So, New Xbox Reveal In About 14 Hours.

[Flagg]

So those idiots at kotaku are slamming the Xbox one while running psn ads. Oh gaming press, never change!

[Havok]

You and your achievements.

[Stark]

Well Joystiq could say nice things about the Ouya. How can they be mean to a console that can do more than illegal emulation? :v

[Ford Prefect]

You're still doing it. If its not meant to be a cash grab and simply move ownership away from disks to digital rights, someone giving their rights to another person isn't 'defeating the system'. Maybe it's like authorizing and de authorizing a computer for drm media etc.

In particular, note that if they DIDN'T do something like this diskless play would simply lead to massive piracy. But regardless, if its a few bucks who cares; it's if the 'fee' is some sizble fraction of buying the game that it would be a problem to me.

Honestly, from my position as a legal profession, I find the idea that I should be required to pay a fee to pass ownership of a chattel to be a little bizarre. Like if the state government started requiring a duty on hand-me-downs I would call bullshit. I completely understand Microsoft's position, and I don't dispute the rationale I just don't ... really care, you know? We're still going to be buying discs, so there's still a chattel that I have ownership of and I should be able to dispose of it like any other chattel. There's always been this tension between our ownership of property and software, but regardless, Microsoft doesn't necessarily get to overturn centuries of common law practice just because they're moving to digital rights, you dig?

I mean, it doesn't kill the product for me entirely, but if I wanted to deal with dumb digital rights bullshit I'd buy games on PC :v

[Stark]

I don't think anyone really knows how it will work yet, and there's a wide spectrum of bullshit to useful depending on details. Frankly, I don't care because I doubt even the most draconian system will prevent me renting from EB. I'm not sure why MS is so poor at communication though.

But for me Skype as native party chat on sidebars while playing game pretty much sells the console to me. No more GET ON XBOX BRO Saturday mornings; just call people on their phones.

[Shinova]

When you bought second hand, did you usually buy from a store or did you buy directly from the previous owner ?

I buy on ebay. So there's some ebay fee included I'm sure, but basically the money goes to the previous owner.

[bilateralrope]

What makes me curious is whether MS being so bad at communicating important things about their new model is intentional to drive discussion or just a fuckup that poisons the message. I mean look at all the unclear information that has now replaced all the outright fiction and misinformation that was around before.

Maybe MS hasn't made their mind up yet about those details. Or they have made up their mind, but don't want to be seen backing down due to the backlash.

I don't think anyone really knows how it will work yet, and there's a wide spectrum of bullshit to useful depending on details. Frankly, I don't care because I doubt even the most draconian system will prevent me renting from EB.

I can imagine a scheme that stops rentals:
- MS sets one fee for consumers to transfer games. A fee which breaks the retailers profit margins on used games, especially in cases where the person selling the game to them doesn't properly authorize it on their end.
- MS sets a second, significantly lower, fee for retailers. Which includes options for dealing with sellers who don't follow all the steps required for a consumer to consumer sale. But also comes with conditions like the retailer not being allowed to rent out games.

I can't see MS actually stopping rentals. At most I'd expect no rentals within x weeks of release and them taking a cut of them. But I can see them stopping any refunds that the retailer isn't legally required to accept.

[Stark]

Yeah I'm curious with secondhand if there would be some way to avoid the live fee; I imagined some kind of store process for people to release their games, but if retailers were simply charged differently that'd work too. MS seems to make a lot of noise about working with retailers, so I guess we'll see if that was serious once there's a robust day 1 digital purchase option.

I wonder if there are any trends about console connectivity; all I know is that many years ago most consoles sold never appeared on live ever.

[Zac Naloen]

If retailers had some way of signing a specific license code back into stock that could let xbox live know that the game has been returned and automatically free-up the license for resale. Just an idea.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

It sounds like every console sold will have Kinect. That's great news for the peripheral, since it can avoid the console add-on death spiral (few games made for it since not every console owner has one leads to lower demand for the peripheral leads to fewer games leads to even lower demand, repeat until sales = 0). Kinect with a 100% install base opens up a world of possibilities.

[Vendetta]

If retailers had some way of signing a specific license code back into stock that could let xbox live know that the game has been returned and automatically free-up the license for resale. Just an idea.

I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't thought about it at all. I mean Australia is basically the only market where you can trivially return games because you don't want them any more (you used to be able to do that in the UK until the playstation, where everyone just immediately copied the CDs and took them back so, if you try it now you can only get an exchange if the disc is faulty, and they'll just put it in their store console and say "works on ours, it's your console"), so they're only really interested in second hand markets.

