What can Xbox one do for me?

[DocMcCray]

After the recent article here on the escapists where Microsoft talks about how "customers just don't understand", I wrote a facebook comment talking about how we as customers know better.

However, I will always give every position the benefit of the doubt, no matter how retarded it seems. There are numerous things that Microsoft is doing with the Xbox One. Connect every 24 hours, always connected Kinect, sharing games debacle, etc. If they really want to clean this mess, they have to learn how to tell me, as a consumer, why any of this is good for me.

I could literally care less (and I'm using this in it's correct sense) about certain features benefit Microsoft. My goal in life is not to make them happier, richer, more powerful, etc. My goal in life when it comes to gaming is to be entertained without any hassle.

So, Microsoft, how does having to check in every 24 hours benefit me?
How does needing a Kinect plugged in to make the system work benefit me?
How does limiting my choices on buying or selling games benefit me?

These are a few questions, but by far not all that could be asked. But in order for Microsoft to keep me as a customer (I own a 360), they will have start promoting from my (meaning the consumer) perspective rather than their own wishes and desires.

CAPTCHA: weylan yutani. Just funny. Nothing extraordinary.

 

[UnnDunn]

The Xbox One game licensing system benefits you in a number of ways. The biggest is that it frees you from discs. You buy a game disc, install it, and you put it back in the box and never have to worry about it again. If you want to play that game, you have immediate access to it, no matter where you are or whose Xbox One you are using. The shared library feature means you can give up to 10 friends access to your games, without passing discs around. If you have that one friend who always scratches your discs when you lend him your games, that will no longer be a problem. Simply put him on your shared library list, and he can download your game and play it without ever touching your discs. You don't have to ever worry about the dog chewing up your discs, or a burglar stealing them, or getting them scratched or dirty, or devoting space to storing them near your console.

Making Kinect mandatory gives developers the confidence that every Xbox One owner has a Kinect, which means they are going to build Kinect functionality into every game they make. This doesn't just mean having you flail your arms around. It also means voice chat and voice command and gameplay based on facial emotions. PS4 developers will not be sure that every PS4 owner has a PS Camera, so they will be less likely to build similar functionality. Basically, PS4 games will pretty much be PS3 games with better graphics, while Xbox One games will incorporate voice, gesture and emotion, giving you gameplay that Xbox 360 could never do. That's a big benefit.

It remains to be seen how the game resale situation on Xbox One will play out. It's possible publishers will keep the current status quo, allowing you to resell any game at any time through any retailer, free of charge. Or they could do something completely off-the-wall. Who knows.

 

[DocMcCray]

/snip

This!!!

This is what I am looking for!

If I were employed by Microsoft, you would be hired.

Don't sell me we you are limiting....sell me what you can give me!

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I commend you for presenting an intelligent argument of how the XB One would be of benefit to someone. That, sadly, is more than Microsoft seems to have managed.

Saying that PS4 games will only be better looking PS3 games is a bit simplistic, but for all we know it may end up being entirely accurate.

Just because they have that touch pad on the controller and built in move sensor doesn't mean they will use it for anything spectacular.

I can easily imagine Microsoft heavily enforcing a rule that EVERY game has Kinect features. They had better, considering how much of their future they are entrusting to people adoring Kinect.

Something that I have seen little to no evidence of on the 360, when it was optional. However taking away people's choice in the matter and reassuring them that just because its always listening, it isn't spying on them should get people on board.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

snip

Pretty much this.

Oh, not to mention TV TV TV SPORTS SPORTS TV.

 

[piinyouri]

The Xbox One game licensing system benefits you in a number of ways. The biggest is that it frees you from discs. You buy a game disc, install it, and you put it back in the box and never have to worry about it again. If you want to play that game, you have immediate access to it, no matter where you are or whose Xbox One you are using. The shared library feature means you can give up to 10 friends access to your games, without passing discs around. If you have that one friend who always scratches your discs when you lend him your games, that will no longer be a problem. Simply put him on your shared library list, and he can download your game and play it without ever touching your discs. You don't have to ever worry about the dog chewing up your discs, or a burglar stealing them, or getting them scratched or dirty, or devoting space to storing them near your console.

