
"Microsoft engineer" on Xbox1 - Luc
http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB
======
beloch
The engineer bases his argument on an assumption that is usually erroneous:

The price of a product is related to its cost.

This is a logical assumption, but almost always false. It is far more commonly
true that the price of a product is dictated by what consumers are willing to
pay. If the PS4 version of game X sells for $59.99, it is more than likely
that the Xbox1 version will sell for the same price, because people will
perceive both versions as having the same value and be willing to pay the same
amount for them both.

What Valve does with Steam prices is something different. New releases still
cost roughly the same as traditional DVD copies bought in stores. Bargains
start to appear on titles once they reach an age where a lot of stores stop
stocking them. It is true you can get heavily discounted games on Steam, but
this is totally unrelated to the lack of a used-game market. Somebody simply
realized that a) A title nobody is selling makes no money and b) gamers will
spend money they wouldn't have otherwise if they think they're getting a deal.
Put a and b together and you have a recipe for profit. This also eliminates
demand for used games. Why buy a skeezy dog-chewed box when you can get a
steam-download for the same price or lower?

Don't get me wrong. If MS builds a curated steam-style store for the Xbox it
will undoubtedly be a great thing for many (although not all) gamers. However,
lower prices on new titles will _not_ be one of the benefits this move brings.
This is really just a grab for dollars that currently go to the used market,
and it will likely work.

~~~
Buzzzz
Thing is that here in europe/sweden steam is always the most expensive choice
sine must publishers equals 1 usd to 1 eur. So here the only sane reason is to
wait until they have sales since then it is just expensive and not overly
expensive.

//Anders

~~~
baq
That's because 1 USD plus VAT pretty much 3 equals 1 EUR. USA has sales tax
which is not added to the price, it only shows up on the receipt.

~~~
Buzzzz
Still more expensive than to pop down to game stop and buy a new one.

------
nostromo
The real misstep here is that Microsoft is still selling physical media.

Nobody (well, almost nobody) gets mad when they can't resell their iPhone
games or mp3s or Kindle books; compare that to the outpouring of anger when a
company puts limitations on used optical media games or CDs or books.

Humans are wired to see a physical item (disks, etc.) and think _mine_.

~~~
mortenjorck

      Humans are wired to see a physical item (disks, etc.) and think *mine.*
    

Well, yes, but you oversimplify. There is a long-established doctrine of
first-sale in the US, and it's not just part of case law, it's part of the
culture. The non-resaleability of Kindle books or anything else digital is
still new to the popular mind, and carries with it a certain implicit
devaluation.

Even though most people at least abstractly understand the non-resaleability
of bits (whether due to the infinite duplicability of DRM-free media, or the
practical inflexibility of DRM systems), a big reason they don't complain
about iPhone apps or Steam games is likely the frequently low prices they pay.

A $60 game demands at least a bit of fungibility for most consumers. A $0.99
one doesn't, regardless of whether it came from a disc or an app store. If, as
the supposed insider claims, XBO games can actually retail for half what a
resale-friendly game would, then that offsets the implicit devaluation of non-
resaleable media.

If Call of Duty 8 retails for $59.99 on the PS4 and $29.99 on the XBO, that
suddenly makes the DRM a very appealing tradeoff. If they're both $59.99, Xbox
is dead in the water.

~~~
wtvanhest
>If Call of Duty 8 retails for $59.99 on the PS4 and $29.99 on the XBO, that
suddenly makes the DRM a very appealing tradeoff. If they're both $59.99, Xbox
is dead in the water.

Exactly, if MS had been thinking this all along, they could have proved it
with a low price game option announced with the DRM. That would have been
really appealing to a lot of people.

~~~
sirclueless
That doesn't really work. The game is still supposed to be $60 at launch,
that's when games make the most money, they really are worth that much (and
more) as evidenced by the many people who pay that much for them, even on DRM-
laden platforms like Steam.

The point is to let the price fall faster after launch. Xbox can't exactly
promise "Our games' prices will fall faster than the other guys" because the
market will determine that -- in aggregate they will, but there's a reason
Skyrim is still $30 on Steam.

Microsoft wants a world where you have account-locked games tied to disks,
because it gives them the benefits of Steam-like DRM but also the game
conveniently on a disk to take to a friend's so he doesn't have to download
it, and to let the poor schmuck in rural Nebraska with 25 kb/s to play the
game some time in the next week.

Honestly, Sony can take the same pricing strategies as Microsoft on their
digital downloads -- Microsoft just wants to have more convenient digital
downloads, while Sony just wants more convenient disks.

My guess is that long-term Microsoft will prove to be on the right side of
history (the success of Steam is evidence). Sony can probably do just fine for
now, they can always transition in later generations when the downsides are no
longer breaking news stories.

~~~
ensignavenger
The poor schmuck in rural Nebraska with 25kb service won't be able to play the
Xbox One period- MS has already proposed a min speed of 1.5mbps. And if you
are in an area (like pretty much most of the US and the majority of the rest
of the world) where your service goes down periodically for more than 24
hours, you will be locked out of playing any games while it is offline. Or if
MS gets hacked like Sony and their network goes down for an extended period
(at least PS3 owners could still play offline!). Or when MS decides to abandon
the platform ad turn off the servers... no pulling out your old Xbox One to
play some classic games (I still have an old Atari I like to play
occasionally!). Or if you have to cancel your Internet for a few months to
catch up on the bills or while moving you have to wait a few days to get you
Internet turned on- there are so many points of failure in this fiasco. As a
(former) Xbox fan and advocate, I won't be going anywhere near this one.

~~~
sigkill
>of 1.5mbps.

Wow. There's this whole rest of the world that would kill to get that speeds.
I'm confused as to why MS would try to alienate basically everyone not in NA,
EU with that kind of a minimum requirement. People in Asia and Africa can pay
up that kind of money for the console, but there aren't infrastructure to get
you that kind of internet speeds in a budget.

~~~
gtirloni
There are PS1's being sold until today for people who can't afford the other
version. My point is: I doubt XBOX360 will disappear. Got fast internet, crazy
TV and can afford it? Get XBOX1. Your internet is really bad, XBOX360 just
like always.