Since the whole point of this is that they don't want to have the license freed up for resale avoiding the fee, so they get a cut of the second hand market, I doubt they'll build a system that allows retailers to deauthorise copies of a game. After all, if they did they'd just do that for all their tradeins and the point of the second hand license fee disappears.

This also means that you may not be able to take games back to EB just because you don't want them unless they're still sealed, because EB can't sell them as new goods any more (which is why they'll take them back now, there's no loss on the sale for them because the product is still in as new condition).

[TheFeniX]

I wonder if there are any trends about console connectivity; all I know is that many years ago most consoles sold never appeared on live ever.

It's still hovering around 40% of XBox's never appearing on XBLive. I've never seen any information on why they aren't connected. Is it that the users don't care or can't handle setting the console up, or is it that they won't blow $100 on a wireless card and they don't have an Ethernet jack next to their TV?

Seems there's talk this time around about offering a discount for the console if you sign up for live. If true, I'll bet they go the same route they do with current subscription deals: current customers can get fucked.

[Stark]

It sounds like every console sold will have Kinect. That's great news for the peripheral, since it can avoid the console add-on death spiral (few games made for it since not every console owner has one leads to lower demand for the peripheral leads to fewer games leads to even lower demand, repeat until sales = 0). Kinect with a 100% install base opens up a world of possibilities.

Kinect did fine anyway, and this will have way better features as well (especially since it looks like they might have the device do processing like they originally planned). The biggest downer to kinect on the 360 was how much of the tiny RAM base you had to use up to make it work, which won't be a problem for the One.

[Starglider]

Kinect did fine anyway, and this will have way better features as well (especially since it looks like they might have the device do processing like they originally planned).

That's a hard sell for cost reasons - split processing is generally more expensive with current hardware - and because it would be wasted on non-Kinect games, effectively widening the spec gap with Sony. All of the leaked tech stuff so far indicates Kinect processing is GPGPU on the main system with some extra support from dedicated hardware blocks. That said the new depth sensor design inherently requires less postprocessing than the old design, so in that sense the 'device does more of the work'.

The biggest downer to kinect on the 360 was how much of the tiny RAM base you had to use up to make it work, which won't be a problem for the One.

Well that and chewing up about a quarter of the GPU time. Also despite promises Kinect was never made available to indie devs on the 360, that should change for the One (assuming indies can write real games at all, not just dashboard apps).

[Anacronian]

Nnitendo WiiU sales Jumps 875% after Xbox One reveal

That is just all kinds of hilarious.

[Flagg]

So now eight and three quarter people own one in the UK?

[DaveJB]

What the article doesn't mention is that Amazon slashed the price of the Wii U after the Xbox One reveal. The premium set was £289 at the start of the week, £229 on Wednesday night and most of yesterday, and has now rebounded to £269.

But yeah, this isn't really much of an achievement by itself, considering that the Wii U's sales figures have been mind-bogglingly awful so far. Disregarding the week or so after the launch, we're not even talking Dreamcast level bad, we're talking Atari Jaguar level bad. Still, I suppose now they still have the chance to salvage things and least end up profitable out of the whole exercise, especially since they'll probably cut the system's price and release their big franchise games at around the time the PS4 and XBOne are hitting the market.

[Kuja]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/05/24/xbox-on ... 360-units/

Xbox One: Microsoft aims for 1 billion lifetime sales, 100 million Xbox 360 units

Microsoft’s senior vice president of Interactive Entertainment Business Yusuf Mehdi has stated that given the broad multimedia focus of Xbox One, there’s no reason why it can’t shift between 400 million and 1 billion consoles in its lifetime. He said the company is also angling for 100 million Xbox 360 console sales in the next five years.

Speaking with OXM, Mehdi said of Microsoft’s hopes for Xbox 360, “We believe over the next five years we can break a 100 million unit installed base. That’s something we’re shooting for, it’s not a financial plan as such, it’s just rough numbers if you will.

“To sell another 25 million, half of those will probably come from replacements, but half will come from new buyers. And the way we’ll break into those segments is by hitting new price points, getting new classes of entertainment to come with the Xbox, and breaking into new customer segments. So you’ll see the Xbox 360 continue to exist, even as we launch the next generation Xbox One.”

On the subject of Xbox One sales and the growth of the market with the herald of next-gen formats, Mehdi continued, “Every generation, as you’ve probably heard, has grown approximately 30%. So this generation is about 300 million units. Most industry experts think the next generation will get upwards of about 400 million units. That’s if it’s a game console, over the next decade.

