Topic: X-Box 720 -> Rumor: Always online, BR-supported, no used-games allowed

[idolminds]

Francis is a character, by the way.  I'm not sure if you guys realize that.  I found out the hard way back when he posted a video about D3.

Here is is non-Francis take on the Xbox rumor.

[Xessive]

So eloquent! haha

Seriously though, his message is clear and justified.

[gpw11]

Idol is referencing not having a high-speed internet connection.  The proliferation of devices that require an "always on" Internet connection could serve to drive up demand for broadband, thus increasing the chances of it finally making it to his area.

I think it's safe to say that demand for broadband peaked a long time ago and the lack of it in some rural areas is more of a supply-side problem stemming from providers not seeing it as viable (or rather profitable enough) to implement it in the area.  Infastructure for dialup has been paid off multiple times over and the payoff schedule for the rural areas not already developed is apparently not worth it.  The lack of consumer demand in this case isn't a lack of quantity demand - since a very high percenetage of those in the market would likely love to adopt, but a lack of total demand - because there simply aren't enough people in the market in these areas to make it worth it regardless.  A demand-side incentive like an always-on console isn't going to have any effect on that, especially when the services Idol has mentioned has already caused consumer demand to pretty much peak.  Chances are that these areas are only going to get broadband infiltration with supply-side incentives - like government subsidies.

The thing is that with Sony not jumping on board it's kind of a mistake for Microsoft. People stuck with the 360 for the most part because they were already invested in the ecosystem.  You've had an xbox for three years and it breaks - you already have a subscription to live, you already have a bunch of games and digital downloads - you're a lot more likely to try your luck with Microsoft again rather than throwing it all out and having to start over with a PS3.   The two consoles are pretty much interchangeable at this point though, especially for the majority of gamers who're really into the franchises that are cross-platform. With everything else being equal, a fair number of those may opt to go for the option that doesn't require a persistent connection.

By no means do I think a decision like this would spell the end for Microsoft, but I don't see how it would benefit them - especially when there are pretty viable alternatives to fight piracy (as Sony has managed to show this generation).   Plus, I have no illusions that any sort of authentication will work as flawlessly as they'll tell us it will.

[Pugnate]

GPW's thoughts are well reasoned as always.

[Xessive]

Microsoft planning Xbox event for May

Hopefully, we'll have an official answer soon.

[Cobra951]

The thing is that with Sony not jumping on board it's kind of a mistake for Microsoft. People stuck with the 360 for the most part because they were already invested in the ecosystem.  You've had an xbox for three years and it breaks - you already have a subscription to live, you already have a bunch of games and digital downloads - you're a lot more likely to try your luck with Microsoft again rather than throwing it all out and having to start over with a PS3.   The two consoles are pretty much interchangeable at this point though, especially for the majority of gamers who're really into the franchises that are cross-platform. With everything else being equal, a fair number of those may opt to go for the option that doesn't require a persistent connection.

This is exactly how I feel.  I'll perform whatever maintenance I need to perform, in order to preserve my current choice of gaming environments.  My next one is up for grabs.  If this rumor turns out to be true then I'm painlessly switching to something else.  I'll continue having the 360 plugged in, so it's not like I'm going to be giving it up.  I'll still have all those games, and--hey--they work whether MS supports them with their future online service or not.  Plus I'll have a new shiny Sony console, or a gaming PC, or whatever.  It just won't be the neXtbox.

[K-man]

The lack of any sort of backwards compatibility (so far) makes being open-minded about the next generation that much easier.

[MysterD]

Kotaku -> Adam Orth (who recently made the "always online" comments) is no longer w/ Microsoft.

[gpw11]

I was reading about this and was slightly surprised by a lot of the people who thought this was going too far/were acting almost as apologists. His comments were dumb, nowhere near as clever as he thought they were and obnoxious, but I don't think they were THAT bad....but he made them with his company name and title attached to the account. The second you attach your employer's name to yourself in a public outlet like that you're representing them and they pretty much have grounds for termination should your behavior not fall in line with what they'd like (barring certain rights-based exceptions). Most of the current complaints are of the nature that "The internet has no idea how well he performed, this was unjustified", which is partially true, but at the end of the day we kind of do know how well he performed.  You don't let go of people who fucked up if they're still worth keeping.  Apparently he wasn't.

