I love Microsoft.

Microsoft will sell more!

I am just glad I don't have to hear "well my PS3 has blu-ray"

PS4 winning cause the simple fact it is going to cheaper to play online. Just like I tell everyone I work with who is all about the PS3 with the Xbox you are paying to play with quality players and a quality network.

Please read all my posts if you have not.

Sorry if I sounded harsh but some of what you said is exactly why (myself included) people were so confused. I am no fan boy and never sounded like one in any of my posts, maybe the first one, but it was just explaining my past wit the Xbox. The rest were trying to give everyone clear details as I found them and not media/internet hype.

I love the PS3 for the use I get out of it and will be purchasing a PS4 as well. The majority of your friends were probably jumping on the hate wagon because it is the easiest thing to do. Until I started to really dig I was almost converted as well. I say that as a supporter of both systems how ever as I mentioned before, I want the best online gaming environment. Im rolling my dice with Microsoft again.

What is great about the Kinect having to be used and worth 100.00 in my opinion is simple and has been mentioned by many in the industry. With the Kinect always being there from the beginning there is no reason for developers to not use the technology. They know every Xbox One owner is going to have one. So why not develop for it?

This is going to push technology further and enhance gaming on all levels. The only way it will fail is if they can not fully integrate it with top shelf games, no one wants bunch of kiddy Wii style games.

I have thought about the times in games where I have gotten real excited, tense, scared, etc. in games. How cool it will be for the Kinect to see those emotions by facial recognition or via the heart rate monitor. Then actively change the game to those conditions.

I cant wait to see what comes over the next few years.

Hey I love the kiddies bowling!

lol I've often been subject to a litany of immature and vulgar insults from "quality players" on xbl.

You're spot on with the Kinect! I can see it fully integrating with tactical shooters where you can give voice commands to your AI teammates or the various military hand signals and so on. Can't wait till I get my hands on my own Xbox One.

That probably would have been the way they would have went, if it weren't for pre sales. The couple articles I read speculated that the only reason for the change in course is that their pre sales were dreadful.

Every system is going to have little kids cause used mom and pops CC number to get on Live. The good thing about Xbox charging is that less immature kids are on the network. Hell PS3 anybody with a internet connection can get on.

The only features we are missing is the Family/Friends cloud ability. And honestly, its an easy fix if they just limit it to digital content.

What you may be assuming is that people were uninformed about the new features. A few anecdotal stories about people you know, or heard from other people about misinformation do not necessarily make it true for everyone.

Contrary to what you may think, MS didn't make all those policies because of piracy, MS was trying to control was the used/rental game market. And for many people, that is a critical feature of physical discs. It would seem that being able to resell the disc or loan it out as a person sees fit trumps "cloud gaming" and the features rolled into it.

I am happy that MS backtracked on their stance about resale and always on. And now the Xbone is back to a buying consideration for me.

Yep, that was it.
The pre-sale figures from internal reports have been down right horrible. MS had to do something to change this course or else the One would be a bigger flop than Wii U (which is doing horrible currently).

Though I am still not buying either day one, happy with my PS3. Does what I need & when I want.

I still think it was overly premature to react to initial pre-sale figures. They JUST started the pre-sale, what did they expect? The Internet army was hammering away at them for their decision, so the mainstream consumer was exposed to a lot more anti-XBox than any other article regarding the next gen consoles.

I agree Microsoft had to do something, but I think they pulled the plug way too fast. I actually thought the digital sharing service was a brilliant idea, just the understanding wasn't there, and gamers being HIGHLY CONSERVATIVE (seriously, what the **** guys, it's 2013 already get with it), they recoiled at any price hike they see.

Which, again, is hilarious because we aren't batting an eye at the $400 price tag for the PS4.

I'd say the price isn't a big deal, until people and parents are at the stage of actually buying it, or in front of the shelves. Price of a console isn't otherwise very high in people's minds. That's just my observation anyway.

