# The New Xbox **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 21, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947 "2013-05-21T17:35:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/301 "2013-06-19T23:38:16Z")
We’ve been discussing it at work. There’s an interesting detail in their announcement. The Xbox One will still have to connect to the internet ONCE – right when you first set it up in order to download the big patch that turns off having to connect to the internet. This suggests that the DRM change is non-trivial at the system level. Whatever work needs to be done to rip it out, it’s not doable before they hit firmware lock. I imagine that it really sucks to be a member of the XBox OS team right now. It sounds like they’re facing a deathmarch to launch with the success of the platform riding on the stability of their code rewrite. ---
**Author:** ![amaguri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@amaguri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amaguri)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/302 "2013-06-19T23:55:14Z")
I can’t recall a worse series of publicity gaffes, misinformation and intentional misdirection. I’m glad they reversed their stance on this issue, but I think they are still lying through their teeth about the hows and the whys. It’s really off-putting. I was sort of iffy on going with both PS4 and Xbone this generation anyway, but now I’m pretty comfortable just crossing off Microsoft for good. ---
**Author:** ![mske](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ccd318/32.png) [@mske](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mske)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/303 "2013-06-20T02:29:59Z")
So now without having to even connect at all over the internet, technically, how are developers going to utilize the mythic cloud computing offloading if they can’t guarantee it of being there? ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/304 "2013-06-20T03:34:59Z")
> [@mske](#): > > So now without having to even connect at all over the internet, technically, how are developers going to utilize the mythic cloud computing offloading if they can’t guarantee it of being there? The game itself will demand it, then. This increases the amount of whining some uneducated consumer will generate after they do this and don’t realize it. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/305 "2013-06-20T06:21:10Z")
Namely, there is nothing stopping publishers from insisting their game need to be online to offload “complex calculations” to cloud computing. Cloud computing is fantastic for search , rendering, storage etc, as long as it is not required to be real-time at 60 FPS. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/306 "2013-06-20T06:34:57Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Here’s something I wrote to post to Facebook, but I’ll share it here too: > > **The problem with the Xbox One is that it’s _visionary_.** > > It has two big features that I’m sure looked amazingly innovative on internal PowerPoint presentations, but that in reality are major disadvantages. The first is Kinect, and the second is digital distribution. > > Kinect is an amazing piece of hardware. It does things no other input system can do. Agree with you there. Kinect, as a piece of image capturing and processing device, is great. The moment a third-party, opensource driver for Kinect hits the Internet, there are many people doing all kind of cool shit with it. However, it still doesn’t do hardcore gaming well, or perhaps only some games well, like DDR-style games. > [@](#): > > Microsoft’s mistake was treating disk distribution as a just another method for transferring bits to the user’s hard drive. The Xbox One is built around the idea that you don’t play games off a disk, you \*install \*games from a disk. Once you make the disk a delivery mechanism instead of an ongoing data store, you have to have some form of DRM. Because if you don’t need the disk to play, there’s nothing stopping you from making as many copies as you want. They probably figure that since it work for Steam, it should work for a console system too. However, some companies opt to have non-DRM distribution via. GOG though arguably there isn’t. I don’t have any good idea on my part why people are not as outraged at Steam as Xbox One’s DRM. Online, I saw many people touting discounts and sales at Steam making it more tolerable, but that don’t seem to be it. Perhaps there isn’t a sharing and resell culture for PC games? The beauty of both of these visionary decisions (from Sony’s perspective) is that they’re difficult to undo. Once you make the decision that the Kinect is required, dev teams will build their games around that assumption. In fact, they were probably pressured by Microsoft into using the Kinect as much as possible. So you can’t just drop the Kinect without breaking a lot of games. This makes it much harder for Microsoft to match Sony’s lower price – they’ve locked themselves into shipping every box with an expensive peripheral. > [@](#): > > My bet is that Microsoft won’t change a thing. The negatives of the Xbox One aren’t accidents. They’re the inevitable consequences of Redmond’s corporate vision of a highly-connected world of ubiquitous immersive tech. Abandoning them would require a degree of self-awareness that I don’t think it’s possible for a corporation that size to possess. Instead, I expect Microsoft to hunker down and power forward, gallantly marching toward the shining city of tomorrow they see shimmering in the distance beyond the desert sands …. Now that they have do a 180 degrees backtrack (heck, they should just call it Xbox 180), what do you think the consequence for them would be? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/307 "2013-06-20T07:43:16Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > Lame. Now one of the really interesting functions, the 10-person list of folks you can share games to over the cloud, is gone. Funny, the press release I read didn’t say that. It said that digital features were still the same. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/308 "2013-06-20T13:04:11Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Funny, the press release I read didn’t say that. It said that digital features were still the same. They clarified that later, to Kotaku. Sharing features are axed “at launch,” implying they might be added in later. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/309 "2013-06-20T13:31:15Z")
