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[PA Comic] Monday, April 8, 2013 - Perpetuity
Geth
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Posts
I'm also saddened by the lack of home electronics which perpetually combust yet do not consume themselves. I feel a core demographic is being missed out on.
Like, it's clearly already designed to be online anyway.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Yeah, but I think people's fear is that the new Xbox will require you to be online to play the games. I don't know though as I haven't been paying attention to the rumors.
the difference is you can still play the games offline
My 360 isn't connected to the internet and it works just fine, (I don't care about any of the online features because I have a PC, I don't want a live subscription either), I doubt this will be the case with the mext xbox.
In short, yes, this post is me being the annoying goose who raises his hand when someone tries to imply "People who don't have their console online? Didn't they die out with the Dodo?".
I do not need to be online to play my current save of Dragon Age 2 (a single player RPG).
With Always on.....I'd have to have an internet connection. To play the single player RPG where my save game is sitting on my xbox's harddrive.
Honestly, why every developer doesn't adopt the Steam model for DRM is fucking beyond me. It works.
To avoid the utilisation clusterfuck that was the launch of the new sim city. If you're going to force people to connect to your servers for everything....make sure you have enough servers in place.
Obviously it's still far too early to be sure but this gen is starting to look more and more like a playstation gen.
People will be less hesitant to buy games since they can't sell them etc. Hell its already going on with titles that require a $10 "Fee" to restore multiplayer ability etc, which is completely fricken -STUPID- as the original cost of the game already paid for said online services, just greedy scummy companies wanting more money but doing nothing for it.
This is probably why neither company has announced anything about this yet, each other is waiting for the boot to drop first and both are too scared to make the move themselves, BUT want to see the public's reaction to such a thing.
Except they never do. Even steam falls into this trap during big sales. It is simply not worth the cost of having an overflow of 500% capacity for extremely short spans of time. It's much cheaper to just piss your customers off for a couple of days.
The lesson here is only fools jump in on launch day.
Uh, I think I've sunk to a new low...Welcome to 10 years on PA I guess.
It's less about what you game on and more where you live.
My internet goes out from time and if that boots me from a single player game I would be irate.
Its pretty much official now
Next XBOX requires always online.
So begins the next videogame crash
Or probably not given the breadth of the audience and the number of people who simply do not care.
Agreed.
These things will sell like crack always on or not. Very few people who say they won't buy something follow through (except me, I still don't have origin).
I mean, have we all forgotten the CoD boycott steam group screen cap? Gamers are fickle, weak willed and have short attention spans.
Oh, yeah, I was agreeing with you in my way. While always-on doesn't bug me in my PC games as much, it'd make the console far less worthwhile for me. A console is a video game system that I want to be able to use without a net connection.
Subscription model?
So the $500 model means you don't have to pay yearly for live?
I'd buy a whole lot more games if their value was reflected in their price. I'd easily pay 60-80 bucks for a game of comparable length and quality as Skyrim, but I shouldn't have to pay the same price for comparatively low budget 10 hour shooter.
If being always online meant that Microsoft was able to create a Steam like service that allows developers to bypass the need for publishers and all the expenses publishers tack onto the budget, marketing and selling directly to me, I'd cheer it's arrival even while feeling sorry for those without a reliable internet connection. If it had a kickstarter like service (or kickstarter itself) built into the console to allow developers to fund games directly through the system, I'd worship at Microsoft's feet.
But as PAR has been pointing out, such moves would mark a stunning reversal of Microsoft's MO. Frankly, even as someone who primarily plays on an Xbox360 this generation, the PS4 is looking pretty appealing. Sony really seems to be making an effort to better deliver what gamers want and need. I've had a lot of contempt for their business practices and PR in the past, but both the Playstation and Sony Online Entertainment divisions have been making moves to change my perception.
We'll see if it's more than lip service on the part of Sony, and we'll see what Microsoft is prepared to deliver.
No, it's like a cell phone contract. Sign up for a guaranteed x number of years years and get a discount on the hardware. The price for Live is identical, but in exchange for several years of guaranteed revenue they're willing to take a loss on the hardware.
The PS4 doesn't look nearly as aggressive as the NeXtBox, but there's still a huge amount of emphasis on on-gaming and "social" shoved in there. It's gonna be really bizarre if the Wii U ends up being the last traditional console to ever be released.
That's an apples to oranges comparison. The Sony mobile brand and Wii have nothing even remotely approximating the Xbox's market caché. Even assuming they manage to alienate all 'hardcore' gamers with this decision - and they haven't, I for one could not give less of a toss about it - the xbox would still sell absolutely fine.