~~~
dragontamer
AKA: Microsoft does not have a competitive next-gen product for those without
good internet connections.

Like Soldiers, 35% of America... and even then, the larger part of Europe
won't have servers for the XBox One launch. So even if you do have a good
connection in say... Poland or Japan... you can't play XBox One at all.

------
redthrowaway
Microsoft has always struck me as a company that makes some really cool
technology, _then_ tries to find a way to make it relevant to the rest of us.
For them, it seems the consumer is an afterthought and the technology is key.

Windows 8 was an impressive attempt to merge mobile and desktop OSes so that
mobile users are no longer second-class citizens and have access to everything
desktop users do. The problem? _Mobile_ needed fixing, not desktop. In the
push for engineering parsimony, they made the desktop experience worse simply
so that it could be shared with mobile.

Kinect is a wicked piece of tech. It's just seriously, seriously cool. But
_what does it do?_ How does Kinect make gaming better? Outside of that one
boxing game, I just don't see it. It makes everything demonstrably worse, like
QTEs that work as cinematic finishing moves for bosses in God of War, but are
completely pointless in 95% of the games they're included in. Kinect has the
same problem: it's a really cool solution in search of a problem.

Perhaps the best example of this is Clippy, where MS used Bayesian algos to
analyze text and offer suggestions. Again, a really cool little bit of
datamining/ML, in _1997_ , no less, and running on the computational
equivalent of a potato. Clippy is a really cool program. But it was completely
pointless. It solved a problem no one had in a way that pissed off everyone.

And really, that's Microsoft in a nutshell.

~~~
calhoun137
I should probably make a throw-away for this comment but whatever, as much as
it hurts to admit it:

I kind of like windows 8.

~~~
shock-value
On a tablet or desktop?

I have it on a desktop and every affordance it makes for tablets and touch
interaction is annoying to me. And its desktop UI is ugly.

It is fast though.

~~~
dagw
At the risk of getting way off topic. I also like Windows 8 on the desktop.
Yes, it is very slightly annoying that I have to click a large desktop icon
after booting up, but after that it is simply a slightly faster, slightly
better version of Windows 7. I can't think of any touch interaction aspect
that I even see when using it in desktop mode.

I miss it when I'm at work using Windows 7.

~~~
hhandoko
I agree, ignore the Modern UI stuff and it is a better, faster Windows 7.

If you don't mind parting with $10, I recommend purchasing the Start8 and
ModernMix from Stardock. Boots straight to desktop, gets the old start menu
back, and runs ModernUI apps in a window.

~~~
LocalPCGuy
You can setup a quick hack (add Explorer to the Start Apps folder) that
switches to Desktop on load. Granted, you'll have an Explorer window open as
well, but...small price to pay.

Oh yah, I like Windows 8 on desktop as well.

------
UnoriginalGuy
I am a Microsoft Engineer so take what I am about to say as gospel: There's no
way to know when someone claims to be something on the internet that they are
that thing unless the company itself corroborates it.

The pastebin was posted on 4chan... 4chan... And all of the information in it
could have been gleaned from publicly available sources. We should at best
discuss it like it is rumour, and much more realistically just ignore it as
trolling.

PS - I am not a Microsoft Engineer, I was making a point.

~~~
alyx
It's a terrible thing when somebody (Microsoft Engineer or not) tries to make
sense of all the fact'less back n' forth about how much Microsoft sucks and
they can't do anything right.

If more people stopped to think what the Master plan here _might_ be, we would
all be better off.

Instead we're entrenched in cold-war-like mentality of Apple-FRIEND, GOOGLE-
FRIEND, SONY-BEST-FRIEND, ... Microsoft-ENEMY.

Microsoft stopped being a monopoly long, long time ago (in internet time), yet
everybody still continues to hate.

~~~
mey
[http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/users-treat-
criticism...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/users-treat-criticism-of-
favorite-brands-as-threat-to-self-image/)

~~~
TillE
It's so strange. I don't think I could name a single company or even product
that I'm not ambivalent about. I may prefer X over Y, but _everything_ has
irritating flaws.

I don't pretend to be some emotionless paragon of objectivity. It's
just...criticism is good. I try to even highlight my own flaws, so they can be
addressed. It's far more useful than trying to ignore problems.

~~~
Scaevolus
Do you also tend to feel ambivalent about political parties and religions?

These feelings largely depend on whether you view the world in absolute or
relative terms.

------
MichaelGG
Microsoft really did a terrible job at messaging on this. I'm even annoyed,
and I don't play much, and everything I buy is digital download, not physical
media, so the whole disc selling thing doesn't even affect me. Even so, it
feels nasty. MS has basically said fuck you to gamers, without any justifiable
reason.

Taking down Gamestop doesn't require anything but a better Gamestop
replacement. This dev complains about how people dislike their new move, yet
complain about Gamestop? Uh, this new move limits private sale by third
parties. That's what's annoying.

The fact Xbox tosses ads in your face on every single home screen except
settings is also extremely distasteful, and MS burned a lot of goodwill on
that.

Comparing to Steam is nice, but MS's execution is yet to be seen. People I
know with thousands of bucks into Steam don't love Steam. They are annoyed
with the restrictions - but, it's just so _easy_ (easier than pirating) that
they tend not to care. Browsing and purchasing on the Xbox360 is such a PITA,
so if the XB1 doesn't fix it, they have no hope of doing what Steam did.

The 24 hour thing is also retarded. It feels intrusive, and isn't necessary to
prevent piracy. My guess is they'll probably "acquiesce" and move it to 3 days
or a week - it was probably planned to spark outrage long before sales, so
they can give in and ride the "see, MS isn't so bad" wave closer to launch.

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
> The fact Xbox tosses ads in your face on every single home screen except
> settings is also extremely distasteful, and MS burned a lot of goodwill on
> that.

This is the single biggest thing that puts a bad taste in my mouth from my
Xbox. Am I a customer or a product? Companies should pick only one. If I pay
money, I don't want to be sold.