This is actually a very good point, and certainly a plus, other things aside.

Do we know what happens yet to your ability to keep playing these games when the console's servers are taken down in how ever many years?

It is a long long way off, that's true, but it will come around one day, and I imagine people would not be very happy to find their entire library worthless 10-13 years down the road.

 

[jpoon]

Wow this guy must work for microsoft, that's some truely corporate sounding bullshit you just spat out there unndunn. Too bad NONE of it actually benefits a gamer. All that shit is something I would never purchase a system over. Kinect? No fucking thanks, the whole rest of the damn world realizes that kinect was worthless for games but here we go all over again.

I never will have a need to share a game with 10 friends, another useless restrictive "feature". A lot of bluffing going on with this system, that's for shit sure.

 

[RJ 17]

The Xbox One game licensing system benefits you in a number of ways. The biggest is that it frees you from discs. You buy a game disc, install it, and you put it back in the box and never have to worry about it again. If you want to play that game, you have immediate access to it, no matter where you are or whose Xbox One you are using. The shared library feature means you can give up to 10 friends access to your games, without passing discs around. If you have that one friend who always scratches your discs when you lend him your games, that will no longer be a problem. Simply put him on your shared library list, and he can download your game and play it without ever touching your discs. You don't have to ever worry about the dog chewing up your discs, or a burglar stealing them, or getting them scratched or dirty, or devoting space to storing them near your console.

Except cloud computing ensures that one day the servers your game is run on will eventually shut down. This means that you never truly own the game, seeing as how when the server shuts down the game will stop working.

Making Kinect mandatory gives developers the confidence that every Xbox One owner has a Kinect, which means they are going to build Kinect functionality into every game they make. This doesn't just mean having you flail your arms around. It also means voice chat and voice command and gameplay based on facial emotions. PS4 developers will not be sure that every PS4 owner has a PS Camera, so they will be less likely to build similar functionality. Basically, PS4 games will pretty much be PS3 games with better graphics, while Xbox One games will incorporate voice, gesture and emotion, giving you gameplay that Xbox 360 could never do. That's a big benefit.

There's a reason not everyone got a Kinect for the 360...because no one wanted it. Forcing it on people isn't going to remedy the situation. Beyond that, I really can't imagine a game that would incorporate heart rate and facial expressions into the gameplay. What, if you're about to rage-quit your character starts sounding more and more pissed off? As for the voice recognition, there's plenty of videos on youtube about how that's an absolute pain in the ass. Kinect was a BS gimmick to begin with, trying to steal some of Wii's motion-control thunder. It failed miserably. Just like the Playstation Move. The difference is that Sony learned it's lesson and isn't forcing an unwanted product on its customers while MS is now forcing people to use a failed product.

It remains to be seen how the game resale situation on Xbox One will play out. It's possible publishers will keep the current status quo, allowing you to resell any game at any time through any retailer, free of charge. Or they could do something completely off-the-wall. Who knows.

But if every game is installed off the disc, what's the point of trading said disc back in? Isn't it essentially worthless now? If not, what's to stop people from just buying a game and spreading it around to everyone they know? Oh yeah, the whole "licensing" thing from your first comment. Each disc being attached to a security code or something to prevent multiple installations. There's a pretty clear reason why PC games are the only games that never have used copies for sale.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

The Xbox One game licensing system benefits you in a number of ways. The biggest is that it frees you from discs. You buy a game disc, install it, and you put it back in the box and never have to worry about it again.

Kinda like the way buying games online for either system works right now. MS needs to stop acting like they've invented digital distribution.

