This Is Why We Cant Have Nice Things- The Xbox One With less than week to go until Ghosts and not long until the second next gen console comes out (because unfortunately the Wii-U counts as a next gen console) and it seems from forums, polls and whatnot the PlayStation 4 is going to be the more popular console but its amazing how many people equate that to being the better console when that is just not true. Microsoft really have shot themselves in the foot when they announced the specs and features of the consoles such as DRM and the always on policy because regardless of whether they reversed their policy on that or not, the damage had been done, stocks had fallen, public perception had been shifted and it had become known as the console that doesnt let you share games and this was enough to give the PlayStation 4 which in my opinion isnt that spectacular of a console an enormous lead. But why is this? Im not an expert by any means but I blame it on one thing, the fact that the general public as a whole like choice, I say choice but perhaps I should change that to illusion of choice. The Xbox One originally did have online checks every 24 hours meaning you needed to have a solid connection when it made the check otherwise you would be locked out of the console. Now you could probably say that this made people feel like they didnt have a choice and always needed to be online but the worse thing about this was that you couldnt play games offline either which meant you either played with a working internet connection or nothing, there was no bringing the console round to a friend’s house or a hotel or wherever you wanted to play it that didnt have an internet connection for more than 24 hours which pretty much limited the places you could play it. What people dont seem to realise is that has been changed and that it only needs an online check once and only once and that is when you buy the console for the first time and that is fair enough, it may not be ideal for people that do not have an internet connection but in this day and age in the countries that the Xbox One is being launched in, the majority do have access to some sort of connection. That was probably the biggest problem people had or maybe it was the DRM. Put simply it meant you couldnt share games but you bought the game installed it on your profile, but you could go round a friends house with the disc and log in and play on your profile no problems but if your friend wanted to continue playing the game after you left they would need to pay a fee to unlock it on their profile or something along those lines. Sounds complicated doesnt it? Not only that but people did not like the perceived lack of choice when it came to second hand games. Pre-owned games were now rendered pointless and going around to your friends house with games were also pointless. For those who slated Microsoft for that, what you need to realise that this model or a similar version would have had its benefits and that would have been cheaper games (which may have made up for the non-sharing aspect probably). Just look at Steam, now I dont use Steam all that often but as far as Im aware of you cant share games on there either but whenever they do a sale, geez the prices drop to ridiculous prices. Im walking into GAME and that and Im seeing the likes of Tomb Raider and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 at some high price like 15-20 pounds and I think Im not touching that but on Steam Im seeing them drop down to 10 pounds or something ridiculous like that. Im not saying that all games would be cheap but there were more chances of getting dirt cheap A star games for low prices, in fact it probably would have been even lower to encourage more people to buy it seeing as you couldnt trade it in or anything like that, but as it stands now because of the backlash we gamers are now stuck paying 50 pounds for games that are rehashes or sequels. Perhaps this wasnt their intention as if they were going to make the games cheap they would have focused on that on their E3 presentation but like I said Im not an expert. I mean I know I wouldnt have thought that claiming that Kinect is required and it always needing to be on would have been a great idea for a highly anticipated console but what do I know. To be honest, Microsoft should have stuck with their vision of the Xbox One if it was going to be something that was really radical like that but as it stands now, they have a console that doesnt really have a distinguishing feature about it. Sure there may be some improvements like it finally has a Blu-Ray player (even though it wasnt really their fault for backing HD-DVD), it has Titanfall (though for how long is the next question) but the original design just felt so restrictive and that is what sticks in peoples minds. So just to sum up my feelings on this, people really dont like feeling of being out of control and having no choice, their disastrous presentation mixed with other factors really bit Microsoft in the backside and lets not get started on the price because as I said if they had stuck with a sort of Steam model and cheaper games, then the higher price point would have been forgiven but as it stand youre paying 80 plus pounds more for something that is almost identical to the PS4...for now. When Titanfall, Left 4 Dead 3 and all those other exclusive Xbox One games come out...then its a different story. youtu.be/yDE1UNuFiVg
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:55:36 +0000
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