RIP Xbox One

[demonicvampiregirl]

I'm not an online multiplayer person, but i've been told that you can get banned from a personal server by people who claim you're "cheating" and then you can get your Xbox Live account banned. So, basically YouTube Copyright "Infringement" rules. Anyone and their mom can claim you're bad and get your account banned. Of course, I don't know this from first hand, only from people i've talked to.

I think they actually look into it first. I don't think people can do that and then automatically get your account banned. I have a XBL acc just no one to use the multiplayer part with that I trust atm so I can't say for sure but I doubt they'd just ban you because someone has a issue with you and claimed you was cheating.

[Fortune86]

If someone is cheating on online games, then fine, go ahead and ban them.

 

You shouldn't stop them from playing offline games though. If they want to cheat on their own personal games, that's up to them.

[TikindiDragon]

also, just thought some of you should have a look at this if you haven't already:

 

Cliffy B's response to the changes

Something very few companies seem to have realised is that if they were to sell individual games at lower prices, they'd sell more of them. Steam have proved it with PC games - they put something on a cut-price sale and the total profit during the sale jumps dramatically. Take a look.

 

Unlike in the days of cartridge gaming each individual unit sold doesn't represent a massive cost to the company - the cost is all in the development of the game. The actual cost of printing a disc is negligable, and the cost of a box not much more. There's even less cost involved with digital versions.

 

A lot of people have to save up for games when they are £50 or £60 each. More people would buy them at lower prices - and if you look at thouse calculations from Steam it shows that a *lot* more people buy them at lower prices. So much so that profits are actually *higher* when individual games are cheaper.

 

To put it another way:

 

A game is sold for £60, 2 people buy it. Because they're really, really interested in the game.

A game is sold for £10, 20 people buy it. Because, hey, what's a tenner, right? At that price it doesn't matter whether you end up liking a game or not, it's worth a go.

 

Sold at £60 the game has taken £120. Sold at £10 the game has taken £200. It doesn't matter how many people continue to play the game, because the money has already gone to the developers. If only 3 of those 20 people become long term players they've *still* made more money.

 

High prices (and lack of demos) are also part of what's driving piracy. No one wants to shell out a load of money for a game they don't know they'll like. If a demo isn't available, they'll pirate it in order to find out. If individual games weren't so expensive people would be more likely to take a risk on buying a game they haven't tried, because they wouldn't be losing so much if it turned out they didn't like it.

 

Lower prices increase sales. It's a simple fact.

[KageSora]

Lower prices would be amazing. I mean, hell, even just $30 than $60--I could buy two games where I now can only buy one. I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel with games I can sell off at this point to try and afford new ones. :/

 

And that's to say nothing of the about half dozen other games I'll wait until they're $20 used to try because they look interesting but I just can't justify the price tag of a brand new game for something that I'm not all but certain I'm going to really like.

 

 

I mean, I got inFAMOUS for free. Then I went on to buy the second one and Festival of Blood, and I have Second Son on pre-order. If the game itself had been $10-$15 instead, I would have ended up buying it rather than only bothering because it was being offered for free as compensation after the whole hacking fiasco.

[TikindiDragon]

Unfortunately the knee-jerk reaction to selling fewer games is to put prices *up* rather than down. I suppose the thinking goes "We're selling less, so we need to make more off what we do sell.". What they really need to be thinking is "If we reduce the prices we'll sell more.", but I suspect that's kinda counter-intuitive to them.

 

But, yeah, I'm sure if prices were lowered across the board it would really re-stimulate the games market.

[Red2111]

for me its "too little, too late" with M$. the flippant comment of "thats why we have the 360" did it in for me, and now the "want the best of both worlds" just continues to showcase the contempt M$ has for their consumers.

 

also, liek others have said, i dont trust M$ not to re-implement these "features" and "requirements" once the console is sold.

 

nto to mention, theres no reason why, if the X1 is so advanced, they can't have an "offline" and "online" mode. and selling people the line of "dont want online keep the current console" is not aceptable because the poitn of a next gen is not to keep the previous console playable, the point is to move users onto the next gen by slowly discontinuing support for the previous gen over a set # of years.

