I have been out of the whole online console war scene for a long time now. I'm still an avid gamer and I still look into the comments section of articles every now and then just to see what interests other gamers these days but I have always refrained from putting in my 2 cents, mainly because it always ends up being quite venomous as I'm sure many people here have experienced. Life is just too short to get into an online argument with an imbecile. However, with the announcement of the XBOne (people who hate the "Xbone" designation, here's a way to solve your problem) and Sony's seemingly domination of gamers’ hearts, it's apparent that there are a lot of misconceptions of the next generation and also a lot of misplaced anger. I have come across a few voices of reason but it's clear that the majority of the people out there are misinformed. I would like to offer here my view on all of this next gen craziness. If anyone disagrees, feel free to add your replies but please for the love of all that's holy and beautiful, try to talk to me like you would if you met me on the street. That's all I ask.
Before I begin, I just want to clarify that I consider myself an "Xbox fanboy" so there WILL be some bias here. However, I haven't actually touched my 360 for almost two years now since I've given it to my brother before leaving home and the last time I was back home was around two years ago. Since then I've been gaming mainly on my PC with interludes between iOS and Android. The systems I have owned are as follows (in this order): SNES, PSone, Xbox, Gamecube, PS2, GBA, Xbox 360 and lastly the Wii. So I guess I'm not your typical fanboy but I have been defending the XBox since first reading about it back in 2000. Back then people were all, "Pentium III and Geforce 3? Why, that's just a PC! FAIL!" or "Xbox? More like matchbox/shoebox/...box!" They all thought the Xbox would fail but Microsoft persevered and it ended up being quite successful with a decent lineup of games. It also provided the launch pad for the Xbox 360 which was the console that took the crown away from the Playstation. With the next generation of consoles upon us, people have once again decided to use mockery to cover up their narrow-mindedness. Here is why they are wrong.
1. 24 hour Check-In:
I really couldn't quite understand the backlash over this. It was like I was back in the early 2000s or something. I'm willing to bet my left nut that the majority of the people visiting these pages already have some kind of broadband or are at least living in an area that can easily obtain one. For these people, this should be a complete non-issue and they are just complaining for the sake of it. Broadband availability is now extremely common, whether you are in the Americas, Europe, Australia and certain parts of Asia (and the parts in Asia that don’t have access to broadband are most likely pirating all their 360 games which is an issue that will be discussed later). I am sure that there are also many people living in rural areas who may have difficulties finding a stable connection. Just 5 years ago, I was living in a small village in the U.K for 2 years and for the whole first year, I could only get dial-up. But after that, ADSL was quite easy to obtain. For these people, it will of course be unfortunate but I am also sure that the technology will reach them sometime during the next generation's lifespan. Even in Australia, which has arguably one of the worst broadband networks out of all the developed nations is currently in the process of rolling out the NBN which should drastically improve internet speeds for city folks and elevate rural areas to an acceptable level.
Despite Microsoft trying to justify making the XBOne almost always online by saying the user will benefit from it (which I do believe is true, just look at your smartphone), let's face it, their main reason for implementing this was to fight piracy. Over the past few years, several high profile publishing and development studios have closed up. Piracy is a big problem for the gaming industry despite what some people believe. I personally know people who can easily afford some games, but because it's so easy to just download a copy off The Pirate Bay, they didn't end up paying for it. In the current generation of consoles, the 360 probably had it the worst. The first time I took a trip to China, I was shocked that you actually have to go out of your way to purchase a legitimate copy of a 360 game. This was partly because video game consoles are simply banned in China, but they have a huge import market so this is not a legitimate excuse (especially considering that PS3 owners in China had no problems shelliing out for a full priced game since they couldn't pirate until the last couple of years). This was of course because of the nature of the 360's disc format which is the DVD. It's not something that made pirates scratch their heads like the Blu-Ray did at the beginning. But Blu-Ray will no longer be able to defend against pirates in the next generation now that pirates have learnt how to pirate PS3 games and when the cost of Blu-Rays inevitably go down. Anti-piracy measures using online capabilities are the most effective solutions (anyone pirated a copy of SimCity yet?). Problems with the launch of games like Diablo III and SimCity is what REALLY makes people wary of this method and that's understandable. But Microsoft has far more servers than anyone else in the industry and given their success with Xbox Live since its launch on the original Xbox, I personally have faith that they won't screw up like the rest. Feel free to come back and point a finger in my face and laugh if it does happen.
2. Game Sharing:
There's been a lot of jokes made about the restrictions being placed on game sharing such as how someone can only borrow a physical game from you once and how you have to wait for someone to have been on your friends list for at least 30 days before being able to lend it to them. Regarding the former, I personally have never needed to borrow a game twice. If I loved it so much, I would buy it myself (again, this goes towards keeping publishers/developers alive). With the 30 days rule, I'm not sure why they're doing this but I don't see much of a problem. Most of my real-world friends will be on my friends list from the moment I buy the system so I'd only have to wait a month at the very beginning before I can lend them a game. If I make a new friend and add him onto my friends list, I cannot foresee any scenario which will require me to lend him a game within the first 30 days. My other "friends" on my list are only people I met on the net so I wouldn't send them my game so they can borrow it anyway.
What is cool about Microsoft's new approach to game licensing is the fact that you can now share your games with up to 10 family members digitally and they DON'T need to be blood related. They can access your games digitally from any Xbox One and play them as long as you have added these people into your family group. If Microsoft made one mistake here, it's that they didn't publicise this enough. This is a feature that I would use far more than the features that they are supposedly "restricting".
