Next Gen Consoles

Well, the rumor mill churns out horrible things all the time. I like to think that they wont be that stupid, and I think they'll be making sure their hardware is solid after all the 360 failures as well.

I wonder if they'll make a stronger push into Japan or if they'll give up on that market.

I think they gave up after Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey failed to make the 360 relevant. If two back to back RPGs by the guy who made Final Fantasy can't make the 360 catch on in Japan, nothing can

Kayshire Cat wrote:I'd like to think that NO ONE is dumb enough to make a console always online. I mean do they remember what happened to PSN in 2011. It was down for what 2-3 months or something. Imagine what people would have done if their PS3s were always online during that.

Beyond stuff like that there's plenty of other reasons why people wouldn't want to/can't be online. Miss your internet bill, no games. Your ISP is doing maintenance, no games. Kind of feeling out of it and don't really want your online friends bothering you, tough shit you can't play unless you sign in.

I honestly haven't seen anyone whose in support of this. and I'd be surprised if there was anyone. I can see it for certain games, but putting it on EVERY game is just setting yourself up for failure. The only way this will work is if you let the developers choose whether to put it on their games forcing it on them is just plain stupid.

Exactly. My Internet has problems. However, so does Microsoft's Internet. And Sony's. I remember the Xbox Live outage of 2007. People were pissed about not being able to play online for several days. How would they feel if they weren't able to play at all, for several days, because Microsoft didn't have its shit together? And we've already seen the online-only mentality fall on its face countless times with the two companies that abuse it the most, EA and its partial subsidiary Ubisoft. Even setting aside the incompetence of providers, what about routine maintenance? Blizzard takes its games - all of their new releases now requiring Battle.net accounts and online connections - down at least once a week for several hours. Whether you play them online or not.

SimCity was an an absolute gang-bang clusterfuck. I don't think ANY game other than a persistent-world MMORPG should ever require always-on Internet. Ever.

volvocrusher wrote:I think they gave up after Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey failed to make the 360 relevant. If two back to back RPGs by the guy who made Final Fantasy can't make the 360 catch on in Japan, nothing can

Well, to be fair, it was the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest brands, not Hironobu Sakaguchi, that had the star power there, and the games themselves were not terribly spectacular, although they were steadily improving. Blue Dragon was a very weak game, Lost Odyssey somewhat better, while The Last Story is quite good. There is also the fact that the console-makers simply failed to make a compelling case for Japanese consumers to upgrade to HD consoles.

There is also some bias against Microsoft in Japan as well. The RRoD fiasco only reinforced that, but Microsoft also brought it on itself by being "ugly Americans" towards the Japanese public and the Japanese development community. Many Japanese developers found Microsoft to be downright condescending and insulting towards them.

It really is hard to believe they would do always online, but if they did I really would be out. I've seen people rationalizing this around the web (they are a minority obviously) and couldn't believe what I was reading. Glad none of you guys have lost your mind.

Nothing irritates me more than when I'm playing a single player game and someone sends me a message about playing Call of Duty or something like that. I'm playing a single player game for a reason.

That's a horrible idea and I can't see Microsoft being that stupid. I live in areas where you can't get high speed internet in some parts, so they'd be losing money as well.

Here was one Microsoft employee's response to that concern. I do understand that MS has come out and said his statements do not reflect those of Microsoft, however.

I still think that this always online/blocking used games thing floating around is weird. Why wouldn't Sony and Microsoft come right out and stamp out any rumours. They've just skirted around the issues and it makes me suspicious. Sony's conference was showing off a lot of offline functionality in an attempt to soft sell us on some bad issues.

I've always said that either Microsoft and Sony (because Nintendo is so fucking irrelevant it's a joke) do this together or not at all. It would be suicide for either of them to go it alone. So maybe that's why they are both feeling each other out and waiting to announce it. It's a wierd situation.

For me internet is a huge fucking issue. My Canadian internet sucks. I pay 80 bucks for top of the line internet and I've change providers three times and it still fucking sucks. Computer technology has grown exponentially while internet technology still sucks. I hate that the internet has to be the limiting factor. As much as I support curtailing used games, always online would be an immediate deterent to me.

Haha... not even sure how that guy can take himself seriously. Completely out of touch. I don't even buy used games. My internet being in a rural area and the way I have to set up my router in my house makes it pretty spotty. And I know people have it much worse. My speed is pretty fast, but it can just go out at inopportune times.

To me, it's not even a matter of Internet connectivity. My Internet beats the pants off of MS and Sony servers. If I lose service, it's generally on their end, not mine.

What pisses me off about always online is that I'm tired of being treated like a thief by game publishers and having them looking over my shoulder when I play games. As it is, I wouldn't buy any EA or Ubisoft product without my lawyer present to interpret those fucking EULAs they slap on everything. I also don't like digital distribution because my games are tied to an account that the seller controls. If they decide they don't like me, they can take away everything I purchased from them. EA (again!) has done that several times to people who pissed them off in the EA forums.

Hell, I'm the one who buys used and I'm sick of being treated like a thief. I have a message for game developers: A college student who only works part time needs to trade games in, rent them, and wait for price drops. Hell, when I was in high school I once walked out of a Gamestop with four cents left because Mass Effect 2 and No More Heroes 2 came out on the same day. I can't keep up with what they want from me, so you bet your ass I'm taking advantage of a free market and buy a lot of games used.

