"We suck at telling the story" Microsoft engineer telling us how it really is

Recommended Videos

Meatspinner

New member
Feb 4, 2011
435
0
0
So according to this guy XBone is just like steam, only better. Color me sceptic

http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB#

The thing is we suck at telling the story. The whole point of the DRM switch from disc based to cloud based is to kill disc swapping, scratched discs, bringing discs to friends house, trade-ins for shit value with nothign going back to developers, and high game costs. If you want games cheaper then 59.99, you have to limit used games somehow. Steam's model requires a limited used game model.

>The thing is, the DRM is really really similar to steam... You can login anywhere and play your games, anyone in your house can play with the family xbox. The only diff is steam you have to sign in before playing, and Xbox does it automatically at night for you (once per 24 hours)

>It's a long tail strategy, just like steam. Steam had it's growing pains at the beginning with all it's drm shit as well. [...] For digital downloads steam had no real competition at the time, they were competing against boxed sales. At the time people were pretty irate about steam, (on 4chan too...) It was only once they had a digital marketplace with DRM that was locked down to prevent sharing that they could do super discounted shit.

>Think about it, on steam you get a game for the true cost of the game, 5$-30$. On a console you have to pay for that PLUS any additional licenses for when you sell / trade / borrow / etc. If the developer / publisher can't get it on additional licenses (like steam), then they charge the first person more. [...] If we say "Hey publishers, you limit game to 39.99, we ensure every license transfer you get 10$, gamestop gets 20$" that is a decent model... Microsoft gets a license fee on first and subsequent game purchases, compared to just first now? That's a revenue increase.

>Competition is the best man, it helps drive both to new heights. See technology from the Cold War. If we had no USSR, we'd be way worse off today. TLDR: Bring it on Steam :)

2/4

>Yeah we passed that around the office at Xbox. Most of us were like "Well played Sony, Well played". That being said they are just riding the hype train of ZOMG THEY ARE TRYING TO FUCK US FOR NO REASON. Without actually thinking about how convienent it would be for the majority of the time to not find that disc your brother didn't put back... [...] just simpleminded people not seeing the bigger picture. Some PS4 viral team made them all "U TOOK R DISCS" and they hiveminded.

>Everyone and their mother complains about how gamestop fucks them on their trade ins, getting 5$ for their used games. We come in trying to find a way to take money out of gamestop, and put some in developers and get you possibly cheaper games and everyone bitches at MS. Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4.

>The goal is to move to digital downloads, but Gamestop, Walmart, Target, Amazon are KIND OF FUCKING ENTRENCHED in the industry. They have a lot of power, and the shift has to be gradual. Long term goal is steam for consoles. [...] If you always want to stay with what you have, then keep current consoles, or a PS4. We're TRYING to move the industry forwards towards digital distribution... it'sa bumpy road

>Publishers have enourmous power. Microsoft is trying to balance between consumer delight, and publisher wishes. If we cave to far in either direction you have a non-starting product. WiiU goes too far to consumer, you have no 3rd party support to shake a stick at. PS4 is status-quo. XB1 is trying to push some things, at the expense of others. We have a vision, we'll see if it works in the coming years

>Living room transformation. We want to own the living room. Every living room TV with an XBox on input one. It's the thing that gives the signal to your TV, everything is secondary. The future, where games, TV, internet telephony, all that shit happens magically on some huge ass screen with hand / voice gestures... That's our goal.


3/4

>Google TV + PS4 + Minority report level gestures, that combined with a sick second screen experience (which is really hot for TV, I know I know.. tv tv tv tv tv... but it's fucking sick when you have it). Games will be the same, there are more exclusives to MS then PS atm, and Kinect 2 makes Kinect 1 look like a childs toy.

>By default it's on, listening for "Xbox On". You can turn it off tho, and turn the console like OFF off. OFF off is required for Germany / other countries that require it (no vampire appliances) [...] It has to be plugged in for the console to post. You can turn off everything it does from the settings. Think of it like airplane mode for the iPhone. You can't just unplug the cellular radio, but you can turn it off.

>Instead of 10mins, is 24hrs for your console, and 1 or 2 at a friends house. Really the majority of people have a speck of internet at least once a day. And if you don't. Don't buy an Xbox 1. Just like if you didn't have a broadband connection don't get Live, and if you don't have an HDTV the 360 isn't that great for you either. New tech, new req. This allows us to do cool shit when we can assume things like you have a kinect, you have internet, etc.