~~~
onedognight
> Am I a customer or a product?

Do you have Cable TV? 70% of America does, knowing that they are both customer
and product.

~~~
potatolicious
And cable providers are some of the most hated companies that people live
with. Have you ever met even a single person who's a fan of their cable
company?

The difference here is while cable has (for now) an iron grasp on content and
monopoly in their coverage areas, gaming has competition.

~~~
onedognight
> Have you ever met even a single person who's a fan of their cable company?

I am. I don't buy their TV or phone service, but they provide the best
internet connection in every place I have lived. They have consistently been
cheaper _and_ faster than fios, uverse and any DSL. I can run a server, they
don't block ports, and my IP is effectively static.

~~~
tomflack
Clearly he's referring to cable company as in Cable TV company, not company
that runs a cable in to your house while on division sells internet and
another a TV package.

------
tzaman
Yeah, Microsoft really sucks at storytelling. All they had to say was
something in the lines of...

"If you want to buy a disc, pay $59 for a game due to all non-digital crap the
disc has to go through. And then do what you want with it. HOWEVER, if you
download the game, it's like $29 (50% OFF!!!11), but then it's just yours, and
yours alone, you can't sell or lend it - and we'd have to check every once in
a while it's really you who's playing."

I wouldn't mind that at all since they'd be giving me a choice, and I'd gladly
pay less, despite the 'lockdown'.

Dear Microsoft, all you have to do is ask your target audience what they think
- you might be suprised.

~~~
bphogan
The problem is that they still charge $59.99 for Games On Demand. When Black
Ops 2 came out digitally, that's what it cost. Same with lots of the Games On
Demand - many are $10-$15 more than I can get the disc for new. Not used, NEW.
In the shrink wrap.

So you'll pardon me if I think this is full of crap. I want to see low priced
games like on Steam. But until I see it from MS, I'll probably switch to full-
time PC gaming again.

~~~
kevingadd
The games on demand pricing has to be that way though. If Games on Demand cost
literally half the price Gamestop charged, the retailers would revolt, which
would cause the publishers to revolt.

The only reason Valve has the power to charge what they charge is because they
incrementally built that power - retailers at one point threatened to pull
games from shelves for using Steam's authentication!

~~~
bphogan
That's exactly the point I'm making. The prices on XboxOne won't come down
because "the retailers would revolt."

------
jiggy2011
He seems to be suggesting that Xbox One games will be cheaper because of the
lack of used sales. I don't see what their economic incentive would be to
lower the prices (at least to below prices for a similar PS4 game), usually if
there is less competition in a market and demand stays constant the price goes
up.

In the case of Steam , they have to be cheap because their competition is TPB
which is the cheapest game store out there.

~~~
eridius
Right now, used games capture the low end of the market. If there are no used
games, then there's nothing servicing the low end, and that's a lot of wasted
money. If game prices come down a bit, you capture more of the low end, which
makes up for the lost revenue on the high end. The trick is figuring out the
price point that gets you the most revenue.

~~~
teamonkey
Used console games typically sell for $5 less than new games. They're not
servicing the low end of the market.

~~~
eridius
In the first week, sure. But as time goes on, used game prices drop much
faster than new game prices.

------
georgemcbay
"Think about it, on steam you get a game for the true cost of the game,
5$-30$. On a console you have to pay for that PLUS any additional licenses for
when you sell / trade / borrow / etc."

That's a neat theory, but if you listen to virtually any publisher or
developer talk about used games and game pricing it is abundantly clear that
they view $60 as the game price (and as far as they are concerned, you're
getting a huge bargain), and used sales beyond that as virtually akin to
theft. They absolutely do not view it from the angle of the game being worth
$30 and the rest being money they're forced to charge to make up the losses.

On the PC with Steam the publishers are willing to drop the price to compete
with piracy, but assuming the Xbox One is not cracked to the point of a
Dreamcast, I can't imagine them ever allowing Steam-like prices.

~~~
KVFinn
>On the PC with Steam the publishers are willing to drop the price to compete
with piracy, but assuming the Xbox One is not cracked to the point of a
Dreamcast, I can't imagine them ever allowing Steam-like prices.

Yup.

Prices are lower on Steam mostly competition provides downward price pressure.

If Microsoft opens up their system to self-publishing and lets devs set their
own low prices, including offering steam like sales, then that would maybe
produce lower costs. Used games is a red herring.

Large publishers probably don't want downward price pressure on the platform.
Look at IOS where even 3 dollars is considered expensive. To them, restricting
pricing and availability to keep prices high is a feature that may encourage
them to go with one platform or another.

I'm not totally averse to that argument either -- I hate what the f2p model
has done to game design on IOS. Right now Steam is a great middle ground and I
hope they can maintain that.

------
socialist_coder
AAA games are still full price on Steam. There is no discount because you
can't sell your used copy. What makes him think that games would somehow be
cheaper on Xbox1 after you eliminate the used market? They won't be. The
savings are not getting passed on to the consumers.

~~~
wmf
AAA games go from $60 to $30 to $7.50 over time on Steam; that hasn't happened
as much for disc-based games. Maybe it will on Xbox One but I'm skeptical.

