New Xbox Reveal at 10PDT/1EDT

[MadBurgerMaker]

Are there any games involved in this game console?  It seemed to me that most everything revolved around TV, a medium that I am profoundly uninterested in.

Of course there are/will be games.  It's still an Xbox.  The TV stuff was their big reveal hype thing though, since it's a new thing for consoles to....do.  Or whatever.  Seems like it's just a console combined with a media center PC. 

[Josquius]

Are there any games involved in this game console?  It seemed to me that most everything revolved around TV, a medium that I am profoundly uninterested in.

True.
Maybe this is a big part of new consoles not seeming so exciting these days. It used to be there would be awesome revolutionary looking games announced with consoles.
I can only think of one next gen game, that True Crimey like one with the computer hacking and stuff, which....seems like it could be decent but hardly something to be excited for.

I have no idea why I would want a new console.  The ones we have now seem quite adequate for the few times the boys actually spend time on the things.  Personally I never got into console gaming.  Probably because I am not into FPS type games.

The PC is the place for FPS surely?
FPS on consoles=:bleeding:

[garbon]

FPS on consoles=:bleeding:

[Josquius]

FPS on consoles=:bleeding:

They're hard to control and give me motion sickness.

[garbon]

I really don't know why I ever read your posts. I always end up wanting to bash your head in.

[Syt]

I really don't know why I ever read your posts. I always end up wanting to bash your head in.

Whenever you feel like that, put what enrages you into the greater context of things, realize how insignificant it is, and move on. Works for me.

[Syt]

An RPS rant on how it currently looks sharing games between friends will work (and on sharing/lending games in general):

http://languish.org/forums/index.php?action=post;topic=9866.50;last_msg=586202

[...]

There has been much consternation, and certainly a large degree of confusion, about the new policies the Xbox One will impose on gamers. It seems that if you lend a copy of a game to a friend, and they want to play it on their own profile, they'll have to pay a fee equivalent to the price of the game to be able to do so. If it is the case, it's bewildering. It's the end of something as ordinary and friendly as letting a buddy come over and borrow a couple of games from your shelf.

But there never has been freedom for games. The copyright messages printed on your average videogame impose draconian and unsocial instructions from a futuristic evil oppressive regime, that somehow exist in our era. Grab a box and look at the tiny print on the back, and there's a good chance you'll read:

"Unauthorised copying, lending, or resale under any scheme strictly prohibited."

I nearly broke my eyeballs trying to read that on the rear-side of a copy of World In Conflict that happened to be near by. A copy I've now learned I do not have permission to lend to a friend. (It's often said this is to deter library-style lending schemes, but let's be sensible here – the language is deliberately ambiguous.)

Lending, or as I like to call it – sharing – is loathed by copyright holders. A borrowed game is an unsold game, I imagine they probably say to each other without evidence for such an obviously nonsensical claim. It is only the natural consequence of things for this new console to make sharing so extraordinarily difficult or expensive.

And yes, that oh-so-often given response is absolutely true.

"But what about Steam? YOU HYPOCRITE!"

Steam, and so many other digital distribution platforms, are abhorrent when it comes to notions of sharing. Our willing allowing of the PC gaming market to become unshareable makes us all complicit in this erosion of freedom. We went from plastic circles with idiotic impositions of limited installs, to pure data and not even the option for those few installs. And we thanked them for the convenience.

To return to Phillips' quote, we did not resist at all.

There's definitely a difference between a tangible, physical object, and an ethereal collection of data downloaded to a hard drive. Quite what that difference amounts to really becomes a subject for philosophy, but most people would recognise that having a box in their hand gives them a greater sense of a right to share. Microsoft's purported decisions to make that impossible (the current line is that you'll be able to put that disc in the machine at a friend's house, but you'll have to log in with your account for it to work) bring the message rather starkly home. It took the plastic box for the affront to be properly felt, despite our having allowed it to happen for many years.

We resisted to no degree, and thus we have no degree of freedom. We simply do not own our games. We don't own them when we download them, and we don't own them when we buy them in a box. We are, at the very best, renting them from the publisher at a hefty price. They reserve the right to take that notion of ownership away from us at any point, whether it's by turning off vital servers to have a game run, or blocking accounts into which the games are tied. Right now, if you do something to offend Valve's myriad mysterious and opaque rules, they can remove your access to your entire account, no matter how many games it may contain. While all of us who've never experienced this tend to feel like their Steam Library is their own, talk to someone who's had it taken away to get an idea just how much it isn't.

We've seen so very many people who have said something an EA moderator didn't like on a forum, and discovered they're no longer able to play the games they paid for via Origin.

When these things happen, we object. Often it takes a site like RPS to feature the story before anything is done (and sometimes just our sniffing around the story to see things magically fixed before we can even report it). We hear about its happening to someone else, get a bit worried about it, and then carry on.