3. Used Games
Now I am not quite certain on this one but it seems to me that both Microsoft and Sony are using the same approach here, with just slightly different wording. Check out this interview at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mm3P4Ft-y4
At 3:59, Jack Tretton, President & CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America said that Sony will leave the DRM decisions up to the publishers. Unless I'm mistaken, this is in fact the exact same approach by Microsoft. Both Sony and MS will not use DRM on their first party titles but they said they will leave second hand game sales and DRM decisions up to the publishers. Sony simply said "WE WILL ALLOW USED GAMES". People took this to mean that the PS4 will not have any restrictions whatsoever and that Sony is a "company for the people" when in fact, they meant that THEY will not restrict it, but publishers can if they want to, which is actually no different to Microsoft’s policy. But again, I'm not a hundred percent sure on this since there are a lot of mixed messages from both Sony and Microsoft so if anyone knows something more, please share your thoughts.
Whatever the case may be, I think this following article is worth a read: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-21539_7-57588359-10391702/why-xbox-ones-used-games-policy-doesnt-need-to-be-the-end-of-gaming-as-we-know-it/
4. Requiring Kinect:
I've read a lot of people making this out to be a bad thing, like how requiring Kinect for the XBOne to function somehow impedes on their human rights. It makes no sense especially when you consider than every XBOne comes with a Kinect. After you've set it up on your TV, I doubt you'd move it very often so it's really of no consequence. Then there are the people who are scared of the voice recognition feature and accusing Microsoft of spying on them, listening to their conversations when the console is off. Honestly, that's as ridiculous as accusing a company producing clappers of espionage. It shows a complete lack of understanding and baseless fear of the technology. Not to mention, the amount of experts out there who disassembles any new gadget's hardware internals and software coding means that if Microsoft decides to do anything unsavoury, we will know about it immediately, a risk that they simply cannot take.
Of course, then there are the people who are against Kinect on a fundamental level. In my opinion, these people are just extremely close minded. The original Kinect was a brilliant concept let down by immature technology and a lack of understanding by developers. Promises were not kept and expectations were not met. But the Kinect 2 will have the advantage of superior hardware as well as more experience from developers. I think there's a lot of potential here but we will have to wait and see.
5. Xbox Live VS. PSN Plus:
Well until recently, I would probably argue that the PSN is better value even though Xbox Live functions better. But with the PS4, in order to play online on the PSN, you will also need to pay for a Plus account which costs pretty much the same as Xbox Live. This takes away one of the biggest advantages the PSN has had over XBox Live since the beginning. Of course, PSN Plus members still had the added bonus of being able to access full versions of games at no added cost but even Microsoft is now implementing a similar feature on Xbox Live. Overall, given the similar features the two services offers, I'd say there's no point arguing about this anymore.
6. Microsoft Concentrating on Entertainment Rather than Games:
I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions as demonstrated by E3. Microsoft is not taking anything away from their games division, they're just adding a richer entertainment environment on top. I don't see what's wrong with that. If you don't like it, you don't need to use it. It's funny how the same people complaining about the entertainment features are also complaining about how it's only going to be available in the US at the beginning. Well if you don't want it and you live outside of the US, shouldn't you be celebrating?
Now the exclusive games shown by Microsoft at E3 clearly shows that the XBOne is not any less of a games console than any system that have come before it or in the near future. I feel that the general consensus across the web towards this year’s E3 is that Microsoft had a much stronger games showing than Sony. Of course, then there are the people complaining about how even though Microsoft had a stronger line-up, they were mostly action games. These are the types of people who are masters of picking bones out of eggs. I bow down to them.
7. XBOne is not as Powerful as the PS4:
The main reason for this statement as far as I can tell is the fact that XBOne uses 8GB of DDR3 memory rather than the 8GB of DDR5 memory on the PS4 which is of course, much faster. But for those who are interested, check out:
http://anandtech.com/show/6972/xbox-one-hardware-compared-to-playstation-4/3
They explain in much detail how just because XBOne "only has DDR3" and not DDR5 like the PS4, they are using other methods to make up for it such as their use of embedded SRAM. The article explains it very well.
8. Price:
And finally, we have the price war. The price difference between the two consoles are the same across the different regions so I'm just going to talk about the U.S where the difference is $100. For that extra hundred, you get Kinect. The Playstation Eye is not included with the PS4 and costs around $60 making the PS4 + Eye around $460 which is still cheaper than the XBOne but I don't think it's enough to change anyone's mind. We don't know the specs of the Playstation Eye but most analysts believe that it will fall behind the Kinect. Whereas the Kinect was designed to pave the way for a whole new genre of gaming focused purely around motion control without controllers, to me the Playstation Eye will probably just enable novelty features like the way Sixaxis was half-baked into some games. To me, this is alarming because Sony is jeopardising the future of gaming by trying to undercut Microsoft here. They should've included the Playstation Eye because without it being compulsory, developers will not throw themselves behind it since not everyone will own it. This means only XBOne exclusives will have the possibility of taking full advantage of motion control since no one is going to design two completely different versions of one game, it's just not financially viable.
Final Words:
I tried my best to focus this blog primarily on the accusations people have made towards Microsoft and XBOne. I didn't want to bring Sony or the PS4 into it unless it was relevant. In my eyes, even though I'm mainly a PC gamer these days, I was extremely excited by the announcements made by both console makers at this past E3. Gaming will experience a rejuvenation like nothing we've seen in a long time and I believe both the XBOne and PS4 will be worthy of your money. I just felt that the way Sony went about things seemed to closely resemble a scheming politician. Microsoft clearly took a stand and were upfront (at least eventually) with their policies. Sony seemed to be upfront with clear bullet points but there were actually a lot of fine print underneath. Of course, if I misread anything, please point it out to me. I'm not interested in a heated argument though, I don't think that's necessary.
Thanks for reading!
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