>Current plan is basically you're fucked after 24 hours. Yeah... I know. Kind of sucks. I believe they will probably revist the time period and / or find a diff way to "call in" to ensure you haven't sold your license to gamestop or something... but there is no plan YET. I'm hoping the change it, but I don't work on that so I don't have much influence there /sigh

>If the power goes out you ain't playing shit. I'm assuming you mean the internet goes out but you have power for TV and Xbox. Yes, You're fucked for single player games. Again, that's the PoR (Plan of record), but I expect it to change after the e3 clusterfuck

>What fee? There is no fee to play your games at your friends house. Never has, never will. Even x360 digital downloads could do that.


4/4

>The cloud capabilities is the shit they like the most. We basically made a huge cloud compute shit and made it free. What people are doing with it is kind of cool. THe original intention was to get all the Multiplayer servers not requiring 3rd party costs (Like EA shutting down game servers to cut costs), as well as taking all the games that servers hosted by the clients (Halo, etc), and have all that compute done in the cloud allowing more CPU cycles for gameplay. That will really expand what developers can do. Anything that doesn't need per frame calculation and can handle 100ms delays can be shifted to the cloud. That's huge.

>SmartGlass + IE is going to be pretty freaking sweet. 1 finger cursor, 2 finger direct manip. Basically if you think of a laptop trackpad where your phone/ slate is the trackpad and the monitor is your TV... it's that. The tech is there, just needs to be applied. There is some really cool shit going on with Petra + controllers that pairs people with controllers. So if person with controller two trades controlers with controller 1, their profiles magically switch. It's sick. What does this matter? Now if you lean left/right it knows which person is leaning, even if 4 people are all int he same room. It's awesome.

>New service using Azure for cloud compute. Allows developers to not use clients for hosting multiplayer servers, or other tasks that do not require per frame calcuations. It's pretty sweet.

>Honestly, if you care about anything other then pure games AT ALL. Xbox 1 > PS4. If all you do is play games, and nothing else, PS4.

This was all from the Microsoft engineer that was on /b/ last night.

>It's not worth my time to prove it, or risk my Job. I work in Studio A, 40th ave in Redmond, Wa. The thai place in the studio cafeteria has double punch wednesdays. Go ahead and call them and verify if you want.
 

odinzeus

New member
Mar 16, 2013
20
0
0
Steam have low prices,because of piracy and competition.Xbone will have none of that,only one choice for you - Xbox store,so you can dream on for low prices.
 

UnnDunn

New member
Aug 15, 2006
237
0
0
I think the only way Microsoft is going to be able to win back that mindshare is by releasing the Xbox One and letting people use it and see that it isn't really as bad as people assume it will be.

It's clear that their PR operation is completely ill-equipped to deal with this problem.
 

Genocidicles

New member
Sep 13, 2012
1,747
0
0
If I wanted Steam I'd get a gaming PC.

I don't want Microsoft's pathetic attempt to emulate it, with none of the benefits and all of the downsides.
 

Sixcess

New member
Feb 27, 2010
2,719
0
0
Some of this sounds entirely reasonable, but some of it...

Meatspinner said:
>Living room transformation. We want to own the living room. Every living room TV with an XBox on input one. It's the thing that gives the signal to your TV, everything is secondary. The future, where games, TV, internet telephony, all that shit happens magically on some huge ass screen with hand / voice gestures... That's our goal.
...sounds like the same techno-fascist utopian elitist fantasy that reinforces the idea that Microsoft are entirely detached from the real world.

Minority report level gestures
Bleh. Let me know when you've got a flying car to sell me, Microsoft, because for a big part of what should be your target customer base, that's about as realistic as what you're pushing here.
 

wintercoat

New member
Nov 26, 2011
1,691
0
0
Except Steam has an offline mode, doesn't cost a penny to use, has a bustling community, and ridiculously good deals.

The cons of Steam(offline mode being shoddy or just not working for some people, can't trade in used games, Greenlight and its myriad issues) are heavily outweighed by its pros. The XB1's aren't.
 

Ninmecu

New member
May 31, 2011
262
0
0
It's unfuckingbelievably naive to think, for even a second, that any possible savings the Publishers can get will EVER be given to the consumer beyond token "bonuses" here and there. I don't care what way they try and spin it. Xbone's model is horseshit for reasons beyond the simple DRM and supposed "Life assisting" bonuses with the console. I also don't appreciate being called "close minded" MS. I live in Canada, our major internet providers are Cogeco, Bell and Rogers. They cap out at 30 bucks for 15mbps and 30 gig limit or more with arbitrarily small limitations. They don't add fiber optic lines because there's no legit competition. They lobby against raising they're lower limits and upper limits to reasonable amounts because, and I quote, "We can't afford it." Then you guys come along and tell me "Digital everything is awesome and better and fuck yeah join the future stop being a backwards retard!" Go fuck a duck MS.
 

