Microsoft Prattle v2

[vivisectvi]

According to NeoGAF< MS is having problems manufacturing the XBOne, and is likely going to have to lower the clock speed of the chips as a result. Sony's February reveal apparently caught them with their pants down, and now they are in trouble.

Yup - what a gong show, if true. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=576869

It's bizarre that this time around I was finally open to owning BOTH next gen consoles -- it seems like MS has done everything in their power to convince me to just stick with Sony.

 

[vivisectvi]

Apparently, also according to NeoGAF - the UI was "faked" for the reveal presentation:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=576505

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

I think that became obvious when the first command given to Kinect

1. Worked properly.
2. Worked immediately instead of saying "Listening..." for 5 seconds, then guessing.

 

[AnonymousBroccoli]

Major Nelson's put out a few posts today. First on the Xbox One controller:

http://majornelson.com/2013/06/06/more-details-about-xbox-one-controller/

"Another convenient improvement is that the controller is both wireless and a wired– simply plug it into your console with a mini USB cable and the connection automatically switches to preserve battery life."

That's nice. Hopefully that means an easy connection to PCs. Not sure what it means for this doodad, though. "The data transfer rate between the controller and console has been improved..." That sounds like they may have fiddled with the wireless signal some; hard to tell if that means incompatibility.

And then about licencing and such:

http://majornelson.com/2013/06/06/details-on-xbox-one-connectivity-licensing-and-privacy-features/
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license

Sooo... Licences tied to your XBL account. Anyone can play games on "your console" (presumably similar to the current setup). There's some sort of "shared library" for a "family" of up to 10 people. Re-sale is with "participating retailers", and seems to be a publisher decision as far as availability. You can give disc games to friends (again, if publishers let you), but only to people you've had on your XBL friends list for 30 days, and each disc can only transfer ownership once. No rentals or loaning games.

Yeah, that's not really acceptable for me.

 

[AnonymousBroccoli]

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/connected

With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

Well, thank God I can still watch TV all I want to on my GAMING system!!!!!

What is someone supposed to do if they have a shit ISP that goes down for longer? What about deployed Soldiers with limited internet access? Microsoft is digging a major grave for themselves today.

 

[vivisectvi]

Kotaku has a nice concise wrap of of what they are calling "bad news day" for the XBONE: http://kotaku.com/the-xbox-one-just-had-a-very-bad-day-511766497

The news was almost all bad.

Here's a recap:

-The console must connect to the internet once every 24 hours in order for you to play games. For many people, from military personnel to students, that's an inconvenience, maybe even an impossibility. Never mind what happens to everybody's console if Microsoft's servers ever come down.

-The Xbox One will allow the sale of used games, at "participating retailers", but only if the publisher allows it. Publishers being the very people opposed most fiercely to used video game sales.

-There are restrictions on how you can "give" and "loan" your games away. What's more, lending won't be available at launch, with Microsoft still "exploring the possibilities with our partners".


Even some of the "good" news is really just "not as bad news". Or "an avoidance of bad news".

-Responding to fears over privacy issues surrounding the "always on" Kinect, Microsoft says you can turn the Kinect off.


Leaving the sole piece of "oh, OK, that's pretty cool news" to be:

-You can have up to ten people in your Xbox One "family", and can share all your content among them, regardless of which console they're using.

 

[KingPK]

-The Xbox One will allow the sale of used games, at "participating retailers", but only if the publisher allows it. Publishers being the very people opposed most fiercely to used video game sales

Well yeah. They get no cut of the profits in the current system. If this allows them control of where the money goes, they will be all for it.

 

[vivisectvi]

LOL, just how far down the Rabbit Hole does this go? http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=579945

Redditor claims MS employees monitoring Reddit; making positive posts about the Xbox1

Spoiler

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fv5yj/i_saw_microsoft_employees_monitoring_this/

Just thought I'd share something interesting that happened to me this week. I work for a marketing firm in Redmond that has a contract with Microsoft. I can't say specifically which division, but suffice to say we are not involved with the Xbox.