Whether the features are revolutionary or not, the one thing I do know is that Microsoft's response to consumers was poorly handled. Personally, I don't care how much better the system is or is not. I will not give up my money to a company that treats its customers the way that Microsoft did. From the deal with it guy, to the oh we have a product for you people who can't afford the Xbox1 or don't have Internet, it is the 360. Consumers can be as pig headed as they want, they are your customers and should be treated with respect. Because, in the end customers will "deal with it" and buy your competitor's products and not your old 360. So to sum it all up as Sony capitalized on the consumer's stupidity is a bit insulting. Had Microsoft educated the consumer, and not treated them badly, then there would have been nothing for Sony to capitalize on. Sony did what any good company would do, they listened to the consumer and gave them what they wanted. They did not try to tell the consumer what they should be doing, and get mad at the consumer for not agreeing with them.

From my understanding, the PS4 uses only about a GB of its ram compared to the Xbox1's 3GB of ram used for the OS. So that leaves the PS4 with 2 extra GBs of faster ram. As for cloud computing, considering that the Xbox1 no longer requires an Internet connection that feature may be dead in the water. You have to make your games for the lowest common denominator (i.e. those with no Internet connection now). So I'm not exactly sure if cloud computing can be used to position the Xbox1 as significantly better hardware wise compared the PS4.

As for the integration features of the Xbox1, no thanks. I'm sure they'll all be tied to having an Xbox Gold membership like the 360 is. As for the Kinect, no thanks. These are just my personal opinions of course. Some people may not care about spending the money for an Xbox Gold membership, and they may love the Kinect. The point is they don't work for me, but that doesn't make me "pig-headed". Fortunately for me, Sony offers a competing product and offers the consumer a choice. I don't want to have to pay Microsoft 15 bucks a month to stream videos through their Xbox. I have countless other products that allow me to do that for free.

Prior to their reversal, I wouldn't have even considered an Xbox1. I probably still won't get one. It is a possibility now though, but none of their exclusives really do it for me. If that changes in the future and the price is right, then maybe. Time will also tell if any games really take advantage of the Kinect aside from dancing around.

Either way, wish everyone the best of luck on their chosen next gen console. Both should provide tons of quality entertainment.

Hey Mr&Mrs, can you elaborate on what you know about this point?

Its true I posted links to the spec sheets. Microsoft needing 3gigs of RAM for their OS is understandable. They are running quite a bit of background capabilities with it. The PS4 will be doing some of the same but 1gig for the OS seems to me cutting it tight even if it is DDR5. They would have been better off with using 2gigs I would think.

Here are some technical details:

The Xbox One has an 8-core AMD CPU with 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet. The latest leaks suggest that the Xbox One will have an 8-core 64-bit x86 Jaguar AMD CPU @ 1.6GHz, coupled with a GPU that’s very close to the Radeon HD 7790. The Xbox One will have 68GB/sec of bandwidth between the CPU/GPU and RAM, the GPU will have 102GB/s of bandwidth to a local 32MB SRAM cache, and another 30GB/s of bandwidth to gamepads, Kinect, and other peripherals.

The PS4 has an 8-core Jaguar AMD CPU, with a GPU similar to the Radeon 7870. The PS4 has 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, providing 176GB/s of bandwidth to both the CPU and GPU.

The Xbox One mostly makes up this difference with 32MB of high-speed SRAM on the GPU, but it will be a little more difficult to develop for.

As I mentioned before comparing these things do not really mean that much to me personally. Developers are not going to spend the extra resources to make a game that much better on another platform. If it is PS4 only game yes it may have a little better graphics i.e snow/rain falling than the Xbox One.

Both systems are very similar and like I said before just skin the cat in a different way. Microsoft was ready to take us to the next level and it was not accepted obviously. We now have to wait and see what they can do with the cloud like Fortune mentioned. Like I said before people are going to get what they asked for.

@ Fortune

It is very easy to cause a snowball effect with the media and peoples reactions. I took Microsoft's answers exactly how it should have been taken. If you do not have internet get an Xbox 360. What else do you want them to say? Did they say it in a Care Bear cute cuddly way? No. The people that were in those positions should be punished.

My comment about the public's stupidity was meant to be a little offensive. I was stupid too until I started to research which was my point. Im sorry if I hurt your feelings. I wasnt going to jump on the hate wagon until I knew details, and guess what? They were pretty far off from the truth. So ya thats stupid to me that people can just go on what they hear without any proof.