Stavros Dimou

New member
Mar 15, 2011
698
0
0
How dare they get in their dirty mouths Steam ???
No,no,DON'T say that xbox one is like Steam,do you hear me ?
 

tilmoph

Gone Gonzo
Jun 11, 2013
922
0
0
This was interesting, but one thing that stood out to me was "WiiU goes too far to consumer, you have no 3rd party support to shake a stick at. PS4 is status-quo. XB1 is trying to push some things, at the expense of others." It's basically saying the Xbone is the publisher's console, designed with their wishes in mind, not the customer's. Now, that's pretty obvious anyway, but I think it was neat to read from a MS employee (allegedly, he was on /b/ of all places.)
 

64bitgamer

New member
Oct 29, 2009
17
0
0
Okay, let me put it this way. There is potential for this to be pulled off.

I new games on the Xbone only cost 40 dollars, would you buy one? How about 50? What if they only cost 30? At one point would you buy an Xbox one and be happy for the price advantage. What if they had sales like steam did? We'd all be happy to purchase one.

There are, however, several issues that prevent Xbox one from being the "Steam of consoles," And its not just retailers. First is trust. Microsoft's sales have never been generous to say the least. I've never seen any of their games get cut in price in a timely fashion. I don;t trust Microsoft to manage sales and price drops in the same way that I trust valve does. This could be corrected with time, but I that's going to take a few years. The second is Indie games. I don't buy many AAA games over steam. Mostly I'm buying indie titles. Xbox One, with its publisher requirement and 10000 fee, will never be indie friendly. I don't think games like Amnesia and Bastion would ever be welcome on Xbox one, at least not without paying a huge amount of cash up front. That's just another item separating the two.

Overall, I just don't think MS is customer friendly enough to pull off that model.
 

omega 616

Elite Member
May 1, 2009
5,883
1
43
I've gotta say, this guy is better at PR than the guy who is charge of PR and market strat.

He sounds enthusiastic, talks like a normal person, explains things well ... shame he works for Microsoft.

I can commend MS for trying to push the medium forward, I just think there forward is the wrong forward. Gamers want the medium to move north and MS is like "no, east is better ... now get your fuckin' ass over here!".

Maybe if they said "look, we know this looks awful but just keep with us"
 

Frotality

New member
Oct 25, 2010
982
0
0
this guy sounds like either an idiot or an underhanded attempt to appeal to core gamers with no obvious PR-speak. either way microsoft wouldnt suck so bad as to somehow omit that all this BS was for the intent of lowering game prices until now.

this is a bad attempt to get us to believe the oft-spouted BS of trickle down economics, that publishers will pass new savings onto the customer rather than something that benefits them. making a console that ALLOWS for cheaper games isnt gonna compel anyone to actually take advantage of that, and is just as stupid an idea as making a $500 box that plays TV on your TV.
 

Strelok

New member
Dec 22, 2012
494
0
0
Sounds suspicious, especially this part:

The cloud capabilities is the shit they like the most. We basically made a huge cloud compute shit and made it free.
I know quite a few engineers and tech types as that is the industry I work in. Generally when they go off on a tangent they have a lot of trouble reining in the tech speak, this guy comes off as someone who does not really know anything, or new to it, perhaps an intern? Nice try again Microsoft. Also most of what he says goes against Microsoft's previous behavior, so it's smells like a heap of masculine bovine excrement to me.

Captcha: om nom nom, didn't mean to interrupt your dinner captcha.
 

Savagezion

New member
Mar 28, 2010
2,455
0
0
>Everyone and their mother complains about how gamestop fucks them on their trade ins, getting 5$ for their used games. We come in trying to find a way to take money out of gamestop, and put some in developers publishers and get you possibly cheaper games and everyone bitches at MS. Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4.
Fixed that for him. Microsoft already outlined that the money would be going to publishers as anyone who knows the developer-publisher relationship would know first hand that developers ain't getting any part of this. Especially, since they don't support indies on the Xbox One. Handing money to developers would honestly have to be filed under charity, because developers aren't entitled by law to any of that money and publishers are, which means that won't happen.

Plus, I am part of everybody and I have a history of defending Gamestop from retarded comments like his. I like Gamestop as a consumer. Imagine that.

