Microsoft throws Kinect under a bus, slashes Xbox One to $399 On June 9, Microsoft will sell a cut-price Xbox One for $399 – without the Kinect voice and gesture controller. "We've heard from people that they just like to play games with a controller in their hand and what we wanted to do was make sure that for those people there's a version of Xbox that really meets the exact needs that …
"This is how you share a game on XB1"
Errm you never could, they only said that in time they may bring it in. The online DRM was to kill off second hand sales nothing more. Everything else was just spin to try and convince people it was a good idea. They also said if they did implement it it would be down to the publishers to allow it, which means most games would not be allowed to share.
The fact is MS could allow this for downloaded games right now and show people how good it is, but they wont as downloaded games can't be re-sold or loaned out, so these changes would only benefit the consumer and they don't care about them.
"Most people have their console connected all the time and when they do disconnect it, it's to take it to a friends who also has Internet. But suddenly everyone on the Internet was spending weeks at their uncle's cabin in the mountains where you couldn't even get mobile signal. I don't believe it."
Some people live in areas where internet connectivity is less accessible and don't want to have to go to great extents to connect to a slow connection that then may take a while to authenticate. EVERY DAY!
"Reselling was the best thing of all under the original model. Instead of going via Gamestop, who pay you a pittance for it and sell it for barely less than new, you could have resold via the game's developers. That keeps money in a closed loop between customer and developer and thus makes the entire cycle more profitable meaning either more investment in games or greater ability to compete on price, or more likely both. As opposed to Gamestop which is a giant machine grafted onto the side of the customer-developer symbiosis which just extracts money to pay for useless things like store space, staffing costs, etc. (Useless from the point of view of customers and developers)."
1 word: Ebay.
Dude, c'mon - I do agree with some of what's being said on this thread, but you risk cheapening your argument by using pejorative terms like 'M$' - that's so dated an attack. They are a business. They have an obligation to make plenty $$. Did you think they were a charity? It's just daft continually bunging that symbol in there.
I am a bit unsure how to feel about this decision.
On the one hand, like the previous u-turns, it shows that Microsoft can actually change. This type of thing is really what we all want - we talk about 'voting with our wallets' and in this case it appears to have worked.
Yes, the XBox One is not as powerful as the PS4 and to some people that matters more than anything else and so, for them, these changes are irrelevant. But many others were more concerned about these issues than raw graphical ability.
So, on almost all of the issues that the community had with the Xbox One, Microsoft has ended up listening and making the required changes.
This, surely is a win, no?
On the other hand, it shows that the only way to communicate with Microsoft is money. Whatever their rhetoric, they simply don't care about the people using their products. If one option will annoy consumers but result in more profits then that's the option they will choose.
I just wish there was a similar situation with OSs and business software. Yes, yes, Linux, etc... but MS has HUGE market share there and it's very much a captive market. In that market, they continually make unpopular decisions but it's much harder for people to change so they get away with it.
In that comparison, it also shows the problem with monopolies - it is highly doubtful that any of these changes would have been made if the PS4 didn't exist . . .
I have to agree with you about the OS and business software side. There are a number of products I use for work which simply do not have a Linux flavour available and while you can use 'equivalents' in a small environment this is not always an option when you have to work in an Enterprise scale environment. There is also, on the domestic side, the issue with things like DVDs which detect they has been inserted into a computer and then try to launch the Windows run-time app. Yes, you could try ripping to a usable format etc etc but it is at minimum an extra level of complexity which discourages moving away from MS products.
Oh dear time to try to get over a fairly basic lesson.
Apparently you do not know but the way a DVD player reads a disc is not the same as the way a computer reads the disc. When you load it into a computer it checks specific tracks/sectors to look for various information which it needs to know where everything is and what type of data the disc holds. When you try to play a DVD with a movie it can instead launch a run-time version which is intended to stop you ripping the DVD and bypassing all the unskippable anti-piracy sections. Various music CDs have a similar setup.
The problem is that this runtime system is a Windows only process (actually there may be an Apple version on there but I don't have the kit to check) so if you insert the DVD into a linux PC it will not work.
