Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

[arry_g]

I'm loving the differing points of view, not just on this forum but online in general. Next few months should provoke some interesting conversations I think.

[DomsBeard]

Xbox transform and roll out!

[Ashguyver]

is the skype convo dead yet? just got back from work so keen to hear all about it!

[James]

is the skype convo dead yet? just got back from work so keen to hear all about it!

Yeah, we stayed on chatting until about 8pm (an hour after the conference). It was certainly an interesting conference, but I was pretty unsatisfied, I've got to say.

[FollowMyRuin]

The conference was to me more Microsoft rhetoric, that we've been hearing at E3 for a few years now. I burned my bridges with Microsoft years ago now after my first and only Xbox 360 red-ring'd. There's something about knowing the fault with the hardware and still releasing the console that I'll never forgive.

That said, the conference was to showcase the capability and the versatility of the console, and to some extent they were successful, it seems moot to me to berate them for not showing any games because realistically that's exactly what E3 is for. I'm not exactly jizzing in my pants at the idea of my fantasy basketball team getting updated and having the opportunity to piss my girlfriend off while we watch a movie by bringing up a side panel of information either, I'm passingly interested to see if the can nurture and develop and implement this further into our gaming culture.

In truth, what really bothers me is the contrivance of its marketing ploy. Offering a single, functional solution to "a disjointed living room" or whatever semantic bullshit that was used absolutely feels like the solution to a problem that never existed! No matter how many times Microsoft try and address this it will never make me think: "you know what, it is an issue, it is a massive chore to have both a console and tv service that function separately, here Microsoft, take my money and solve this most troublesome of woes". It's absolutely not, its far not a big deal and it's not a selling point. I will belly laugh if they price this thing questionably because of its capacity to function as your tv an your stereo and such.

Also, I don't play call of duty, but I recoiled with awkwardness when the gent at infinity ward mentioned fish AI in CoD Ghosts. My vision is the activision bosses in a board room demanding better fish AI to keep the series feeling fresh.

[RoboticMonk3y]

...What it comes down to, always has and always will, is the essential games that are available to play on it that aren't available anywhere else. If it has at least ONE of those, I and a lot of other gamers, will want/need to have an Xbox One.

This times a million

I feel it was inevitable that Microsoft were going to try and lean towards making a media box, over making a games console, which I guess it kinda nice to have everything all in one place at the same time. I don't care for sports, so that's a massive chunk of function that's not aimed at me. As for the second hand games thing, sure it would be nice if it were backward compatible and whatnot, but that's not a deal breaker. Being in a multi console house, it is however a bit of a pain that there seems to be function to lock games to a single console, I'm not so keen if that's the case (I guess my 8 year old daughter will just inherit my 360 along with the games that will no doubt start to fall in price.)

It's still far too early to call, I'm looking forward to seeing what falls out of E3. They mentioned 15 exclusives in the first year, and 8 of those are new IPs well forza is microsoft exclusive, I can't imagine the same is going to be true of Call of duty. As already mentioned, I don't really fuss over sports, so the latest round of fifa/madden isn't really a pull for me.

Interesting to see that there is a new Halo live action series, the recent Forward unto Dawn was entertaining.

Either way, I'm not sure I'll be able to afford one at launch, which gives me time to consider which of the next gen consoles I'm going to pick up.



EDIT:
Trying to think of potential MS exclusives...
Halo 5 - I really have fallen out of love with the halo series
Gears of War - I've lost interest in this
Forza - I can't really see how much more they can push forza except for graphics, and while that's nice, it's not a deal breaker for me..
Fable?
Crackdown?
Project Gotham - another one we already know is on the way..

I can't think of any more and I can't really think that I'm really worried about not playing any of the above

[Scrustle]

What it comes down to, always has and always will, is the essential games that are available to play on it that aren't available anywhere else. If it has at least ONE of those, I and a lot of other gamers, will want/need to have an Xbox One.

I have to agree with that. To be honest, even though I agree with a lot of the negative things people are saying, I'm actually already considering getting the thing because of Forza. What we've seen so far has been good, even if it's not much, but if it pans out it'll probably have me sold.

[DomsBeard]

I've only ever been in the position to own one console each gen so I was very disappointed with the machine and what was shown. Kinect has never appealed to me at all, if I want to exercise I run or go to the gym. I love football but like to keep it seperate from my gaming.

Dashboard still looks the same and there was no mention of the live subs model being reviewed at all.

I'll be looking forward to e3 to see the exclusives but ps4 is looking like my next console right now. I really want them to announce a Xbox one without Kinect and all the sports guff at a cheaper price but I know that'll never happen.

[JaySevenZero]

Polygon have posted just posted an article that focuses on the Gold subs. There doesn't appear, at this point, any change to their pricing model or much change to what is delivered through the sub (apart from multi users per household).

[Buckled Kipper]

I wouldn't mind if the multi media stuff was offering anything new or revolutionary, but it simply wasn't. Just don't see the point of yesterday's conference. All that could have been covered in 15 minutes then moved onto games, be it at E3 or at their own presentation.

[NokkonWud]

Polygon have posted just posted an article that focuses on the Gold subs. There doesn't appear, at this point, any change to their pricing model or much change to what is delivered through the sub (apart from multi users per household).

Someone mentioned to me that they heard all games are going to have dedicated servers. That's definitely a good thing if true.

[NokkonWud]

...What it comes down to, always has and always will, is the essential games that are available to play on it that aren't available anywhere else. If it has at least ONE of those, I and a lot of other gamers, will want/need to have an Xbox One.