 

so your telling me that Devs (who are already complaining about low profit margins) are goignto fork out a long standing cost of eeveloping the same game for both the previous gen and the current gen? that lasted 3 years with the xbox/360 & ps2/ps3.

 

 

 

and this entire song and dance of "used games are hurting us" is crap. for a used game to be a used game, the game has to be USED. meaning someone bought it NEW and returned it. if they want a cut from used games, then they need to make a deal with 2nd hand suppliers (ie: game stop, pawn shops, ect) or offer gammers insentives in the form of rebates for returning the games directly to the Devs after a set time of purchase as new.

 

or better yet, make the games have more replay value so people dont want to return the games.

 

do you know how many crap games i've bought new to "try" because i knew nothing abtou the game but it looked interesting? loads. i got burned out on shelling out 40-60 on a game just to find out 15mins into playing that the game was crap. most of the used games i get are titles i've never heard of but look interesting and wouldn't mind trying.

 

heck, now i've resorted to crawling on Youtube to view walkthroughs to see a good bit of gameplay before even buying a used game because the trade in values are utter craptastic on games now.

 

 

but there are franchises that we love, a few so much that we pre-order (Assasins Creed, Madden, Arkham Franchise), and others that i'll buy new a few months after they come out when the initial sticker price drops (Dark Souls, inFamous, ect

 

 

 

[Syaoransbear]

If game prices were down I'd definitely take a chance and buy games I'm not so sure about. Right now I tend to only buy games that come with amazing reviews and are something I REALLY want. Or I buy super cheap steam games that are on sale(that I often end up not even playing lol).

 

Especially these days when games are so short. I'm not willing to pay $60 for a 7 hour game, when back in the day I could pay less for a 100+ hour game.

[TikindiDragon]

If game prices were down I'd definitely take a chance and buy games I'm not so sure about. Right now I tend to only buy games that come with amazing reviews and are something I REALLY want. Or I buy super cheap steam games that are on sale(that I often end up not even playing lol).

 

Especially these days when games are so short. I'm not willing to pay $60 for a 7 hour game, when back in the day I could pay less for a 100+ hour game.

It's those super-cheap sales on steam that start raking in cash, though. Because there's a heck of a lot of people that will buy them. And often, as you said, barely play them. Sales spike massively when the prices drop - and they often spike so much they bring in more profit than when they are not on sale. And, lets face it, who is going to pirate when they can pick the game up for a fiver? One of the biggest gripes of game developers suddenly becomes much less of a problem, and actually works better than draconian DRM measures (for one thing if it's not a multiplayer game then you don't need servers for online authentication = cost saving).

 

I know what you mean about length of games, though. While it's not true in all cases (I note the Elder Scrolls games particularly here - loads of gameplay in those) there's been quite a move recently towards games that are much prettier, but which have less actual gameplay content. I had a game in the early 90's (Dragon Crystal) that despite many, many, many hours of play I never managed to beat. It had 30 levels, each increasing in difficulty, and I swear I never got past Level 20. I'd *still* play that game if I could. How many games do you find today that have 30 levels?

[KageSora]

Unfortunately the knee-jerk reaction to selling fewer games is to put prices *up* rather than down. I suppose the thinking goes "We're selling less, so we need to make more off what we do sell.". What they really need to be thinking is "If we reduce the prices we'll sell more.", but I suspect that's kinda counter-intuitive to them.

 

But, yeah, I'm sure if prices were lowered across the board it would really re-stimulate the games market.

It just boggles my mind.

 

If you're selling less games, you need to examine why that is.

 

If it's because the games are not interesting, jacking up the price just makes them less appealing.

 

If it's because they look interesting but people are unsure, jacking up the price just makes them less appealing.

 

If it's because they're too expensive, jacking up the price just guarantees less sales as less people can afford it.

 

It seems pretty straightforwards to me. o_O

 

 

Re: Game Length:

 

I beat Halo 4 in a single 8-hour sitting (should have at least gotten up to stretch, but meh). That's... Kinda sad, IMO.

 

There's a reason I tend to buy more RPGs (especially JRPGs). Even without going for 100% completion, I can still easily log 100 or more hours on a lot of them during my first playthrough because 1) there's a ton of stuff to do and explore that you can do to be better equipped even if you're not going for 100% completion, 2) they tend to have more interesting gameplay (to me, anyway) that also has practical purpose even if I'm not advancing the story (Tales games typically are fun enough for me to rather enjoy grinding), and 3) I've found they have better replay value since I prefer story in general as well as New Game + stuff.

