I'm wondering how Microsoft got 5%...

Some people REALLY like Halo.

Lewis Black takes on Xbox!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1hbY3AM4Q8

I'm not really a console gamer, or a gamer at all for that matter.  I don't understand what the backlash is against the Xbox One. 

- It requires an Internet connection: So what?  >75% of the US has Internet of some form or another.  You are not going to need high speed internet to validate your console, I can guarantee that.  If you don't have high speed Internet it's not going to effect you at all except that you won't be able to reliably play games with other people online, but then again, if you don't have high speed Internet as we speak it's the exact same thing.

- No used games: From what I understand, people didn't listen or read past the "No used games" part.  They're actually working on ways to resell the games and provide money back to the developer without any middleman transaction.  That means Microsoft doesn't take a cut.  That also means Gamestop etal. don't take cuts.  It's not implemented yet but I'm sure they'll figure something out.  They also have a games circle, meaning you and up to 10 people in your family/friends circle can play games you have as long as you're not playing them, which is actually pretty cool and exactly the same thing as loaning your friend a copy of your game.

- No physical releases: How is this a problem when Steam has already successfully deployed a digital release mechanism that's loved and used by MILLIONS of gamers across the globe?  If you want your physical copies you can go buy them at the store, or buy the CE/LE.  From what I understand, the physical Xbox One discs will simply be an "install to hard drive" disc and it will use all the same sort of Internet checks for all the digital games.  Again, I don't see the problem.  Does anyone really want the inconvenience of switching discs?  If you want to bring it to a friends' house and play, put them in your circles? How hard is that.

Another thing that really irks me is Microsoft is getting a bad rap (deserved or not I don't know) but Sony's press conference was literally absolute garbage compared to Microsoft.  Microsoft's entire conference was about trying new technologies and actually moving the gaming industry forward.  Sony and PS was just "haha look at Microsoft, those idiots.  Buy ours because we aren't stupid".  Terrible, absolutely terrible.

There's a few articles I've seen linked recently that actually look at the Xbox One and Microsoft in not a totally blind manner:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/14/glasshole
http://en.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments … es_kinect/
http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-xb … intentions

I don't see the issues, tbh.  It's time to move on.

That being said, if I'm going to buy any console its probably going to be a Playstation 4 because I like my PS3 and I don't have any reason to move to the Xbox.  I never really enjoyed the Xbox gaming community or their exclusives (CoD frat bros).  I probably won't buy one for a few years, at least.

Microsoft wants more control over everything, which is a direction that gamers staunchly oppose. Yes, I don't think they are maliciously trying to screw people over, but I think they spent too much time with focus groups and what they think people "should" be wanting. It's an arrogant attitude, that people take exception to, especially considering the 360 does not have any of these issues.

No gamer I know likes Kinect. Microsoft is making it mandatory. And people are rightfully concerned that it will always be on. How does that make any sense to release the thing as a mandatory addition to the hardware? MS wants to believe Kinect is the way of the future, I feel like some exec in the company is risking a lot on it, at the expense of common sense.

Sony listened to the backlash over used games and internet-always and required extra hardware leading up to E3 and came out saying the right thing. And then they undercut their opposition by $100. MS already looked bad, Sony exacerbated the issue 5 fold.

And online-always is an inconvenience. At a major fighting game tournament, upwards of 100 systems are left out in a ballroom, almost none of which are connected to the internet (and if they are, it's an afterthought). Guess what? If you used Xbone's for that tournament, you have 100+ systems you have to connect to the internet before more brackets can be ran the next day. Can you imagine what a pain in the ass that is? This is not hypothetical, this is how tournaments are being run now. Can you imagine a finals being interrupted by an annoying "Please connect your Xbone to the internet, so play can resume" message?

And yes, that final post makes all the sense in the world (the pastebin). But here's the thing...I like the idea of Steam, but I like the idea of putting the cartridge/disc in the system and playing it even more. I also like the idea of going into Gamestop and buying used games on the cheap (not for like $5-$10 less than new), as opposed to the Steam sales. Yeah, shiny goodies and all that, but as a console gamer, it feels more rewarding than simply buying a license to play. Same deal with owning a copy of Microsoft Office, as opposed to buying a license for it every year.

I think if Microsoft wants to be the console Steam, they should have just bought out the Steambox and rolled with it. Then their Xbone strategy would at least make sense on the console scene.

Even the guy admits MS screwed up with the 24 hour check-in thing.

I guess I'm one of the 25% that do NOT have internet at home (I'm currently at my office typing this). However, what I what to know is WHY should I have to connect to the internet to validate my Xbox? Did Microsoft lose so much money due to pirated systems on the 360? No, they did not. They simply want to be able to control systems, people, information.