This times a million

I feel it was inevitable that Microsoft were going to try and lean towards making a media box, over making a games console, which I guess it kinda nice to have everything all in one place at the same time. I don't care for sports, so that's a massive chunk of function that's not aimed at me. As for the second hand games thing, sure it would be nice if it were backward compatible and whatnot, but that's not a deal breaker. Being in a multi console house, it is however a bit of a pain that there seems to be function to lock games to a single console, I'm not so keen if that's the case (I guess my 8 year old daughter will just inherit my 360 along with the games that will no doubt start to fall in price.)

It's still far too early to call, I'm looking forward to seeing what falls out of E3. They mentioned 15 exclusives in the first year, and 8 of those are new IPs well forza is microsoft exclusive, I can't imagine the same is going to be true of Call of duty. As already mentioned, I don't really fuss over sports, so the latest round of fifa/madden isn't really a pull for me.

Interesting to see that there is a new Halo live action series, the recent Forward unto Dawn was entertaining.

Either way, I'm not sure I'll be able to afford one at launch, which gives me time to consider which of the next gen consoles I'm going to pick up.



EDIT:
Trying to think of potential MS exclusives...
Halo 5 - I really have fallen out of love with the halo series
Gears of War - I've lost interest in this
Forza - I can't really see how much more they can push forza except for graphics, and while that's nice, it's not a deal breaker for me..
Fable?
Crackdown?
Project Gotham - another one we already know is on the way..

I can't think of any more and I can't really think that I'm really worried about not playing any of the above

There are a few potential exclusives, plus we know there are 8 completely new IP's, one of which was Quantum Break from Remedy.
On top of that one of the slides showed a Crackdown orb in the last game played slot.
I also believe Peter Molyneux's lot are working on an exclusive game too.

[ratsoalbion]

As Karl says, Don Mattrick has said to the BBC that there are 15 significant exclusives in the pipeline including 8 new IPs.
It 'only' takes one or two of those to be of Halo-esque quality/proportions for people like me to shell out the £300 or whatever it is to be.

[arry_g]

Also let's not forget games like Bioshock or Mass Effect which were Microsoft exclusives (originally), so with that in mind statistically speaking it is likely that we will see something that makes it a worthy purchase. It's an exciting time.

[TomFum]

Looked ok for a PC with a joypad

Im saying nothing on the matter at the moment, still early doors and everything that was shown yesterday has no real relevance over here in the UK.

also im sooooooo buying the new COD, why? because you have a dog as a partner and characters that you will "care about", thats sold it................................................................................................................

Thats all im saying.

[Scrustle]

[...] £300 or whatever it is to be.

I'm expecting both these new consoles to actually be around £400-450. The £450 is more what I expect everything to come to to actually get in a position to play games on the machine, not just the base machine itself. But I also wouldn't put it past either or one of them to maybe even make just the base £450 as well. MS is probably the one more likely to do that, since it has a wider range of features than the PS4 it seems. They're also coming across as being the most arrogant of the two right now in terms of how much they think they can get away with.

[NokkonWud]

You can already pre order both at £399. 99 with a price promise that days it will only go down, not up.

[Indiana747]

Was it confirmed that they are scrapping the Msp pricing model for actual real money. I thought i read somewhere it was a dead cert to happen.
My opinion on the console is reserved till after E3, as i would say is most of you guys aswell. I like the look of the console, it has to be physically large for whats in it + the power brick must be integrated with it too, so yeah, its pretty cool lookin with a slightly more refined controller. Looks like the double AA battery system has been scrapped for a USB recharge which will obviously affect the weight of the controller. Hmmm, i liked the weight of the old one so, we'll see i suppose.
It wasnt gamer focused, but that seems to be Microsofts mantra these days which is worrying. I bought a 360 nearly 2 yrs ago and my friends list is generally the same on both consoles. Every evening when i turned on my Xbox maybe 20-30 friends were online at one time with just a few on the PS3. This has turned round wholesale, now if i turn on the 360 maybe 4 or 5 people are on, but on the PS3 there is 20+ easily. This is a trend which is obviously in microscopic form but is probably an indication of whats happening on a larger scale.
We gamers are the enthusiasts that take a punt on these machines and from that it filters out to the wider average Joe audience. But if it doesn't initially cater for gamers and we don't buy it in the first place then the domino effect wont happen. We as gamers 'big up' these machines essentially advertising it. The average tv viewer wont buy one of these ahead of their Sky box, TiVo or DVR if they're not interested in games. That simply wont happen, its as if MS are not even competing with Sony but with other media giants.
I would even go as far as to categorise the 'CoD/FIFA only player' which there are millions of, as a group who dont even care about upgrading to next gen. For example, i have footy mates who ONLY play CoD/FIFA on 360, which is great, more power to them, but they didn't even know that MS had a new console coming out. And as i said, there are millions of these guys/girls and more importantly they dont really care, the 360 does the job, it scratches that itch for them. Couple this ignorance with a worldwide economy at its knees and i am struggling to see a market for this "media centre". If it was predominantly a games console then gamers would buy it regardless of money restrictions, we're crazy like that, we buy it cause we want it, not necessarily because we can afford it, hmm, new shiny, shiny is our common phrase used.
So, from this conference(E3 aside) we, as gamers were shunned. This and this alone might be Microsofts undoing in the long run unless they refocus for E3.
God that went on a bit longer than i thought.

[AndyKurosaki]

It's true that a good exclusive makes all the difference. I'm a huge Gears fan, and Halo is equally brilliant, so to not play the latest versions would feel wrong to me.
I'm dubious about the "entertainment" heavy promotion it got yesterday, but e entually I'd end up getting one. Each gen I've "Day One-ed" one system and waited a year or two for the other. This time around, i'm going PS4 first. By the time Xbox One comes down in price we'll have seen how it plays out. And after the clusterfuck of mistakes the 360 started with, buying One on release isn't an inviting prospect.

[NokkonWud]

I was under the impression the power brick was separate Don.