I think I agree with laudre on this one. The shear weight of the console market is going to make it difficult for consumers to walk away from either console platform, particularly for die-hard fans of console-specific titles.

It might take an eighties-style gaming industry crash to force any kind of real realignment in how the market as a whole approaches game development and delivery.

The Clever Noob's guys have some interesting thoughts on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZxXEidtxHk

Brian

Xbox will still sell but whether or not it meets Microsoft's sales predictions is definitely up in the air. I highly doubt they'll be able to push their dream number of a billion units sold. And there are some people who WILL stick with either console just because of brand/exclusive loyalty. However there are still quite a few murmurings around xbox/gaming communities of people saying 'slag the exclusives' and moving on to Playstation.

Still its funny I didn't think a company could top EA as far as generating bad PR in the gaming community. Which is even more amusing given EA and Microsoft partnering so heavily this next console cycle.

------------
~If you want my input the red explosions are really pretty and if you did enough you might live for a few more excrutiating seconds

My not so humble contribution to cyberspace

To tell you the truth privacy isn't a game breaking concern although I don't use webcams and unplug my microphone from my PC. I only bring it up because it does concern some people, and more importantly is kind of pointless to force people to use it. Given that the Kinect for 360 was essentially one big beta test I'm not sold that Kinect 2.0 will be reliable enough to do everything their claiming until the end of the XB1's console life. And even if it can reliably do what it was showcased to do its markedly different than what Kinect was originally purposed. I'm lazy but not so lazy that I need an expensive voice activated remote.

>>-Required to check in every 24 hours (if it fails to check in it will
>>play for an hour then shut down without allowing you to play any games
>>offline)
>
>You can play offline for the entire 24 hours on your main console.
>The one hour time frame is for playing offline on another person's
>console using your library.

This is the absolute deal breaker for me. I can go months where the only internet connection is worse than dialup and plugging in my xbox to 'check in' will get me in loads of trouble. That essentially turns the console into a giant paperweight for months on end. I know I'm a niche market but I still want some value for my money.

>>-The ability for publishers to regulate second sale of used games.
>
>The PC world has seen this already in the form of "activation codes".
>I'm not too happy about that, but I don't think any console
>manufacturer has a whole lot to gain in getting into the fight of what
>can and can't be sold second hand.
>
>Blizzard has arguably done very will with a game model that requires
>gamers to be signed-in and restricts second hand sales, so I'm not
>sure that either of the above points are particularly sticky with
>consumers at the end of the day (provided enjoyable game play is
>there).

This is a very good point and this is exactly where the console market is eventually going to head. But for PC the bulk of their sales are digital where the bulk of console sales are still physical copies. I think the big difference between sony and Microsoft's approaches is that Microsoft is looking to cut off the resale of games and force users to buy new or buy digital where it looks like Sony is using this console cycle to wean everyone off physical and get the bulk of the game sales digital like PC.

>>-You can 'gift' a game to your friend via XBL if they have been your
>>friend for 30 days and that game can only be 'gifted' once.
>
>This is a bullet point from Microsoft that is in severe need of an
>interpreter. But I think it comes down to being able to cede your
>authorization to play a game permanently to a friend on XBox live
>after you're done playing it. I don't think they mean gift like buy
>for them like the Wii does.

From what I gather it looks like (at publishers discretion) you can 'gift' a game to someone else permanently or sell it. Basically all games will have a one time transfer of license. However I still don't know how the used game fee will work. Probably going to be like the online pass thing.

>All my points aside, there wasn't anything in the Xbox presentation
>that got me really excited for the new system, but I'm not really the
>target demographic anymore. Heck, I only have an Xbox 360 now because
>my girlfriend was working phone support for them, and I've stuck with
>it because thats where all my Mass Effect saves are.

I'm largely a Xbox gamer but like I said its only because I tend to need something that I can take with me that doesn't need internet to function. Which is sad because I love Halo and I think with EA going partners with Microsoft Mirrors Edge 2 is going to be an XB1 exclusive. Really sad about that.

------------
~If you want my input the red explosions are really pretty and if you did enough you might live for a few more excrutiating seconds

My not so humble contribution to cyberspace

To be honest, I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't just as much an accessory as the current Kinect meaning you could unplug it from the system entirely (just like you can the sensor bar for the Wii, although that can make it a bit less functional).

>This is the absolute deal breaker for me. I can go months where the
>only internet connection is worse than dialup and plugging in my xbox
>to 'check in' will get me in loads of trouble. That essentially turns
>the console into a giant paperweight for months on end. I know I'm a
>niche market but I still want some value for my money.