Im honestly ticked off that Microsoft changed directions. I was ready for the next revolution in gaming, not just a game that looks more realistic on my TV. I hope they can still use the cloud power how it was anticipated. It sure would have been nice to share my games with friends and family as well without the worry of them ruining my disc or losing it.

The problem with the get a 360 instead of the XboxOne is that would work fine if there was no PS4 that did not require an Internet connection. Gamers have an option to get next gen games and NOT have to get a Xbox360. It doesn't have to be done in a Care Bear cuddly way, but you are talking to your customers. Customers that do NOT have to give you their money, and there are competitors who are more than willing to embrace those customers. It's simple business 101, it takes a lot more to earn a new customer or in this case win a customer back than it takes to keep them.

As for the public and the bandwagon, were some people angry at rumors and misinterpreted information? Sure. That doesn't mean that they all were though. Truth in this case is quite subjective and is all about what you value in a game console. From what I was reading, it sounded as if you were placing a lot of blame on Sony for capitalizing on Microsoft's poor PR, and for the public for not realizing the awesome benefits as you, or Microsoft see them. All I'm saying is Microsoft failed pretty hard on this. (Not necessarily software or hardware wise, but certainly PR wise) If the public was uneducated or jumping to conclusions, they should have corrected it and before it could do the damage it did.

Regarding losing discs or having them scratched. I'm an adult and haven't had a game disc scratched or lost in as long as I can remember. So I don't see that as any revolution in gaming. Blu-rays are much more scratch resistant, and there's always digital downloads if it is that big of a problem for you. To me, a bigger deal was being able to rent a game or buy a used game. Some games I don't really care to play or am not sure about. Why pay 60 bucks for a game that I can beat in a day and has no replay value? That just creates the incentive to make bad games. As much as I dislike Nintendo, they had it right when they said if it's such a problem, just make better games with more replay value. If the game is good and has replay value, then my friends should be getting a copy of their own anyway. Then there's also Sony's support for Indie developers compared to Microsoft which is a big plus in my book.

You also don't have to worry about hurting my feelings. I spent a lot of time playing around in the sand with no Internet connection, so my feelings are pretty tough to hurt. That's probably why I also disliked the Xbox One's check in requirement. It just sounded like the Microsoft side was well represented already, so I figured I'd jump in and add some points for the Sony side and liven it up. :stirthepot:(Without deteriorating into any fanyboyism on either side, hopefully)

I have a question call it dumb of you want but can Microsoft later change their mind and do the license thing?

Sent with TapAhoe

Ahhhh... Did i miss somehing here?:icon14: I was planning on getting the Xbox One..... Should I hold out on it? the link on the other page is not working for me..... Whats the deal with it? in a nut shell...?:ugh2:

Can they? Without a doubt, yes.
The real question is, will they? And the only answer is... maybe? It would certainly be a very bad PR move, but that hasn't stopped them before :roflpuke2:

On the plus side, I did read an article that stated they plan to continue with the cloud computing. So I'm curious to what extent and how they will implement it.

Do people really think Microsoft didnt know this? They were willing to stretch their necks to try and make the next step. Which is DRM controlled by the developers. It backfired pretty bad on them :icon17:

I wasnt blaming Sony for anything. If thats how you and others took it let me explain. People were basically saying how smart Sony was, and how awesome they were at E3 (yet the majority agree their game line up is limp). I was simply saying exactly what you did. Its Business 101, doesn't impress me, I would expect a company to do that on the other end. I was just trying to take away some of the credit people were giving them.

From the PR perspective once again I agree. I think it was saber who mentioned bailing out to quickly. That is exactly how I feel. As you and I both mentioned they should have taken the time to better explain all the confusing details. Man they have 4 more months to do it!

I have never scratched a disc. I am very OCD about my games though, to the point that I freak out if anyone opens the pages of the start up books they come with. If I sell something I have touched I want it to look and perform perfect. I say those things but the truth is I only lend games to my father in law anymore, and I have maybe sold 3 games in the last 7 years. I do not have the time to beat games in one day like when I was a child. So by the time I can trade one or sell it, it makes me feel better to just keep it. Since I usually pick them up on release day/week and pay 60.00 it is to much of a loss in my eyes.

