Xbox One

[ubernoob]

Re: Xbox 720

Yup. Making the Kinect a must-have peripheral turns the next Xbox from a first-day purchase to a never-purchase for me.

The Kinect, Sony Eye(or whatever it's called)/Move should never be required and they are gimmicky jokes I don't care how far they advance the technology.

[jmood88]

Re: Xbox 720

For you yes, for Microsoft it will be worth lots of money ... targeted advertising and ability to charge you for the # of people in a room.

I hope they get sued for filming minors though to stop that. If they get to film you, Live better be free, plus you get free games.

No one is filming you while the kinect is hooked up. I don't know where you're getting that from or the idea that you're going to be charged depending on who's in the room. What are they going to be charging you for? It will be required because developers can make a game while not having to worry about whether part of the audience doesn't own one.

[p_rushing]

Re: Xbox 720

No one is filming you while the kinect is hooked up. I don't know where you're getting that from or the idea that you're going to be charged depending on who's in the room. What are they going to be charging you for? It will be required because developers can make a game while not having to worry about whether part of the audience doesn't own one.

Obviously you have missed the mentions of restricted use PPV and other purchase media where it will not let you view it with more than the user limit in the room.

This doesn't have anything to do with gaming. I'm fine with using kinect in gaming as you are using it during the game and when the game is over, it ends. These articles are saying it will not end there. It will continue to monitor you as long as it has power. You are paying them to monitor you. Its not like other technology where you can turn those features off.

Its one thing if they are giving you something in exchange for giving up your privacy, but as it appears now, you are paying Microsoft for the system, being charged for Live, and giving Microsoft all your valuable marketing information.

Microsoft can then take that info and market stuff to you. They also could sell that info and make even more money off it to other companies. There are a ton of companies that would love a camera in your house 24/7.

[mestevo]

Re: Xbox 720

Madden won't even need an offline mode! ...and it can report to his friends on Facebook what p_rushing's winning percentage is in his underwear vs. fully clothed, all without his permission of course because M$ can and would do that!

[LambertandHam]

Re: Xbox 720

Obviously you have missed the mentions of restricted use PPV and other purchase media where it will not let you view it with more than the user limit in the room.

This doesn't have anything to do with gaming. I'm fine with using kinect in gaming as you are using it during the game and when the game is over, it ends. These articles are saying it will not end there. It will continue to monitor you as long as it has power. You are paying them to monitor you. Its not like other technology where you can turn those features off.

Its one thing if they are giving you something in exchange for giving up your privacy, but as it appears now, you are paying Microsoft for the system, being charged for Live, and giving Microsoft all your valuable marketing information.

Microsoft can then take that info and market stuff to you. They also could sell that info and make even more money off it to other companies. There are a ton of companies that would love a camera in your house 24/7.

As long as it doesn't start singing "Daisy, Daisy" .

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HwBmPiOmEGQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[DaveDQ]

Re: Xbox 720

Talent, no. Direction and implementation, yes. Their focus has shifted a bit in recent years, but they were known as the evil empire in gaming for a reason. They bought successful IPs and bastardized them in a rush (see: Ultima VIII and Ultima IX)

I don't have faith at all in anything related to EA Development. The games they have published (but not developed) would be a different story.

What if the former developers understood that the management of EA put obstacles in their way that prevented them to show their true potential? Yes, EA as a company buys exclusives and squeezes all possible financial profit out of the name itself, and many times they put out lousy titles, but that's not completely on a developer that may be skilled but just crippled by corporate decisions.

[ubernoob]

Re: Xbox 720

What if the former developers understood that the management of EA put obstacles in their way that prevented them to show their true potential? Yes, EA as a company buys exclusives and squeezes all possible financial profit out of the name itself, and many times they put out lousy titles, but that's not completely on a developer that may be skilled but just crippled by corporate decisions.

I'm trying to put how I feel about this in the proper words. I'd venture a guess to say that everyone at EA (and who has worked there in the past) is a very good developer. You don't get to the large "successful" (and I put that word in quotes because we know how everyone feels about EA, see them 'winning' the "Worst Company in America" vote on the internet) without having the coding know-how.

Most of the people that work there though view video games through the wrong window. The majority of them aren't in it for the passion of making video games, I would say. Of course, they want to make good games and have them sell well - that's the end goal. The way they approach the game isn't by the passion to make something special, it's to hit certain goals and using metrics to judge that. If you've been in any setting for so long it wears on you and you start to get inundated with that culture.

I'll take Ultima VIII and IX, again, for my examples as I know those two the best to illustrate my point. Way back when EA acquired Origin, Ultima was a very highly thought of name. It was actually the first video game series I sought out and bought to play on PC at my tender age back then. A lot of them were critically acclaimed, and the name held weight. So, EA goes out and acquires Origin. Garriott (the creator of the series) had to delegate a lot of the work for Ultima VIII, and despite the game being under him and everything the transition to EA was horrendous. The game was pushed out way too early, and is on some lists as one of the worst computer games of all time. While, externally, the people working on the game may have not changed all that much, internally they did due to the culture of working there. IX was just as big a failure, and that game effectively was the deathknell for the Ultima series, leaving only a few expansion packs for UO the lone holdout keeping the once huge name alive. The culture there changes you, if it didn't - you wouldn't last there (see: AJ Dembroksi's semi-infamous twitter rant.)