We had a pretty large meeting this week at one of the offices off 31st and, because this was the first time we had visited the Microsoft complex, we got a tour of some of the buildings. It's a quite amazing place. We won't the only visitors either; there were contractors from quite a number of other firms visiting, and presumably meeting to discuss projects related to our own.

We had a semi-formal meeting in one of the larger meeting rooms, followed by lunch and some more touring. In some of the buildings they have offices for a whole range of different divisions all mixed together (e.g. I saw Skype offices, Windows Phone offices and more all in just one building). At one point we visited one of the Xbox offices, and our guide went off to find a particular manager for us to meet. He was gone for a while, so we were left hanging in the middle of a fairly hectic office for several minutes.

While we were waiting, various marketing employees said hello to us/shook our hands - it was a pretty friendly place. Just nearby were two guys chatting at one of their PCs, and they caught my attention because they were on Reddit! I thought that was pretty cool, and presumed they were having a late lunch break and were just goofing around online. I kind-of started to eavesdrop (I honestly couldn't help it, they were talking about Reddit!) and realized they were actually talking business. One of the exchanges went like this:
"I got a few more on pics and some of the smaller subs"
"Honestly just don't bother I think, stay focused on gaming. We really should be spending 90% of our time there." [Note: I presume they were referring to /r/pics and /r/gaming]

His coworker went back to his own computer, and he continued Redditing while we waited. He must've really been hyped up on caffeine or something, because his typing was like a machine gun and he was switching tabs like crazy (or maybe that's just because Microsoft hires the 'hacker' type of guys?) Anyway I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own.

I couldn't make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One. If you're unfamiliar with reputation management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_management), it is basically what it sounds like.

Social media managers doing RM focus on providing positive posts, likes and shares to promote the brand on social media sites and forums - usually posing as the 'happy customer' archetype through a multitude of accounts. In the last year or so, Reddit has become more and more important to an overall RM strategy.

It also often involves 'debunking' people who make negative or critical comments about the brand online. I've done this myself for numerous clients before (even on Reddit once, sorry!). It is fairly standard procedure, although usually not so much for huge companies like Microsoft. I don't know why such a huge company needs to devote energy to this, because their brand is already extraordinarly well-known. But in any case, they seem to be putting a BIG focus on it for the Xbox One. Not only in-house; they're also dishing out the big bucks for some pretty high-profile marketing firms to do the work for them. Reddit will absolutely be a part of that strategy, and the couple of guys I saw were probably just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm a fairly die-hard gamer and Redditor who frequents this sub a lot. After seeing all the massive debates about the Xbox lately, I thought you guys would probably find that little morsel to be interesting. There's a good chance that many of the positive posts/comments we're seeing about the Xbox One have been posted by employees from one of those marketing firms. It's fairly standard to diss your competitors too, so I'm guessing some of the negative posts about it might even be from Sony. That's just a hypothesis, though it wouldn't be the first time a seeming-crapstorm among "Redditors" was actually just a proxy war between marketing employees.

and..

http://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/comments/1fv43y/account_created_the_day_after_xbox_one_reveal/

 

[vivisectvi]

MS Show Wrap Up at CXF: http://culturecrossfire.com/gaming/e3-2013-day-1-xbox-conference-wrap-up/

 

[muzzington]

Microsoft Exec: “If You have Zero Internet, [Xbox 360] is an Offline Device”

In an interview with GameTrailers.com, Don Mattrick, President of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, addressed the issue of the Xbox One’s online requirements. In the interview, Mattrick said that, “fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of [online] connectivity; it’s called Xbox 360.” He also went on to say that, “if you have zero access to the internet, that’s an offline device.”

Mattrick also shares in the interview an example of how, to Microsoft, people without internet truly were outliers of their targeted audience. He uses the story of a concerned gamer who lived on a nuclear submarine and was worried that he wouldn’t be able to play the new Xbox during the system’s initial backlash about the online requirements. Mattrick shrugged off the concern and the gamer as an unfortunate member of Microsoft’s audience and attempted to relate to the gamer by saying, “hey, I can empathize; if I was on a sub, I’d be disappointed.”

