Xbox one


Y'know, after I read this article, I went about my daily chores, such as leafing through the coupons and stuff we get in the mail everyday. First brochure I open up? Special discounts on condoms and lube, deodorant, hair spray and toothpaste. Second brochure I open? Specials on hand lotion and tissues.

Now, look, I know my girlfriend's going to be out of the country for 4 days, but... Errr....How could you tell from my shopping behaviour? And why does that first store think I'll go cheat on her? :aaah:
 
I do have one big question: I went out and bought me a Roku because of Microsoft's asinine policy of forcing me to have a Gold account if I want to stream the services I already pay for, leaving me with the decision to pay for a year of Gold, or pay once for a Roku. If they really want to make this an all-in-one entertainment unit, that's going to have to end.
 
I do have one big question: I went out and bought me a Roku because of Microsoft's asinine policy of forcing me to have a Gold account if I want to stream the services I already pay for, leaving me with the decision to pay for a year of Gold, or pay once for a Roku. If they really want to make this an all-in-one entertainment unit, that's going to have to end.
Right. How many middle men are we going to have to pay?

I have a roku, but I'm buying both amazon prime and Netflix. They in turn are paying Viacom, who is paying nickelodeon.

At the end of the chain we have nickelodeon making a fraction of a cent per Dora that my kids watch.

Why can't I just point my roku at them and pay them a few dollars a year, which is more than they're getting from me now, and cut out all these middle men?

The Microsoft streaming option is worse. Microsoft adds absolutely no value to being a middle man. They just know that they currently control your device, therefore they want a cut of the action.

At least Viacom adds value by aggregating several media outlets, and Netflix adds value by providing the actual caching and streaming that makes the videos start almost instantaneously and never buffer.

Blatant money grabs.

I'm really disappointed the Xbox one is a cable box controller with an ir blaster. That's simply so backwards. Those devices have never worked completely, nevermind worked well or seamlessly. They have to keep up to date on every cable provider device and every cable provide channel lineup, and its just stupid.

It's a hack, and a bad one.

The rest of the Xbox one intrigues me, though. Time will tell.
 
Reading industry tech analysis is interesting. One big point they made, which I noticed, is that they didn't really get into how much better, or worse, of a gaming console this is than previous generations or its competitors.

I suspect we will see a lot more on how it actually performs as a gaming console at e3 and later this year, and that will make the biggest difference in consumer reaction.
 
I've had a Kinect for years, and this has never ever happened to me. But then, I don't use Hulu Plus, so maybe it's a problem with the app.

That said, I've accidentally paused videos because someone called me on the phone and I was talking loudly while watching Netflix.
 

Dave

Staff member
It's probably faked, but I thought it was funny. It is being used to denigrate the XBox One...and it's not even out yet!
 
Having given it some thought, MS really dropped the ball on not making this a replacement box for a cable/sat box. That's actually something I would pay for (on top of being a gaming console).

As is, I would need to buy a new media entertainment center to put all the damn boxes next to my TV. I live in an apartment, I don't have much room to keep expanding the furniture in my living room. :mad:
 
Having given it some thought, MS really dropped the ball on not making this a replacement box for a cable/sat box. That's actually something I would pay for (on top of being a gaming console).

As is, I would need to buy a new media entertainment center to put all the damn boxes next to my TV. I live in an apartment, I don't have much room to keep expanding the furniture in my living room. :mad:
I'm guessing that's more the cable/satellite companies fault. They're pretty closed off when it comes to their box's. The few attempts at creating a standard for 3rd party companies has failed miserably because they don't want to lose the revenue stream of charging more for DVR's and multiple receivers.
 
There's nothing stopping them from doing that, though. If they sold it to cable providers as a DVR platform with gaming, bluray, and entertainment all built in, they could make significant inroads to the home market simply by way of service based sales. A lot of people already have cable/satellite subscriptions, and they'd gladly pay another $20/month to get this in their living room replacing their cable box rather than a single $500 charge and frustration getting it to work with their existing box.
 
There's nothing stopping them from doing that, though. If they sold it to cable providers as a DVR platform with gaming, bluray, and entertainment all built in, they could make significant inroads to the home market simply by way of service based sales. A lot of people already have cable/satellite subscriptions, and they'd gladly pay another $20/month to get this in their living room replacing their cable box rather than a single $500 charge and frustration getting it to work with their existing box.
The cable and satellite companies history with Tivo has shown they don't like to be at the mercy of any other company. I'm guessing they wouldn't go along with it even if Microsoft offered one hell of a deal for them. They know it could turn into something the customers will always expect, which makes negotiating future contracts with MS harder. They won't get put in that position again.
 