~~~
maemilius
>that hasn't happened as much for disc-based games

This is EXACTLY what the used game market does for disk-based games. The only
difference between the steam model and the disc-based model is that the
producer doesn't get a cut of the game sales.

~~~
tedsanders
"Exactly?" Not at all. I don't mean to nitpick, but I think you're
exaggerating.

Steam sales are a way of increasing profits by price discriminating to capture
the long tail of the demand curve. Used games have nothing to do with earning
the developers more money. Maybe they're similar from a consumer perspective,
but that doesn't mean they're similar.

------
seldo
"Some PS4 viral team made them all "U TOOK R DISCS" and they hiveminded."

I'm not sure how delusional you have to be to believe that the reason your
customers hate your DRM is because your competitors had a "viral team" that
persuaded them to be.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
The amount of delusion necessary to create this massive of a failure is beyond
comprehension:

\- "Scratched discs" and my "little brother" messing with my games are two use
cases I have _never_ encountered in my entire gaming life. For those who have
encountered those issues? Bummer! Life goes on. In fact, props to PS3 for
using Blu-Ray, which has extra protection against scratches _by design_.

\- How in the _world_ is GameStop the enemy? Forget the War on Drugs -- this
War on Trade-Ins is perhaps the most absurd thing I've ever heard. The fact
that publishers, developers, etc. feel _entitled_ to a cut of that $5 most
people get for trade-ins says a lot about how up-their-own-asses this industry
has become.

\- I don't want Microsoft OWNING _any_ part of my house, thank you very much.

\- Any "savings" Microsoft will give customers for new games (which will never
happen anyway) will be made up with the cost of XBox Live.

\- The "phone home" model is shit. Absolute shit. Stop keeping tabs on me.

\- Lack of indie dev access? How can a gaming system that's marketing itself
as 'ahead of the curve' be so ridiculously out-of-touch with what's successful
in the market?

\- The ONLY TIME the 100% digital model works for me is when the convenience
of information transfer outweighs the cost of the game itself. Steam is great
because whenever I have to reinstall Windows, all of my games just
automagically re-download. In iOS, I'm purchasing new devices (iPads, new
iPhones, etc.) on an almost-yearly cycle. All I have to do is enter my
credentials, and all of my apps and data are right there. Not too shabby
considering most apps are $10 or less, not freaking $70!

~~~
oeb
I don't think it's the cut of the $5 that the consumer gets that the publisher
wants, it's the $30 that gamestop slaps onto that to resell. I don't know what
way gamestop prices things everywhere else, but in Ireland it's a rip off to
all parties.

You buy a AAA title for €60, don't like it, trade it back in again a few days
later. You get €10 - €20 for it. This then goes back on the used shelf at the
€50 - €55 price point, just enough to make it slightly more attractive than
purchasing at the rrp.

------
mtkd
Microsoft thought they had a dominant market position and tried to stretch a
little. They miscalculated.

Sony were concerned they were heading towards irrelevance - they upped their
game to win share back.

I'd say it was a perfectly efficient market - and then I remember we're
talking about kids being able to swap games like I did in the 80s as if it's a
revolution ... the boomers heading these companies right now should be ashamed
of what they've created.

~~~
untog
Did you read the link? Your post sounds like every other one discussing MS's
strategy without taking into account anything the linked page said. I'm not
saying it's true or that it'll succeed, but it doesn't describe MS trying to
"stretch" at all.

~~~
mtkd
"The whole point of the DRM switch from disc based to cloud based is to kill
disc swapping ... bringing discs to friends house, trade-ins"

Makes me sad that execs actually sat round a table listed those as objectives.

~~~
cbhl
Yes. It would be 10x better to play the game at a friends house without
needing to bring the discs in your backpack, which is what this enables.

~~~
cortesoft
And then wait 30 mins while you download the game

~~~
eropple
Longer, in most of the United States.

------
zinkem
This comparison to steam is a bit of a false equivocation. I can run Steam on
a variety of hardware configurations, which I can buy from a variety of
vendors. Steam is better not because the DRM system is different, but because
it's hardware agnostic.

Once the XB1 lifecycle is over, I have no guarantee I will be able to play the
games I bought. As far as I'm aware XB1 is not backwards compatible at all.
Once my 360 dies, if I can't find another one in working condition, or XBL
stops offering services for the 360, my 360 XBLA games are gone forever.

~~~
jlgreco
> _Once the XB1 lifecycle is over, I have no guarantee I will be able to play
> the games I bought._

Sooner than that though, right? Weren't they shutting off Halo servers when
new Halo games came out during the same console lifecycle?

Of course that is a problem you'll have with multiplayer on all the consoles I
guess. Maybe gamers are okay with that. I would be bummed as hell if I
couldn't play the occasional quake match anymore though.

~~~
duskwuff
Halo: CE (i.e, Halo 1) didn't support online play, as it was released before
Xbox Live was available.

Halo 2 was released in 2004 (on the Xbox!), and the online play servers were
just shut down earlier this year. Given that the platform it was released on
has nearly been superseded _twice_ by now (first by the Xbox 360, and soon by
the Xbox One), I think they've given it a fair run.

As far as I'm aware, all of the other Halo games are still playable online.

~~~
jlgreco
Wikipedia has Halo 2 multiplayer on the xbox being shut down in April of 2010
(while on the PC it lived until this year). That is not the sort of lifecycle
I expect from a game that I enjoy (I still play Doom on occasion, and that was
released two whole decades ago. Half-Life, from 1998, is still played online
as well. Halo 2 was only from 2004, was massively successful, and is dead.)

~~~
dragontamer
Difference: if XBoxOne servers are ever shut down, single-player XBoxOne
experience will be destroyed due to stupid DRM.

~~~
jlgreco
Yup, and it is not like Microsoft has never threatened to shut down DRM
servers before.

~~~
gergles
It's not like they've _done it_ before:
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080422/234401923.shtml](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080422/234401923.shtml)

------
bitcrusher
The comparison to Steam is false to begin with. PC gaming has NEVER been a
trade with your friends (legally) culture. Console gaming has ALWAYS been a
trade with your friends culture (legally). When was the last time you saw a
used PC game store?

Second, there is no evidence that companies who's job is to maximize profit
will have any incentive to lower their prices for disc-less games. For this,
we CAN look at Steam (and other services). AAA titles are full retail when
they are released. The price degrades over time, but the same thing happens
with disc releases.

This is a one-sided win for Microsoft (and game publishers for XB1) and is yet
another reason to avoid the XBox 1 like the plague. That is the market
feedback that Microsoft should receive.

~~~
jiggy2011
There used to be a lot of stores selling used PC games in the late 90s / early
2000s.

What killed it (I think) was that people would sell a used boxed PC game and
then download the pirate version but re-use the legitimate CD key for
multiplayer.

So you would buy a used game and try to play it online but get "Your CD key is
already in use" messages half the time. I got burned by this a few times.