 

I mean terrible gameplay can ruin a good story and a good story can't always save terrible gameplay. But half decent gameplay combined with a half decent story, and you have me only parting with the game if I'm in dire need of money.

[TikindiDragon]

It just boggles my mind.

 

If you're selling less games, you need to examine why that is.

 

If it's because the games are not interesting, jacking up the price just makes them less appealing.

 

If it's because they look interesting but people are unsure, jacking up the price just makes them less appealing.

 

If it's because they're too expensive, jacking up the price just guarantees less sales as less people can afford it.

 

It seems pretty straightforwards to me. o_O

 

 

Re: Game Length:

 

I beat Halo 4 in a single 8-hour sitting (should have at least gotten up to stretch, but meh). That's... Kinda sad, IMO.

 

There's a reason I tend to buy more RPGs (especially JRPGs). Even without going for 100% completion, I can still easily log 100 or more hours on a lot of them during my first playthrough because 1) there's a ton of stuff to do and explore that you can do to be better equipped even if you're not going for 100% completion, 2) they tend to have more interesting gameplay (to me, anyway) that also has practical purpose even if I'm not advancing the story (Tales games typically are fun enough for me to rather enjoy grinding), and 3) I've found they have better replay value since I prefer story in general as well as New Game + stuff.

 

I mean terrible gameplay can ruin a good story and a good story can't always save terrible gameplay. But half decent gameplay combined with a half decent story, and you have me only parting with the game if I'm in dire need of money.

But they think they know why they're selling less games. And, you guessed it, they think it's piracy. They never stop to question *why* people are pirating games, and their only interest in combating piracy is ever more draconian DRM.

 

It's quite funny, really, as some games are running very sucessfully on DRM-free free-to-play models. And yet the companies are not only still in business, they're actually turning some profits. Look at Path of Exile. It's funded totally by Micro-transactions, and the things you buy have *no* effect on gameplay - it's all visual effects. And yet people are willingly giving them money because it's a great game and they want to support the Devs.

 

Look at Mount & Blade. We paid... maybe a fiver each for that? It had *no* DRM, and wasn't online. And yet... it's made enough money that despite Mount & Blade games being the only titles that Studio has released they are still going - and they've had good reviews for the games too.

[KageSora]

It still just utterly astounds me that they're not bothering to wonder WHY people pirate instead of buying legit.

 

It's not like the people who pirate are always sitting on heaps of money that they're just not spending on legit stuff. A lot of people who pirate stuff are the people who either wouldn't (for various reasons--including disagreeing with practices of the devs, don't know enough about the game, aren't sure if they'll like it, etc.) or COULDN'T pay to get a legit copy anyway.

[Red2111]

How many games do you find today that have 30 levels?

Demon Souls / Dark Souls

 

 

but you have to be willing to have your gamming ego take a massive beating with that game

 

 

also most of your dungon crawlers have levels like that, Doom and Sacred 2 (then PC based would be Fate); as well as most of your racing games (ie: Gran Tarismo, Grid, Ridge Racer, ect) as well as Dynasty Warriors. (or if you have Wii, majority of the Mario titles ie: Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Brothers, ect)

 

 

but i agree. bang for buck on hours of play, plus replayability where it doesn't get repedative and you lose interest after 20+ hours; theres a niche gamming sphere all in either the FPS or RPG

 

games like

 

- Final Fantasy (if you can stand turn based)

- Demon Souls/Dark Souls

- Oblivion/Elder Scrolls

- Darksiders

- Arkham City

- Dragon Age

- Fable 2 (#3 sucks)

- Infinate Undiscoveries

- The Witcher

- Dishonored

- Ninja Giden Sigma

- Assasins Creed

 

 

and then if you go to the PS you also have

 

- inFamous

- Uncharted

- .hack//GU

- Watch Dogs (looks very promising)

 

 

tack onto those titles (most admitedly are block busters) the FPS market (which i dont play in) you have a good list of games worht the $60 new release cost.