> [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](#): > > Now that they have do a 180 degrees backtrack (heck, they should just call it Xbox 180), what do you think the consequence for them would be? As I said above, they’re clearly doing a major system rewrite, one that’s big enough that they can’t get it finished before they have to lock the firmware. Hence the big day one patch. That’s not going to have much effect on consumers, but it sucks for their programmers. The change of direction moves their situation from dire to merely crappy. First impressions are hard to undo, and the Xbox One made a really bad first impression. A lot of people are now invested in hating them, so they’re going to keep looking for reasons to hate. They’re also in a much more precarious position that Sony was with the PS3. Sony had Europe and Japan to keep them going even when they were getting trounced by the 360 in the U.S., and eventually they were able to claw their way back to parity. But if the PS4 outsells the XB1 in the U.S. by a significant margin this Christmas, Microsoft won’t have an international install base to fall back on. (Incidentally, I had a meeting with Shuhei Yoshida yesterday. He’s the guy in the viral “How to Share Games on the PS4” video.) ---
**Author:** ![pricciar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@pricciar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pricciar)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/310 "2013-06-20T18:23:08Z")
Appearance has been Microsoft’s biggest problem so far. You can deal with a price point problem, by pointing out that you are getting more technology for the extra money. You can deal with the DRM problem by pointing out the neat features that are being offered BECAUSE of this DRM stuff. What happened instead was “What if you can’t connect once a day?” “Buy a 360!” As if Sony jumping on the bandwagon wasn’t enough. Microsoft had their own executives throwing gasoline and more fire on the fire. I don’t follow the comings and goings of console makers very closely, but this product launch feels so far removed from the fantastic work MS did with the XBox 360 launch it feels like it must be a new PR team. ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/311 "2013-06-20T19:15:42Z")
> [@pricciar](#): > > You can deal with a price point problem, by pointing out that you are getting more technology for the extra money. Didn’t work out so well for the PS3 - when it launched it was “too expensive” even though a 360 with the optional WIFI, optional HDMI-out and an equivalent hard drive cost _more_. Between that and the year head-start MS had, it took them the whole cycle to catch up and/or pass MS’s numbers (depending on whose numbers you want to believe.) ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/312 "2013-06-20T20:17:04Z")
A common comment I’ve read when Microsoft published their DRM policy is that the people on gaming boards complaining about it aren’t their target market; It’s the people (jock/fratboys) that just want to play the latest COD/Madden and don’t actually care about anything else. But now that MS, after a strong public backlash, reversed their policy should we maybe acknowledge that that stereotype is somewhat false? I’ve never actually met someone who only plays COD on their console and I think it’s kinda weird to think of people that enjoy the game as some kinda overgrown manchild/fratbro unable to grasp the issues with Microsoft’s now defunct DRM policy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/313 "2013-06-20T21:32:50Z")
There are different demographics that buy consoles. The “dude-bro” market (young males who play to socialize with their friends) is different than the “hardcore” market (self-identified gamers who follow the industry). The former is a bigger slice of the pie, but they tend not to be early adopters. They tend to be relatively uninformed consumers who base purchasing decisions less on features and more on what their friends are doing. The “hardcore” gamers, while a smaller demographic, tend to be the actual first-wave purchasers of new hardware. And so they’re responsible for a lot of the viral buzz that eventually influences the purchasing decisions of the “dude-bros”. So, basically, even if a console is designed to appeal directly to the gaming style of the “dude-bros”, it won’t succeed if the “hardcore” gamers put a stink on it. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/314 "2013-06-20T21:54:52Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > There are different demographics that buy consoles. The “dude-bro” market (young males who play to socialize with their friends) is different than the “hardcore” market (self-identified gamers who follow the industry). The former is a bigger slice of the pie, but they tend not to be early adopters. You may have seen the numbers that prove it, but I just don’t buy that the so-called “dude-bros” are a bigger piece of the gaming market than the hardcore. Ten million copies of the latest COD are a lot, but the rest of the games have to get bought by somebody and they ain’t dude-bros and there’s a lot more of them sold. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/315 "2013-06-20T22:41:43Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > You may have seen the numbers that prove it, but I just don’t buy that the so-called “dude-bros” are a bigger piece of the gaming market than the hardcore. Ten million copies of the latest COD are a lot, but the rest of the games have to get bought by somebody and they ain’t dude-bros and there’s a lot more of them sold. I’ve seen numbers. The “young male who plays games casually to socialize with friends” market is absolutely bigger than the “dedicated gamer who cares about features” market. Which should be intuitively obvious. The category of people who just go see summer blockbusters is larger than the category of people who consider themselves film buffs. It’s mass-market vs. hobbyist. Dude-bros don’t just play CoD. They play a variety of different types of games. But they have a different relationship with gaming than the hardcore gamers. They see it as just one of many things they might do when they’re hanging out, instead of thinking of it as a defining part of their lives. And there are more demographic categories than just these two. Lots of people play games who don’t fit into either of these two stereotypes. Any successful console will also appeal to a variety of other consumer types besides fanboy and frathouse. Those two core demographics are just particularly important for a successful launch. (BTW, did you know that there’s a guy named Justin Bailey at Double Fine?) