Microsoft loves console gamers

[RyanB]

Well what I think xion is trying to convey is this, since the reveal of the Xbox one most people even a few on this site has said screw Microsoft and say PC is better. But PC has also had aggressive DRM policy's too! Now what you guys are failing to see is that we had no clue on what Microsoft was gonna do with the DRM policy. We're they gonna adopt a steam style system or were they gonna just use th style the currently use just with DRM? We have no clue, so how can you be aggressively against something you don't know the outcome of. Should I be aggressively against Sony bc of the hacking issue, and now the update issue! Should we stop buying wii's and wii u's bc they are stealing money from people on YouTube who play there games and do let's plays? I'm sure that's forgivable but not DRM not a 24 hr connection, come on people! And @ Ryanb, your comparing a time in gaming where exclusives were what drove the industry, rarely were there cross platform games! Now we live in a time where that's the norm, and having more then one console to play what little exclusives there are now! I mean look at the destiny being multi-plat which used to be a Microsoft company and the new kingdom hearts game which used to be a Sony exclusive being on both systems!

To be fair, who's job is it to communicate the benefits of this DRM to the consumer? DRM = digital rights management. By definition this means removing rights that you would normally have in a medium. It's not our job to blindly imagine what a company could possibly do in the future in exchange for what they're taking away. In addition, just because we imagine things we like, it doesn't mean it'll happen unless it comes from the horse's mouth. Adding to that, there are things were we do not need imagination at all because we know they are bad in all scenarios.

Let's ignore digital for a moment and just look at disc-based games. How could it possibly be a good thing for consumers to lose their ability to sell a game? How could it possibly be better than me coming over to your house, popping a disc in, and playing? There simply is no way. And if some crazy cloud-sharing thing is better in some instances (say long-distance friend), then let people opt-in. Also, used games are very important for industry. New games are constantly competing with used, which drives the price down.

Long story short - much of the stuff MS was touting could be good in some instances...but lack of option kills it. If they did what they were saying with digital games, and allowed you to optionally convert your disc-based games to digital, I'd quite frankly be a fan.

Edit: outside of 24-hour check-in, that is. Just fix your security to avoid the rampant piracy that was on 360 instead.

 

[legitnoob]

Well see that's the major issue I had with Microsoft was the lack of clarity not the policy's themselves. But I fully think they were waiting on Sony to say what there policy's were! And now since Sony dropped all DRM, Microsoft was like crap we need to fix our policy's. But I'm not saying DRM is a good thing I'm just saying people embraced PC which has its own DRM downfalls but is Hating Microsoft for considering it! But I guess I'm just a diff breed of gamer I want to play all the systems except for wii u( unless the make another good Zelda game).

 

[XionTawa]

But I'm not saying DRM is a good thing I'm just saying people embraced PC which has its own DRM downfalls but is Hating Microsoft for considering it!

This is all I was trying to say.

 

[Kendrik]

PSN+ is "freaking awesome value". This is nothing but pure opinion. I've used PSN+ and think is pales in comparison to XBL. 2 of my favorite XBL features are Avatars and Smart Glass. PSN+ has neither.

"PSN+ is an awesome value" is pure opinion, but "I think it pales in comparison to XBL" isn't? Lost me on that one, bro.

I think it's easy for anyone to confuse personal value with objective value. Personal value is opinion, but it is highly important since it affects one's decision making. "Xbox Live online play is better than Playstation Network's online play." This easily becomes a muddy mixtures of values. There may be objective ways to measure the differences between these two services (such as latency testing). However, "Xbox Live online play is better than Playstation Network's online play, so the $50/year price tag is totally worth it" becomes a personal value judgment. There is something that can be objectively compared, and thus objectively better, in this situation, but whether that makes the cost of the better option worth it to the consumer is entirely in the realm of subjective value.

Likewise, Playstation Plus (which Ryan has now put in some effort to distinguish from the basic Playstation Network service) has objective and subjective values. You can easily sum up the average price point in the digital store of all the free games you get while enrolled in Plus and compare it to the cost of the service (and that isn't taking into consideration the other offerings of Plus); this is an objective value judgment (and, by the way, the objective value of Plus truly is exceptional). However, the subjective personal value may not impress you. Paying a premium for digital games that require you to stay subscribed to enjoy may very well go against your preferences of buying and keeping games (even though it's a misconception to view Plus as a purchase of games; the closer parallel being a digital form of Gamefly or a game version of Netflix Instant). So, someone may find the personal value of Live Gold worth the expense while finding the personal value of Playstation Plus not worth it.