No, no, no. This is NOT "the same thing" as loaning your friend a copy of your game, not even close! Apparently you did not read the part where they said that you can ONLY loan a copy to someone that has been on your friend's list for at least 30 days. You're right that Microsoft is trying to eliminate the middleman. They don't want anyone taking part of their cut. If I just finished a game, and want to sell it on eBay, can I? Not if I have an Xbox One game. Oh, and my new friend, I guess he'll only have to wait another 20 days to "borrow" the game which I paid $60 for. Sound good yet?

I really don't hear many people bitching about physical releases. Personally, I want a physical release, because I like tangible goods. That said, this has not been a major issue, since it looks like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will continue to produce physical games. However, unlike Microsoft, when you purchase a Nintendo or Sony game, it's yours forever and you do whatever you want with it. Play it on 100 different PS4s if you want. Give it the next stranger you meet. Resell it. Can't do any of that with Microsoft, because you don't really own the game. If you can't see the difference in Microsoft's approach vs Sony's, I'm not sure what to tell you, however 95% of other consumers apparently can. Microsoft blew it.

Oh, and as if Microsoft couldn't make any more stupid decisions, they prove us wrong:

Eurogamer last week talked with Lorne Lanning, the head of independent game developer Oddworld Inhabitants, who said that Microsoft’s new restrictions on independent studios mean that his company won’t release any new games for the Xbox One or the Xbox 360.

http://bgr.com/2013/06/17/microsoft-xbo … criticism/

and... if Xbox One were a girl...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Ug29BVEPI

http://www.gamespot.com/titanfall/video … _all_games

Okay, not bad. Not bad at all. Once you remove the elephants in the room, it becomes more a matter of the games and not the features of each system.

It's still $100 more than PS4 and comes with useless Kinect hardware, but if a game theoretically came along that I wanted on Xbone, the system isn't totally unreasonable now.

Wow.  I would agree with Kotaku's comment that this may be the biggest backtrack in gaming history - even electronics or entertainment industry history for that matter.

Now let's see how long it takes gamers to forgive and forget (or forget at least).  My guess is not long.

Edit: Love Joystiq's article title for the story.

I'm a little surprised they did this so quickly. Honestly, I'm not surprised they got rid of these idiotic DRMs, it was only a matter of time. However, they were clearly getting destroyed in pre-orders, in comments, in polls... so I hope they're enjoying their crow! Heck, they're dining on a flock of crows!

Still, I would like to point out one thing:

After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again.

So you DO still need to have it connected to the net at some point. Why? Does the PS4 also require a one-time connection? Admittedly, this will not bother people anywhere near what their previous requirements were. I'm also willing to bet that the PS4 will be in much greater demand than the Xbox, because it takes time for damages to be undone.

This is simply because the hardware has to be manufactured before they finish developing the firmware in order to have enough systems on shelves at launch. In order to get the most current firmware, a Day 1 update is required. The only way around this would be to be like Nintendo and sometimes Sony and put the new firmware on game discs, but I doubt MSFT would do that.

And I don't think even Nintendo gave that as an option for the Wii U - I still remember the 6000 hour or so download to update the console when it came out.

is that how MS is doing it now?
im still using office professional 2003

I'm told by a friend who works at the corporate level for a big retail chain that MS really wants to make you pay a subscription fee for Office rather than just buying the software outright.  Actually that was a while ago - did they actually switch over to that already?

Yes, my parents went to buy a copy of Office from the MS store and the only option was a 1 year subscription key.

Or you can get openoffice for free. It's nearly identical to office, can view office documents (excel, word, etc.) and is of course free!

It does weird things to my tests, worksheets, and other school docs, so I prefer to just use old Word.

It's not perfect. It may also depend on whether you've upgraded to the latest version + patches. I have not had any problems with Word (which I rarely use), but when I save a file as powerpoint format, it does tend to cause a few small problems.

yeah there are a lot of hazardous materials manufactured inside computers

I think we should probably be more worried about things like cell signals for THAT! 

Here's an article that I would say is paid for by MS:

https://games.yahoo.com/news/good-micro … 45525.html

Basically, MS is removing Kinect from the bundle and selling the system for $399. Needless to say, I'm still not purchasing the system at the moment. Not purchasing a PS4 either, although given the two I would prefer a PS4.

Yeah, the phrase "the Kinect is a cool piece of technology" pretty much gives that away along with the blooper of a pitch that follows that part.

Same here. As I said in the "games I'm looking forward to thread" the games I want are a long ways off... and even then I might not buy the system(s) right away.

However, with each console generation that goes by there is less and less I actually want to purchase... at some point I'm just going to throw in the towel until the systems are obsolete. There is a very good chance that may happen this generation.