This is also one of the reasons that stores stopped accepting returns of PC
games. People would buy a game , copy down the CD key and then return it for
refund claiming that it didn't work.

~~~
ben1040
My usual supermarket used to have a video rental section, and during the
mid-90s they also rented PC games on CD-ROM.

They stopped doing before the days of CD keys being required for multiplayer,
but right around the time that hard disks got big and cheap enough that you
could just copy the contents of the CD to your HD and then bring back the CD.

------
ChrisNorstrom
=== Bullshit Detected ===

 _" If you want games cheaper than 59.99, you have to limit used games
somehow."_

Author thinks publishers will lower game prices to $39.99 since used games
won't cut into their profits. Author clearly doesn't work at Microsoft nor in
the game industry. Nor has a clear idea of how Capitalism or running a company
works.

Facts: A Game that launches on all 3 platforms: Xbox 360 (disc based, allows
used games), PS3 (disc based, allows used games), and Steam (digital DRM
based, no used games) all launch at the SAME price. Despite Steam's DRM the PC
version is NOT discounted. Publishers are not going to surrender extra income
out of the "goodness of their hearts".

~~~
_pmf_
> Facts: A Game that launches on all 3 platforms: Xbox 360 (disc based, allows
> used games), PS3 (disc based, allows used games), and Steam (digital DRM
> based, no used games) all launch at the SAME price.

This is not the case in the EU. I also think this is bullshit for the US
territory.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Resident Evil, Battlefield, Dead Island, and other Tripple A titles that have
launched on all the platforms have been full price on the PC. I know this
because my little brother is a game addict ($1,000 Gaming PC & twitch.tv
streamer and all) and buys them all. The Digital PC version however does
discount those same games much quicker than the consoles do.

------
andrewingram
To be honest, the only thing that annoys me is the 24 hour check-in thing, and
here's why...

On average I've moved house once a year for every year since I moved to London
in 2007. There was one place I stayed in for 18 months, but everything else
was 12 months. In all these moves except one I've had to wait 3-4 weeks
(sometimes more) to get my broadband connected, so essentially for 1/13th of a
year the only internet I have is through my mobile phone.

These 4 weeks a year are also the times when I get most of my single-player
gaming done (I'm not saying I play hours of games every night, but for a
couple of nights a week for a few weeks a year I'll settle down with a good
RPG or similar).

The 24 hour check-in will make this impossible, thereby probably making me
play less games overall (or I could just buy a PS4...).

~~~
seanalltogether
And yet the 24 hour checkin doesn't make sense in the case of digital
downloads, the other app stores dont require it. If a digitally signed receipt
for the game is on your system, who cares if the next time you validate
against MS servers is in 24 hours or 24 years.

~~~
snuxoll
It makes sense when you take into account the ability to sell your digital
copies, which current solutions do not allow. Otherwise, nothing is preventing
you from selling your copy of Halo 5, unplugging your XBO and playing it
offline for 1-2 weeks before the next mandatory check-in.

It's annoying, but the 24-hour checkin is a requirement to have used game
sales for the system. You can remove it if you want to get rid of any chance
of reselling your games, but that'd cause even more outrage.

~~~
seanalltogether
I would argue those scenarios aren't really all that important to check
against. If someone is going to sell their game it doesn't really matter much
if they sell it and play for 2 more weeks, or play for 2 more weeks then sell
it. People will find their way online eventually and those that don't will be
a very small minority.

------
brownbat
I hate this phrase, "trying to own the living room."

We think people want living room devices, but really they just need a living
room computer.

A few months ago I went this way. No overengineered media center, just a tower
next to the HDTV. Full-sized wireless keyboard and mouse. High-DPI to read
text.

The experience immediately killed the 10 foot interface for me. All the 10'
UIs out there feel slow, clunky, hobbled when compared to "just use a computer
from your couch."

I understand that people are trying to simplify the experience, like Apple did
with mp3s. Maybe you don't need to simplify here, though, because people
already know how to use computers, they just don't see them in other rooms.

They just need a little nudge, a little help to see that it doesn't mean tiny
text and wires across the living room floor.

~~~
yk
> I hate this phrase, "trying to own the living room."

Why? I find it refreshingly honest. ( And I absolutely agree with the rest,
next to my TV is also a desktop with a wireless keyboard. )

~~~
brownbat
True, I respect the honest disclosure, just bothered by the loaded
assumptions: that this is a space that can/should be conquered by some closed
device driven by a tiny remote control (supplemented by gestures and/or
voice).

------
bluedino
The headline made me think this was about the security 'features' on the
original Xbox.

~~~
sliverstorm
The colloquial naming will probably settle something like this:

2001 console: Xbox, Original Xbox

2005 console: Xbox 360, 360

2013 console: Xbox1, X-bone

You will probably hear "Xbox" referring to the 2013 console in casual speech,
but hopefully semi-formal and formal speech, e.g. articles, will distinguish.

~~~
jlgreco
> _X-bone_

That is fantastic. Pronounced like the word "bone" I assume?

~~~
dragontamer
Its been all over the net for a few weeks now. XBone is the height of
Microsoft Stupidity.

------
asveikau
This guy is an awful writer. Even if I ignore that they don't know "its" from
"it's", "then" from "than", this thing is hard to follow. Just an incoherent
rant really, looks like it was written by a kid.

~~~
jacobquick
It was cut and paste from an ama on 4chan. Really you should understand this
already.

~~~
asveikau
So that's an excuse for bad writing?

------
rome
I like the option of selling my games and buying used games. If Microsoft
makes my games less valuable to me by limiting my options then they should be
cheaper. I've heard nothing alluding to this officially.

------
JOnAgain
<rant> >> Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4 Stop
telling customers "take it or leave it". Tell them, "I'm sorry you can't do
that", or "we've decided not to support X because Y". You keep telling us to
go fuck off and buy a PS4, we might just do that.

Then you blame your half-assed approach on competitors (right after saying
competition is good). You're Microsoft! King of anti-competitive practices.
Why do you care what Target, Walmart, Gamestop, or Amazon think? If you wanted
to build a Steam competitor, why didn't you build a Steam competitor? Why did
you create a shitty Steam DRM system on top of physical media.