“We think you can go broader than a game console, that’s our aim, and you can go from 400 million to potentially upwards of a billion units. That’s how we’re thinking of the Xbox opportunity as we go forward.”

I...what?

[Kuja]

I mean...if I'm reading this right, this guy thinks that the Xbox 360 will top out at over 100mil sales...the Xbox1 is going to push over 300mil, and whatever comes after that will move over 400million units? And continue on upwards indefinately from there? I don't even?

[Starglider]

I mean...if I'm reading this right,

You aren't.

...the Xbox1 is going to push over 300mil, and whatever comes after that will move over 400million units? And continue on upwards indefinately from there? I don't even?

No, he said that total sales of 7th gen consoles (PS3 + Wii + X360) will be approx 300M and expected total sales of 8th gen consoles will be at least a third more than that. Which is completely reasonable assuming no devestating economic crash or total replacement of consoles by a different technology.

Microsoft are desperate for 'broader than a console' i.e. Windows lock-in for a huge user base and control of content revenue streams, because their Windows desktop revenue is stagnant (due to popularity of non-Windows tablets) and their Office monopoly is being chipped away. They failed almost completely in the smartphone space so Xbox One has been loaded down with 'must save Microsoft profit growth' expectations. It's comparable to Sony's ulterior motives for the PS3 - used to help with the Blu-Ray / HDDVD format war - but I suspect with more negative impact on the gaming side of the console.

[Vendetta]

He's saying that the total size of the console market will hit something like 400 million in the coming generation, but he reckons that the media hub features of the xbox one will give it even more reach than that.

I think they're way overstating the reach that TV features will give the console, to be honest, because a lot of the features it offers will be standard on TVs themselves soon enough, and people who predominantly watch TV are probably not going to adopt another $500 box to do all the things they're doing already with their cable box just because it can put fantasy football stats on the screen.

I mean I'm going to be replacing my TV for the next console generation because it's old, not very good, and only does 720p and is wearing out anyway, but when I get a new TV, well, it'll do Skype by itself, it'll do all the web streaming services by itself, and if there's any audience buy in from the cable box overlay features the One is talking about you can bet Samsung and LG will start doing that too.

[Starglider]

I mean I'm going to be replacing my TV for the next console generation because it's old, not very good, and only does 720p and is wearing out anyway, but when I get a new TV, well, it'll do Skype by itself, it'll do all the web streaming services by itself, and if there's any audience buy in from the cable box overlay features the One is talking about you can bet Samsung and LG will start doing that too.

Agree, Microsoft are going up against Google TV here and it shows every indication of playing out like Windows Mobile vs Android. The first few iterations of GTV were as rough as early Android but the commercial model is compelling and I expect it to be refined quite quickly.

[Vendetta]

We'll see whether Google TV achieves actual penetration on TV sets as a standardised smart interface, but I suspect it's more likely it'll just drive what the existing smart features of smart TVs do.

[Starglider]

We'll see whether Google TV achieves actual penetration on TV sets as a standardised smart interface, but I suspect it's more likely it'll just drive what the existing smart features of smart TVs do.

The problem for manufacturers is exactly the same as in the feature phone -> smartphone transition; software development costs are escalating and dominating over hardware R&D costs. At a certain point it becomes uneconomical to try and feature-match with in-house development, vs Google giving the software away (in return for content-derrived revenues).

[TheFeniX]

There's a bit more on the resale front

The retailer sets the price—within limits—and the eventual sale is divided three ways, with the split percentage determined by Microsoft.

That percentage may be as low as 10% for retailers.

It will be nice for publishers like Microsoft and EA, which keep their games at high price points for an extended time after release to finally force the used market to do the same, and take all the money while doing so, while ensuring the original purchasers gets shit on a trade-in (more so than usual) so Gamestop can continue earning a profit. That Microsoft is taking a cut at all is fucking hilarious.

In the mean time, you can also have your Kinect spy on you.

The patent application, filed under the heading “Content Distribution Regulation by Viewing User,” proposes to use cameras and sensors like those in the Xbox 360 Kinect controller to monitor, count and in some cases identify the people in a room watching television, movies and other content. The filing refers to the technology as a “consumer detector.”

In one scenario, the system would then charge for the television show or movie based on the number of viewers in the room. Or, if the number of viewers exceeds the limits laid out by a particular content license, the system would halt playback unless additional viewing rights were purchased.

I can already hear the "but if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" idiot brigade and I haven't even bothered looking at comment sections.

But why get worked up when you can sit back and get "achievements" by pounding down Doritos's and Mountain Dew while watching TV.
Do any of these new consoles play games? You know, except for some CoD after you've had your fill of TV and Sports.