So the revolution to me would be not accumulating anymore discs like I did over the last 15 years or so. It would be nice to take my Xbox One anywhere I want and with a simple internet connection access my games anywhere in the world. Yeah I get that some places do not have internet so being able to play offline would be a nice benefit. This is where my term "pig headed" comes into play. In the last 5-10 years how many places have you been to that do not have internet access? In the next 5-10 years how may of those places do you think will still not have internet? Come on people it just isnt a valid argument to me. It is something to gripe about.

Here is something to think about.

Out of 70 million Xbox owners over 46 million that own the system have Xbox Live. (Reference here: Systems Sold and here Live Subscribers) That is pretty outstanding if you consider the PS3 network being free up to this point. With the new generation that is now an even playing field. Who knows how many out of those 70 million have internet access as well. I would be willing to bet it is a rather large amount.

I can understand peoples excitement with the PS4's support of indie game developers. Microsoft has support for them as well but it costs more. Does that keep a lot the indie developers away? You betcha!

Back to a little Business 101 here. The number 1 goal of any business should be making money, and keeping a money flow in the realm of profits, at least that's what I would do. Microsoft any Sony alike have lost their shirts on the last generation. Read this: 360 and PS3 loses

If we have another 8-10 years of those losses I do not think we will see another round of these debates. 99% of indie games are flops just like the movies. Why eat up resources catering to everyone that can do some simple 2D or 3D animations. Lets charge some money and weed out some of the wastes of time and server space.

Maybe that is why Microsoft went with a little cheaper RAM (DDR3) and a slightly lower performing GPU even though it is currently a 150.00 unit. Maybe they will make 5.00 off the new systems. Shame on them right? :shakes head: I am blown away by so many people thinking things should be free. If everything was free we wouldnt have the things we have today.

Luckily both of these companies have massive revenue in other sectors. This sector will not last for ever though if it continues to be a money pit.
I hope one of these two companies set themselves up for some profit this time around so we can continue to have these items of entertainment.

Once again for the online experience im choosing the Xbox One. You get what you pay for, and if there are profits being made it is only going to be a better experience for me.

Good its hard to read someones text and know their attitude/demeanor. I love the input man it allows me to come back with more response to questions others may have but not asked. SO heres some more spice for your :stirthepot: ;)

Can anyone (and be honest) that has not received Rep points from me yet shoot me a PM and let me know. The response to the thread has been great but I have gotten lost with the 24 hour restriction on giving out the points.

Thanks!

Sony deserves plenty of credit for how they played the media. I don't care if it was "Business 101", they are a business. Microsoft is also a business and should have known better than making a huge PR mistake during the biggest consumer electronics show of the year and on the dawn of releasing their next console. But I can also agree that an informed consumer will judge the consoles on their merits and care less about PR. Unfortunately, the mass populace is not completely composed of informed or objective consumers.

That's just you, then. Plenty of people sell back their disks, because after a year or so, your 60 dollar game just isn't worth that, whether you shine it up and keep it on a shelf or trade it back. YOU might think it's worth that, but you've already spent your 60 dollars and now the game is just a memento of what was. It's a bit ridiculous to me to say that it's a "revolution" for you to not have a stack of disk, when you could have just taken them to a gamestop and sold them for chicken feed. But I also understand cloud gaming advantages. I get that. I just don't buy your "revolution" argument as it relates to clutter... clean your room :bowrofl:

In the last 5-10 years, have you NEVER once had an internet service outage? Not once? Because not everyone falls into that category. Sometimes my internet service has an issue, but I'd still like to play a game. It's a valid complaint. Unless MS was providing and guaranteeing that connection, they shouldn't make your every gameplay experience hinge on it. And if you go to Zdayz or a remote mountain resort, you will not have internet in your cabin.


Here is something to think about.