As for your favorite things (which, by the way, also fall into that category of personal value since they are not objectively measurable), I'm glad you enjoy those features. I suppose Smart Glass can be cool. I've no interest or use for it (personal value), but I'm still glad that it is offered for you since you enjoy it so.

Avatars, though? You like 'em, and that's cool. They serve little functional purpose, though (aside from a handful of Xbox Live Arcade games that allow you to utilize 'em). While they bring some measure of customization to your Xbox profile, they're also clearly a form of microtransaction moneygrab (though I don't consider that a bad thing in itself, and I've even used spare points on avatar wear myself). Playstation has their own avatars in Playstation Home, by the way, which doesn't require Plus. Home is constantly growing with new content. True, it's also used as a marketing platform, but it also provides virtual-social environments, games, connectivity to retail games, and personal hangout spaces to store and display all of the unlocked goods you've acquired from outside gaming, wandering the displays of Home, or simply purchased.

Though Playstation doesn't have service-wide avatars like XBL (and that may be an important feature to you, and I don't mean to downplay its personal value to you), it very much does have avatars within the Home service, and their offering provides more (though the more offered may not have as much personal value).

There are only 2 things that require an XBL Gold Account, Multiplayer Gaming and Premium Apps. Updates, Game Sales, and pretty much every other feature is free. Plus I've never had a single ad "in my face". They are always out of the way and very small that I rarely notice them.

Whaaah? Gold members have been getting exclusive sales/discounts for a while. It's not a bad thing to add that incentive to their service, of course, but they are there.

"And that is why you fail..."

No, Master Yoda! That's not true! That's impossible! (We'll just ignore the mixing of my allusions. >.> )

Notice on steam, what are the games the by Tek rules you can buy(meaning they are under $20).

It makes me very, very happy to see forum folks referring to the Rules of Tek. haha

 

[XionTawa]

Thanks everyone for trying to explain your points to me, and to make sense of my stupidity. But unfortunately this is all lost on me, and I think it best I just step away from this. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused, and hope there are no hard feelings. Time to go enjoy some FFXIV Beta!

 

[legitnoob]

Does anyone else just want to jump for joy that Microsoft did change there mind on those issues, so now it's kinda easier to justify spending 900 bucks on consoles in the next few months!

 

[Kendrik]

Thanks everyone for trying to explain your points to me, and to make sense of my stupidity. But unfortunately this is all lost on me, and I think it best I just step away from this. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused, and hope there are no hard feelings. Time to go enjoy some FFXIV Beta!

You're hardly stupid, bro. It's complicated issue that can't be easily simplified without committing reductio ad absurdum.* But, without simplification, complicated matters are... well... complicated, so it certainly can get difficult as both speaker and listener to really get at these issues (especially when any data we wish to use must be interpreted) without anything getting lost in translation. But, fear not! No hard feelings here.

Beta ho! (By way of detour through quizzes for class for me...)

Does anyone else just want to jump for joy that Microsoft did change there mind on those issues, so now it's kinda easier to justify spending 900 bucks on consoles in the next few months!

Not quite as such, no. I won't be spending $900 on consoles this year. hahahaheh...no. But! I am glad that when I do get around to buying an Xbox One, I know beyond doubt that I'll be able to go to Amazon and order copies of games (new or used) at prices dictated by the market rather than the marketers and play them without issue. haha Call me old-fashioned, but I'm still a believer in, and supporter of, that side of capitalism.


*Let's start a logical fallacy of the week thread! haha Seriously, though, I'd guess we could all benefit from learning more about logical fallacies--I'm sure I unwittingly make my own faulty arguments all the time--so long as it's approached with humility and desire to better our own abilities to reason rather than finding new ways to poke holes in the arguments of others.

 

[RyanB]

Time to go enjoy some FFXIV Beta!