And trust me, he didn't leave of his own volition.  He may have been allowed to resign, but no one leaves of their own volition right at the same time where a google search of their name is coming up with a million positive hits of how they're causing their company a shit storm.

[K-man]

but he made them with his company name and title attached to the account.

This is enough.  He should have known better, period.

[Cobra951]

It doesn't bother me one bit.  He did it to himself.  And this comes from someone who thinks wrongful termination should be a federal crime.

[Xessive]

Had he not done it with a Microsoft title attached to his posts, I would have felt bad for him.

Still, if he was important enough I don't think he'd get fired or forcibly resigned for screwing up.

[K-man]

If he had been worth keeping he probably wouldn't have started the shitstorm in the first place.

[Xessive]

If he had been worth keeping he probably wouldn't have started the shitstorm in the first place.

True, though he seems like the cocky sort

I hope this experience hasn't gone in vain for him and that he'll have a better perspective on life in general.

[MysterD]

I'm also wondering if he broke some NDA about Durango just by even having a discussion about "Always online DRM"....

[idolminds]

Oh CliffyB, go fuck yourself.

[MysterD]

I would bet money that without the always online elements of Diablo 3 that it would have sold half of that.

Bullshit!

As long as the game supported the campaign to be played either SP or MP at your own will - you know, like say Torchlight 2 and Diablo 2 actually does - D3 probably would've sold even more crazy number than it did at launch. Same probably could be said about SimCity 2013, as well.

You're alienating a lot of the worldwide fanbase who ain't got constant Net connections, by forgetting about them & ignoring them completing. I bet the rest of the world (i.e. Not-USA) ain't as connected as we are here.
Even my pretty good Net connection isn't always 100% reliable.
Nice to be able to run my PC and some of my SP games, when I bloody want to.

I don't want to even imagine what an "always online" console and/or "always online PC Operating System" would do to alienate its fanbase...
I think that'd be suicidal for a company to even attempt.

EDIT:
Isn't there a fair percentage of Console gamers on X360 not even on XBL?

[idolminds]

My wife and I were discussing these issues this afternoon and she mentioned the example of “Hey what if I’m a gamer who wants to go to a cabin in the woods for a week and I don’t have online access there?” My response was “Unplugging entirely sometimes isn’t always a bad thing. And that’s the edge case…the week-long vacation to the cabin is only 30 hours of not playing a game or a device that’s built for much more.

I love this response someone posted.

CliffyB's wife: sometimes I am on a trip and play a videogame for entertainment for some period of time

CliffyB: it would be cool if you were not allowed to do that

Plus it's ignoring that for a fair number of people that isn't a vacation, that's their home.

[MysterD]

Remember when Microsoft made the decision to only allow broadband on Xbox Live? It was a bold move back then; broadband penetration wasn’t anywhere near what it is now. And yet the march of progress continued. Sooner or later our government, or Google, or any number of providers are going to get their shit together and we’ll have universally fast internet for the majority of the first world.

Ummm....so, Cliffy's forgetting about the 3rd world? WTF?
{eyebrow raised}

[Xessive]

Some of these people just seem to have completely forgotten the hierarchy of dependency. A device that requires an always-online connection is dependent on having a stable and relatively fast internet connection, not the other way around.

[Quemaqua]

Hard to blame them, really. They're living in a world that has no need to acknowledge those people. They make money whether they do or not, and their primary demographic lies elsewhere. Just a shame seemingly all of them are too fucking stupid to understand that when it's pointed out to them.

[Pugnate]

Diablo 3, the poster child of a messy launch, is estimated to be at 12 million units. (Remember the internet rage over the art style shift? I barely do. But it seemed so important at the time!) I would bet money that without the always online elements of Diablo 3 that it would have sold half of that.