 

 

but when you examine this small list to the amount of games put out each year, its a very small % of games which are worth the pre-order or new release amount.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Red2111

[TikindiDragon]

I know what you mean about length of games, though. While it's not true in all cases (I note the Elder Scrolls games particularly here - loads of gameplay in those) there's been quite a move recently towards games that are much prettier, but which have less actual gameplay content. I had a game in the early 90's (Dragon Crystal) that despite many, many, many hours of play I never managed to beat. It had 30 levels, each increasing in difficulty, and I swear I never got past Level 20. I'd *still* play that game if I could. How many games do you find today that have 30 levels?

Bolding part of my original post as you seem to have missed it. I quite clearly stated that I am well aware of games that have *not* sacrificed length of game play.

[MysticTiger]

It still just utterly astounds me that they're not bothering to wonder WHY people pirate instead of buying legit.

 

It's not like the people who pirate are always sitting on heaps of money that they're just not spending on legit stuff. A lot of people who pirate stuff are the people who either wouldn't (for various reasons--including disagreeing with practices of the devs, don't know enough about the game, aren't sure if they'll like it, etc.) or COULDN'T pay to get a legit copy anyway.

Because for some reason, companies like to blame piracy as a "catch all" reason why their products are failing. It's never their fault. It's not because the product they're pushing is bugged, boring or downright bad. It's never because they overcharge for their product and the lack-of quality the consumer is getting. It's never because they're not marketing to the right or to a large enough audience. It's because piracy. Just like the Movie industry claimed VHS recorders would be the death of the movie industry and just like the Music industry claimed Tape Recorders would be the death of the music industry, it's always someone else's fault that their overpriced product isn't selling good enough.

[KageSora]

Because for some reason, companies like to blame piracy as a "catch all" reason why their products are failing. It's never their fault. It's not because the product they're pushing is bugged, boring or downright bad. It's never because they overcharge for their product and the lack-of quality the consumer is getting. It's never because they're not marketing to the right or to a large enough audience. It's because piracy. Just like the Movie industry claimed VHS recorders would be the death of the movie industry and just like the Music industry claimed Tape Recorders would be the death of the music industry, it's always someone else's fault that their overpriced product isn't selling good enough.

And it really suck when they refuse to take some responsibility. :/

 

Consumers are only willing to fork over so much money for so long for a product that's not up to standard. People will only pay for the name for so long before they start jumping ship.

 

Like we're starting to see with Call of Duty (tons of people still buy it, but more and more we're seeing people going "yeah, it's not worth it to get the new one at launch"), and like people clearly demonstrated with Xboned preorders and being loud in their dislike.

 

They can blame other things all they want, but if they don't actually improve the product... They can blame whatever they want, it's not going to make more people buy the product.

 

Stricter DRM to "combat piracy"? The people who think it might not have been worth it will just really think it's not worth it and you'll lose more sales.

 

'

 

If they don't admit that they could do better, then they're just going to crash and burn.

[zorua9]

I might stick with my Xbox 360 slim. the way i hear about the Xbox One is that it has good bits and more bad bits, and the whole thing about going on the internet for at least a minute is just....... horrible, judging by the way my mother and sister are on the computer, i'll only be online 2 times a week. And about piracy, since Xbox One is new it will surely be hacked(nooooooo, and as long as they stay away from my mum's credit card i won't have a heart attack(lol). The good bit will probably be the graphics, which will be awesome.

[7Deadly$ins]

I might stick with my Xbox 360 slim. the way i hear about the Xbox One is that it has good bits and more bad bits, and the whole thing about going on the internet for at least a minute is just....... horrible, judging by the way my mother and sister are on the computer, i'll only be online 2 times a week. And about piracy, since Xbox One is new it will surely be hacked(nooooooo, and as long as they stay away from my mum's credit card i won't have a heart attack(lol). The good bit will probably be the graphics, which will be awesome.

They removed the always online requirement.

[TikindiDragon]

The good bit will probably be the graphics, which will be awesome.

Although not in comparison to PC graphics. While the Xbox One graphics *may* be comparible to current mass-market graphics cards for the PC (note - may. The demos at E3 were being run on PCs with Win7 and Nvidia Graphics cards) PC cards are always updating and will probably be better than the Xbox and PS4 within 6 months of them launching.