So what am I suggesting? That we should all boycott these systems? But then we'd not have access to so many games we want to play. And that's true, and I'm swayed by it. But I'm also acutely aware that the degree to which I'm resisting is defining the degree to which I'm free. And I don't feel very free.

There are other options too, of course. Some developers will allow you to give Steam codes to friends, to share the game. There are DRM-free digital distribution channels that allow you to "share" products you've bought without resistance. Obviously things are a little more problematic here. My friend's young son would have no issues with sharing if it meant creating an identical duplication of the toy for his baby sister to have, while he continued playing with the original. While there is a very good, strong argument to be made for copying to be understood as sharing, it does remove the factor of not having the original while it's borrowed by another.

But slightly frustratingly, there's a simple answer out there, already being used by a huge and notoriously vicious sector of the copyright industry: books. Kindles feature the ability to "lend" books. It's suspended in your own account while it's borrowed, and returns when your chum is finished with it. It simulates a physical book, which short of laborious scanning or photocopying, is absent when borrowed by a friend. And it's a system people tend to be very happy with.

It's a system that absolutely should be featured on Steam, Origin, UPlay, etc etc. And it's a system we're very unlikely to see, until people start making it clear they're demanding it in huge enough numbers. Because right now the publishers much prefer the current setup: everyone has to buy their own copy.

My dad and I both have Steam accounts. Sometimes after I've finished a game I realise how much he'd enjoy it. Right now, if he's to play it he's going to have to buy it himself, or I'll buy it for him. But that's ridiculous! I'm done with it. I bought it, played it, and now I'm done with it. It's his turn to have a go on the copy I bought. Why on Earth have I never resisted for the freedom to of course be able to divert my copy of a game from my account to his? No copy is lost, no unauthorised duplication has taken place. I've simply done the thing I always had before, when I'd finished with a copy of a game on my 360, PS2, Xbox, N64, DS, Atari... I would have shared.

The Xbox One, with all its creepy Kinect-spying, TV interaction weirdness for the seventeen people who still ever watch TV as it's broadcast, and dog-based shooters serves a useful purpose. It takes the industry's fervent ambition to prevent the natural, beautiful human desire to share to a clearer, more immediately offensive place. It highlights the freedom we've already given up. And perhaps it will shake us enough to start resisting at last.

He raises a good point with comparing books, where lending is pretty standard. Heck, something akin to a (book) library for console games has to be EA's worst nightmare (yes, I know, some libraries do that, and video/games stores, too).

[Grey Fox]

I really don't know why I ever read your posts. I always end up wanting to bash your head in.

Console FPSs are the evilest of evil. They are the gays to the Westbaro church!

[Neil]

I would imagine that the EU will come down on that in pretty short order.  That's the sort of thing they do, and Microsoft has been hesitant in the past to pay the kinds of bribes that all EU institutions run on.

[Syt]

Good summary by Yahtzee on the recent reveals:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/7417-Next-Gen-Buyers-Guide

[Syt]

Oh, btw, you need to log in every 24h minimum to play your games. And loaning to friends only if the developer wants to allow it. (MS say they allow it ONCE and only to friends that have been on your friends list for at least 30 days.) The loaning feature will not be available at launch.

http://www.destructoid.com/xbox-one-games-require-online-verification-every-24-hours-255542.phtml

Spread across multiple blog posts, Microsoft has finally clarified some of its policies regarding online connection requirements and trading in used games. Describing the system as being "designed from the ground up to be ready and connected," the company confirms that users will need to check in to "verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend":

"With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies," reads the official explanation.

Another post describes licensing: "After signing in and installing, you can play any of your games from any Xbox One because a digital copy of your game is stored on your console and in the cloud. So, for example, while you are logged in at your friend's house, you can play your games." Up to ten family members "can log in and play from your shared games library."

On the used games front, Microsoft says it's up to publishers. (Great...) "Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once."

Continuing with the "Ugh, really?" news, to the surprise of no one: "In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won't be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."

This is, sadly, right in line with what many of us were expecting from Microsoft. Now I have to wonder how Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will play into all of this. Not liking where this is headed.

Lastly, for Kinect, "The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used," according to Microsoft. "When Xbox One is on and you're simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded."

"If you don't want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say 'Xbox Off.' When the system is off, it's only listening for the single voice command -- 'Xbox On,' and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you'll need to turn it back on for these experiences."

[garbon]

Do they come up with these schemes as a way of testing out how the market will react and then plan to change if they don't like it (or keep it in place if people don't grumble)? I can't see any reason that I'd want an Xbox 360 if it required me to have the internet to play. Current gen is still fine enough with out that rubbish.

edit: Great movie, Syt.

[Grey Fox]

What you want has no bearing on anything. It's a deal between publishers (movies & games) and microsoft.

[garbon]

Sure, I suppose it doesn't matter if you have customers.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Good summary by Yahtzee on the recent reveals:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/7417-Next-Gen-Buyers-Guide

"ALL IN, MOTHERFUCKERS"