And again, out of those 70 million, how many have had an outage now and again, but still have power on?
Advantage: PS4
So now it's good business practice to throw away indie gamers?! lol wow, that's stretching. Would it not be prudent to encourage more and more young and emerging developing talent to develop for one's console and market their experiments on there? Doesn't that bode for a brighter future? XBox took advantage of that in the last generation and are now ignoring it, and you're praising them for it... Now who's pig-headed?

They went cheaper. Their product is cheaper but costs more. Here's business 101 for you.
Online experience isn't a big sell for me. I will miss my XBL friends, but I'll make others in PS land.

What I find hilarious is how "not having disks cluttering my house because I refuse to sell them" and "having multiple remote controls" constitutes reason for a "revolution in gaming" by using cloud games and having a voice activated Xbox control your various systems. If that does it for you, then great, but I don't find anything revolutionary about that, in the least. So revolutionary that a PC with steam has been capable of doing it for how long? And is Sony totally ignoring cloud gaming? Any word on that?

There are people who enjoy game consoles for being, well, game consoles. To me, there's little beneficial about making them into less capable computers and entertainment centers that also happen to play games.

:tiphat:

Your volley :roflpuke2:

NSFW

I'm ready for you to defend the Wii U. Go! :stirthepot:


:drama:

Sony deserves credit for certainly going into this with a clear gameplan. Microsoft deserves to be reamed a bit for going into this with a very vague gameplan. I'm not sure I would say Sony played it, but sort of in a rock-paper-scissors facedown, they had the scissors to Microsoft's paper for E3.

Playstation 4 FTW... but Ask any gamer... Any real gamer. You're not a true gamer till you own both systems.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...480196_gal.jpg

i preordered both.
Each side has their pros with the exclusive titles.

:bowrofl:

I wouldn't hold a 'vague gameplan' against Microsoft at all. I think Microsoft was just poor in execution of a very sound, progressive gameplan the conservative market isn't ready for. Steam is JUST BARELY going mainstream, and Microsoft sought to duplicate it on XBox.

They see the market winds and know things will go fully digital sooner or later, and they wanted to jump the gun.

Sony, to me, is playing the kiddy role of volleying insults back Microsoft's way every chance they get. Their entire conference home run was built on "Oh hey, look what we're NOT doing compared to those idiots!" Their E3 conference was long, confusing, light on games that interested me (and many others I think), and just not that interesting to me at all.

But it's just a very different approach to Microsoft. I think Sony is still smarting from the failure of the PS3 (relatively speaking to the pure awesomeness that was the PS2), and they wanted to make sure they got their core demographic appeased. It's a strong position, but I think years down the line, the potential in the XBox One will be more easily harnessed than the potential of the PS4.

edit: I really am disappointed that Microsoft had to fold their hand amidst public pressure. XBox One had the potential to be Steam-like, but the general public just wasn't ready for it. I think it was a brilliant idea that, with a little more aplomb, would have been really cool...even though region locking meant I would have never been able to leech my Japanese XBox games off of my friends. Assuming they do release in Japan...haha

XBox Gold membership: how much are you guys (who have XBLG) paying??? I'm really confused now, I pay a one time fee of 50 bucks every year and I have XBox Gold. What is this $15/month nonsense??? I can stomach $5/month...and especially if it'll give me access to all sorts of TV stuff! :tup:

(I MIIIIIGHT have accidentally convinced myself to buy an XBox One...)

I would say, the extent that Microsoft knows this or cares is debatable. It certainly did seem that they were more interested in catering to the developers. I'm not saying that the developers shouldn't make money, but a balance does need to be struck. The way the whole Xbox One reveal has been handled so far did have quite a bit of hubris.

I think Shadoquad covered this one pretty well already. All I'd have to add is, this isn't Microsoft's first rodeo. This is their third gaming console, not to mention countless other product releases. Sony may not deserve a ton of credit for doing what businesses do, but Microsoft should receive a ton of blame for not doing what businesses in their position should do.

Personally, I sold a bunch of my old video games a few months ago and was able to turn a pile of discs sitting on my coffee table into a new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 at Best Buy. They had an extra 50% trade in offer, and I took advantage of it. So I see the value of trading in used games. If you don't, you don't have to. I just like the option of being able to, and having choice amongst locations to trade them into for a better price.

