I’ve had time to cool off and think more about Microsoft’s reveal of the Xbox One, and I’m less angry, but I am still baffled. Based on the information I have, Microsoft has painted itself into a corner, at best.
The fancy TV integration is some cool tech, like…science-fiction movie cool. But once the glow wears off, it seems more a nice add-on, than a system seller, and they didn’t go “all-the-way” and replace the cable box.
Having a mandatory Kinect camera pointed at me “all the time” is CREEPY. And, other than moving menus around, what does the new Kinect offer gamers? Unless there is some mind blowing Kinect stuff at E3, they’d better be giving the camera away for free.
Using XBL servers for cloud based improvements to graphics and physics, could be cool…I guess, but it better be optional, or at least scale back gracefully. If games lock up or stop working if and when the service gets spotty, it won’t be worth the backlash.
Xbox Live Arcade on the 360 has been a real success for Microsoft and personally–with over twenty five titles purchased (heck, I bought and enjoyed Game Room)–it’s probably my favorite and most highly used service on the system. Yet, the poor way they’ve reportedly been treating successful developers, including rumors of developers jumping ship for Steam, Sony and even Nintendo, it seems Microsoft is content to let this business go to its competitors.
There’s not a clear answer on used games yet, but if you sift through the rumors and half-truths, it sounds like there will be some way of deactivating your “license” and allowing you to trade-in your disc. Will this only work at GameStop? This is another area where Microsoft is taking total control of the ecosystem.
Always online is another murky area. It seems the machine will need to check in at least once every 24 hours to continue working. This may seem reasonable, but all I know is in ten years or so, when Microsoft turns off the servers, this thing will be a doorstop. In a telling comparison, the same day of the presentation, I finally received the Dreamcast homebrew, Sturmwind in the mail. I placed it in my 14 year old launch Dreamcast and it played with no problems.
So that’s a lot of stuff that consumers don’t particularly want for what…Slightly Shinier Gun Shooting and More Realistic Car Racing Game? I’m sure there will be new experiences coming, as the original Resident Evil was on Playstation, or as Mass Effect was on the 360, but those games are rarely at launch. And what is this going to cost? Even if the Xbox One costs the same as the PS4 (let’s guess $400), all Sony has to do is be LESS Orwellian to its customers, and they’ve “won”. I’m sure there are Xbox loyalists out there who will buy this thing “no questions asked”, but most gamers in their right mind will be happy to skip Halo 5 to avoid this crap that Microsoft is trying to pull. And I say this as a gamer that has played 360 more than PS3 or Wii this generation.
Look, I get it. AAA Games cost a lot to produce. Studios close when they fail to sell multiple millions of copies of their titles. HD gaming may not remain sustainable as a business unless companies can figure out the equivalent of movie theaters overcharging for Coke and popcorn. But if this is the price for shinier cars and fluffier dogs, I think I’ll pass.