Fun story: Went to pick up Last of Us today and the clerk made a big deal about the fact that I didn't pre-order. He kept talking about how its "free stuff" and I am spending 60 bucks anyways. I told him, "Yeah but it isn't really anything I wanted". He said something else about it being free so I told him that someone handing me a box of shit for free doesn't mean I want it. Hell, I could go get some free cardboard from my buddies garbage but I don't want it. After that, he asked if I wanted to pre-order anything and I said no and he was happy to have me leave.

I know this clerk, showed up working there about a year ago and he is around sometimes and clearly is pushing for store manager or something. Lately, he is all about pushing shit at the customer to a level people on here have mentioned in the past. I find it amusing, myself. I have 101 reasons not to give you my money and if you want to list reasons why I should, let me count the ways. I bet 101 is more than your 4. I can get him to shut up pretty quick and make no mistake he is a headstrong little bastard. You just gotta be blunt with people like that.

Yeah, that's my fun story. I actually experienced what some people complain about on here all the time a couple times recently. I personally found it fun probably due to circumstance. "Hey, this must be the guy I keep hearing about on the escapist." I am familiar with most employees at both Gamestops near me. This young guy that started working there in the past 3-4 months was there today. He gave me a strange look with the "shit in a box for free" line but he is a good kid. Throws out the mandatory "would you like to pre-order" or "let me see if we have a used copy" lines but you can just tell him "No thanks" or "I want it new" and he assumes the customer knows what they want to spend money on hassle free. Most clerks are like that in my experience.
 

Callate

New member
Dec 5, 2008
5,118
0
0
If Valve dies tomorrow, there will still be Green Man Gaming, GOG, uPlay, Origin, Impulse, every PC game that doesn't call in to a central server to play, and every independent dev who sells their games without having to go through a middleman. There's also Valve's promise to try to get Steam games working if Steam is going to go permanently offline (whatever that's worth- your mileage may vary.)

If Microsoft dies, your XBox One is a paperweight, every disc you bought for it is a coaster, and every game on your hard drive is so much magnetic scribbling. Everything about the XBox One has been devised with the idea of maximizing Microsoft's control and seeing every transaction go through Microsoft, one way or another. What customers might have wanted is clearly somewhere on page three, and the persistent idea that Microsoft creating a closed market somehow leads to Steam-style savings for the customer is deeply immersed in the "We'll get back to you later" attitude that has marked everything about the damn thing.

Yeah, buy our console, see how the savings roll in. You poor sap.

Buying the XBone right now requires a level of faith that the company's policies and attitudes of late have done nothing to warrant. It is the pinnacle of the "We'll tell you what you want" attitude that has marked the worst of the video game world in the last half a decade, and it needs a stake through its heart.
 

Owyn_Merrilin

New member
May 22, 2010
7,370
0
0
I stopped reading when he started claiming Steam had low prices because of the lack of the used market. That is the exact opposite of the truth. Steam has ridiculous sales because they have a lot of stiff competition, both in the realm of DD, and from companies selling hard copies. Digital stores on consoles don't have that competition, because there's no room for a third party store. It's why people were so leery of the Windows 8 app store (what happened to that, by the way?)

Incidentally, the used market for PC games isn't totally dead, it's just no longer institutionalized because Gamestop is the only major used game retailer left, and they don't want to mess with making sure they're selling copies that can actually be used. I bought a used copy of The Witcher 2 for $4 today, and while I haven't installed it yet, I know it will work. In fact, unless a game uses Steam, Games for Windows live, or Origin, it's going to work as a used game. It's not all that hard to read the box, or to make sure that it comes with the serial key (assuming it uses old fashioned, multiple use serial keys.) Many, many games don't have any DRM beyond a simple disc check.
 

Saucycarpdog

New member
Sep 30, 2009
3,258
0
0
I love how everyone seems to have accepted that this guy is legit, without doing any sort of fact checking.
Weird.

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/15439/article/supposed-microsoft-engineer-speaks-out-on-xbox-one-drm-it-s-all-fake/
 

J Tyran

New member
Dec 15, 2011
2,407
0
0
If its so focused on digital distribution why will it have only a 500GB HDD at launch? That will hold 10-20 or so AAA games, triple A games will easily hit 25-50GB next gen and that hard drive is simply too small.
 

Dryk

New member
Dec 4, 2011
981
0
0
The thing is we suck at telling the story. The whole point of the DRM switch from disc based to cloud based is to kill disc swapping, scratched discs, bringing discs to friends house, trade-ins for shit value with nothign going back to developers, and high game costs. If you want games cheaper then 59.99, you have to limit used games somehow. Steam's model requires a limited used game model.
I love how this post is trying to spin this as beneficial for the consumer. Also Steam sales have been going downhill ever since Valve realised their competition is playing catchup in a major way.