If you want to play that game, you have immediate access to it, no matter where you are or whose Xbox One you are using. The shared library feature means you can give up to 10 friends access to your games, without passing discs around. If you have that one friend who always scratches your discs when you lend him your games, that will no longer be a problem. Simply put him on your shared library list, and he can download your game and play it without ever touching your discs. You don't have to ever worry about the dog chewing up your discs, or a burglar stealing them, or getting them scratched or dirty, or devoting space to storing them near your console.

Again, the dog chewing up your disc, the burglar stealing them, getting them scratched or dirty - all benefits of current digital download platforms including the Sony Store.

The lending feature is interesting, but I have reservations. For one, you obviously can't play the game simultaneously. I'm also guessing single-player focused titles will heavily restrict this feature. Otherwise you could conceivably set up a close-knit circle of friends who only ever buy one copy of anything. If that works, you will see people abusing it so hard as to force alterations in the feature. Or, if it becomes too insanely popular, Sony might introduce similar functionality. After all, they seem to be in the business of giving customers what they want.

Making Kinect mandatory gives developers the confidence that every Xbox One owner has a Kinect, which means they are going to build Kinect functionality into every game they make. This doesn't just mean having you flail your arms around. It also means voice chat and voice command and gameplay based on facial emotions. PS4 developers will not be sure that every PS4 owner has a PS Camera, so they will be less likely to build similar functionality. Basically, PS4 games will pretty much be PS3 games with better graphics, while Xbox One games will incorporate voice, gesture and emotion, giving you gameplay that Xbox 360 could never do. That's a big benefit.

Why will devs spend time and money developing Kinect features when well over half of the total next-gen user base will play on PS4? 95%+ of games will be multiplatform. Creating games is plenty expensive enough already. I don't see extensive Kinect support for anything other than a handful of MS exclusives. And if a developer were compelled to incorporate certain voice or gesture components into gameplay, there's a good chance they'd port it from Kinect to PS4 equivalent devices. I mean the work is already done.

It remains to be seen how the game resale situation on Xbox One will play out. It's possible publishers will keep the current status quo, allowing you to resell any game at any time through any retailer, free of charge. Or they could do something completely off-the-wall. Who knows.

In this situation, completely off the wall means "something very, very restrictive for consumers".

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Hey look, someone with an XBL avatar avatar parroting MS press release info, and then someone with no post count or avatar agreeing with him.

 

[Zhukov]

Should a games firm release a game of such mouth-frothing quality that the masses pine after it, and are prepared to pay stupid amounts for it, how long to Microsoft restrict access to it or just sell to high bidders?

What?

How on earth would that benefit them?

"Hey, we have this game that everyone really wants to buy."
"Alright. Don't sell it to them."

Yeah, that makes total sense.

 

[Tom_green_day]

You get DLC a month before PS4 of course!
Doesn't sound like a big deal, but with Skyrim and CoDz I was just dying for the DLC that 360 got a month before me.

 

[Zeckt]

Ask not what your xbox can do for you, but for what you can do for your xbox. That pretty much sums up microsofts attitude! Gaming with ALL of the disadvantages. Horaay?

 

[SecondPrize]

Making Kinect mandatory gives developers the confidence that every Xbox One owner has a Kinect, which means they are going to build Kinect functionality into every game they make. This doesn't just mean having you flail your arms around. It also means voice chat and voice command and gameplay based on facial emotions. PS4 developers will not be sure that every PS4 owner has a PS Camera, so they will be less likely to build similar functionality. Basically, PS4 games will pretty much be PS3 games with better graphics, while Xbox One games will incorporate voice, gesture and emotion, giving you gameplay that Xbox 360 could never do. That's a big benefit.

Packaging a kinect with every console would have the same effect, without requiring the kinect for the machine to function. You're giving benefits from the existence of kinect, not from a requirement to use it.

 

[UnnDunn]

Do we know what happens yet to your ability to keep playing these games when the console's servers are taken down in how ever many years?

It is a long long way off, that's true, but it will come around one day, and I imagine people would not be very happy to find their entire library worthless 10-13 years down the road.

