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XBox (Games) Games

Xbox One Launch Woes Were Preventable, Next Console Likely Digital Download Only 230

Posted by samzenpus from the next-time dept.
MojoKid writes: Microsoft's Xbox One launch didn't go off exactly as planned in late 2013. Before the console's release, the company was dogged over DRM restrictions with the console and concerns over its high price tag compared to its counterpart, the Sony PlayStation 4. Microsoft would attribute the higher price tag to the included Kinect camera — a peripheral that many gamers didn't particularly care for. Former Xbox Chief Robbie Bach offered his two cents recently on the Xbox One — a console that launched years after he announced he retired from the company in 2010. Bach noted, regarding the Xbox One's rocky launch, "...gosh, I think some of that was predictable and preventable." As for the future of physical game media, Bach doesn't think that the future will be so bright when it comes to DRM and always-connected requirements in the next generation of gaming consoles. He said that the next Xbox would "probably not" have physical media to speak of, with consoles adopting digital-only distribution.
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Xbox One Launch Woes Were Preventable, Next Console Likely Digital Download Only More

Xbox One Launch Woes Were Preventable, Next Console Likely Digital Download Only

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  • Fine with me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sable Drakon ( 831800 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @08:44PM (#50475247)
    So long as they offer an experience comparable to Steam, including weekly sales and the deeper discounts around Summer/Winter. I've got no issues with always-on, since I'm always connected anyway. Just give users a sane amount of offline time and it's all good.

    • Re:Fine with me. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <ayertim>> on Monday September 07, 2015 @08:53PM (#50475319)

      So long as they offer an experience comparable to Steam, including weekly sales and the deeper discounts around Summer/Winter.

      Oh, it would be the same experience, but without the discounts. Especially for exclusive franchises. I think they just want to control sale process and prevent used-game resale.

      Also, I have never used Steam -- do they have a contingency for when they go out of business?

      I've got no issues with always-on, since I'm always connected anyway.

      Wait until you move into a building with "free/included" internet that blocks a bunch of ports to keep that free internet usage down. I cannot connect to any game servers from home.

      • Not a true contingency but steam is an easy drm to circumvent if you need to. Quite often the extra DRM games come with is a lot worse than the steam one and some of the steam games are DRM free, it is just they come delivered via steam and you tend to launch them via steam. You can launch those directly from the executable if you so desire (Prison Architect, & Gnomoria are two examples).

        I have come full circle on steam. When it first appeared I was super anti it and extremely pissed that HL2 needed

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cyberax ( 705495 )
          Do you have WiFi at home?

          • Yes I do. But not 100% sure why you are asking.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Cyberax ( 705495 )
              Just set up your console to use WiFi, no need for any wired connections.

              • I know I can do that. But I don't keep my consoles plugged in, as in connected to the mains power or on. Consoles represent casual play, especially if a couple of mates come round, I might get the xbox out from where it lives in my hallway cupboard, plug the whole thing in and together and drop a disk in. I know I am not a main target customer but I have a 360 and about 30 games.

                Either way I had data cabling run through my house so where ever it was set up there will be a data point anyway.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Cyberax ( 705495 )
                  You don't need to keep your console connected all the time. WiFi is mostly needed to download games into its local hard drive and for infrequent updates. I'm using my console in pretty much the same way - I plug it in about once a month.

      • Also, I have never used Steam -- do they have a contingency for when they go out of business?

        Don't hold you're breath.

        http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/1... [vg247.com]

        And yes, Steam has a contingency for how you can play your games if they go out of business. It's called, "offline mode". And if you're worried about online-only games being unavailable in offline mode, why aren't you asking if Blizzard has a contingency for WoW players if Blizzard goes out of business, or if CCP has a contingency for Eve Online players in

        • And yes, Steam has a contingency for how you can play your games if they go out of business. It's called, "offline mode".

          How will offline mode survive a backup of user data and game binaries, reinstallation of the operating system, and restoration of user data and game binaries? And over the years, the Steam client has had plenty of bugs causing it to lose the "receipt" that allows a user to play a purchased a game in offline mode.

          • For me (strictly IMO) that risk is part of the tradeoff for the reduced prices and near-perfect memory while active

            Literally every single game I've ever purchased on steam is still available. That's 200 games over the better part of a decade. What are the odds that you would be able to track 200 disks (or more, for multi-disk games) for years and years, without a single one getting scratched, lost, etc? I can't speak for everyone, but for me personally, no chance. Absolutely nope.

