New xbox drm and blocks used games

Varik

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Coldn't really be helped. Each game would have to be extensivelly reworked or an emulator built which just isn't feasible considering the horsepower required (the timing between a CPU and six SPU's would be insane to code for, just look how much power is required to run Sega Saturn emulators and all that had was two parallel processors).

The architecture is just too different but perhaps Gaikai will be a solution.

Still can't believe the response to this, everyone accepts that it wouldn't have BC but when they find out that means digital games won't play they go bat****.

Like BC is only something to do with disc and downloads can all magically play.

Retr0gamer

It's another reason why going digital sucks but I can see why it's impossible for Sony to offer it.

tim3000

I don't think its fair for them to watermark games like this, I mean big car companies don't get and profit from resale of their products. If Microsoft do this it will be a large deciding factor on what console most people buy for the next generation

deathrider

Kirby wrote: »

Regardless, whether it happens this generation or the next, the second hand market as we known it won't last. Digital distribution is the future and while I'm sure we will see games traded second hand through account transfers and the like, the days of people walking in to retail outlets to sell them is numbered. The only question is whats the number.

As a games collector, as opposed to just being a game player, this makes the appeal of gaming drop somewhat for me. I'm not a guy from trading in, and a lot of games I aqcuire a second hand (usually through other means than Gamestop, but whatever). A lot of the ones I'm looking for simply ain't on the shelves any more. Games that I wouldn't have heard of when they were big, or games that haven't sold well, therefore making them hard to come by. If/when everything goes digital, I'd imagine my view will swiftly change from being a serious collector and wanting to add to my collection, to simply not giving a rat's arse about current gaming.

animaal

I can see this killing a number of smaller games producers. Right now, if I see a game I like, I can take a chance on it. It might be good. If not, I know I can trade it in for something else. In reality, I very rarely trade in anything, but it's a safety net.

How likely am I to take a chance on a game I haven't played, paying 60 quid (or more?) for it and knowing I'm stuck with it even if it's rubbish?

Also, I'd imagine the effect will be worse on bricks-n-mortar stores. There's no way when I'm in town I'd pop into a shop I'm passing and pick up a game. Instead, I'll feel the need to have done my research online. And if I'm doing that online anyway, why not just order it there and then?

jill_valentine

Most people don't buy only second hand, or only new, they buy a combination, and trade one against the other. They aren't two separate markets, they're interdependent.

If the second hand market goes, then no ifs or buts about it, bricks and mortar videogame shops of any kind are gone. Overnight. It is absolutely impossible for a videogame store to survive on the profit margins of new games alone, they only sell them as part of their trade in strategy, and the few left are under terrific pressure already. If pre owned goes, that's it.

The big two will only kill the possibility of pre-owned if they're absolutely confident that they no longer need to sell physical games, at all.

Are we at a point where the second hand market is costing publishers more than the loss of a physical medium sales channel would?

krudler

krudler wrote: »

I was in there the other day and they had a copy of Dead Space 3 there new for 54.99 and used for 49.99, why would you bother for the sake of a fiver? sealed copy with any dlc intact or used one without.

I was in the queue last year in gamestop and witnessed a similar situation.
The woman was deciding (with the "help" of the gamestop worker) between buying GTA IV for €45 new....or buy it used with gamestop disk protection for €43 (€40 + €3)

Any guesses for what she convinced to get?

Seamus Aran

Kirby wrote: »

And to touch on your spiel about "democratic rights to buy and sell" for a moment, I have no issue with people selling their goods to other people. My issue is when they sell them to corporations who then sell the same item at a 500% markup to another person the same day and pocket the lot.

What's the difference between selling to a person and selling to a shop? And how a should a shop trade without charging a markup?

I can't see this going ahead. It may look tempting to publishers and developers initially but when you consider it for more than a few seconds the problems are obvious. Second hand games are all that's keeping GameStop in business. Now dev's and pub's are annoyed that GS can buy back a game and make 20 or 30 euro reselling it and that's understandable. It's the reason we've seen the introduction if online codes which personally I think us the way to go though the idea solution would be for pub' s and stires such as GS to come to an agreement where GS could buy the online codes off of them and package them with preplayed copies. Now ideally part of the deal would have to see GS sell the titles at a lower price which in its self opens upon a whole other range of issues. Could they still be profitable if they were selling titles at 40 euro instead if 50 and would the price they give for trade in drop by 10 euro.

