Xbox 720 rumours: internet required, no used games.

Exhibit A being an ideological stance. I've known* Charles since he was a young whipper-snapper going by the handle charlesjustcharles on PlanetCrap; he's very passionate about gaming and I like reading what he writes, even when I don't agree with it. Having said that, I'm not sure I'd hold him up as being representative of gaming culture in general (sorry Charles, though I suspect you might agree).

And Charles' ideological stance on EA and market fragmentation doesn't really address the substance of your argument.

*that's Internet-known, obvs.

Someone should start a 'Steam is bad and if you use it you should feel bad' thread.

On the original topic, the speculation on the Xbox 720 or whatever they call it (720 brings to mind something spinning in circles, maybe not the best image for a next-gen console) seems to be a bit too far-reaching. The reality will probably not be as ominous.

An always-on connection required? Given broadband penetration, I don't see this happening for another generation. That said, I can see MS making the offline experience underwhelming in comparison to provide incentive to hook up to the Internet (and pay for Xbox Live Gold, see targeted ads, etc.).

I think physical media will still be around, too. They *might* offer a model without an optical drive, however (it could still be an option for such models). The used game market will continue. (On Gamestop diversifying I was in one over the holiday season and noticed they are now buying and selling used electronics like iPods and the like; also the PC section was I think a single copy of Mists of Pandaria.)

The 720 will basically be everything the Xbox 360 is now but more powerful, more expensive and even more focused on the online experience. Boring but safe.

Or maybe it will be all holographic and 3D or some weird thing. But I kind of doubt it.

You may now continue to argue about Steam.

XBox NOSCOPE.

I've addressed, and even agreed with these points as you'll see at this end of this post.

No, market share is not the correct term at all. While I'd like Steam to have less for obvious reasons, its not the issue I'm arguing about here. iTunes may have a large digital music market share, but now that they're DRM free, they have little actual control over their users. People are free to take their collection and never touch iTunes or any other Apple product again, because the music itself isn't reliant on the service. That's how it should be.

Of course their App Store is still DRM laden shit.

Why do you say that? Are you saying you can't possibly like the idea of something like Steam's store if you're against forced clients and other features of DRM? That's being ridiculous. I love the idea of having digital stores where you can easily purchase games. It's one of the reasons I use GOG as opposed to getting all of my older games from eBay.

You failed to answer my question as to why you feel video games should be different from music in regards to DRM.

And no, Steam is not some shining beacon of nonrestrictive DRM. It only seems that way because gamers have allowed DRM like it, and worse, to take hold over the last eight years. I will say that, in my experience, GFWL isn't quite as bad in terms of DRM.

And what you fail to realize is that none of what you're stating here even runs counter to anything I've said in this thread. Every single "good" aspect of DD that you attribute to Steam I not only agree with, but you can also attribute to GOG or any other DRM free DD service that I use.

They didn't shut down WON until the second half of 2004. I know I was pissed, since I had been playing TFC habitually since its release. But regardless of whether it's 8 or 9 years, it's still ridiculous to claim that the argument has some kind of "due date" on it after which point it's no longer a concern.

Yeah, I've read the thread. I see some "comparatively pretty fair, you know, for binding arbitration agreements." and some "well consumers never get much money from class-action suits anyway" hand-waiving that completely misses the point of class-action lawsuits (which is to punish companies and affect change). Then I see a lot of people disappointed that they have to agree to it when they don't want to, lest they lose access to their games. Are you honestly going to argue that Valve was being consumer friendly by forcing their users to agree to that?

"Is the mandatory nature of its DRM what's keeping people using Steam? Surely not, right? It's because people want to use it."
"And yes, it is fortunate that Steam is run by Valve as opposed to EA or Activision"
"Because they use it for the social aspects and because of its convenience; not because of its DRM."
"I have little problem with Steam as a service, game store, or client, apart from its mandatory nature. It's a great service, and I would absolutely use it save for the fact that I'm forced to (stay with me here)."
"That's all great, and certainly a nice benefit to using the service"

It's truly a wonder you were able to navigate my carefully designed riddles and reveal all of this hidden praise I've been giving to Steam. And all this time I didn't even realize I was doing it!

I've been reading Charles for almost a decade on here, Qt3, and in the chat, so I know how much of an absolutist he is in regards to things like always-online DRM (and everything else). And while he is a bit of an aberration, he is most definitely not alone or anywhere close to it when it comes to his ridiculous devotion to Steam.

DRM'd music was bad because it meant the files wouldn't play on a lot of devices. It was highly restrictive in how you could use them.

Steam is for PC games (and now programs). You can install Steam on any PC. Steam's DRM is not restrictive in any way for normal use cases. How have you had a problem with it?