Using your example, isn't it just as easy to take your console somewhere and then play those same games without an Internet connection? As for me personally, I've been tons of places in the last decade that did not have Internet.
When I was stuck at Camp Shelby in Mississippi for several months before being deployed. Then at Kuwait, and then in Iraq. Granted, those are extreme cases, but hey, you asked. I'm also going to with my g/f to visit her grandmother in Alabama in a few weeks, and she doesn't have Internet in the mountains either.

That is certainly a large number, depending on how you look at it. Numbers can always be misleading. 70 million Xbox owners, does that count for 70 million unique owners, or are the people who had to buy multiple Xbox's counted more than once? Either way, I don't see it as that impressive since if you bought an Xbox, you are pretty much forced to pay for Live unless you only want to play single player games. You can't even use the browser or stream videos without paying for Live.

Do most Indie games fail? Sure. But, you mentioned you wanted a revolution in gaming. The DRM thing in my opinion would create more business as usual. It would create a safety net for developers. If you make a game with limited replay value, no big deal. Everyone still has to pay you full price to play that game. The way I view used games is simple. If I sell my Z, I do not have to go back to Nissan and give them a cut. Why should a used game be any different? Developers are trying to shift the risk onto the consumers. Its their problem if they buy a bad game and they have no way to recoup any of their losses. Developers are the business, if they can't make a profitable game, they need to learn to cut their costs and create better games more efficiently that people will not want to resell. Adding Indie developers brings in new talent and new ideas, not just ideas on how to take more money from consumers.

They may be losing money on the actual console itself, but they make that up in other areas.
Sony still selling PS3s at a loss | PLAY Magazine
Initially, Sony was losing 13 cents per dollar on the PS3, they drove that down to 6 cents per dollar. So they're currently only losing 18 dollars per PS3 sold. That is on the console only. They make up a lot of money selling extra controllers, etc. They also make money selling the licensing to developers. Having a system also allows them to keep their first party studios in business, which also makes money. They sell the consoles at a loss, so they can make up their money from selling you games and accessories.

I also don't think Sony is wasting massive resources on Indies, I think they're just not getting in their way.

I don't think anything should be free, and neither do Sony or Microsoft. They're businesses, and they've calculated the risks. They've felt that taking a small loss on the console is easily made up elsewhere. An 18 dollar loss per console is not a big one. Do you really think that a controller costs them 50 dollars to make? They sell you one controller and they've most likely at least broken even. Everything after that second controller is profit, including licensing fees from third parties.
All in all, I agree with a lot of your points. You have certainly spent a lot of time in your research. As you said before there's more than one way to skin this cat. Which way works best will be playing out over the next few months. If anything, the fact that people can argue and debate it so much indicates how close the two products actually are.

Challenge accepted.

Well, one thing you can say about Nintendo is that they certainly have a large selection of first party games that are exclusive to the Wii U. Secondly, they do have backwards compatibility, which is something none of the other "next gen" consoles can claim. For all the credit that Sony has gotten for sticking up for the gamer and saying no to DRM, Nintendo did it first this generation. Motion controls and the Kinect and Move would also be nowhere in sight if Nintendo hadn't led that particular gaming revolution. They also were able to draw in more of the casual audience into video gaming, bringing some much needed life and especially money into the video gaming industry. They were also able to get some overweight people off of the couch and help reduce our rising healthcare costs :roflpuke2: As far as being profitable, reports suggest that the WiiU is profitable after only a single game sale. So they've got that going for them too. In closing, Mario, Zelda and Smash Brothers.

Nintendo has backwards compatibility because their sh*t hasn't changed since the Wii was released. :rofl2:

WiiU will make back all of their developer cost because there was no development :roflpuke2:

Smash Brothers got weird on the Wii. That controller...goodness that was awkward.

I personally cant believe the wii is still around.