Thats a really valid point

>This is a very good point and this is exactly where the console market
>is eventually going to head. But for PC the bulk of their sales are
>digital where the bulk of console sales are still physical copies. I
>think the big difference between sony and Microsoft's approaches is
>that Microsoft is looking to cut off the resale of games and force
>users to buy new or buy digital where it looks like Sony is using this
>console cycle to wean everyone off physical and get the bulk of the
>game sales digital like PC.

I haven't gotten the impression that Microsoft is trying to cut off the resale of games. I think they're trying to walk the fine line between game accessibility and the publishers paranoia over piracy. But like I said before, I'm really excited by the concept of not having to switch out discs to play games I've installed on my system.

-------------------------------------
Chris can't handle HALO

Microsoft has had real issues with messaging here. Case in point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esdymuU6jKc

>The PC world has seen this already in the form of "activation codes".
>I'm not too happy about that, but I don't think any console
>manufacturer has a whole lot to gain in getting into the fight of what
>can and can't be sold second hand.

But consoles aren't PCs, and we've had decades of building a different set of expectations around them. If they want to get us away from those expectations, they need to get us to actively want to migrate away from the technology that it goes with (carts/discs) and to technology that supports the "buy once, own it forever" model (i.e. digital delivery). Nintendo's actually managing to do it with the 3DS as that console matures.

Further, if I'm being offered a console that has all the limitations of, say, Steam, and then some more limitations on top of that, and has no evidence of the advantages of Steam, when I've already got a PC that has Steam? I'm not going to bother to buy into that console. Unless you're dying for one of the true exclusives (i.e. not also coming to PC or any other platform, ever), you'd most likely be better off building a media-center PC. The lack of backwards-compatibility for the 360 is the real kicker.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

I am totally done with discs on consoles. I nearly had to buy a second copy of Mass Effect because disc 2 walked away and I couldn't play the game even though I had installed the content to hard drive. I also think that Microsoft has done a good job with Live Arcade getting people to buy smaller games digitally on a console, but you're right that the general population may not be in the digital mindset yet.

>Further, if I'm being offered a console that has all the limitations
>of, say, Steam, and then some more limitations on top of that,
>and has no evidence of the advantages of Steam, when
>I've already got a PC that has Steam? I'm not going to bother to buy
>into that console.

Which advantages of Steam? The implication from what I've read seems to be that your game library will be able to move to different consoles with you (although I'm sure it won't be as seamless as Steam).

>Unless you're dying for one of the true exclusives
>(i.e. not also coming to PC or any other platform, ever), you'd most
>likely be better off building a media-center PC. The lack of
>backwards-compatibility for the 360 is the real kicker.

I'd be hard pressed to buy a PC that will play games as well as an XBox1 for $500 (at least not one running Windows, which would further restrict what games are available), but it might be worth investing a little bit more into having an upgradable system connected to the media center.

-------------------------------------
Chris can't handle graphics cards

Oh, no argument here, in that there are distinct advantages to digital delivery. I'm not saying that discs/carts are an inherent and indelible part of any game platform (tablet/mobile OSes, Steam and its pale shadows, and the respective console digital delivery markets all make it abundantly clear), but that we're long accustomed to the physical medium taking on the role of authentication and proof of ownership in dedicated (for appropriate values of "dedicated," given the progressive feature bloat), and with it comes the entire used-game ecosystem and its associated price fluidity. The trick is to make the advantages of digital delivery and ownership (e.g. arbitrary access to one's library on a multitude of platforms) outweigh the advantages of, say, rental, or the used-game ecosystem. Digital delivery platforms are very nice carrots, to be sure, but MS' stated plans for the XBone, and (more importantly) their messaging about it, shows a whole lot more stick and not much new carrot to make up for it, so to speak.

>Which advantages of Steam? The implication from what I've read seems
>to be that your game library will be able to move to different
>consoles with you (although I'm sure it won't be as seamless as
>Steam).

For one, I can set Steam to offline mode arbitrarily, and if there's a set space of time in which I have to "check in", I haven't found it yet. I haven't yet tried to play a game that has internal online functionality (e.g. DRM, multiplayer) with Steam in offline mode, but if I want to, say, play Analogue: a Hate Story on my laptop (in offline mode) while my wife plays Deus Ex: Human Resources on my tower (since the license is linked to my account, not hers). It does not, to my knowledge, violate terms-of-use to do so (though, full disclaimer, I've never actually done this, I just know that I can), and I hope that one day Steam allows us to have the same account logged on at more than one location simultaneously as long as we're not trying to play the same game. (Not holding my breath on that one, mind.)

