Xbox One

[Late]

That is bloody weird.
I can understand pre-orders being high at places where there's no deposit and the price is realistic looking. But putting money down six months in advance, to buy from a retailer who isn't even willing to guess at the price?
Sure, you can cancel and get your £20 back later if you want, but that seems pretty daft to me. I've no idea of the number of preorders they've had, and I doubt Asda/Walmart are short of a few quid, but it adds up the public giving them a cubic fucktonne of money for six months, for nothing.

[ancelotti]

Nice bit of interest for the supermarkets.

[jman]

Some official Xbox One information released today on licensing, connectivity and privacy features - Link

I've picked the most salient points out :

Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers.  Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.

So no fees to play used-games.. but you can only sell them to participating retailers if the publishers have enabled a trade-in feature.. so buying/selling on ebay is out of the question and the trade-in price will be determined by the retail-stores.

Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

You cant loan games out to your friends.. but you can give them to your friends for free.. provided they have been on your friends list for 30 days.  After the initial "give", your friend cant "give" the game again.

Share access to your games with everyone inside your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games.  Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you.

Everyone can play your games on your console regardless of whether you are logged in or not.

You are in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused: If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences.

You can turn Kinect off at will.

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.

 

You need to log-in every so often to play games.  Personally I log in every time the 360 turns on automatically - this is not a massive problem for me as long as my internet doesn't die.


IMO.. this is just like steam.. except it requires more online connectivity.. but there is the possibility of trade-ins.. its not offputting to me.. but if sony offer no fee on used games and the ability to sell to anyone.. that's obviously going to be more appealing to me.

[harv]

Yup, the world and his wife have been going apeshit over this since it was announced last night. I really can't believe Microsoft are killing their console launch like this.

I really can't see Sony taking a similar route after all this fuss. At the very least they'll allow games to be loaned between friends and sold used via Amazon and eBay. Otherwise I've seen plenty of people saying they're going to forget about consoles and game on their PCs instead. And if Sony leave the decision whether to allow used game sales to publishers then there's a possibility that those games will be boycotted and we could be looking at another Crash.

All of this could have serious repercussions for the industry. I can't believe that publishers and Microsoft are thinking this is going to be a good idea. The mind really does boggle. After the initial backlash when the news leaked Microsoft had the chance to change things and they've changed absolutely nothing. Unbelievable.

[jman]

Well we'll find out today hopefully.. Microsoft's live feed can be followed via console or website..so I'll be home in time to watch that, although I'm definitely not staying up to watch the Sony Conference

E3 schedules...
Microsoft - 17:30 June 10th
EA - 21:00 June 10th
Ubisoft - 23:00 June 10th
Sony - 02:00 June 11th
Nintendo - 15:00 June 11th

[bealec]

Really undecided now.

Most of the games I buy are pre owned. I only usually get a new game if one I'm interested in is released close to my birthday or Christmas then my dad gets it for me.

If Microsoft kill the pre owned game market then is lean towards a PS4 but then we don't know if Sony will do the same.

[Late]

Hopefully we'll know more in a day or two.

I'm still more excited about the Steambox than the ps4 or xbox1 at the moment - but I don't think we'll see that for another year.


E3 should be the best we've seen in a long time, with lots of exciting news (though I'll miss Microsoft's presser as I'm commuting, I'll miss Sony's as I'll be slaying zombies, and I'll miss Nintendo's because I'm not a twelve year old girl). Looking forward to reading the highlights and watching new game trailers though!

[harv]

Just when you thought Microsoft couldn't fuck up the launch of the One any more.

This has to be the biggest clusterfuck of a console launch I've ever seen. Do you think they're fucking up this launch on purpose..? No idea why they would want to but there has to be some reason apart from incompetence why they're doing their best to kill the console before it's even launched.

[harv]

And it keeps getting worse...

Microsoft have gone insane.

[Late]

More info has been released on achievements, challenges & rewards.

Gamerscore carries over from the 360 (which we'd already been told), and arise from in-game Achievements - which will work in the same way as on the 360.
There are new Achievements that don't affect your gamerscore - for music and video apps etc. They'll unlock certain things.
And Challenges are another new feature. Again, they won't affect your gamerscore, but may give you rewards.

dealspwn
majornelson



ps - can you change the thread title to "Xbox One", Kieron?

[jman]

Yeah I had a look at changing the thread name before but couldn't find an option.. can you do that ?

Edit : Ahh found it.. obviously 

[jman]

And it keeps getting worse...

Microsoft have gone insane.

Are these the same kind of people that were panicking when Xbox Live first arrived and required a broadband connection (no dial-up modems)... to use when there were many parts of the country who didn't even have broadband at that point.

I suppose the fact that Xbox One doesn't support CRTs is another massive mistake too ??

[jman]

Weird.. with all these limitations and DRM functions in place.. Microsoft have seemed to confirm that if you buy a game.. you can actually share it with up to ten people so they can play it as well.. no matter where they are in the world... so if I bought a game on the X1.. and (unlikely but) if someone else on here bought an X1.. I could share any game I buy with that person if I have them added on my shared list.. and vice versa obviously... although it seems (and here's the catch).. only one person of those 10 can play the shared game at any one time, although that last part hasn't been confirmed and it could be two people playing the same game concurrently (the owner of the game and any one of their shared list)

Still, if that is true.. that's a pretty cool feature to be honest in terms of loaning and sharing games..  I'm a bit sceptical after everything that has gone down that there's not a catch in there somewhere... but we'll see.

Link

You'll be able to link other Xbox Live accounts as having shared access to your library when you first set up a system and will also be able to add them later on (though specific details of how you manage these relationships is still not being discussed). The only limitation, it seems, is that only one person can be playing the shared copy of a single game at any given time. All in all, this does sound like a pretty convenient feature that's more workable than simply passing discs around amongst friends who are actually in your area.

[Late]

That does sound good, if true.


Dibs on a position on everyone's shared list if I get the console!
I'm much better than those real life friends you all have...

[jman]

Its a system selling feature if you take it at face value.  One person would buy an X1 and then encourage all their friends to get one.. so they can share games..  it just seems to good to be true and surely having such a feature would actually reduce the amount of new game sales.. which is the polar opposite of all their other restrictions and DRM.. which begs the question, why has it taken till now to get this information out to the masses and where's the catch?

Even taking it at face value.. I would automatically presume there would be some restrictions.. like everyone in your family has to have XBLG to participate.. one account/console can only be part of one family.. but even still, it would be a fantastic feature.. I would almost certainly forgive the other stuff for a feature of this form.  What I don't want to hear now is.. oh there would be a "small fee involved" or "actually, what you share is a F2P version of the game" or something stupid like that.

On the concurrent usage issue.. nothing has been confirmed, except that you will be able to play your games from any console as long as you log in, regardless of who you are sharing your library with and whose playing what.   The official guidelines say "any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time".. the ambiguity has arisen from questions such as.. OK me and my mate are playing Game A that I am sharing.. can another mate play Game B in my sharing library at the same time?

Plus I could see you being a right leecher late