            Yes, there's a risk. On

          • How will offline mode survive a backup of user data and game binaries, reinstallation of the operating system, and restoration of user data and game binaries? And over the years, the Steam client has had plenty of bugs causing it to lose the "receipt" that allows a user to play a purchased a game in offline mode.

            You don't do backups? If you back up your Steam folder, and your "My Games" folder, just restore it to wherever you want and point your Steam install to those directories.

            • Re:Offline mode on reinstall? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @12:03AM (#50476193) Homepage Journal

              You don't do backups? If you back up your Steam folder, and your "My Games" folder, just restore it to wherever you want and point your Steam install to those directories.

              Bullshit. Some games don't have DRM, but all the AAA ones do, and they aren't playable until they are blessed by Steam, which can't happen until Steam is blessed by Valve's servers, which can't happen until the installer says that it's been fully updated. You absolutely can not restore DRM-protected steam backups and play them without being online.

              • Not a troll, Valve shill (Score:5, Insightful)

                by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @12:30AM (#50476275) Homepage Journal

                I have personally tried to restore Steam backups, so I know the drill. You cannot play the backups without being online. And last time I checked, the Steam installer would refuse to install if it was old, and the download for the new one still won't resume. You either get the file all at once, or not at all.

                It's really pathetic that someone is actually shilling for Valve here on Slashdot by modding down my factual comments. It's sad if they pay for it, and it's even sadder if they don't.

              • Bullshit. Some games don't have DRM, but all the AAA ones do, and they aren't playable until they are blessed by Steam, which can't happen until Steam is blessed by Valve's servers, which can't happen until the installer says that it's been fully updated

                So... is this a Steam issue or an issue of the AAA studio's DRM?
                What would happen to your shiny game CD when the studios DRM servers go down? Expensive coaster.
                And somehow it's steam taking the heat here. That's usually called "shooting the messenger"

                • So... is this a Steam issue or an issue of the AAA studio's DRM?

                  It's a Steam issue, because it's specifically the Steam DRM which must be satisfied by being blessed by Valve. There may also be other DRM which requires a network blessing, but when a game uses Steam DRM, this is rare. This problem is not unique to Steam, but it is exceptionally rare outside of games which are meaningless without a network connection anyway.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Hadlock ( 143607 )

            I'm not super worried about it, they are rolling in money, have no public shareholders to be accountable to, and almost completely hold a monopoly on the PC digital download market. And every time they fuck up with the community they backpedal as hard as they can. It's possible they will go under in the next decade, but that's longer than the lifespan of a console, so I'm ok with that. When Gabe Newell dies some day (he's what, 65?) then it could take a turn for the worse but right now they seem be headed o

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mitreya ( 579078 )

          And if you're worried about online-only games being unavailable in offline mode, why aren't you asking if Blizzard has a contingency for WoW players if Blizzard goes out of business, or if CCP has a contingency for Eve Online players in case CCP goes out of business?

          That is part of the reason I personally only buy games with single-player mode support.
          Still, MMORPG games are a very special case which actually deserves different treatment. Game price is not really the cost of the game. You would pay a monthly fee (at least for WoW, I am less sure how Eve Online works). So it is understood that once servers go down, you won't be able to play. You also won't be paying monthly fees for ongoing gaming after that.

        • No, they have no contingency. Offline mode doesn't work so well at times. As well, you must be online to install the games. That means if the computer dies and there's no Valve, then you lose the games.

          Steam games are not MMO always-online games, you can't really compare the two categories. In one camp, if the server goes down it's pointless to play anymore anyway as there are no other players, and as well there are concerns about other cheating so you need game verification; in the other case you have

          • It's OUR game that we paid for, having to ask permission is ridiculous.

            I agree completely. But "asking permission" is not limited to Steam. Most AAA games now phone home to authorize whether you're on digital download or physical disk.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        do they have a contingency for when they go out of business

        Does it really matter? OK, probably there will be a hack --- almost certainly there will be a hack -- but, seriously, this is a set of games. Buy em again if you have to - by the time Steam ever goes under, you won't be a broke student, and the expense will be trivial.

        Don't get me wrong, I always check GOG first, but if GOG doesn't have it I shrug and pay Steam. Of the ~300 Steam games I own, there are ~20 I'd bother to buy again, and by that time they'd be in the $5 price range, at most (heck, most of t

        • If you've got 300 games and only 20 you'd buy again, then you are the perfect customer for Steam. They had a statistic about how many games were purchased from them but were never played, and it was surprisingly high. Most of my games I have replayed, up in the 90% range.