Seems to work fine for the iPhone-for-$1-with-a-2-year-contract plan. People do seem willing to go for it. Pay a monthly premium for a system can work.
 
Seems to work fine for the iPhone-for-$1-with-a-2-year-contract plan. People do seem willing to go for it. Pay a monthly premium for a system can work.
Right, but the cable/sat companies want to use only their own hardware. That way they get more money, and it's not like the customers can do anything about it. It would be like your cell phone company only allowing cell phones that they themselves made to be used on their network.
 
And until the iPhone came along, that's how the cell phone companies did things.

Apple broke that monopoly by offering something consumers wanted, and making a deal with a lower end carrier.

Microsoft could do the same thing if they had a sufficient carrot.
 
So yes, they, the console manufacturers and video game developers, want to change the structure of console gaming to match that of Steam, iOS, Android, and a bunch of other services that already use this model.

Now you find that steam does this, but you aren't claiming that you'll never use steam. Many people here did purchase the full cost of the latest bioshock knowing that they couldn't sell it or loan it without selling or loaning your full steam account.
Actually, if you live in parts of Europe, you CAN sell your Steam games. Valve is legally required to let people sell their games back in several countries there. There is also an excellent chance that this may become law in parts of the US soon.
 
And until the iPhone came along, that's how the cell phone companies did things.

Apple broke that monopoly by offering something consumers wanted, and making a deal with a lower end carrier.

Microsoft could do the same thing if they had a sufficient carrot.
They also got to see how much power Apple had over dictating what the carriers could and couldn't do to their customers.
 
The maddening thing is how unclear they've been about details like the used games thing.
I dunno, Phil Harrison was pretty clear that it's going to be like buying another new copy. Random Xbox Live customer support peon 3 is the one that claimed it was false.
 
I dunno, Phil Harrison was pretty clear that it's going to be like buying another new copy. Random Xbox Live customer support peon 3 is the one that claimed it was false.
Exactly. It's not so much lack of clarity as it is Microsoft completely and utterly failing to appropriately manage their social networking. I imagine what happened was that, before the official press release, all customer-facing Microsoft employees were told to deny EVERYTHING about the console; and management just expected that to work flawlessly and either didn't get the news released to support reps in time for them to revoke that order and switch over to "we will be releasing more info about that before long" on time; or they did get the news out, and some employees just failed to read their emails. It happens. But you can pretty much take Harrison's word as being the correct position on the matter.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
To me, really, the Xbox has just been a loathsome diversion for the gaming industry from day one. They killed the mechwarrior PC series so they could have mechassault as an Xbox exclusive. Crimson skies (PC game) sequel? Xbox exclusive, despite it being a flight simulator! W.T.F. And, of course, it bears large responsibility of the consolitis contracted by so many games. Frankly, the console industry is one I have no warm feelings for, but microsoft's adventures in console gaming can't die too soon for my taste, so they can quit undermining PC games.
Whoa, hey, look at that. It's Microsoft admitting they have no interest in PC gaming in pretty much as many words. "Hey, try.. uh.. try the new solitaire! And this game we ported from mobile!"
 
I wonder - does MS really want to have people buy an iPad, a PS4 and an Android phone? They're pretty much responsible for everyone having a pc at home - a nd now they seem to actively try and destroy the platform in favour of consoles, phones and tablets.
I'll agree that consumers are probably moving in that direction anyway - any tablet or console these days has more than enough power to do the day-to-day office stuff and webbrowsing most people use their pcs for - but they could at least try to keep the platform viable and interesting to develop for.
 
Quantum Break, the only game in that entire announcement charade that even seemed semi-interesting, by Remedy is a huge burn too especially after learning that all Remedy wanted to do was to make another Alan Wake. Alan Wake was a slow burn new IP, one that didn't do well initially, but had crazy legs and ended up selling over 3 million copies. 3 million. Brand New IP. I forgot that anything but Call of Duty numbers is a failure. They couldn't get any support from any publisher for a sequel.
 
But you can pretty much take Harrison's word as being the correct position on the matter.
Except when he's clarifying things into mud. So is the game always playable with the disk, you just need a license key to install it? Thus, your friend can't play the game without the disk, even if it's installed on his system, because the installation is tied to your Live account which you signed into on his machine? But if you leave him the disk, he can play, but he can't install, and once he gives up the disk, he can't play?
 
Man, I remember some of the dipshit things he said while working for Sony. Then he left to work at Atari and said more dipshit things. Fucking bizarre why any company would want him talking to anyone about anything.
 
It really is an ugly little thing isn't it? Come on guys, I thought we had figured out industrial design by this point.
 
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