Steam's become as successful as it has because it's been able to balance everyone's interests: Valve, consumers, and publishers. The DRM is there to appease the publishers, and it manages to do so without inconveniencing the users.

Don't even get me started on the Cloud.

You...you didn't really use iTunes as a good counterexample, did you?

And now you don't care about market share, ok. I mean you can shuffle the goal posts around all you want, if it makes you happy.

Uh, no, I said that because suddenly you whip out this bogus clarification of what you were attacking.

You failed to stop whining about Steam despite claiming you totally like it.

Ok. It doesn't stop me from playing games on Steam.

You are the worst DD critic ever! What is your specific problem again?

I didn't say when they shut down but ok. You are missing the point. Complaining about how screwed we're all gonna be when Steam suddenly goes dark without warning sounds increasingly stupid with every passing year.

Dude you appealed to authority by linking to those numbnuts on Qt3. Who gives a shit what most of them think. Steam was doing what businesses do, anyone who thinks everything they ever do is for the customer is deluded. Note that applies to, I don't know, all businesses everywhere.

Oh, here we go. Your entire ranting in this thread opened with a "They won and we lost!" screed so here you are now yammering on like you totally love Steam and DD and whatever and you quite frankly just sound like an idiot now.

"It's a great service, and I would absolutely use it save for the fact that I'm forced to"

That's like one of the stupidest things I have ever read. You do use it, you can't say you would because you do. And you like doing it. Because it's a great service. You want to continue chasing your own tail in this discussion, be my guest, but all it can be summarized with that above atrocity of verb tense and logic.

I think earlier he said he refuses to use it, so... yes.

Yes, I did. Because it is a good counter-example. They used to have DRM, and now they don't (at least on music, or most music). Why don't you tell me why it's not a good counter-example. That is, after all, what I've been asking you to do for the last 2 or 3 posts.

Do a thread search for the phrase "market share" and let me know when it first pops up. I love how you falsely attribute something to me, and then when I correct you, you accuse me of moving the goal posts.

A bogus clarification? It's a direct quote from earlier in the thread. I explicitly stated "I have little problem with Steam as a service, game store, or client, apart from its mandatory nature." That you took that to mean "I have a problem with Steam's game store" is simply a reading comprehension problem. I mean, the words are right there.

Why do you refuse to answer that simple question?

Why are you labeling me a DD critic? How many times have I stated that I use GOG in this very thread? Four? Five?

I Googled "Steam mandatory binding arbitration" and it was the first link. But hey, at least I kinda sorta almost got a condemnation out of you here. Of course you couldn't bring yourself to actually say Valve did something anti-consumer, but at least you gave it the old "It's just a business and businesses do what businesses do." as if it was totally out of Valve's hands. So which is it, though? Is Valve special, or are they "just another business"? You can't have it both ways.

That's pretty funny. How am I changing my story by quoting myself from earlier in this thread? That doesn't even make any sense. I think it's more likely that you just didn't read what I said originally and now that you've gone off half-cocked with your defense of all things Steam you're acting like I'm trying to pull a fast one on you.

Of course I could tell you that no, I don't use Steam (though I have), but what would be the point of doing that if you're just going to make stuff up, anyway?

No, that is exactly right. I don't think it should be mandatory—I think it should be an option. Do you know how everybody here wishes Origin weren't mandatory, but instead optional? I'm like that, except I extend that line of thinking to all DD platforms and not just ones I happen to not enjoy using at the moment.

As an aside, laugh if you want, but I've had exactly zero problems with Origin. I don't use it for anything but the stuff I could only get there, but it works fine and stays out of the way.

I find it hilarious that someone is using GFWL as an example of less onerous DRM than Steam.

That's fucking funny.

iTunes is a piss-poor counterexample because DRM on music is a far more significant impediment to using it. Not everybody uses an iPod, and everybody goes through multiple computers and iPods (or equivalent) and having to reauthorize shit is a pain in the ass to the numbskulls who use iTunes. Moreover, there is comparatively little need for DRM on music because when it costs pennies to buy and is more easily and safely available for such a low price, there is little incentive to pirate music. With $60 games that might not even run properly on your machine, piracy is more attractive and publishers are therefore incentivized to combat piracy.

I hate to break it to you, but a) mandatory binding arbitration ain't so bad and b) I would be stunned if you have an account anywhere on the internet during the creation of which you did not agree to mandatory binding arbitration.

Has it occurred to you that the reason certain games require Steam is that using Steamworks could solve a bunch of expensive problems for developers and publishers? And that, as a result, requiring Steam for those games could be a necessary condition to their existing in the marketplace at all?