          As for price, it took Half Life 2 well over 5 years before the price dropped to $10. Valve is extremely stingy about sales with their own games, and stingy with sales for top tier games as well. Their sales are on the very old stuff, ind

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gl4ss ( 559668 )

            a lot of it is buying packs of games on steam.

            maybe there's one or two that you want to check out or play but you'll get 4-6 extra games thrown in.. like the xcom pack etc

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            When a game is $2, and it looks like it might be fun, why not try it? If I get a few hours of fun, it's money well spent, even if I never see it again.

            As for price, it took Half Life 2 well over 5 years before the price dropped to $10.

            Sure, but how many years would you project before Steam somehow goes under? At least 5? Then the games you're buying today will be under $10 if you need to re-buy them. Heck, I think I've bought Master or Orion II 3 or 4 times now, and since I spent several addicted weekends each time, I can hardly regret the $10 or whatever.

            For awhile they had DLC for Skyrim that still costs more than the cost of Legendary Edition of Skyrim

            DLC is an attempt to make gami

          • This is easy to understand if you take a look at their bundling policy. You find a game you like, see that there's a bundle of a bunch of games available, find out that you'd want three out of the bundle of like 15 games, notice the three games cost about as much as the bundle (or even that the bundle is cheaper) and buy the bundle instead.

            And then you have 15 games in your library, 3 of which you actually play.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by vux984 ( 928602 )

            They had a statistic about how many games were purchased from them but were never played, and it was surprisingly high.

            I'm one of those people. And its not suprising. Steam Bundles, and Humble Bundles... mean I have a lot of titles I didn't really buy. I might play some of them, or not... I don't really care. I got my money out the bundles even just for the titles i wanted.

            Valve is extremely stingy about sales with their own games, and stingy with sales for top tier games as well.

            WTF?

            Orangebox (HalfLife series), Left 4 Dead 1&2, and Portal 1 & 2 are regularly 75%+ off. You can probably get the entire valve catalog for under $40 without trying.

            The point of DRM is to keep the prices high by killing off lending, gifting, and reselling.

            That's a fundamentally wrong way of looking at it.

            There is no product being sold in the first place, so the semantics of reselling don't really make sense. What is a 'used copy of a steam game' exactly? How does it differ from a brand new copy?

            If the market became efficient enough, I could just resell and rebuy the games in my library as I needed them.

            The end result being the developer only sells exactly as many units as are required concurrently. Because any time I want to go play, I'll take a used copy someone else isn't using that minute, and drop it back onto the market when I quit. The only time the developer makes a sale is when the used supply is exhausted by people playing.

            Is THAT what you want? How would that be a good thing?

            And then taken further why bother buying and selling games at all. Steam can just buy enough to meet concurrent demand and then steam users can check them out like library books.

            Why not? Indeed the only way for a developer to make any money at all is to have a big splash on release week to drive up the concurrency demands. No long tail sales, tricking in because the secondary market will be full of 'idle' licenses up for grabs.

            I'm just not sure reselling games on steam makes a lot of sense. It makes sense for discs or cartridges because there is actual friction in that market (actual physical goods need to be transferred), and the discs and carts do wear out over time as well. I don't know reselling makes sense for steam or itunes or even GoG.

            Because honestly, I prefer GoG, which is DRM free. But reselling games even on GoG isn't really a thing either. (Its DRM free... so you could I suppose make a copy and sell it, and then not use it anymore... but nobody does that.)

            And really the ONLY objection I currently have to steam is that when I'm playing game A, my kids are locked out of the other 200 OTHER games in my library. So I'd like family sharing to allow that.

      • Also, I have never used Steam -- do they have a contingency for when they go out of business?

        I have to admit that I came to peace with the idea of no, difficult or not perfect contingency as an inherent drawback of online game distribution as long as they share the inherent advantages of online game distribution with me, too. Read: as long as games are cheap enough to easily write them off when or if steam may go out of business.

        It's nothing more than different risk sets for different media types:
        Book/CD/DVD: absolutely safe from distributor going out of business, varying risk of technical deprecat

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      So long as they offer an experience comparable to Steam

      I don't see how a console can "offer an experience comparable to Steam" while continuing to be a console. An "experience comparable to Steam" includes the ability to install mods, the ability to make mods, and the ability to Alt+F4 and open an IDE to theoretically make your own game from scratch.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      Steam is also multi-platform. And the number of titles for a new console on game day is small, so why not have all of them pre-loaded, and just need a quick auth code to make them active? No need to have millions trying to download the same games at the same time on opening day.