Don't step away; how's the beta!? I wouldn't go near the original launch due to obvious reasons, but I'm keenly interested in what folks think on the revamp. Anything to share here, or is there a thread that explains things a bit better?

 

[legitnoob]

Well I agree with you fully on that Mr. Red. I'm glad that my financial situation has gotten extremely better so I can afford both! I would put that money to a PC for the fun games/ mods on there but sadly I really don't know people on PC! Nothing against the PC players on here but I like playing with people ik in real life.

 

[XionTawa]

Don't step away; how's the beta!? I wouldn't go near the original launch due to obvious reasons, but I'm keenly interested in what folks think on the revamp. Anything to share here, or is there a thread that explains things a bit better?

Yep right here.

But the short version, I bought 3 copies of the original collectors edition, and tried so hard to love the game, but just couldn't. ARR fixes the game completely, and makes it a rather fun and enjoyable game.

 

[Odale]

Well what I think xion is trying to convey is this, since the reveal of the Xbox one most people even a few on this site has said screw Microsoft and say PC is better. But PC has also had aggressive DRM policy's too!

The difference is that Steam understood they were taking liberties away from gamers by only selling digital copies that would be permanently tethered to our accounts. Whats more, and possibly even more important, is that Steam understood that gamers would understand the revocation of such liberties. Because Steam revoked traditional gaming liberties, they instead offer considerable sales on AAA titles. MS on the other hand, has never made such concessions.

Now what you guys are failing to see is that we had no clue on what Microsoft was gonna do with the DRM policy. We're they gonna adopt a steam style system or were they gonna just use th style the currently use just with DRM?

We do know because they already told us what their original plan was. There is no guessing. The fact that MS even considered making console gaming (which historically has been much simpler than PC gaming - physical-based games that could be taken anywhere and played with minimal downtime) harder to accomplish was absurd and driven by greed.


I guess it's a good thing that they backpedaled, but buying one of their consoles is, I think, still out of the question:

[Microsoft talking to you.]

"Hey, yeah I know... we were going to chop your arms off. But apparently you didn't like that, so I guess we won't anymore. So, when are you gonna buy an XBONE???" ...yeah pretty ridiculous.

[Me.]

"YOU WERE GOING TO CHOP MY ARMS OFF!"

Sounds pretty crazy to me.

 

[RyanB]

Now be nice, Odale. It's only a flesh wound!

 

[Odale]

Allusion to the Holy Grail - 9001 points.

 

[Tek7]

Claim: The Xbone's DRM would have lowered prices on games.

False: Microsoft: Xbox One games are $60

Microsoft announced the reversal of their DRM policies 2 days after announcing standard game prices.

The fact that Microsoft was daft enough to publicly announce such policies, even if they later retracted said policies after fierce public backlash, does not inspire trust.

But hey, I doubt I'll buy a PS4 or Wii U any time soon, either. PC game sales and indie game bundles are just too sweet to go back to console game prices.

 

[Hescominsoon]

i like my steam account. Log into it on any machine and my library is there. jsut a matter of downloading.

 

[RyanB]

i like my steam account. Log into it on any machine and my library is there. jsut a matter of downloading.

Great point! This is one of the reasons people love Steam so much. Anyone remember having a huge binder full of games young and old, trying to keep track of keys, etc? Go to install...crap, time to update. Oops...updates not working for some reason. What a pain. Got a new computer? Time to reinstall everything! This is something we haven't had on the consoles to nearly this extent, but on PC it made gaming a pain sometimes. Especially when crap just didn't work the way it should.

Steam made that easy.

 

[=west=]

This is a nasty one for me. I hate Steam, and I hate the XB1. I have Steam because as someone who's constantly upgrading computers (and also constantly changing names/accounts and sometimes OS's, it can be convenient. But really it's just another form of DRM that devalues games. (yes, devalues), because can you trade your Steam games for newer ones? NO. Can you share your Steam games with a friend? NO. Face it, Steam was the precursor to the XB1. Plain and simple.

XB1 would've destroyed my ability to trade in older games for newer ones, this is a serious issue for me, and I have in the past personally crusaded against such things. Needless to say that I won't be buying an XB1. We'll see what the PS4 has up its sleeves.