EDIT: Oh, and I completely forgot to mention the sheer genius that is a Steam sale. The vast majority of my (rather large and mostly-backlogged) Steam library was purchased at some smallish fraction of the original retail price. I have no reason to believe I'll be able to snap up similar bargains on the XBone.

>I'd be hard pressed to buy a PC that will play games as well as an
>XBox1 for $500 (at least not one running Windows, which would further
>restrict what games are available), but it might be worth investing a
>little bit more into having an upgradable system connected to the
>media center.

Honestly, because of the sheer length of time this console generation has lasted, PC gaming has gotten really cheap. Sure, if you're building it from scratch, you might have trouble hitting that $500 price point right around the time the XBone launches, but you're also getting something with considerably more functionality and greater expandibility, actual backwards compatibility (which the XBone notably lacks), and doesn't require a special paid service (XBL) to do online multiplayer. Additionally, with the way PC hardware develops, within a year of the XBone's launch, I'll be able to build a Windows machine that'll be just as powerful for under $500, and a year after that, a $500 machine will be considerably more powerful.

I'm not saying that nobody should buy one (I'm all for competition in this space, and, unfortunately, the Wii U will not be real competition for the PS4, even if the 3DS is burying everything now despite its rocky start), I'm just saying that Microsoft is utterly and completely failing to make any sort of case for choosing the XBone over the PS4. I'm not sure they're making much of a case for buying an XBone over a Wii U or 3DS, for that matter.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

From what I was reading from Larry Hyrb's blog posts yesterday, the XBox1 will have some sort of family feature that will allow up to 10 people to access the same game library simultaneously. If that pans out, it would be pretty awesome, but I'm not sure its going to pan out as described.

>EDIT: Oh, and I completely forgot to mention the sheer genius that is
>a Steam sale. The vast majority of my (rather large and
>mostly-backlogged) Steam library was purchased at some smallish
>fraction of the original retail price. I have no reason to believe
>I'll be able to snap up similar bargains on the XBone.

They do OK with their Summer of Arcade stuff each year, but it isn't as robust as the multiples of Steam sales that happen throughout the year.

>Honestly, because of the sheer length of time this console generation
>has lasted, PC gaming has gotten really cheap. Sure, if you're
>building it from scratch, you might have trouble hitting that $500
>price point right around the time the XBone launches, but you're also
>getting something with considerably more functionality and greater
>expandibility, actual backwards compatibility (which the XBone notably
>lacks), and doesn't require a special paid service (XBL) to do online
>multiplayer. Additionally, with the way PC hardware develops, within a
>year of the XBone's launch, I'll be able to build a Windows machine
>that'll be just as powerful for under $500, and a year after that, a
>$500 machine will be considerably more powerful.

At least once in that 2 year from launch time frame all the consoles will have come down in price too (and if the lifespan of individual units from this last generation is an indication, there is a good chance one will need to be replaced).

>I'm not saying that nobody should buy one (I'm all for competition in
>this space, and, unfortunately, the Wii U will not be real competition
>for the PS4, even if the 3DS is burying everything now despite its
>rocky start), I'm just saying that Microsoft is utterly and completely
>failing to make any sort of case for choosing the XBone over the PS4.
>I'm not sure they're making much of a case for buying an XBone over a
>Wii U or 3DS, for that matter.

I completely agree that Microsoft has failed in their messaging.

-------------------------------------
Chris can't handle messaging

They're just channeling their inner Steve Jobs? No... even that doesn't work here. They've pretty much gone from bad messaging to actively trying to alienate people.

Oh well.

-------------------------------------
Chris can't handle messaging

Hoo boy. Good luck getting original Xbox games at this stage, though there's a few that were playable on Xbox and 360 that would still be worth it:

Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Lego Star Wars
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

Really, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_games and see if anything else tweaks your fancy, but there's not going to be much that'll only work on Xbox these days.

--- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here"

Reportedly (take it with appropriate doses of salt) the "sharing" thing was really more of an extended demo than actual sharing.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

If MS wants me to by a next gen console from them they'll need to scrap this hardware and make an actually next GEN gaming machine and not a Elint superpack for my nonsmart TV

Vote with your wallet - best thing a customer can do. :)

Also not sure why you trust Sony more then MS - Sony was one of the "pioneers" with DRM rootkits on your PC and "online passes" for console games. No one's hands are clean in this industry.

Plus I'm not sure where you're getting your stats, but the XB1 and PS4 are (almost) identical in terms of hardware - and both are far more powerful then the current gen. They're about as next gen as you can get without getting a PC.

The rouge ones are the sexaroids, right? I imagine sales will go up with a feature like that!

-------------------------------------
Chris can't handle rogues