    • More likely though is that Steam offers an experience more like consoles - with SteamOS, big picture mode, new controller, steam machines.

      And with the added benefit that the hardware is backwards compatible (OK, SteamOS won't run Windows titles, but going forward...), and the games are much cheaper.

      As for "always-on", I *do* have a big issue with this. Yes, I have an "always connected" broadband. But that doesn't mean it is bullet proof. It doesn't mean their servers are bullet proof either.

      I have deezer th

  • no you didn't. no one did.

  • Woes == Customer Dissent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @08:47PM (#50475267)
    To them the "woes" were the customer revolt that forced them to backpedal on always-on connectivity, the invasive 24/7 HD spy camera and microphone, and disabling of second-hand games. And they think "preventing" that is merely a matter of tightening the lockdown.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Removing second hand sales triples the price of games. Used you be you could buy it on launch for 60, sell it couple of weeks later for 40. Resale prices have already been forced down due to online and DLC access being tied to the original machine, effectively doubling the price of games.

      • "sell games"? What kind of heresy is this? True Gamers don't sell games, only "dudebro gamers" playing the "brown shooter of the week" or "sports game of the season" buy their games only to sell them a few weeks later.

  • Am I the only one who gets annoyed with past future tense used like,

    Microsoft would attribute the higher price tag to the included Kinect camera

    I see this tense a lot, especially in online RP and it just feels off, every time I read something like this. Why not just "Microsoft attributed the higher price tag to the included kinect camera..."

    I'm no englishologist, I just know when it feels wrong, and that feels wrong. Saying, "I knew microsoft would..." works out, but not "Microsoft would attribute..."

    • Why not just "Microsoft attributed the higher price tag to the included kinect camera..."

      maybe it might be because microsoft never actually said that

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      It's legit, because it's speaking FROM the past.

      "The Apple Newton was a failure, but Apple would learn from the experience, using the "Eat Up Martha" as a call for better device interaction."

      That's saying that the point of the story is still in the past, with the Apple Newton failure. The next sentence is probably about either the Apple Newton or something at a similar time to it- it's not in the present yet.

  • 90% of the titles are actually download only now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @09:06PM (#50475411) Homepage

    you get a disc that tells it to download a 20gb "update" that is actually the whole freaking game.

    • Like World of Warcraft CDs that I bought on its release day! :(

  • The problem is obvious (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dackroyd ( 468778 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @09:55PM (#50475623) Homepage

    The guy who was in charge of the Xbox team for these 'woes' was a guy named Don Mattrick.

    During the run up to the horrible E3 where most of these poor decisions were revealed, he had been negotiating and then accepted a job running Zynga.

    To put it mildly, he had completely checked out and didn't appear to care about what happened to the Xbox at that E3, as he knew he was going to be out the door a few weeks later.

    This is one of the larger straight mistakes that Ballmer (as opposed to reasonable but poor decisions) made during his role as CEO of Microsoft - leaving a guy who just didn't give a shit in charge of a major project.

    • Re:The problem is obvious (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xest ( 935314 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @03:48AM (#50476781)

      I think letting him off by saying it's just because he was leaving understates the issue. Let's be clear, Don Mattrick was an anti-consumer arsehole who simply had no idea what he was doing.

      Since he left Microsoft's Xbox division has done a complete u-turn, they're actually incredibly responsive to user demands now, and seem genuinely sensitive to gamers concerns going so far as to ditch their previous pet project Kinect from the majority of console bundles a while ago and providing dashboard changes and functionality people actually asked for, usually within short order.

      I suspect the reason Mattrick was looking for a new job in the first place was because no one else at Microsoft liked or trusted him either, it's pretty obvious the whole culture at the Xbox division changed when he fucked off, and that couldn't happen if many other people there agreed with his direction, the fact the change happened so quickly and was night and day suggests he was using his position of authority to make a lot of staff implement a lot of things they didn't actually want to implement.

      The problem is that the damage Mattrick did is lasting, people still parrot a lot of myths about the X1 based on things that were, once, in the product development plan under Mattrick but ditched even before the console was released and thankfully never came to fruition (e.g. you could always disable the Kinect camera and unplug it and stuff worked fine, right from day 1). Similarly console sales have really struggled to recover because of this early damage and it's still lagging against the PS4.

      I think it's safe to say that Mattrick is the biggest failure in the world of gaming in the last decade. He's the Stephen Elop of the video game world. He should probably be relegated to something like sweeping the streets with a brush or something where he can't do as much financial damage as he did to the X1 programme.