Hopefully I did not use too many complicated phrases in there.
"Oh dear time to try to get over a fairly basic lesson."
*cough* I wouldn't normally have replied, but your rather condescending tone to the original poster means you have to be correct - pedantically correct.
"Apparently you do not know but the way a DVD player reads a disc is not the same as the way a computer reads the disc. When you load it into a computer it checks specific tracks/sectors to look for various information which it needs to know where everything is and what type of data the disc holds."
.... which is exactly what a DVD player has to do, unless you have one of those rare psychic DVD players that don't actually exist.
"When you try to play a DVD with a movie it can instead launch a run-time version which is intended to stop you ripping the DVD and bypassing all the unskippable anti-piracy sections. Various music CDs have a similar setup."
Errrrr, what? What do you think launches programs? The DVD? The DVD player? Or maybe..... just maybe..... it's Windows and it's misguided autorun system!
As for audio CD's, standard red book CD's don't even contain a filesystem. Any sort of CD with an ISO-6990 filesystem in addition to the normal CDDA section would again require that a consumer player skips the unknown section, whilst a computer recognises the filesystem, mounts it, and autoruns some shite from there.
Again, though, it's the OS that decides to do this. The drive doesn't command the OS what to do!
Basically, your consumer DVD player is a computer. The software on your personal computer can basically behave exactly like a consumer player if it wishes (indeed, many do, as they even allow the running of customised DVD virtual machine bytecode - the software on video DVD's that runs in hardware consumer units is nowt to do with Windows)
If hypothetically, the DVD contains some non-standard encoding requiring a windows program to play it, then it won't play on a consumer player either (and would then be more accurately described as a windows DVD-ROM)
"The problem is that this runtime system is a Windows only process (actually there may be an Apple version on there but I don't have the kit to check) so if you insert the DVD into a linux PC it will not work."
How, then, does my non-windows, non-mac, non-linux, OS plays every Video DVD that's thrown at it?
You seem to be getting confused with DVD data disks (not video disks) containing windows code.
*TL; DR* : The original poster was correct, and you just 'corrected' him with a load of old bollocks!
"Hopefully I did not use too many complicated phrases in there."
*snigger*
This, I think, is a good thing, and I hope that Microsoft learns from this. With XB1 and Windows 8, Microsoft has tried to force the market and consumers to follow Microsoft's vision instead of offering consumers the products needed to realize their vision; Microsoft's history of vision has not been successful, especially in areas where their customers mostly want what they already have, but "better."
Microsoft tried to sell Kinect and Touch where people just wanted Games and A Reliable OS. Trying to foist what should be a compliment to the main experience is like a restaurant trying to force it's customers to eat the sweet potato fries and coleslaw when they really just want the steak.
Had to happen sooner or later once they started to fall behind their competitor.
They've realised that having a higher price bundle for something extra which many people don't really consider a must-have has hurt them. Simple enough to disinclude the item in question and be able to drop the price to parity with their competitor. The drop of the subscription for certain services is a nice touch though.
The core console market is all about the games. Extra stuff like video/audio/internet is all very well, but I doubt any are must have reasons for buying one, especially at the prices consoles are sold for these days. If you don't have the games people want to play, you have nothing.
Sony/Microsoft and Nintendo are chasing the dream of getting a console in every house they possibly can by trying to widen the appeal of one. Nintendo managed a certain popularity with the Wii, born partly of novelty facter, game simplicity and affordability. They failed to hit that sweet spot with their next gen machine.
Personally, I got into consoles from PC gaming late into the 90's after games on consoles became more compelling from the generic platofrmers of earlier consoles and it seemed I had to upgrade my PC every time a new game came out. I stayed with consoles for a long time for the convenience and the fact they were a cheapish outlay for five or six years entertainment. With the PC market having slowed, and consoles up in price I'd much rather spend that kind of money on the PC side and money on games that are going to remain playable for longer (not join the pile of PS2/Dreamcast/Xbox games that are no longer playable because the console is dead.