I can install Batman: Arkham Asylum or Fallout 3: GOTY (GFWL) and never have to create an account (online) or log in to Microsoft's service. I can give the game to someone else and they can do the same. Can the same be said about Half-Life 2 or any other Steamworks game?

Less onerous.

It's not that simple of a question. You asked why games should be treated differently from music. Ask yourself why movies are treated differently than music.

I think you'll find that part of the issue is portability, another part is price, and yet another part is popularity. You also have decades of history leading up to different companies offering different distribution methods on wildly different modes of content delivery.

Apple had to have realized that it's essential for their consumers to be able to transfer their music to a variety of other devices, MOST of which do not support any proprietary DRM music wrappers.

I suppose this goes into another nostalgic and outdated mode of game playing, which is the notion that you can take your games to someone's house and play them. That hasn't been convenient at all for this generation with the use of hard drives for saved games. I think both Sony and Microsoft knew this change was going to happen when they worked to integrate online experiences. Besides, split screen has always sucked. It hasn't gotten any better with widescreen TVs, it still sucks, and ultimately the consumer is better off being "forced" to buy individual copies of games in order to play with each other over the internet.

Just shut up. VIDEO GAME CONSUMERS DON'T GIVE A FUCK. Your friend can just buy Arkham Asylum for FIVE GODDAMN DOLLARS due to this miraculous fucking distribution system. You're being a god damn tart, like one of those fucking guys that jumps into car and motorcycle forums and bitches about how he can't work on fuel injection and wants to go back to the good old days of miniscule pieces of gunk getting caught in his carburetor jets and stranding him on the side of the fucking road. Oh, sure, he can fix it himself, but he's still got stranded on the fucking road in the first place. The analogy is physical media. The guy bitching about fuel injection is you.

And yeah, I spelled it all the fuck out because it's obvious at this point that you're not at all considering that maybe, just maybe, the market is satisfied with the evolution of gaming distribution and doesn't think the big bad corporations are coming to take their guns.

Spoken like a man who's never tried to play the WH40K games, with apparently a mutant stupid fucking broken implementation of GFWL.

Of course, I can also play any Steam game that has offline components offline, unlike my GFWL games, which also randomly lock me out of them entirely and make me call Microsoft and wade through their godsforsaken bullshit just because I changed the graphics card I'm using.

The fact that you think requiring an account beats all of the bullshit with GFWL is hilarious and will continue to ensure that you have no credibility when you discuss any matter on this forum. Well done, well done.

And you know what? He's straight up wrong, too. Yes, you CAN give a Steam copy of a game to your friend, assuming you trust him with your password (clarification, they don't need your password if you auto sign-in on their computer). You have to be really, really silly if you think Valve doesn't know that this happens, and not only do they have to know it happens, they so far haven't done anything to clamp down on it except for an opt-in security feature.

And by the way, that copy of Fallout 3 you just installed on your friends computer, did you uninstall it from your computer before giving it to him? Are you both playing at the same time? Congratulations, you just committed piracy.

Why would I care about what bullshit GFWL would put me through if I were to use it...when it doesn't require me to use it? Granted you still have to if you want to play online, but I never said it was a good form of DRM. Just less restrictive than Steam in that regard. That I haven't had to experience the GFWL bullshit you speak of while still being able to complete multiple games that use it, multiple times, is a testament to that.

Well holy shit, are you saying all you have to do is give the person your Steam account password and then hope Valve doesn't destroy your account because you broke their license agreement? Sweet, sweet freedom.

I clarified.

I used the method once to show a game to my friend, since he had extremely fast internet. Valve didn't kick down my door and shove a keyboard into my ass.

The WH40k games require GFWL for single-player, offline play.

In related news, you are an idiot.

I think they're mostly saying you can gift your buddy the Arkham Asylum you bought for two bucks on a Steam sale because Valve is fucking awesome and has provided (and will continue to provide) more value to gamers than virtually any other entity in the history of gaming.

Nah dude, for two bucks I can just drive my ass over to my friend's house and lend him the disc!

I installed Origin for the Simcity beta and was surprised by how shitty it was. It did work fine and stay out of the way, but it was so obviously half-assed. Like when I entered my beta key, it asked me if I wanted to download Origin. From within the Origin client. When the beta weekend was over and I tried to uninstall Simcity from within Origin, it launched the Windows control panel and made me manually uninstall it. If I wasn't already nervous about EA's commitment to the service, that would have done it. Look at SWTOR for an example of how EA acts when they really want a piece of something. They likely spent over a hundred million dollars making that game, employing dozens or hundreds of people for years of work. It sucks that the MMO market had collapsed by the time the game was released, but they had maximum confidence in that game and it showed. Origin seems like an afterthought, the type of thing they will absolutely dump on a moment's notice should they have a moment's doubt about its future profitability.