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/316 "2013-06-20T23:40:30Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > They clarified that later, to Kotaku. Sharing features are axed “at launch,” implying they might be added in later. Well, then, yeah, I agree that sucks. But maybe it’s just because they were going to be working on that but instead have to be working on this new thing instead. So they’ll get to digital sharing later. It is a good idea, so good that I think it’s inspired Valve for Steam. Did they say that you wouldn’t be installing the games, though? If I remember correctly, you can play while the games are installing, so it would feel the same. You’d just throw in a disk check every time you ran the game after the installation was completed. And uninstalling and reinstalling games could be done behind the scenes automatically if you wanted. Finally, I don’t think that the hardware justifies the higher price point. Sure, there’s a slightly faster processor, but few gamers of either type care about that. And I also don’t think even the bro gamers have embraced Kinect. And it’s only nerds who like the idea of Star Trek-type voice controls, and most of us also see the obvious downsides. (See [my comment](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16397382#post16397382) here.) I think the value of Xbox One is solely in its exclusives. That’ll work for Halo fanboys, I guess, and maybe some gearheards who like whatever the Xbox racing games are called, but, for most people, I’d guess that the PS4 is better. Microsoft will have to offer package deals or cheaper games. And they will have to lower their price ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/317 "2013-06-20T23:43:49Z")
> [@pricciar](#): > > Appearance has been Microsoft’s biggest problem so far. You can deal with a price point problem, by pointing out that you are getting more technology for the extra money. You can deal with the DRM problem by pointing out the neat features that are being offered BECAUSE of this DRM stuff. What happened instead was “What if you can’t connect once a day?” “Buy a 360!” As if Sony jumping on the bandwagon wasn’t enough. Microsoft had their own executives throwing gasoline and more fire on the fire. I don’t follow the comings and goings of console makers very closely, but this product launch feels so far removed from the fantastic work MS did with the XBox 360 launch it feels like it must be a new PR team. According to a game journalist I can’t remember, the PR team for Xbox One is headed by the same guy who headed the PS3 team last time. Maybe that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but I do think that there is that PS3 mindset that gamers should inherently want the system with more features or a faster processor. That’s just so dumb. Also, I linked to the wrong post above. I’ll just quote myself: > [@](#): > > [You might want an Xbox One] if, for some reason, you think voice controls are a must-have feature, despite the myriads of potential problems inherent without a button to tell the system to start checking for voice commands. (In other words, I hope you never say something like “See my Xbox ON the shelf?” Or that your little sister doesn’t come in and say Xbox TV while you are in the middle of a game.) ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/318 "2013-06-21T00:54:04Z")
> [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](#): > > A common comment I’ve read when Microsoft published their DRM policy is that the people on gaming boards complaining about it aren’t their target market; It’s the people (jock/fratboys) that just want to play the latest COD/Madden and don’t actually care about anything else. But now that MS, after a strong public backlash, reversed their policy should we maybe acknowledge that that stereotype is somewhat false? > > I’ve never actually met someone who only plays COD on their console and I think it’s kinda weird to think of people that enjoy the game as some kinda overgrown manchild/fratbro unable to grasp the issues with Microsoft’s now defunct DRM policy. I play a lot of online multiplayer, almost exclusively. ---
**Author:** ![BigNik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/73ab20/32.png) [@BigNik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigNik)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/319 "2013-06-21T04:46:35Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I’ve seen numbers. The “young male who plays games casually to socialize with friends” market is absolutely bigger than the “dedicated gamer who cares about features” market. I’d be absolutely stunned if Microsoft didn’t have an _excellent_ idea how many people buy 3 games or fewer a year and use them with a core group of friends, given the data that they collect through their online monitoring. It’s one of the reasons I don’t trust them enough to let a high-end Kinect into my bedroom, even if it’s always pointed at a wall. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947/320 "2013-06-21T12:09:50Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I’ve seen numbers. The “young male who plays games casually to socialize with friends” market is absolutely bigger than the “dedicated gamer who cares about features” market. Which should be intuitively obvious. The category of people who just go see summer blockbusters is larger than the category of people who consider themselves film buffs. It’s mass-market vs. hobbyist. > > Dude-bros don’t just play CoD. They play a variety of different types of games. But they have a different relationship with gaming than the hardcore gamers. They see it as just one of many things they might do when they’re hanging out, instead of thinking of it as a defining part of their lives. See, this is what I don’t understand. How can you paint a brightline between “hardcore gamers” and “dudebros” when the dudebros are buying CoD 10 and and Halo 5 and CoD 11 and Madden 2014 and CoD 12 and Halo 6 and Gears 5 and more. At what point does a “dudebro” become a “hardcore gamer?” It is solely based on the number or type of games he buys? Or does it require some nebulous industry knowledge concept that MS (or Sony) couldn’t possibly know? > [@](#): > > (BTW, did you know that there’s a guy named Justin Bailey at Double Fine?) I did not. Real name or nom be Internet like mine? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-new-xbox/658947.md?page=17)