The video was recorded before Microsoft’s E3 Media Briefing on Monday morning, and before gamers seemed even further alienated by the Xbox One’s steep price tag of $499.

It seems as though Microsoft is in the middle of a PR nightmare. First, there was Microsoft Studios’ Creative Director telling gamers to “deal with it” in April, when rumors about an always-online console were at their peak before the Xbox One reveal. Then Microsoft couldn’t get the details of the Xbox One’s functionality straight after their reveal event last month. Yesterday, much of the gaming community seemed to be taken aback by the Xbox One’s price and further lack of relief regarding online functionality and used games restrictions. Last night, Sony went right after Microsoft’s missteps and announced a lower price point, guaranteed gamers’ ownership rights of purchased content, and cleared the air over any misconceptions about requiring an online connection. And now we have this, an eerie repeat of April’s “deal with it” scandal from an even higher source within Microsoft’s ranks.

Is Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot? Are they catering enough to their fans to garner a strong enough install base at launch? Sony got cocky last generation with the PS3 after the outstanding success of the Playstation 2, causing them to have a very slow start, and only catching up with Microsoft in the past couple of years. If Microsoft is repeating Sony’s mistake heading into this generation, will they be able to recover?

 

[skullman80]

They just come off as arrogant.

 

[HSJ]

best business strategy ever - 'you can't connect to the internet? don't buy it.'

I disconnected my internet service two weeks ago because I'm moving next week. If I had an XBoxOne, I would be SOL at this point.

 

[vivisectvi]

Holy, what a gong show these guys are. It's not just about not having internet at all (though that is a huge issue in developing regions, IMO).. it's also about what happens when there's an outage? Are people supposed to just go out and buy 360's?

 

[Angle-plex]

I recently moved and didn't have Internet/cable for a month. My Xbox is the only reason I got through that.

 

[vivisectvi]

I recently moved and didn't have Internet/cable for a month. My Xbox is the only reason I got through that.

My cousin is pretty much in the same boat right now. He moved down to London (Ontario) for a new job and has been w/o internet for close to two months now. He's got a PS3 and the offline single player games have pretty much been tiding him over until he gets his net sorted out (hopefully this Friday, actually). But either way, these situations are more common than a lot of people make them out to be. It's just sad that MS is ignoring that. =\

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I'm not going to be buying their console this go around from the sounds of it. I don't know what the ps4 is going to be like when it comes to dicking around people so I might not get it either. I don't really need to upgrade my system everytime something comes out though. I'm still happy with the 360. Plenty of games I haven't played yet. And there's always pc gaming. Time to get into retro gaming and all the backlog of stuff I haven't played over the years.

 

[vivisectvi]

Xbox One to only work in certain countries at launch:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/pre-order-xbox-one/disclaimer

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
United States

Xbox One games are for activation and distribution only in specified geographic regions. See game package and/or retailer product information, for each game’s specific geographic regions.

 

[bps21]

Holy, what a gong show these guys are. It's not just about not having internet at all (though that is a huge issue in developing regions, IMO).. it's also about what happens when there's an outage? Are people supposed to just go out and buy 360's?

This is what I don't get...what outages? I've never had the Internet go down for more than a few hours when the provider is doing something. Never had it off for close to the 24 hours it takes to matter. And if its a power outage...the tv isn't starting anyway.

 

[Damaramu]

Holy, what a gong show these guys are. It's not just about not having internet at all (though that is a huge issue in developing regions, IMO).. it's also about what happens when there's an outage? Are people supposed to just go out and buy 360's?

This is what I don't get...what outages? I've never had the Internet go down for more than a few hours when the provider is doing something. Never had it off for close to the 24 hours it takes to matter. And if its a power outage...the tv isn't starting anyway.

We had a tornado recently (several acutally) many people lost power, but Oklahoma Gas and Electric had power up and running for everyone within a day or two. Meanwhile it took Cox Cable a week to two in some areas to get the cable/internet back up and running.