We don't know yet. However, the first product Microsoft did any sort of online DRM for was Office XP, which was released in 2001 (12 years ago). While the product has been discontinued, the Product Activation servers for it still work. I'd say that's a pretty good track record.

 

[rodneyy]

If you want to play that game, you have immediate access to it, no matter where you are or whose Xbox One you are using.

well you say immediate access but how immediate? before if you are going round to a friends house to play games then you could plan ahead and take the physical copy with you, yes the whole taking all your games with you is handy for an impromtued visit but how long will it take to download the game?

if there is some sort of fire up your own console and play of that then there is the bandwidth issues along with being a bit creepy with the whole loading up your xbone without you being there. or there is the tottally online game system thingy but again bandwidth and from what i heard those were always laggy as hell.

so any benafit you could derive from having your game collection in the way could be mitagated by simply planning ahead when going round to a friends house or negated intirely if you have to spend most of the time you are at this persons house downloading the game to play it and it being ready to go just as you want to leave.

 

[UnnDunn]

Except cloud computing ensures that one day the servers your game is run on will eventually shut down. This means that you never truly own the game, seeing as how when the server shuts down the game will stop working.

The cloud computing feature is powered by Windows Azure, which Microsoft sells to hundreds of thousands of customers around the world for lots of different things. For example, Apple uses Windows Azure as a backup for iCloud and iTunes services. As long as Microsoft is in business, Windows Azure will never be shut down.

There's a reason not everyone got a Kinect for the 360...because no one wanted it. Forcing it on people isn't going to remedy the situation. Beyond that, I really can't imagine a game that would incorporate heart rate and facial expressions into the gameplay. What, if you're about to rage-quit your character starts sounding more and more pissed off? As for the voice recognition, there's plenty of videos on youtube about how that's an absolute pain in the ass. Kinect was a BS gimmick to begin with, trying to steal some of Wii's motion-control thunder. It failed miserably. Just like the Playstation Move. The difference is that Sony learned it's lesson and isn't forcing an unwanted product on its customers while MS is now forcing people to use a failed product.

Kinect is actually a pretty solid success, selling over 7 million units IIRC.

But if every game is installed off the disc, what's the point of trading said disc back in? Isn't it essentially worthless now? If not, what's to stop people from just buying a game and spreading it around to everyone they know? Oh yeah, the whole "licensing" thing from your first comment. Each disc being attached to a security code or something to prevent multiple installations. There's a pretty clear reason why PC games are the only games that never have used copies for sale.

Microsoft has already developed a way to transfer ownership of digital downloads from one person to another. They are leaving it up to publishers to decide how to use the system, but the system is already in place.

 

[Frostbyte666]

That was an amazing bit of spin to show those negatives in a positive light and is excatly what microsoft should have said. Still wouldn't fool me in the slightest since I would have researched more on those aspects but for the less technically minded it would have worked to suck them in before they realised any problems after buying.

 

[UnnDunn]

If you want to play that game, you have immediate access to it, no matter where you are or whose Xbox One you are using.

well you say immediate access but how immediate? before if you are going round to a friends house to play games then you could plan ahead and take the physical copy with you, yes the whole taking all your games with you is handy for an impromtued visit but how long will it take to download the game?

if there is some sort of fire up your own console and play of that then there is the bandwidth issues along with being a bit creepy with the whole loading up your xbone without you being there. or there is the tottally online game system thingy but again bandwidth and from what i heard those were always laggy as hell.

so any benafit you could derive from having your game collection in the way could be mitagated by simply planning ahead when going round to a friends house or negated intirely if you have to spend most of the time you are at this persons house downloading the game to play it and it being ready to go just as you want to leave.

You will not have to wait for the entire game to download before you can play. So if you're at a friend's house and you want to play your game, you simply log on, hit "play" and it will download just enough for you to get started as soon as possible. As you continue to play, it will download more of the game in the background. This means not only that you'll be able to start gaming quicker, but also that your game won't take up that much space on your friend's hard drive.