Edit:

Also, I don't want to sound like a fan boy, but it so obvious that Microsoft is not happy with the current sales of the One. It's almost like they shot themselves in the foot and don't know why their lagging behind.

As I've been saying for the past year, it comes down to price and perspective. People do not care about Kinect enough to pay the extra $100, they see the PS4 at $100 lower than the competition and buy it. That's pretty elementary. What happens now will be far more interesting from a sales perspective because in theory, the playing field is more level. Although to Microsoft's credit, I believe I saw that the PS4 is available in 40 different regions and the Xbone is only available in 13 different regions. I wonder how much that factors in.

True... but the region I'm really curious about with the One is Japan. I've been hearing some buzz that some of the One's features may be attractive to the Japanese market. Will that be enough to overcome the apprehension seen towards their previous consoles? We'll have to see.

Edit:

Okay, checked out the GameFAQs message boards. So Sony fans are going after XBox One fans over the Kinect... but didn't Sony fans just get bad news in the form of Watchdogs not being 1080p and 60fps yesterday? LOL. It's fun to watch puppets dance!

DANCE PUPPETS! DANCE!

I will never get fanboyism. Why is it so hard for some people to admit the things they like have flaws and drawbacks?

Seriously, I LOVE SaGa Frontier. I know it's not a very good game and if someone wanted to say that I'd let them because it's true. I wouldn't lose sleep over it or white knight the damn thing.

Only took them a year to figure it out.  Still, unless they get some truly killer apps I would never get a Xbox One simply out of principle to how clueless MS are towards consumers.  They should just post online surveys for all their major business decisions since management clearly have no idea.

They came around to ditching their expensive hardware gimmick quicker than Nintendo at least.

Not gonna happen.  Outside of the business world MS has no clout in Japan and the early exit of the 360 won't have helped that.

I suspect even the PS4 might struggle compared to previous generations, unless the media consumption features click with Japanese consumers.

Purely speculation though.

What features of the XB1 would that be?
I believe the main features it touts are its TV integration and the Kinect.
The Kinect requires too much space for the average Japanese apartment and your regular Japanese gamer is probably not going to give a shit about whether they can watch TV on their Xbox.

No, I don't see the XB1 doing very well in Japan AT ALL, especially since the PS4 is already out AND cheaper.
Wouldn't be surprised if it does even worse than the 360.

As for the Watchdoges (legitimate typo, but I left it in anyway; many lols) thing, apparently the PS4 version will be 900p?
And the XB1 version will be 720p which seems to be par for the course.
I think Sony fans are still coming out ahead.

From what I've heard i thought the PS4 was struggling in Japan... well, it's not doing horrible but it's not doing the numbers it needs to be getting.

A few articles I read were talking about the TV integration since there are several significant streaming services in Japan. I didn't really buy the article's take on it completely... I'm sure they'd have other ways to use those services already.

Correct me if I'm wrong... I may be... but did Microsoft really give up on the 360 in Japan or was it the other way around? I remember reading that a lot of stores quit carrying the games altogether. Was that before or after Microsoft pulled the plug?

Pity that Microsoft is basically killing Kinect without us ever seeing a proper game made for it. Would have been interesting to see if the technology really works. Oh well, there's always next gen, and the hopes that perhaps that generation will finally provide 1080p with 60fps. But then, if I want that, I can enjoy the games on PC, the proper platform. Especially with this current gen, ports should not be shoddy anymore.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with either part of that statement. Well, I disagree with the second part and Mircrosoft's statements disagree with the first.

Mircosoft's PR is saying that Kinect is still a large part of their strategy. I know MS wouldn't admit they're "killing" the thing but many young and older gamers (much older, non-hardcore gamers) see value in the thing. I think they are enough of a market for the accessory to scavenge off of... just not to the level Mircosoft wanted or believed initially.

I don't know where you live, but the way Microsoft has been schilling Kinect Sports Rivals on TV recently to insane proportions making it sound like the Kinect's killer app. Rare had a chance to make a splash with the title and it appears that they failed. I'll admit that it's probably too early in the game for a truly great Kinect game... but they've had some chances.

Edit:

Also, it doesn't look very good when shoddy games like "Fighter Within" are released for the thing.

The answer to your problem! Enjoy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Central

You might want to make sure no one is filming while you are playing.

I can imagine Kinect + Oculus Rift to provide some amazing experiences if done properly. Imagine being able to actually swing a sword and raise a shield. That would be awesome! Of course, there's still the problem of walking. That is, you're in a virtual world but if you have to walk by using the joystick that would certainly destroy the immersion. I'm not sure how they would get around that.

Yeah, swinging a controller or motioning at a screen destroys the immersion. I would be interested in trying motion controls with the OR, just for the experience. I think that is a pretty logical step for developers to move towards. I mean, how much more computing power can you throw at a screen to "immerse" the player?