Next Generation Gaming Systems

SS_Firehawk

My thumbs used to be in serious pain after an all nighter practicing combos. No $hit blisters on my thumbs. I miss old school Rare.

The whole thing that bothers me with Xbox1 is things "have" to be on because they say so. In truth I bet the system can function 100% just fine w/o kinect watching (literally) you're every move. What function does this "sign on" have? Qhat is it reporting to the prying eyes of MS? There is no doubt going to be a lot of data collection they can get and sell. Kinect can map out the room it sits in, take all that info, your schedule, it's off times, your TV habits, all of that, beam it up to good ole Microsoft, they dump it into an SWL database and mine the F@ck out the information they just received... for free. Your phones are doing it, Facebook, google, twitter, pinterest, bing, yahoo, gmail, every single free service on the internet is paid by your privacy.

Now I don't mind giving some of that up for free services. The stuff I don't like sharing, I don't add to my profiles, I restrict what can be sent to them, whatever. Xbox1 is not transparent with their ulterior motives, and with it being from MS, they do want to know what you are doing. Now if they come out and say, you can make changes to what your Xbox sends to MS, that will be a huge step in the right direction. I want control of my information, it isn't MS's because they have a box that collected it, it originated from me and I want to dictate what I give up.

The whole be like "Steam" argument has some merit, but is still flawed. They fail to mention that you CAN play Steam in offline mode. I love Steam, but anyone who deployed to a location w/o internet with a gaming PC knows, you put Steam offline, back it up, and go on your merry way. I can see a mandated 30 day reconnect period if it's really a security or DRM thing. My Zune pass requires a 30 day DRM check so I can listen to all my music. Understandable, I pay a monthly fee to get a crap ton of music. Xbox live is a monthly service fee unless you pay for the year. At least it makes some kind of sense. As it sits, they have not quantified the necessity to connect once a day. They have not quantified the necessity to have Kinect watch your every move. That is scary.

I'm all for companies making money. PS4 is at least more transparent in what your shiny new toy is doing in the background. I spent 9 years playing PC only. Yeah I had a Wii, but I haven't played that in a while. We really just get smashed and then record ourselves looking retarded in Just Dance. I LOVED Gran Turismo, but I couldn't justify buying a PS3 for just that. Xbox had a few notables, but I just didn't have that urge to get one. I miss fighting games, first party games, and the selection of racing games.

I tried playing that Forza Horizon game, idk what it was, did not like the physics engine. I've been playing Shift II with all the nannies (except ABS) turned off, it feels so much more visceral, I get more communication, more feedback on the adjustments I need to make. I'll stick to that until something better comes around.

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