Or what if you are someone that had a good job and money and then you lost your job and couldn't afford luxuries like cable and internet anymore? Your video game console might be your only escape in between making ends meet at your two crappy jobs.

 

[HSJ]

Holy, what a gong show these guys are. It's not just about not having internet at all (though that is a huge issue in developing regions, IMO).. it's also about what happens when there's an outage? Are people supposed to just go out and buy 360's?

This is what I don't get...what outages? I've never had the Internet go down for more than a few hours when the provider is doing something. Never had it off for close to the 24 hours it takes to matter. And if its a power outage...the tv isn't starting anyway.

You wouldn't be able to get on to Xbox Live without power either...so a power outage is also an issue.

 

[bps21]

What consoles can you get on in a power outage? That's where my pre-order is going.

 

[vivisectvi]

Holy, what a gong show these guys are. It's not just about not having internet at all (though that is a huge issue in developing regions, IMO).. it's also about what happens when there's an outage? Are people supposed to just go out and buy 360's?

This is what I don't get...what outages? I've never had the Internet go down for more than a few hours when the provider is doing something. Never had it off for close to the 24 hours it takes to matter. And if its a power outage...the tv isn't starting anyway.

Not everything is an outage of that variety (obv. I'm talking about internet interruptions, not power outages). People move. People have other bills. What if I have a XBOX ONE and one day I lose my job. I have to cut back on costs so I cancel my internet and cable for a bit until things get back on track. What then? Consoles and videogames are supposed to be an outlet and an escape from every day bullshit, not an enhancement to it.

 

[AnonymousBroccoli]

Or what if you are someone that had a good job and money and then you lost your job and couldn't afford luxuries like cable and internet anymore? Your video game console might be your only escape in between making ends meet at your two crappy jobs.

What if you lost your job, and couldn't afford luxuries like video games? You can sell the Xbox One itself reasonably easily, but the games are kind of a tangled mess.

 

[vivisectvi]

From NeoGAF: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=586746

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1961910/xbox_one_requires_terms_of_use_class_action_waiver.html

Perhaps the most worrying statement to be found in the Xbox One disclaimer, surrounds consumer rights after the mandatory Terms Of Use has been signed upon switching on your new console.

"You must accept Xbox Terms of Use (including Xbox software terms and game license terms), Microsoft Services Agreement, and Xbox One 1-year limited warranty. Some games have additional license terms."

"Terms include binding arbitration with class action waiver to resolve disputes."

While it is likely to only be a defensive maneuver on the part of Microsoft, it does mean that you are restricted from taking out a class action lawsuit against the company should you find dissatisfaction with the services provided.

With Microsoft requiring the console to "phone home" every 24 hours to keep the system active, this would protect the company in the event of the Xbox Live servers going offline - rendering your console inactive - or if a network hacking scandal arose like we saw with the Sony PSN in 2011, where the network was down for an entire month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action

As of November 2007, the legal validity of contracts of adhesion with class action waivers is unclear, and courts have rendered mixed and sometimes contradictory opinions.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Can someone make a handy list of all the crazy bs XBox1 has been up to or is there an article on it (hopefully on CXF!)?

 

[Haws Bah Gawd]

This is the quickest comparison I've come across.

 

[vivisectvi]

Or what if you are someone that had a good job and money and then you lost your job and couldn't afford luxuries like cable and internet anymore? Your video game console might be your only escape in between making ends meet at your two crappy jobs.

What if you lost your job, and couldn't afford luxuries like video games? You can sell the Xbox One itself reasonably easily, but the games are kind of a tangled mess.

Thankfully clarified.. but still, what a bizarre route to take to get to that answer...

 

[AnonymousBroccoli]

I'm not sure how the console would be restricted in the first place, unless there's a primary user that can't be changed, and only primary users can register game discs, or make digital purchases, or whatever else. I can't see that being the case. Nevertheless, if they're going to start throwing restrictions on things, it's probably a good idea to not assume anything.

 

[Broward83]

http://pastebin.com/uCmdh9jB