Fallout 3 at release did as well. No idea about the GOTY version.

EDIT:

Also, speaking of Bethesda (sort of), the Steam Workshop modding system is fucking amazing and so good that the rest of Steam could be as crappy as UPlay and it would still be worth it. So good.

Seriously, can you guys arguing about Steam GTFO of our Xbox 720 rumours thread?

The portability issue is a good point, and the issue of consumer demand regarding portability for their music is certainly one of the reasons for DRM free music becoming the norm. As it stands most people don't have the same demand for movies (and though it's increasing, it's almost entirely streaming based for obvious reasons). But these aren't reasons why they should be different, they're just reasons why they happen to be different at the moment. There's nothing inherently different between movies and music (or games for that matter) that says one should have DRM and the other shouldn't. It's just that the demand for one is greater than the other. Which brings us to game DRM. You say consumers don't care, but obviously they do to a point. If a competitor to GOG opened up tomorrow and had the same catalog, except with DRM on top, they wouldn't sell a damn thing.

Also, there's no point in putting DRM on music because DRM did nothing to stop piracy. The same is true for games, which gaming publishers discovered (and mostly ignored) over the last half decade when they put increasingly ridiculous DRM schemes on their products only to see them all cracked within days while sales floundered. The only reasonable thing to do is to create a good service, which is what companies like GOG and Valve have done. After Day 1, the DRM exists solely for control. People who want to pirate the game will still pirate the game.

I have no doubt at all that the various free Steamworks features are a boon to a lot of developers (especially smaller ones), but that has nothing to do with whether or not its made mandatory to the end user, which is obviously Valve's decision. I'd be curious to hear your take on whether or not you think there is a technical reason for why an Opt-In/Out system could not be put in place. If you're instead telling me that this DRM for some reason is absolutely essential to the creation of certain games, I would say that's either a load of shit or an unfortunate reality due to certain people believing said load of shit.

Well shit, then there's no point in arguing about anything gaming related online, is there? Because video game consumers don't give a fuck. Well that's not true. They do give a fuck. Right up to release day.

But still, you know it's okay to voice your opinion on something even if you're in the minority, right? If I were here just to farm likes I'd be posting cat pictures instead of rustling jimmies with all this talk about Valve Software. I just thought I'd open a friendly dialog about Steam and see what kind of arguments I could get out of this forum. Will it be calm and intelligent, or will we watch as the worst in people gradually bubbles to the surface and then belches forth in a series of angry exclamations and pathetic insults.

If true, then that is a shame indeed. All I know is the only two GFWL games I've played have functioned the same in this regard (in that they didn't require activation or an online client at all). I have read that DD versions of Batman: AA were also bundled with Securom and thus required activation. I was curious as to whether or not Arkham City had the same DRM system as its predecessor, but I suppose I'll just skip it after reading about your experience with the Warhammer title. Thank you for the tip, Aaron.

I tried to create a new thread and BF froze on me. An omen, perhaps. But I will try again!

EDIT: I have succeeded. Enjoy if you can!

http://brokenforum.com/index.php?th...for-or-against-a-dominant-digital-store.4981/

This is my fault, I compared the new Live scheme to Steam and asked why Steam was the Golden Child of PC gaming while this hypothetical new service was the Great Satan.

Apparently this one guy doesn't like Steam either, and also enjoys antique motor vehicle repair.

Back to Xbox 720 rumors! Kotaku says it knows a guy who says he knows that Kinect will be mandatory. So will be game installations since all models now ship with a hard disk.

http://kotaku.com/5982986/we-know-all-about-the-next-xbox-from-someone-who-says-theyve-got-one

The current Xbox 360 with Kinect and 250 GB HD is $400. I can't imagine MS trying to sell a next-gen console for $600 out of the gate (that's Sony's job) but there's got to be a price premium over current hardware, so maybe $500? How much appetite would there be for a $500+ console these days?

Also they'll call it Xbox Surface*. "Touch the future of gaming!"


* not sure if serious

Christ, just make the 720 an app platform and let me run it on my PC. The hardware is better and it's going to be in my living room anyway.

That depends somewhat on how quickly the 360 is killed after the 720 is released.

MS shut down the original XBox pretty damn quick last time. Now, with such a big 360 install base, they'll have to be a bit more careful.

And you know what? The fucked up thing is that the main reason this won't be possible is that they won't want people to figure out how to adblock their shitty fucking interface riddled with ads like venereal disease on a Tenderloin midget prostitute.