 

It's the major problem of consoles. The hardware is fixed. What's there on release is what you're stuck with for the next 7 or 8 years.

[KageSora]

Although not in comparison to PC graphics. While the Xbox One graphics *may* be comparible to current mass-market graphics cards for the PC (note - may. The demos at E3 were being run on PCs with Win7 and Nvidia Graphics cards) PC cards are always updating and will probably be better than the Xbox and PS4 within 6 months of them launching.

 

It's the major problem of consoles. The hardware is fixed. What's there on release is what you're stuck with for the next 7 or 8 years.

True, but it's always kinda impressive to see how devs learn to squeeze the most out of the system as it's life cycle goes on.

 

Though, personally, I think playing just for the graphics is kinda silly. Graphics are nice, but I'll take less graphics happily if it means better gameplay and story. Graphics alone don't make a game worth playing, or keeping, IMO. I don't like the "OH SHINY GRAPHICS ALL ABOUT THE GRAPHICS" attitude some gamers have...

[TikindiDragon]

True, but it's always kinda impressive to see how devs learn to squeeze the most out of the system as it's life cycle goes on.

 

Though, personally, I think playing just for the graphics is kinda silly. Graphics are nice, but I'll take less graphics happily if it means better gameplay and story. Graphics alone don't make a game worth playing, or keeping, IMO. I don't like the "OH SHINY GRAPHICS ALL ABOUT THE GRAPHICS" attitude some gamers have...

It is possible to do both, though. Skyrim is *very* pretty. Especially with the HD pack on it. And as previously mentioned there's a load of game in it. I've also been told (although haven't myself played it) that the latest Bioshock is both pretty and a good game.

 

Good graphics are nice - but they are there to embellish the story, not to be the be-all-and-end all. I still play old games with great stories (or just addictive gameplay - SiimCity 2000) that many people now would write off because of the graphics. I've actually seen some old games being given recent (low) reviews on Metacritic based purely on their graphics (which is odd, I mean why compare a 10 year old game to a modern one graphically?)

[Lythiaren]

The problem is that most developers allocate a ton of their resources into graphics, especially on cutscenes and opening sequences, so people see "shiny game" on their first impression. Higher graphics capabilities mean more pressure on the part of developers to push those graphics to their limits, but because all business ventures have budgets, most opt to sacrifice the development of the game itself in favor of making a good first impression with pretty visuals because first impressions count for so much.

 

And then you have games that do both very well, usually with bigger/more competent developers such as Bethesda, 2K, etc. who have bigger (or more efficiently allocated) budgets and very talented and/or experienced people.

 

imo developers should just swallow their proprietary engine pride and pay up to use the CryEngine for their graphics and get back to making good games. Capcom already did that with Monster Hunter after like 10 iterations of a game that all used PS2-quality graphics across 2 generations.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Lythiaren

[KageSora]

It is possible to do both, though. Skyrim is *very* pretty. Especially with the HD pack on it. And as previously mentioned there's a load of game in it. I've also been told (although haven't myself played it) that the latest Bioshock is both pretty and a good game.

 

Good graphics are nice - but they are there to embellish the story, not to be the be-all-and-end all. I still play old games with great stories (or just addictive gameplay - SiimCity 2000) that many people now would write off because of the graphics. I've actually seen some old games being given recent (low) reviews on Metacritic based purely on their graphics (which is odd, I mean why compare a 10 year old game to a modern one graphically?)

Oh, I know it's possible to do both!

 

I just hate when people honestly don't care how bad the game is as long as it looks really pretty. And besides, the graphics will be outdated in a fairly short amount of time anyway. I agree that they should be there to help support the story, not be the final word of if a game is worth playing.

 

The only time I really take graphics into account as the deciding factor is if they're bad enough that it makes it hard to see what's going on (outside of games or segments where not being able to see clearly is actually an intentional thing as part of the story and all)

[zorua9]

I might get the xbox one....Day one edition...............

[Fortune86]

I thought about getting Skyrim for the PS3, but the amount of bugs it is said to contain put me off.

[zorua9]

I thought about getting Skyrim for the PS3, but the amount of bugs it is said to contain put me off.

Skyrim is still awesome though...