I get it! I agree the PR sucked lets move on. I am just trying to say lets think about it not sounding bad in their heads until they said it. We know we have all done that before :icon17:


I never said I think its even worth a 1.00. It isnt worth it to me to let someone else rip off me and kids that dont know any better. These trade in places have ruined the resale of our used games. Almost how eBay drives down prices of collectables because you can hop online and find a bunch of the same item and people driving the prices down.

You think someone that worries about finger prints on a book no one sees has a dirty room? :shakes head:

Yes I have. This is another one of those topics that was blown out of proportion. The odds of not having internet for more than 24 hours are slim to none. So up to 24 hours without internet you could game offline. Worst case your system validated 23 hours and 59 minutes before the outage. If your internet is down for more than 48 hours your probably without power as well. Plus if you dont have internet you can get a 360 :p

Edit: The last thing im going to be thinking about on a vacation in the mountains with my Z is internet.

Read Above

Agreed, but read above.

They are not throwing them away just forcing some of them away. No I do not have a problem with that.

They went cheaper but the higher costs is to still off set the loss on the system. Parts alone are not the entire manufacturing process.

You said it your self. It has never been done on a gaming console. No matter how you look at it, that is a revolution for this market. No word on Sony cloud, their heads are still up there from all their pre-sales. Which I am part of :tup:-

I do not like the social integration but that is just me as well. The new younger generation does want these things to happen. We are just getting older and dont like the change. Understanding it has made it easier for me. Whether we like it or not the changes are coming and as long as we enjoy video games its something to deal with.

Their power PC architecture is still the same, the GPU is based on a 4770. That did change, but their old GPU's were based on ATI chips. The Wii was basically a hotrodded Gamecube with slight improvements. The Wii U only carried over the CPU architecture, but the GPU was a definite improvement.

Now to comment on not having internet. That is a big deal for Military. There are field ops, missions, deployments, secure areas, and so many other scenarios that just don't fit in to "must have internet 1x a day" You can't plug an Xbox into NIPR and expect to not get that $hit forcibly taken from you. The firewalls are already blocking well known gaming ports. Not only that port security will lock that switchport before it could even try to send traffic. If the MAC isn't recognized, it's not passing traffic. If there is somehow a Wifi hotspot in your location, it doesn't allow xbox or Steam connections, not even youtube. Major installations have internet options, but it's expensive and slow can't begin to describe the bandwidth limitations. I know service starts at at least $90 for 30 days of service. Not only that, but when the entire installation goes into a blackout period, your internet goes too. Xbox was not just alienating service members, but civilian contractors too. That number is in the millions.

The cloud computing effort is something that will be implemented at the developer level. If a game requires the resources, it will be online only or some features will not be available unless online.

I'm also not one to trade games, but I can see why people do it. There are better ways to combat piracy. Their implementation was too draconian in my opinion. I think one way of handling it is still using a pairing method, but also using a method for users who can't plug their consoles in to a network. After 30 days of play without pairing the disk to your account, make it a requirement. Maybe a key generator that spits out a hash you can send to Xbox to add to your live account and in return, they send you a corresponding hash you input to your console. It's just an idea, but it at least has options. Granted anything is hackable to whatever they use has to be seriously strong and have a lock out period to prevent brute forcing.

While the 24 hour check-in seemed excessive (1 or 2 times a month would have accomplished the same thing), the fact that Microsoft changed their policies is a little disappointing. I hope they offer a separate xbox live account that has the new stuff so the people that actually understood what they were trying to do can enjoy it. The family/friends sharing system would have been a much better feature than being able to buy/play a used game without limitations.

(Picture NSFW *bad words)

:icon18: oh man that was a funny article or w/e it was lol.

does have valid points though.

I was actually being facetious / making a joke, but okay :tup: the fact that the CPU architecture stayed the same is exactly why Nintendo can make it backwards compatible. No new issues to deal with the CPU communication!

I feel you on the military issue but again im sure Microsoft knew that, it is very obvious. They have options though the best being a PS4 to get the newest tech. Or the Xbox 360 which is going to have continued support with new games for a while. Also I feel your numbers are a little inflated Deployments as of Dec. 31, 2012 Even though that does not count contractors I do not think it is in the millions.

Can the OP or a mod make this a NSFW spoiler please. I wish I had not clicked that at work!