>> We want to own the living room. Do consumers want you to? Every update to
XBox 360 has made it worse. \- more ads on the landing page instead of instant
access to recently used apps (e.g. hiding Netflix). \- the horrible decision
to make subtitles the system default, then keep turning it back on (seems like
every 2-3 weeks it forgets I don't like them)

Prediction: XB1 home screen will just be wall to wall ads with a tiny little
"play game" thing in the corner 7 screens over. Every time I want to play a
game, I will probably have to scroll by shitty music offerings, shitty game
previews, shitty video offerings, etc.

>> You can turn it off tho, and turn the console like OFF off I bet this will
be obnoxious and tedious. Switch on the back? Inside a settings menu?

>> We basically made a huge cloud compute shit and made it free Really?!? No
more Live fee? Did I totally miss this? or by "free" do you mean for "for sale
costing money on an ongoing basis for consumer, but free for publishers"?

>> If all you do is play games, and nothing else, PS4. This is why we're
pissed and you seem to have missed that. Xbox should be a game console first,
and a media machine second. MS has said they've made a really awesome Tivo +
Roku machine and it also plays games.

So yeah, that's why MS is getting flak. But the real issue is that no one at
MS seems to understand that! </rant>

------
batgaijin
It's funny how his view is that M$ is somehow on the long tail of video games
and that it's the consumers that are being misled.

Sony bought Gaikai, you dumb fucks. They are going to offer a subscription for
unlimited video games streaming WHILE selling tradeable games because you lot
were too busy in your fiefdoms jacking off. You dipshits couldn't even
understand a fucking pincer business idea like that; all you know is
embracing, extending and executing small dumb companies and have no fucking
clue how to actually compete.

------
maemilius
As someone that used to work in a game resell shop (not Gamestop), I can't
sympathize with the Gamestop comments. Particularly the ones about buyback
value. We paid our customers about 60% of what we were going to sell the game
for. I've never understood how people can think that the game they spent $60
for is going to sell for anywhere near that after a year or two.

To use the example in here, a $5 buyback value game would sell for about $10
where I worked. I don't know about Gamestop's percentages, but I imagine it
would sell for closer to $15 there.

Moving on to Steam, my library is clogged full of shit I'd love to sell back
or give to someone else. I still, to this day, hate Steam. It's convenient,
sure, but I still often shop at the alternative instant download providers and
I'm not talking about Origin or Amazon.

Beyond that, and back to actual gripes about the XBone, the only thing that
has my friends and I completely against it is the always on Kinect. I don't
like the idea of having a device in my home that can be used to monitor
everything I do or say at any time. If it's proven you can turn that
functionality off, it takes away about half of the reason I give people to not
buy it. Even then, I'm paranoid enough that I won't be getting one. That
aside, I don't need a media center, so the XBone doesn't appeal to me. My
console is for playing video games; I have a computer for Internet shit (e.g.
Netflix).

------
DigitalSea
Wow, seems the hiring standards over at MS are lower than I thought. I read
through all of that and it mostly sounded like ramblings of someone on the
verge of a nuclear mind meltdown.

There were a few good points the anonymous poster made about the advantages of
non-physical media like no scratches or brothers/friends losing your discs,
people just aren't ready to have a mostly medium-less console. It works for an
iPhone or eBook reader, but a console is something that is synonymous with
physical mediums.

"Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4." — we don't have a
Gamestop here in Australia but I presume Electronic Boutique is basically the
same and while sometimes you get reamed on trade-ins, chances are if you are
trading in, you don't care how much you are getting because you're parting
with the game anyway.

If XBOX One games are cheaper as a result of the lock-in console DRM, then
Microsoft might have a worthy advantage in the fanboy fight against Sony. But
we all know games won't be cheaper (especially new and exclusive titles).

I think the problem with the whole digital vs physical debate is that
bandwidth is an ongoing cost (especially if you go over). Although my Internet
plan gives me 500gb of bandwidth a month (times that by the 5 people currently
in my house who love downloading TV shows and movies a lot) and a digital game
is chewing up bandwidth left-right and centre.

------
lominming
It is true that textbooks are extremely over-priced in US because they are
priced with multiple re-sale in mind. It maybe true for games but even so, it
will take some time before the effect kicks in.

Part of the problem is that if something is physical, people expects it to be
lend-able. E.g. Books, CDs, DVDs, etc. (you can also think of things you can
borrow in the library) People don't expect their digital downloads to be lend-
able (e.g. iTunes songs, Kindle books, etc.) In that sense, Microsoft has to
play the game carefully. I think it will still work if games on XB1 sells at
<$35 compared to $60 on PS4.

On the note of internet connection, as much as Microsoft thinks that everyone
should have an internet connection at home today, it is still something that
you should not expect everyone to have. Many XBOXes are sold globally and
internet broadband connectivity may not come easily.

Besides the issue of lending of games, I do agree on the vision that the
console will be a center piece of the living room. It is much more than just
games.

------
matiu
<prejudice>I think most of the whiner's are American's with a high sense of
entitlement</prejudice>. Personally, I'm just gonna quietly switch to PS4.

I think MS's thinking is a bit ahead of its time, and possibly a bit too
Americanized. USA and a lot of other countries have cheap, reliablish
Internet. The onliny model will be OK for them.

But there are still a lot of places that have XBox's that have expensive +
useless Internet. Like where I live.

I'm moving from XBox 360 to PS4 because, as it is on the 360, I get a "Can't
connect to XBox live" message about once an hour. If I went to XBox4, I'm
assuming it'd be more annoying.

I bought the computer/console and the software; I expect it to work for me,
not to police me, not to try to advertise to me, just do what I paid for.

------
ScottWhigham
The logic is just too silly, too not-well-thought-out for me to buy into it.

 _We come in trying to find a way to take money out of gamestop, and put some
in developers and get you possibly cheaper games..._

The biggest problem here is that this - the whole crux of his paste - did not
happen at launch. If this were true, then MS would make new XBox One games
cheaper than $60 - but they didn't. The XBox One games are all $60.