... What?
Your messed up quote tags are confusing the hell out of me but your examples seem to indicate you missed the point. There was a massive boycott of MW2 at the time because people were raging about the lack of dedicated servers, in the internets grand tradition, at the time it was the biggest drama imaginable and tens of thousands of angry nerds vowed not to buy it. Massive facebook and steam boycott groups were formed of all the people not willing to give this company their money. About a month later someone took a screen cap of the member list in the steam group and I shit you not >85% of them were playing MW2.
Same thing happened with Origin when it was installing spyware on your PC, the vast majority of people got political about it for a month, then BF3 and ME3 came out and everyone got an origin account.
Further more comparing the WiiU and the Vita to the next gen mainstream consoles indicates you don't really understand the comparison you're making.
Oh I know, but that's my point. People are using cougars 100% of the time, and not using cougars and milf when appropriate.
Broken down by market share and historic sales, as of 2012 the Playstation and Xbox were relatively equivalent. While the Wii sold phenomenally in its opening year it's been essentially in freefall (down 64% since 2010, while the PS is down only 13% and the Xbox down 3%). And you can't even compare the Vita to the 3DS in terms of market power - the numbers aren't in the same category. The 3DS sold fifteen million more units than the Vita. Maybe the Vita's a great device with great games, but Sony hasn't done much to convince the public of that and it shows in the figures. I should note that the Wii figures are actually skewed in Nintendo's favor, as they aggregate in the WiiU.
Even if you want to look at software, Microsoft and Sony maintain parity (Xbox edges out PS3 just slightly, both up in the midteen year-over-year), with the Wii down about 25%. Again, the Vita is not even a contender within its own category, much less the broader market.
Please note: I am not arguing the relative technical or design superiority of any platform. I'm just pointing out that, in the case of the headliner consoles, comparing their brand power to that of the Wii or Vita is very silly.
I think this is all why the rumors about Microsoft are causing so much grief, more than usual. If the 360 was in the PS3's position the last six years, all these rumors about "always online" would just have people laughing in passing and then dropping it. It's really shocking that a company that made its way these last six years is suddenly making the most bone-headed decision ever (well, assuming the Always Online thing is true). It's a repeat of the Blu-Ray fiasco, only there's foresight when it comes to the problems this is going to cause rather than things coming to us late or after launch ("Five-hundred and ninety-nine US dollars," development being a bitch, etc).
To not leave the Wii U hanging, there's two reasons why its sales are floundering. First, I think its very name doesn't communicate to the general audience that this is a new thing to get, it sounds like a peripheral. Second, I think a lot of people are waiting to see the details of the competitors before they make a choice. If the NextBox confirms people's fears about constant-connectivity being required for all actions, even if the PS4's final details to be revealed are all positives, I think people will be willing to start picking up the Wii U. Not as a primary console choice perhaps, but for those who get two out of three, it'll be PS4 and Wii U. Microsoft is handing the competition a lot of heat, and frankly if all the rumors are true, I hope that said competition acts on that.
Pricing for gaming machines is very important because they are by nature mass market devices.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Let me tell you a true story about one of the regulars I had at my store when I was working at Gamestop.
There was a guy, came into my GS about once a month. He drove a big rig 18 wheeler truck for a living, driving cross country. His routes took him through this area about once a month and he used my GS as his home-base because it was also close to a Walmart, Target, Lowes, and a few other stores.
This trucker kept a 360 in the cabin of his truck, and played at nights at truck stops, rest stops, or anywhere else he found to park for the evening. Do you think this guy had internet access very often? No. Not at all. And even at the truckstops that did have free Wifi, do you think their quality was very good or very stable? Have you ever been connected to public wifi? It totally blows ass.
If MS truly does force the new XBox to be "always connected" they have just eliminated this guy and anybody else like him from their install base.
maybe they're banking on people whining about it being flaky and buying it anyway. gamers don't seem to hold the strongest convictions about stuff
FTFY.
Edit: Found it
http://www.vgleaks.com/durango-xdk/
It's in the 'Durango Hardware Overview'
"Durango will implement different power states so that it can always be powered on, but will draw minimal electricity when not in use. The console will be ready instatly when users want to play, and will always maintain a network connection so that console software and games are always current. With this "Always On, Always Connected" design, users will quickly and easily enjoy their connected entertainment experiences, with no waiting for the console to restart or install updates."
So far that's the only thing I've seen from Microsoft (supposedly, anyway). I get the feeling people see the phrase "Always On, Always Connected" and their brains automatically make the jump to horrible DRM.