Microsoft's Creative Director... Defends "Always On"...

[Jack Nief]

So every time the servers go down, be it for maintenance, malicious attack, or updating, you're not playing -anything- on this.

It's smaller scale with Diablo 3 and SimCity, if they're doing maintenance you can just pop up a different game. When your entire SYSTEM requires an online functionality and that happens, you've basically got a $400 piece of hardware which basically transforms into an expensive brick every now and again, probably at he most inconvenient of times. Hope it wasn't saving when it went down, because that would just SUCK.

Sometimes it makes me glad I enjoy the retro shit. Sure they're not the prettiest games but at least they don't pull this crap every now and again.

 

[Nowhere Man]

I'm so sick and tired of these tech hipsters evangelizing always online like it's the greatest thing since running water. Their putrid arrogance in thinking everyone has a fast reliable inexpensive internet connection and that they'd always WANT to be main lined into some social DRM driven experience like a heroin addict takes to jamming dirty needles in his extended arm is just ridiculously short sighted and reeks of corporate technological indoctrination from higher management.

Electricity and internet is handled by providers in vastly different ways, I don't think I have to explain to you guys in what ways as you know what I'm talking about. Also this mandatory kinect eye bullshit, the possibility of not being able to play used games, a console whose focus is moving more and more away from gaming to become some watered down entertainment hub? Microsoft can take their Nextbox and the airheads making these decisions, including this Bozo, and ship themselves on a one way rocket to a distant Saturn moon for all I care. This is why I'm sitting the next console generation out.

 

[cookyt]

Taken out of context, this sound pretty bad, but in context, it looks like he's just joking with/trolling another developer friend of his. Look how he carefully word his replies so that he never actually says that games should always be online and connected to the Internet. The "always on" statement can be thought of as him saying all consoles need electricity, his analogies are purposely vague. His "why would I want to live there" remark doesn't directly insult people who live in rural areas, it just states that he doesn't want to live there. Actually, he later apologized for the indirect insult. This statement was in the article the OP linked to:

"Apologies for offending non-cities, I was trolling [a friend] personally."

If he is just joking, then the outrage over this just shows how public platforms like Twitter are ill-suited for private conversation, and how, when you're an official for an entity with a large public presence, much of what you say will be tied back to that entity whether you want it to or not.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I know I'm the minority on this. The vast majority of gamer's are always connected to the net, and I spent a full year living in a very tiny minority.

Not exactly. I believe there was a pretty noticeable percentage of current gen game consoles sold that were never connected to the Internet once. I want to throw a number of 25% at you but I can't be sure. But even then someone like me with a stable connection (I can't remember the last time my Internet went down) wouldn't want an always online console because I can guarantee that there will come a time where I would want to use my console and I won't have a connection

 

[SweetLiquidSnake]

I think more people need that attitude with gamers, some whine too much, and really he's not wrong since if "always online" is implemented there's no stopping it, so why bother complaining about it?

 

[introverted_surd]

I cannot understand this. Usually when you release a new version of something the goal is to make it more user friendly. Thats why we've all moved to laptops and the like, to remove all the boundaires. Microsoft installing another thing you have to be connected to seems completely going the other way and I can't understand who would think a another form of connection to work is a good idea when the laptops and the ipads are trying to take away a connection and are doing quite well.

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

I cannot understand this. Usually when you release a new version of something the goal is to make it more user friendly. Thats why we've all moved to laptops and the like, to remove all the boundaires. Microsoft installing another thing you have to be connected to seems completely going the other way and I can't understand who would think a another form of connection to work is a good idea when the laptops and the ipads are trying to take away a connection and are doing quite well.

Not to sound rude, but you're reeeaaaaallllyyyy late to the party on this one, pal. Necro'ing threads like this (especially considering the dude who said this stuff was fired by Microsoft only a few days afterward) is rather frowned upon here.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I am still waiting for the official announcement but considering Microsoft has done nothing to quiet these increasing rumours is slightly worrying.

If its always online I wont buy it and I dont think im alone if its locks games to consoles well thats just taking the piss. If it does any of those things and the PS4 does not they are going to have an extremely hard sell on their hands personally I wouldnt buy one on principal even if they released my dream game for it.