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It's designed to look like an appliance, in the trendy Bang & Olufsen style. All visual hints of gaming must be erradicated to maximise sales to the 'I just want cable TV with a Minority Report interface' demographic. This was the long-term Microsoft strategy from the inception of the Xbox division.CaptHawkeye wrote:It actually seems to lean back to the first Xbox in appearance I think.
Who cares, you'll buy it anyway, you're locked into Xbox Live. Microsoft targets the marginal customer which might well be your grandad ('get your TV with simple voice commands, no fiddly remote and incomprehensible program guide').Stark wrote:But two tone? My grandad had a two tone car. I don't want a slick, modern media device that looks like my grandads car.
Individual games will be tied to Xbox Live accounts, Microsoft said, meaning that the software giant can detect whether a game has been sold to a retailer and repurchased, or handed from one friend to another. In such instances, the second user must pay a fee.
"On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play," a Microsoft representative told Wired.
The company added that, once discs are installed on the hard drive, games can be played without a disc being in the tray.
The Wired article then elaborates: "What follows naturally from this is that each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner."
It added: "Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc."
Microsoft did not disclose what the second-user fee would amount too, and did not clarify further on the matter.
The article claims that there is no sweeping 'always-online' requirement for future Xbox One games.
Update: Jon Hicks, the editor of Official Xbox magazine, has claimed that pre-owned games will be un-installed from the previous owner's system and installed onto another's. It is not clear if this process would negate a pre-owned fee. [TWEET]: "On second hand games: you buy disc, it installs, you play from HD. Sell disc, it installs to new console and deactivates your install."
Update 2: Microsoft has neither confirmed nor denied the report in a statement offered to Venturebeat.
"We are designing the Xbox One to enable customers to trade in and resell games," a Microsoft spokesperson said, adding: "We'll have more details to share later".
The comment effectively means that the claim regarding a pre-owned fee is not inaccurate.
Speaking of that I wonder if that fee they're talking about (assuming it materializes) will fly in the EU. Didn't they have a thing about that regarding Steam?Stark wrote:Ownership is still transferable. That's why I ask if it can be done remotely or is only done by deleting the game.
It sounds like the second person pays the fee for the used game, then the game gets removed from the first console. Meaning remote uninstall.Stark wrote:Ownership is still transferable. That's why I ask if it can be done remotely or is only done by deleting the game.
I don't think the fee will be a problem as the EU thing was only a problem when the software couldn't be sold second hand at all. The fee still allows for second hand sales, so it should be good.RogueIce wrote:Speaking of that I wonder if that fee they're talking about (assuming it materializes) will fly in the EU. Didn't they have a thing about that regarding Steam?Stark wrote:Ownership is still transferable. That's why I ask if it can be done remotely or is only done by deleting the game.
500 GB might end up just being the base model, with bigger versions or upgrades available, like they did with the 360.RogueIce wrote:So if you're installing everything and don't need the disc, how long will that 500 GB drive last you? I mean BD discs can have at least 25GB a pop, so assuming they actually use that (or more with dual layer) that's roughly...20 games before HD space becomes an issue?
Unless they shift a lot more to the Cloud, of course. EDIT: In which case you get Always Online which seems to be a sore spot for some.
The Xbox One has been confirmed to having a non removable hard drive But you can hock up a external drive.RogueIce wrote:So if you're installing everything and don't need the disc, how long will that 500 GB drive last you? I mean BD discs can have at least 25GB a pop, so assuming they actually use that (or more with dual layer) that's roughly...20 games before HD space becomes an issue?
Unless they shift a lot more to the Cloud, of course. EDIT: In which case you get Always Online which seems to be a sore spot for some.
I wonder how the TV thing will work. Since most (if not all) US cable providers route everything through their own set top boxes these days anyway, does that mean MS is hoping that it'll be compatible with those? Or are they aiming higher to replace those boxes? Because I wonder how far they'll get with that, as I don't see much incentive for the cable companies to go along here.
Or people can just learn to uninstall games when they are done with them.RogueIce wrote:So if you're installing everything and don't need the disc, how long will that 500 GB drive last you? I mean BD discs can have at least 25GB a pop, so assuming they actually use that (or more with dual layer) that's roughly...20 games before HD space becomes an issue?
That doesn't sound very convenient. And define "done with them" please. There are some people who may want to go back to older games for whatever reason without needing to uninstall something else and then reinstall, or fuck around with an external HD.bilateralrope wrote:Or people can just learn to uninstall games when they are done with them.RogueIce wrote:So if you're installing everything and don't need the disc, how long will that 500 GB drive last you? I mean BD discs can have at least 25GB a pop, so assuming they actually use that (or more with dual layer) that's roughly...20 games before HD space becomes an issue?
Wow people are gonna be happy about thatBut what if you want to bring a game disc to a friend's house and play there? You'll have to pay a fee—and not just some sort of activation fee, but the actual price of that game—in order to use a game's code on a friend's account. Think of it like a new game, Harrison said...
I doubt it. If uninstalling did let people avoid the used game fee, then MS will lose out on a lot of revenue. Since the second hand fee is a blatant revenue grab, letting people avoid the fee doesn't make any sense.Stark wrote:Uninstalling also allows fee free resale. :v
If Microsoft make the reinstall painless, reinstalling older games when you want to go back to them shouldn't be a problem.RogueIce wrote:That doesn't sound very convenient. And define "done with them" please. There are some people who may want to go back to older games for whatever reason without needing to uninstall something else and then reinstall, or fuck around with an external HD.
PR Nightmares... now better with Kinect!Kotaku wrote...
In preparing the big reveal for the next Xbox, it seems Microsoft forgot all about how the current one works, because reports from Twitter show that a lot of people ran into problems today when they tried to watch the show on their Xbox 360.
It seems that for some folks, every time an executive said something like "Xbox" or "Xbox Live", those with a Kinect experienced issues like having the stream paused or being kicked out of it altogether, because they're the same terms the peripheral uses for its voice commands.