It could be them considering it, but I think it points to something that's an even bigger issue, that we're blowing how bad it would be out of proportion. I don't think they see it as something that they should be treating in a way where they need deny it the second any rumors start, just something that would annoy us.

People may laugh at how much gamers throw hissy fits, but it gets results dammit! You think they'd do it if people acted like the NRA on gun control? Hell no! Just looks at Mass Effect 3. People bitch over day one DLC. All the multiplayer DLC is free. They bitch about the ending. Extended Cut is released for free. It gets results.

SanAndreasX wrote:
What pisses me off about always online is that I'm tired of being treated like a thief by game publishers and having them looking over my shoulder when I play games.

Thisthisthisthisthisthisthisthisthis.

volvocrusher wrote:Hell, I'm the one who buys used and I'm sick of being treated like a thief. I have a message for game developers: A college student who only works part time needs to trade games in, rent them, and wait for price drops. Hell, when I was in high school I once walked out of a Gamestop with four cents left because Mass Effect 2 and No More Heroes 2 came out on the same day. I can't keep up with what they want from me, so you bet your ass I'm taking advantage of a free market and buy a lot of games used.

I'm not sure that's a justification. Poverty doesn't really excuse theft of luxury items (I know I'm using a strong word). If they want to charge too much for games then they price themselves out of the market.

I'm serious when I say that I would give up used games in a heart beat if it meant no more DLC, tacked on mp, DRM, microtransactions and all the other bullshit tactics. Also take off 20 bucks from the retail price. When publishers make upwards of two thirds of the profits they could afford to reduce the cost at launch given that used games are no longer an issue. Unfortunately we will have all the same bullshit AND no used games.

When you say theft is a strong word, the thing is it's too strong to be relevant. If you're comparing the two, then we don't really own these games. Owning means sell your game back in a free market or let a friend borrow it, and being allowed to be on the receiving end is part of that too.

Well we don't need to go down that road which is why I flagged the word "theft". All I wanted to say was that because you're poor and because games are too expensive that doesn't really justify doing whatever you want. I'm just quibbling about a small point.

I wouldn't say it justifies everything either, but if it's legal in a free market, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. That's where all this shit is going wrong, they need to find ways to make buying new look more appealing instead of taking all this shit away or trying to squeeze every penny out of us.

Yeah but the attempts at making buying new more appealing have been DLC, tacked on mp, pre-order bonuses etc. The death of the singleplayer game.

I was arguing with some fool on Gamespot and he used the fact that people can sell cars as an example of why we should be able to sell games. Leaving aside that they are very different industries, with different structures and histories, dealership would love it if they could outlaw used car sales. Think of all the incentives they give you to buy a new car. Failing that most dealerships have taken over the sale of used cars to make sure they aren't losing as much money. Like if Sony owned Gamestop. Also cars aren't a disposable product to the same extent that games are... anyways I'm digressing. There's lots of dumb arguments on both sides. I just don't agree with this general idea that once you buy a product you own it absolutely, that's never been the case with most things.

I guess it's like knock off clothes. X brand charges way too much so you decide to buy knock offs. It's (mostly) legal, but there are negative implications. Claiming that wearing knock offs is cool or justified because the originals are too expensive just rings a little hollow.

But I agree with you Greenman. The industry has gone off the deep end trying to rip us off and treat us like shit at every turn. The latest piss off for me being my so called "Season Pass"... SURPRISE! doesn't actually cover all the DLC. Thanks GOME or Borderlands.

Yeah, once you bring up any other industry, the argument gets a lot of holes. And I do agree their methods of enticing us are bullshit. But their current business model is horrible. Not everything's worth $60 and cramming a bunch of shit no one asked for won't make it worth $60. That's the real problem.

I know it's not a huge deal but I find the 40 dollar price tag for Sony games or remakes really refreshing. It's only 20 bucks but it feels like they are acknowledging that "look this isn't a triple A 60 dollar game and we don't expect you to pay that price". It feels like a rare example of good business practice and respecting the average gamer. It's still a little bit of a trick but Sly seems that much more reasonable a buy to me when its 40.

Yeah...I think theft is too strong to be relevant. I think all Casey was trying to say was that it's silly to exclude certain markets by pricing the games the way they do. And yeah...just like other industries, people find ways around that and instead of shying away from it one should embrace it (movies in US theaters have matinee prices for example).

So I see where you're coming on this. I would not buy used except...well...fuck it, I buy used because I can't find the game at a reasonable price new. Loads of DS games are some $50 or something new on amazon or...get a copy that is near new for $15. I have money but fuck that noise, of course I'll buy used.

I will say that I don't understand the thought process behind saving $5 on launch week and buying used...it's $5. But just like Neph said, if you give us good reasons to buy it legit, we will. Like Steam bundling Bioshock and X-Com into a preorder of infinite. I didn't even want Bioshock but then after playing Infinite I felt like replaying it and BOOM. There it is.

Like the rumored "block-used-games" issue, it's something they'd like to implement but I don't think they will. If they want to see enough units, they'll play it safe and won't bother. There has to be data showing that there's a significant amount of Xbox owners who are not connected online at all.

Hehe...we are these people:

That thing so sucks at getting cougar pussy.