Absolutely. People bought the game because they couldn't pirate it.

I don't understand how this is bullshit.

Yes it sucked. It sucked because Blizzard wasn't prepared for it and people couldn't play the product they paid for. On that front, yes, the always online thing sucked massively.

But what he is saying is something unrelated. Would the game have sold half as well had it not had this restriction?

I doubt it.

Let's have a look at what PC game has come CLOSE to selling as well as Diablo 3 in the recent past. .

...how about nothing?

Except MMOS. And we all know what the common thread is. To play Diablo 3 or an MMO, you have to be online. Thus, these games are harder to pirate.

Look at Diablo 2, which was released in a healthier PC games climate, was better received by the community and critics... and sold FOUR MILLION. That's it! Think about it. D3 sold three times as much as D2 inspite of more problems, more hatred for the gameplay etc

edit:

I am not defending Blizzard. The servers sucked and the lag wasn't good. I am just saying that look at the lesson here. They introduce an always connected system, and the game sells far better than they could have ever imagined. People couldn't pirate it. It just means that this online thing isn't going away.

[Cools!]

4 million units sold was a huge number in 2000.

Blizzard's fan base has grown a lot over the last decade so I think D3 would've sold just as well even if it didn't have the always online restriction. People wanted to be in on the action right from the start.

The problem for Blizzard now is that the franchise is in trouble and it'll take a lot of effort on their part to get people back to playing it should they release an expansion in the future.

[gpw11]

Cliff totally failed at that thought experiment.

And I'd be seriously surprised if you couldn't pirate Diablo 3

[Pugnate]

It may have sold well, but 12 million is a number only boasted by multiplayer games. Yes, people wanted to be in on the action right from the start, and that's when these companies lose the most... they call it day one piracy.

I agree that it will take a lot of effort.

GPW,

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7112948/Diablo_III[PCDVD][Multi9][2012]

That's the only one I can find and it doesn't allow anyone to play the game very well. Some comments from people trying to pirate.

I will never pay for "single-player" content on a server, fuck Blizzard.

and everything dies, because Mana recharges so fast you never have to fight. Torchlight 1 was good, but 2 sucked monkey ass.
For those saying "Just buy D3". When all games have this bullshit server side content protection, it will because of pricks like you who PAID Blizzard for fucking us. Die screaming you cunts.

People should just stop trying to DL this, Has it been cracked?

Yes, Apparently Skidrow has cracked the Server problem and you can run your own server.

Is it worth it? No, because most of the content is server side, So until someone breaks into Blizzard servers and steals content, good luck on trying to play this game pirated.

Again, I am not for the always online thing to any degree. But I can see why companies are seeing these numbers and finding encouragement.

[idolminds]

Just to play devils (Diablos?) advocate: Sure people would have pirated Diablo 3 and played singleplayer, but wouldn't they still need to buy a copy to play online? Can we say they wouldn't have sold just as much if there was an optional offline SP mode?

I mean Call of Duty posts huge numbers and can be played offline (and pirated to hell and back).

Also that 12 million number is probably artificially inflated. If you paid your WoW account for a full year then you got a "free" copy whether you wanted it or not, and I bet those all count toward that number.

[Cobra951]

It may have sold well, but 12 million is a number only boasted by multiplayer games. Yes, people wanted to be in on the action right from the start, and that's when these companies lose the most... they call it day one piracy.

I agree that it will take a lot of effort.

GPW,

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7112948/Diablo_III[PCDVD][Multi9][2012]

That's the only one I can find and it doesn't allow anyone to play the game very well. Some comments from people trying to pirate.
Again, I am not for the always online thing to any degree. But I can see why companies are seeing these numbers and finding encouragement.

Don't you see how that's even worse for players than a simple online requirement?  (Can't nest-quote on this board, as far as I know, and I don't feel like doing it by hand--I'm specifically referring to your last quote from that post.)  You don't even have the entire game you paid for.  Significant portions reside on someone else's system, and they have to choose to let you use them every time you want to play.  Fuck that.  I don't care what the justification is.  It's a bad deal for buyers.  As long as that fragmentation remains, the game can only exist while it gets active support from Blizzard.  They control you, and eventually, they abandon you.  Fuck them.