Consoles are dead, they died slowly as they became non-upgradable PCs that sell a locked set of services and that sit under the tellly. Any general purpose PC can do almost all that a console can do as regards games/music/video, and more, and now cost the same. And tablets/phones can provide the simple games that satisfy the non-hardcore gamer and the same other services, what does that leave the expensive console.
Mini yawn because it's not one of the PS4 vs XBone diatribes that some forums are riddled with.
Convenience is also part of a console's appeal, not just specification.
PS4/XBone, put the power in, connect it to TV, power up, play game. Done. Additional services, such as Netflix en all also provide other options quickly available.
Naturally, the PC environment as a continually evolving hardware platform and software platform will outpace consoles, and games will mostly outshine their console counterparts especially further down the line. But some folks just can't be bothered with having to install monthly windows updates, a new version of DirectX, or whatever. They just want to power up and play.
You know that a PS/XBox console is unlikely to have their successor for 7 years or so after release? Add another year or so after release before game releases are flowing maybe. Games bought during the lifecycle of the console will be written with that in mind.
I'm not certain (so please correct me if i'm wrong here) that developers of the latest and greatest PC games ensure their specification will run optimally on a seven or eight year old spec system. Or if they do run, then it will be at a level that the current console will be able to easily do anyway......
More than room for both IMO.
"PS4/XBone, put the power in, connect it to TV, power up, pray it isn't bricked, activate online, wait for mandatory updates, pray it isn't bricked, insert game disc, wait for game to install, wait for mandatory game updates, play game."
Fixed it for you.
Things are looking better for Xbox since Phil Spencer took over, how does he have time for this and Location Location Location?
Anyway the price cut is not enough, for the same money you can buy the more powerful PS4.
The main issue with this new generation are the game prices, £10 more than last generation is rather a lot.
I am playing a waiting game on new games as having a new console doesn't stop the old ones working.
Playstation+ is pretty good value for money, mind you... There must have been at least five big titles given away last year for the forty quid sub you pay.. stuff like Bioshock Infinite, etc and it covers both the PS3 and the PS4 at home. I binned XBOX Gold membership ages ago when I realised it was a waste of money for the most part. The '360 only ever gets turned on when my daughter plays Skyrim and I'm not even considering an XB1 at all.
Will be interesting to see if SONY get Gaikai working this summer for legacy games (and then get it working in EU)
How does removing something that is sold for about $100 from a package and reducing the price by $100 work out to be a price cut? You're not getting what you used to get in the original package and so it's not the same thing you're buying, it's not a reduction it's a marketing spin on what is actually exactly the price for the console.
my ass. We listened to ourselves, then we checked the numbers, then we listened to the customers...
I think history will look back at this as a most hilarious case of corporate backtracking. Edward Snowden's revelations clearly sobered up a few fanbois too....I bet MS wished they had now released the new box in early 2013! But you can't have it every way MS, if you bend over to help the government spy, you can't expect us to trust this invasive always-on camera / mic based device.
Never mind the fact that most games don't lend themselves naturally to a Kinect experience, not in the way Oculus and other VR headsets will be a game changer...
I think it's a shame developers aren't pushing the Kinect aspect for games. Previously PS3/XB360 developers had a tough choice, most people didn't have motion-sensitive controllers so requiring them was taking a big risk, whereas on the WII you knew it was there and could build around that foundation.
Personally, proper motion-controlled games are a real new lease of live when done well, in sports games mainly. Obviously, gratuitously forcing it for every game is silly but a console with guaranteed Kinect sounded like a wonderful opportunity to push things forward. But presumably having to release on other platforms still acts as a "lowest common denominator" anchor - you want to develop a motion-control-only game, not try and tack on motion-control (or game pad support) for another platform.
I have already been through 20 bag os popcorn looking at their desperate posts about how suddenly graphics don't matter anymore (after suffering years of having 400x zoomed in pictures of how GTAIV was better on Xbox360 than PS3...)
To have ended up with the utter turd that the XB1 has turned out to be, and the endless string of about turns to try and make the Xbox One more like the PS4, it's really funny...
I I were a popcorn seller right now, I'd be rolling in money....
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