 _If you want games cheaper then 59.99, you have to limit used games somehow_

MS did find a way - the new XBox One model is built around this. But the games
_aren 't cheaper_.

Nice try, but it's either (a) bogus, (b) faulty/incomplete understanding by a
lower level employee, or (c) some lower level employee buying into a bunch of
management speak.

------
malbs
That is all well and good, anonymous MS guy can claim that the games will be
cheaper in the long run, citing steam as the model that works and drives
prices down.

Not in Australia.

In Australia we pay 89.95 / 99.95 for a AAA game released on Steam, versus the
USD price of 39.95 / 49.95 / whatever. It must be the shipping of the bits
over the pacific that jacks the price up right?

Yes, eventually the prices drop, and you can buy a game that originally
retailed for almost $100 for under $20, but that takes a long time. I just
gave up on buying big studio games on steam. I only buy indie stuff now.

I was really excited about the xbone (day one owner of original xbox and 360),
then the official word came out about it, and I decided I would buy the ps4
instead.

~~~
bcRIPster
Actually, I saw recently that the reason for the price difference is because
Aussi minimum wage is around $17/hr where as in the US it's around $8, so your
pricing is inflation adjusted against common wages. I still think the pricing
is inflated on digital content across the board though.

~~~
malbs
Depends on your age/industry

Aus minimum wage is as low as $5.87 (for a 15 yr old)

------
interpol_p
He doesn't really address the issue of lending games. When my wife bought me a
PS3 for my birthday last year I had zero games.

My friend at work lent me a huge stack of games — he's a gamer and had a ton
of games he loved but didn't play anymore.

It was a great introduction to gaming for me and it led me to purchase many of
the sequels to the games I played initially. I have purchased about 10 games
since, and about 7 of those were purchased purely based on games I had played
from the initial stack that I borrowed.

I don't understand why they feel the need to capture this as a "revenue
stream." Focusing on great games and great convenience will surely get them
more money in the long term.

------
andyhmltn
I'm sorry, I don't buy it. Maybe internally they look at it like this. But I
honestly think the reasoning behind the always online policy is so they can
collect analytics from the kinect.

From an advertisers perspective, it's the holy grail. Imagine being able to
see the viewers heart rate, where they were looking, how they were sitting,
how the move and body language. All of that data would be very useful. I'm
sure there are systems like this already, but to my understanding they are in
a controlled environment. If you sat me in a room and told me to look at an
advert after having to travel etc I'd act a lot differently to just sitting on
my couch.

------
jwhitlark
I have no idea what the demographics are these days, but certainly I, and most
of my friends, are _least_ concerned about price, and most concerned that most
game are not that fun, and the damn console keeps doing less and less of what
I want each year. My PS3 is the only thing I can think of that has gotten
_less_ capable with each update.

People say the kindle is different, but if my books became unavailable, I'd
grab them from other sources, no questions and no qualms. If you want to sell
me something, then _sell_ me something, don't quibble about it after the fact.

------
bluetidepro
Regardless if this is actually legitimate or not...

> "* Without actually thinking about how convienent it would be for the
> majority of the time to not find that disc your brother didn't put back...*"

First off, it's "convenient". Secondly, that's a horrible argument when those
consoles are meant to be geared towards mature gamers that would never have
this issue.

And as others have mentioned, you can't play both sides. Either you go all
digital and have this model or you don't. If you try to play in the middle,
you're always going to be screwing someone in your audience over.

------
archagon
As I see it, DRM is much more of a problem on consoles than it is on PC. In my
Steam library, I have Commander Keen right next to Bioshock Infinite. There's
no "expiration date" for my games. On the other hand, consoles come in
generations. They only last a decade at most, and it looks like we're not
going to have backwards compatibility going forward. What's going to happen
when Microsoft decides to pull support for their 10, 20, 30 year old DRM-laden
consoles? Not every game is going to get an HD remake, sadly.

------
clubhi
This feels a lot like the government telling me PRISM has stopped terrorists
plots. Sure, I don't like money going to Gamestop. Although, I'd rather it go
to Gamestop than fuck myself over.

------
gohrt
Wow, a whole lot of product/business vision and dealmaking/tradeoffs, all of
it quite sensible, and yet I see 4 pages of lecture and not a mention of _fun,
engaging games_

Back to my NES...

------
simplexion
"The thing is, the DRM is really really similar to steam... You can login
anywhere and play your games, anyone in your house can play with the family
xbox. The only diff is steam you have to sign in before playing, and Xbox does
it automatically at night for you (once per 24 hours)"

Steam Offline Mode:
[https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-agc...](https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3160-agcb-2555)

------
MereInterest
Even if used game sales would kill the business model and force AAA game
producers out of business, I would say that the First Sale Doctrine is more
important than the entire industry. If I buy a product, then I am free to use
it, abuse it, break it, sell it, give it, modify it, or throw it away however
I please.

If the AAA game industry cannot survive while used games exist, then I would
rather the entire industry die than end up with a precedent of buying
something yet not owning it.

------
sourceless
1) If they're so big on moving away from disc sales, why sell discs at all?
Afaik some stores already sell download cards for games, why not use those?

2) It may well be that it has to check if it's connected every 24 hours, but
what happens if you need to move house? Do you just sign in again, or does
something worse happen?

3) They're forcing the kinect onto the user - you can't make a product
successful by forcing people to use it, they have to want to use it.

------
mesozoic
Wow Microsoft is really keep their engineers real high on that Kool-Aid.

I'll believe this when I see Xbone games cheaper than $59.99. AKA I'll
probably never believe this.

We'll see they may be progressing home entertainment forward but they're
really taking a gamble by screwing over their core audience to do it.

For reference almost all of my console gaming is done via rentals and from
what I see the Xbone doesn't support that at all so I'm definitely out.

------
Lendal
Comparing its strategy with Steam doesn't work for me, since I already boycott
Steam anyway, for the same reason I'll boycott the Xbox One. I don't want to
be under surveillance while I play a single-player game, or even a multiplayer
game in LAN mode. I don't want to be under surveillance at all in my own home,
by any entity public or private.