[Pugnate]

Just to play devils (Diablos?) advocate: Sure people would have pirated Diablo 3 and played singleplayer, but wouldn't they still need to buy a copy to play online? Can we say they wouldn't have sold just as much if there was an optional offline SP mode?

I mean Call of Duty posts huge numbers and can be played offline (and pirated to hell and back).

Also that 12 million number is probably artificially inflated. If you paid your WoW account for a full year then you got a "free" copy whether you wanted it or not, and I bet those all count toward that number.

I agree that they would have still have had to buy the game to play multiplayer... but right now they had to verify their account just to play singleplayer... which means no one was able to pirate this game. I am sure the number is inflated... but still...

Just look at the comments from TPB. People have gotten so frustrated with trying to play SP that they have given up.

Always on for singleplayer wasn't essential to the gameplay. I am saying it was DRM. And as far as Blizzard is concerned, it worked insanely well.

Call of Duty post large PC numbers but as far as I know, the best one sold a few million on the PC.

Let's look at games that sell consistently well, like MMOs. What do they all have in common with Diablo 3? An always on component where to even play the game alone you need to be connected to the server. It is all an excuse to verify your copy, really.

Don't you see how that's even worse for players than a simple online requirement?  (Can't nest-quote on this board, as far as I know, and I don't feel like doing it by hand--I'm specifically referring to your last quote from that post.)  You don't even have the entire game you paid for.  Significant portions reside on someone else's system, and they have to choose to let you use them every time you want to play.  Fuck that.  I don't care what the justification is.  It's a bad deal for buyers.  As long as that fragmentation remains, the game can only exist while it gets active support from Blizzard.  They control you, and eventually, they abandon you.  Fuck them.

I am not saying I agree with this. I just think from a money perspective I can see why they are encouraged by the Diablo 3 experiment.

The whole always on requirement for SP was artificially created because it was all just DRM.

edit:

I just checked and CoD PC games have on average sold 1.5 million.

[gpw11]

I am not saying I agree with this. I just think from a money perspective I can see why they are encouraged by the Diablo 3 experiment.

The thing is that part of the problem here for Microsoft is that they needed Sony to get on board with this, and they didn't. For sure, the DRM aspect of it is something that is beneficial to Microsoft and publishers, but turns off some consumers because of the headache involved. What portion of Microsoft's userbase that is remains to be seen.

With something like Diablo 3 (which I'm still really surprised isn't fully pirateable yet) you don't have a choice.  With the PS4 and next Xbox most likely being interchangeable, people do.  Microsoft is going to have to assess whether the increased sales from loss of piracy outweighs the decreased sales from those who just buy a PS4 instead. And that's not even mentioning the rumors of part of the online DRM disallowing used games from running.  That would be extremely problematic.

[Pugnate]

Absolutely. I don't know how MS expect to do this with their main competitor selling a DRM free console. If you look at the comments under these news stories about the rumors, even the long time Xbox fanboys are cheering for Sony.

As for Diablo 3, the reason why it isn't piratable is because they've kept a lot of the singleplayer content of the game on their server. Obviously, there was no need to. It doesn't serve the game better no matter what PR bull they concoct. It was simply to create the always on DRM. Cleverly, they've kept only enough on their server to not stress themselves. The game is also coded cleverly so that some of the traditional server side content is actually handling on the gamer's machine, thus keeping latency down.

Playing from Pakistan where the connection sucks, on the European servers my game has been utterly smooth.

But yes..unless someone was to create a duplicate Blizzard server, playing the game fully offline is just not possible. Which sucks when you don't have internet.

But it so easily could have been a disaster.

Just look at the new Sim City!

edit: Seriously...doesn't MS see how Sony will outsell them? No one wants an always on XBOX when the PS4 will clearly be offline. I don't think MS are so dumb. I bet they have something up their sleeve.