multiple people in the house could play online in the same game, you having only had to purchase that game one time.

Now a lot of that kind of atuff will no longer be possible with disc purchased games, because one wilil have to put the disc in the machine even if the game is installed in the HDD, just as you do now. I do believe with digitally purchased games, these features will still be available.

But see that's the rub. The thought of being able to do all of that stuff is great and all, but going to a friends house and downloading a 1-5gb (probably more next gen) doesn't sound like fun to me. That's hours of downloading if they don't have a fiber connection. As it stands, I can bring my disc with me and we can play immediately. So the advantages of the digital only universe are tempting, in practice I just think you'd spend half your gaming life downloading. That would be my biggest fear.

[Leebo33]

I just signed up for PSN plus and the download for the latest Uncharted game is 40 GB! How big are the hard drives on these new systems again? They might fill up pretty quick.

[Danimal]

500 Gig I believe but the PS is replaceable with off the shelf drives.

[wco81]

I just signed up for PSN plus and the download for the latest Uncharted game is 40 GB! How big are the hard drives on these new systems again? They might fill up pretty quick.

They're giving away Uncharted 3 or Uncharted 2?

[10spro]

I just signed up for PSN plus and the download for the latest Uncharted game is 40 GB! How big are the hard drives on these new systems again? They might fill up pretty quick.

They're giving away Uncharted 3 or Uncharted 2?

U3 for sure. Even though I have BF3 already on the 360, I DL it on the PS3 which was about 15GB. That was last night. This morning Uncharted 3 was still around 15%. Huge games, lucky I have the 250 GB console.

[Danimal]

There is the other issue with DD on console. Storage space. I have 6 TB of space on my PC so I never worry about it. Maybe not much of an issue if you play a game and remove it but I could see issues arising for some.

[wco81]

I just signed up for PSN plus and the download for the latest Uncharted game is 40 GB! How big are the hard drives on these new systems again? They might fill up pretty quick.

They're giving away Uncharted 3 or Uncharted 2?

U3 for sure. Even though I have BF3 already on the 360, I DL it on the PS3 which was about 15GB. That was last night. This morning Uncharted 3 was still around 15%. Huge games, lucky I have the 250 GB console.

So one of the games was for June and the other is for July?

Or can you still get both now?

[10spro]

I am pretty new to Plus. Just subscribed this month since I know it will be used for the PS4 as well. From what I could see this month you could only DL U3 for free. Maybe U2 was for last month. There's some freebies for the Vita too, including Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

[Wilk5280]

So far on PSN I've downloaded the following games while they were offered up as part of their instant game collection:
- uncharted 3
- spec ops the line
- resident evil 5 gold edition
- little big planet 2
- little big planet carting
- jet set radio
- saints row 2
- saints row: the third
- demon's souls
- far cry 2
- just cause 2


And a bunch of stuff I can't remember. I've also taken advantage if of some pretty big sales in dlc and complete collections of some older stuff.

I think PSN has gotten a pretty bad rap around here, Imo. The gap in their service compared to xbl isn't nearly as wide as it was when it launched. As far as the free or heavily discounted content I got as part of being a PSN subscriber blows away anything MS has offered up to xbl subs. It's pretty embarrassing actually.

[Danimal]

I think PSN has gotten a pretty bad rap around here, Imo. The gap in their service compared to xbl isn't nearly as wide as it was when it launched. As far as the free or heavily discounted content I got as part of being a PSN subscriber blows away anything MS has offered up to xbl subs. It's pretty embarrassing actually.

I guess the gap depends on what you want out of online. If you want to shop then no. If you want to easily play games and communicate with your friends then I still think it's a long way behind Live.

[Wilk5280]

I have no problems easily playing online and communicating with my friends. I've played a s*** ton more BF3 on that system then I have on the 360. We've never had any issues.

I think there is some misconceived notion that you can't voice chat or easily join friends online with the PS3 and that certainly just is not the case.

[Danimal]

I have no problems easily playing online and communicating with my friends. I've played a s*** ton more BF3 on that system then I have on the 360. We've never had any issues.

I think there is some misconceived notion that you can't voice chat or easily join friends online with the PS3 and that certainly just is not the case.

So the PS3 now has a party chat system and all the benefits it entails like the 360? You can set up a room and chat with 8 of your friends while playing BF3 and not using the in game chat system? I ask this seriously because I haven't played online on the PS3 since Socom and that was set up like the ancient days of PC gaming.

[Aristo]

[pk500]

There is the other issue with DD on console. Storage space. I have 6 TB of space on my PC so I never worry about it. Maybe not much of an issue if you play a game and remove it but I could see issues arising for some.

6 TB? Sh*t, the Federal government might sub-contract you to store private citizens' wireless data. You could be Uncle Sam's cloud.

[Inuyasha]

Went to see Despicable Me 2 today w/ the kids and they had a 5 min preview of XBOX ONE. all the kids in the theaters were ooing and aahing. Good marketing move here by MS, getting their name out to the next gen of gamers and their parents. I wonder if Sony has some similar type of marketing scheme to counter MS.

[Danimal]

There is the other issue with DD on console. Storage space. I have 6 TB of space on my PC so I never worry about it. Maybe not much of an issue if you play a game and remove it but I could see issues arising for some.

6 TB? Sh*t, the Federal government might sub-contract you to store private citizens' wireless data. You could be Uncle Sam's cloud.

Heh 2 TB drives aren't that expensive and I have 6 drive bays. One is just for video editing and digital photography. Like I said might be a little overkill but I never worry about installing a game, especially now that Steam allow you to pick the drive it goes on.

[Macca00]

Heh 2 TB drives aren't that expensive and I have 6 drive bays. One is just for video editing and digital photography. Like I said might be a little overkill but I never worry about installing a game, especially now that Steam allow you to pick the drive it goes on.

Translation:

Heh 2 TB drives aren't that expensive and I have 6 drive bays. One is for games now that Steam allows you to pick the drive it goes on. The rest is porn.