[JasonWilliams55]

Re: Xbox 720

No one is filming you while the kinect is hooked up. I don't know where you're getting that from or the idea that you're going to be charged depending on who's in the room. What are they going to be charging you for? It will be required because developers can make a game while not having to worry about whether part of the audience doesn't own one.

Since you clearly missed the giant quote I posted earlier, I will repost it:

A new Microsoft patent will allow the company to remotely surveil, and effectively count American citizens as they order online or cable pay-per-view from the comfort of their own homes.

From the patent:

A content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis ... Consumers are presented with a content selection and a choice of licenses allowing consumption of the content. The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.

The patent, submitted on April 26, 2011, and passed on Nov. 1, 2012, essentially allows the company to remotely turn on any cameras, be they mobile or from something like the Xbox Kinect, and count the number of 'consumers' watching licensed content.

What Microsoft dubs 'complex algorithms' will not only count how many people are consuming that Mixed Martial Arts Championships, but also for how long they consumed the content, paving the way for charging users for half or even quarter uses of content.

From the patent:

In the case of the mobile display device, the display 105 is generally designed for use by one person but it is possible that more than one person may be able to view content on the display 105.As such the consumer detector uses data from the camera or capture device 102 to determine the number of consumers. In one example, camera 102 is an RGB imaging camera and the consumer detector analyzes one or successive images from the camera to ensure that the licensed number of users per view is enforced.

"Enforced" means the patent also gives licensers using Microsoft's surveillance 'product' the right to 'shut off' content if an unauthorized amount of users start to watch.

So you may want to tell the folks you invite over for the next fight to shut off their cell phones and remove the batteries prior to beginning the show.

Madden won't even need an offline mode! ...and it can report to his friends on Facebook what p_rushing's winning percentage is in his underwear vs. fully clothed, all without his permission of course because M$ can and would do that!

You are very naive.

[23]

Re: Xbox 720

That's a crazy article... you have to hope that this stuff is not true.

[bkfount]

Re: Xbox 720

That's a crazy article... you have to hope that this stuff is not true.

these rumors are hilarious, makes it sound like the most anti consumer and least compelling console ever designed, just like something the suits at MS would cook up. I kind of want them all to be true just for the lolz.

Do it all MS.

[Flawless]

Re: Xbox 720

EA's money man spills the beans on its next-gen plans

"An important thing to remember is that next-gen consoles will most likely not be backwards compatible… And if you [play] multiplayer on a game, you'll most likely not be able to play with someone on a different generation. And so if you're a FIFA player and, and the soccer season's starting in August, and all your friends are playing FIFA, you're going to want to be on the same box that they're on. So if they all go out and buy a gen-four box if it comes out at Christmas, then you'll most likely do it. If they all hold on and continue to play on third-generation, you'll probably not see that box purchase until after the soccer season's over.

"And I think that works for us positively in both ways. It helps us continue to sell gen-three products, and it will help us sell gen-four product as that cycle finally gets into place."

The used games market (and whether it will exist in gen-four)

"It's one of these classic double-edged swords. In one way the used game business has been critical for the health of the retail channel, and having a healthy retail channel is an important thing for us. The business will probably never be 100 percent digital. Bandwidths are a constraint, and will continue to be a constraint for many years to come, which hold back the ability to do full digital downloads of some games.

"So at the end of the day, it's storage capacity. Unless you've got a giant storage server in your house, keeping hundreds of games can tax your storage capacity. And so having a healthy retail channel out there like GameStop or Best Buy or others is important, and to the extent that used games is important to them, I think that's a positive.

"Would we like to sell everything at full price and not have a used game market? Sure. But I think the used game market's a little like any other kind of market where it creates liquidity. The fact is, that liquidity benefits us in some fashion. So if someone goes in and trades in a game, there's a good chance they're going to buy another one of our games. And so if there's a liquid market, I think that that's not a bad thing at all.

"I can't really comment on where the next generation boxes are going to be relative to used games. I will say that the trend in the business is to have that always-on connectivity and connect with a customer, and to the extent that the software identifies a certain customer is going to create some issues going down the road in the used game market. But I do believe that the consumer likes it, and it's been good for the retail channel."

[LambertandHam]

Re: Xbox 720

EA's money man spills the beans on its next-gen plans

They really want people to buy NCAA/Madden once for the PS3/360, then again for the new consoles in the same year?

[Skyboxer]

Re: Xbox 720

They really want people to buy NCAA/Madden once for the PS3/360, then again for the new consoles in the same year?

That's not how I read it. It said if you play with friends etc.. and your friends go with the new system, you'll more than likely also go.
If they stay with the current version of a game/system you'll more than likely also stay.

Don't see where they said they want people to buy both versions.

For me I simply want to some cold hard facts about BC, pricing and release dates...

I'm ready for the next system.

[bigbob]

Re: Xbox 720

Simple fix.

A piece of tape over the camera.

[55]

Re: Xbox 720

There is going to be some kind of murder or something that will be solved because of some poor sap's ****ing Kinect camera.

Seriously though, what if people want to "get busy" in a particular room where their Xbox is hooked up? Microsoft just gets to watch?