------
merlincorey
I, for one, quite like Gamestop, and I can't wait until I can buy YOUR used
PS4 games for $5.99 or less.

Thank you, Gamestop.

Signed, Patient Gamers Everywhere

------
CurtHagenlocher
I call fake. I'm skeptical that anyone working in Studio A would call out that
it's on 40th street. Even more damaging is that Typhoon is in the Commons, not
in any of the Studio buildings. And I've never heard anyone call it "Streets
of Asia" \-- "Typhoon" is both its primary name and faster to say.

------
lucian1900
The comparison to Steam entirely breaks down when you consider that Steam is
opt-in, whereas the Xbone's DRM is not even opt-out, but entirely mandatory.

The main reason I don't complain so much about steam is the existence of GoG
and direct DRM-free sales (Humble store), which I always prefer if they carry
the game I'm interested in.

------
tomkarlo
Why not just go straight to free-to-play model? CoD for $0 for the first
level, but $5 each level after that. I'd try a lot more games out if I didn't
have to pay $60 up front, and it would encourage developers to make better
games rather than the current AAA tentpole model where they depend on the pre-
release hype.

------
inthewind
So now I'm told (by someone) that a retail price always factors in it's resale
price! What a crock of shit.

------
jfb
It's certainly possible to have an interesting conversation about the changes
to the way markets will work when the cost of reproduction falls to zero; it's
ridiculous to think, however, that the place to start this conversation is at
the introduction of a new _gaming console_.

------
wisty
> On a console you have to pay for that PLUS any additional licenses for when
> you sell / trade / borrow / etc

This is rubbish. Better DRM is what makes the difference. I bet resales are
about 1/100th as costly to studios as piracy, especially for single player
games.

------
reaver478
Jesus Christ this guy is a cocky fucker. I'll never buy a xbox piece of shit
again. DRM my ass. I'm against piracy but don't force me into something like
DRM. With Sony you can still download games as digital and physical media.

Fuck you MS

------
drivingmenuts
We'll still be paying the same for games - this just means more profit goes
into the executives and the shareholders pockets.

We're getting boiled just like that poor old frog. Turn the water up slow
enough and he'll never notice.

------
gr3yh47
I'm getting really sick of console DRM being compared to Steam DRM like they
are equals. they aren't, not even close, because steam has sales 2x a year
where even brand new games can be had for up to 75% off

------
Zigurd
This does not ring true. "Developers?" If you substituted the word
"publishers" for "developers" THEN it makes more sense. Surely any engineer
working on Xbox knows the difference.

------
_pmf_
> Kinect 2 makes Kinect 1 look like a childs toy

Using the Kinect generally does.

------
6thSigma
The issue, that Microsoft seems to be blinded to, is that the games will still
be the same price as PS4 - absolutely nothing has been said otherwise.

------
sidcool
I don't have access to the pastebin from office, can someone please post it
here? I am very much interested in reading this piece. Thanks.

------
kinnth
If it's physical you should be able to swap or sell it on. If its digital it
should be cheaper and tied to an account. That's it.

------
_pmf_
He's definitely right in assuming that the people who think Sony is suddenly
their best friend are complete and utter morons.

------
Cyril_Boh
"The goal is to move to digital downloads".

Somehow this phrase really irks me. Are we on analog downlods currently?

------
_progger_
So, what you promise us is that games will cost less then on PS4? That's a
strong selling point!

------
i386
I wish pastebin had a mobile interface. It's almost impossible to read on the
iPhone 5 screen.

------
ConAntonakos
So what's the overall reaction to the recent reversal of MSoft's Xbox One
policies?

------
geuis
For what its worth, the double punch Wednesdays was confirmed to me my a MS
friend.

------
mcescalante
So tl;dr Xbox One = MSFT Steam Console?

------
zamnedix
You see, I also hate Steam.

------
smrtinsert
pastebin should clone their site and name it minileaks.com

------
Blockhead
Complete bullshit. It's not a "long tail" strategy at all. Allowing people to
sell their games means consumers can recoup some of the cost and put it
towards a future purchase. So the $60 price tag isn't as bad as it seems, and
developers shouldn't actually see any lost sales as long as they continue to
make games.

You can also circumvent unfair DRM on the PC by pirating games, so the
consumer ultimately has the power to take back their rights in that situation.
On a console, this sort of DRM would absolutely be the death of "owning" your
games. That's why the reaction to Xbox One's DRM has been so extreme.

I doubt the guy even works for MS though. His writing is barely as good as
your average forum-trolling college dropout.

------
yoster
If Microsoft was so big on fucking DLC, then they should make the DLC from the
360 backwards compatible to the new Xbox. Thank you Microsoft for fucking me
over and wasting shitloads of money which will not be usable on the new
system. Thank you for being fucking arrogant about it as well, and telling me
that I better keep my 360. I always have been an Xbox fan. Come end of the
year, hello Playstation. Fucking arrogance like this crap cemented the idea of
switching, "if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4."

------
DannoHung
I would like to AGAIN reiterate that Steam does not enforce DRM. Valve
provides Steam DRM as an option for people publishing on the Steam platform.
(An argument has been made to me that if Steam goes away for good, not being
able to install games from Steam is also a form of DRM, but I'm not sure I
entirely agree with this position)

It's like this fucking myth that refuses to die.

The Microsoft situation enforces something different unless they decided they
didn't want people to understand that the phoning home thing was a publisher
option.

------
drivebyacct2
I suspected as much as well. The family share feature of the new Xbox is
pretty damn impressive and permissive. And they have to have you turn your
damn xbox on and connect to the internet because they have to manage your
access to those games. Otherwise I can just loan out the game to 10 people and
they can play them forever offline without paying for them.

------
alekseyk
Speaking as a PC gamer.. Steam who everybody 'loves' does not allow you to
transfer games.

You can't even transfer games from one account to another account that YOU
owe. It's not allowed.

Just some perspective into this. And I don't agree there should be ANY
limitations for hard media.

------
workbench
Still sounds shit m8