  • Please drink a verification can to continue.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mentil ( 1748130 )

      Your pee came out... orange-ish yellow. You fail. Please drink further cans until it is green. Remember to urinate directly in front of the Kinect for verification. Thank you for your cooperation, citizen, I mean consumer, I mean sir and/or madam.

  • That team (Score:3)

    by meerling ( 1487879 ) on Monday September 07, 2015 @10:41PM (#50475831)
    It was pretty obvious they weren't exactly the brightest when they thought it was a good idea to name the THIRD iteration of their console ONE.

    • It's from the company that made you click a button labeled "start" if you wanted to shut down your computer, what sophistication did you expect?

    • Well to be fair, the development team might have not had much to with the naming of the product. Like for many things Microsoft, their marketing department should have been fired for their choices but somehow they still keep doing stupid things.

  • Have a user swappable main hdd + moving of games to an ext hdd / usb stick.

    PS3 and PS4 make it easy Xbox it's a lot harder and you may get banned for doing it.

    with the Xbox 360 people got banned for use there own and much cheaper HDD's in the xbox 360 hdd caddy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      "Have a user swappable main hdd + moving of games to an ext hdd / usb stick."

      You already can move games to an external HDD on the X1, given that it supports USB3 there's not really any point changing the internal drive when you can get a perfectly fast external drive and just plug it straight in anyway. Of course you wont get banned for using external storage on an X1, that's complete nonsense, it's a standard function of the console, well advertised, and fully supported within the UI.

      "with the Xbox 360 peo

  • Welcome to the future. You live somewhere without reliable internet access, and want to play a game on the Xbox Two. You take your hard-earned bitcoins to a Gamestop as well as a flash drive/external HDD that's been prepared by the console. You plug it in to a kiosk at the store, which lets you download game data for ANY game available for the system (a single HDD can hold every game released in the past several months). Of course, you won't just be able to play it. You scratch off a prepaid bitcoin card an

  • tired of these news story's the same crap is flying around with the nx. there likely going to ditch the blue rays and go back to flash media aka carts as optical drives are the bottlenecks for these systems.
  • There's some circumstantial evidence from a recent patent filing that the Nintendo NX may ditch the disk drive (and possibly all physical media) [forbes.com]. A patent-filing is by no means indicative of final intent. After all, Sony filed quite a few "always-online" type patents during the PS4's development but ended up not going down that direction. But it's a sign that Nintendo is at least considering it.

    This is an area where there's a huge disadvantage to being the first mover. As MS learned in the run up to the

  • Always On Sucks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Tuesday September 08, 2015 @03:00AM (#50476671) Homepage Journal

    I've got an XBox One and currently a really shit internet connection (digital nomad in Spain sharing wifi across 3 different flats).

    When the internet goes dodgy and the XBox One loses access, I can't save my game and the games start missing features.

    Sure my predicament is a bit odd, but I can't be the only person with flakey Internet. Not being able to save a single player game just because you aren't online is a bit off imo.

    • I guess it depends on the game. I've had no Comcast internet for over a week due to storms. In that time I've happily installed Dragon Age Inquisition onto my Xbox One, been playing it for a week, with no problems at all.

  • But the only way digital only will work is if Sony goes along too. If not, then all the people who hate digital only will start choosing the competition and they'll have to backpeddle again.

    I own an Xbox One. I've picked up several games through Amazon, Best Buy, Target, etc. that were on sale for $20, while the digital versions were still full price. Then, I played them through and sold them on eBay for what I paid for them or, at most, a $5 loss. I don't like multiplayer and don't like playing games I've

  • Digital-only is tunnelvision, unless they're fine making multiple versions of the system and still having to produce discs in some markets. The sheer volume of consoles in soldier deployments and countries with limited internet will see to it.

  • I think it's good that they're moving toward digital. Analog downloads didn't seem to have enough fidelity. Sure, it was nice that if someone picked up the phone in the middle of your download, it'd still work and you would just have a noisy blur in the texture on some wall, but video games these days are more about art, so we need to protect the artists' vision.

  • But next time they'll double down on always-on and no media, which were two huge parts of the bad press of Xbone.

    Though for all that public bitching about that, and the fact that PS4 is faster, the key factor was probably pricing, with all the controversy not even visible to the person looking at the two boxes on a retailer shelf or on amazon web pages and just seeing the price tags.

  • Why would any retailer sell a digital download only system? The game systems have very little margin. The retailer is counting on the game sales to make up for that.

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