The reason why the move suggested in the op will never work is because Microsoft and all the devs need brick and mortar stores. The near collapse of HMV has highlighted just how. It was the studios who fought for HMV to survive because while digital distribution is available for all their product it's just not been adapted by the majority if customers. A number of smaller lans have had to postpone releases till HMV stabilised and had HMV gone there was seriously concerns about the future of many smaller labels. Tesco, Amazon, etc would surely stock all the big titles but its a situation that the publishers would not be happy with give that those massive chains are able to buy in the new Fifa at massively reduced rates meaning that the publishers loses 10 euro per copy that Tesco sell Over GameStop. No GameStop mean that smaller titles will never get a chance and secondly that EA and the like will lose millions every year because they major players won't be willing to pay market value so to speak.

richymcdermott

Pretty much confirmed now that ms new xbox is drm ready after these sleezy arrogant messages from one of their employees

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2013/04/05/microsoft-creative-director-on-always-online-deal-with-it

VinLieger

richymcdermott wrote: »

Pretty much confirmed now that ms new xbox is drm ready after these sleezy arrogant messages from one of their employees

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2013/04/05/microsoft-creative-director-on-always-online-deal-with-it

Yeah hes not gonna be there much longer, was on the fence about getting a new console, with this basically confirmed it looks like ill be sticking to my PC

tuxy

VinLieger wrote: »

Yeah hes not gonna be there much longer, was on the fence about getting a new console, with this basically confirmed it looks like ill be sticking to my PC

Will you be avoiding steam? A system that practically pioneered this type of drm?

ShadowHearth

tuxy wrote: »

Will you be avoiding steam? A system that practically pioneered this type of drm?

When Internet cuts out at least I can fire up civilisation 4 on steam and not be found for the next 24h...

ShadowHearth

richymcdermott wrote: »

Pretty much confirmed now that ms new xbox is drm ready after these sleezy arrogant messages from one of their employees

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2013/04/05/microsoft-creative-director-on-always-online-deal-with-it

prety much Sony won the next gen console war so. I can easily call me " next gen piggy bank" by the name of "ps4 piggy bank"

Myrddin

tuxy wrote: »

Will you be avoiding steam? A system that practically pioneered this type of drm?

I don't think you can directly compare the pc platform Steam, with a console version of always on drm. Steam just works, it works on the pc I had a few years ago, it works on my current pc, it will work on the pc I'll build in five years time.

Consoles though, come & go. Say the PS2 had a huge digital media presence like the current consoles. When the PS3 came out & support for the PS2 online as eventually dropped {as we seen with the original Xbox}, what would have happened to everything I bought? What if I had to replace the console after the service was terminated? Is everything lost? With Steam, you just use your next pc...that won't be the case for consoles. A Playstation Network service will not be kept running indefinitely for the PS3, it will eventually be turned off. Can the same be said for Steam when the next generation of pc processors or motherboards come along?

DarkJager

I've had the Xbox and 360 and have enjoyed both of them but if these rumours are true, MS are making my next gen choice very easy indeed.

sink

Microsoft are really shooting themselves in the foot if they go trough with it, they're basically hand the PS4 a major competitive advantage.

VinLieger

tuxy wrote: »

Will you be avoiding steam? A system that practically pioneered this type of drm?

Nope i use it regularly but as pointed out above it doesnt always have to be online. I can easily switch it to offline mode if i want or am forced to due to isp outage or steam downtime, and with the farce that was the simcity launch i dont think anybody is too eager for another round of forced always online.

ShadowHearth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW28VSmXnCo

stevenmu

An always online capability could be a very useful very feature to have. An always online requirement would be a disaster.

I really hope that they are going with the former, and it's only chinese whispers that are turning it into the latter.

I know Microsoft don't normally comment on rumours, but now that one of their employees seems to have stuck his feet in it, they'll hopefully come out with some kind of clarification soon.

Grumpypants

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think it's more publishers that want it not developers.

They will care when their game under sells and the publisher can't afford to green light their next project.

But overall I think the always on is more to combat piracy, Microsoft got screwed this gen when the Xbox got hacked and it impacted all the way down the line. Microsoft lost money, publishers lost money and developers lost money. The only way Microsoft could catch the hacked machines was when they went online and they got caught. It makes sense for them to ensure everyone goes online this time.

Do I care if the xbox 720 requires an always online connect? Nope I'll still buy it, if they are smart they will make it use a tiny amount of bandwidth so people without broadband can easily hotspot through their phone.

I'm pretty much connected 24 hours a day these days. Even when my crappy broadband is down I have a mobile dongle and my 3G phone to connect through. If all three are down then I might just have to do something else for an hour until its fixed. It is not going to put me off enjoying hours of gaming on the off chance that I may not be able to play for a few hours once a year.

But remember this is a luxury item, it is mainly aimed at people who are living in houses with a lot of disposable income and most of those are connected to the internet in some form now. This is the main market they are selling to.

Retr0gamer

Grumpypants wrote: »

But overall I think the always on is more to combat piracy, Microsoft got screwed this gen when the Xbox got hacked and it impacted all the way down the line.

Really? Locking games to an account is going to combat piracy? How well does that work on PC?

If the console gets hacked the first thing they will get rid of is games being locked to a single account. This is purely aimed at the second hand market.

I'd also love to see an accurate estimate of all the money the publishers and developers supposedly lost to piracy.

I also don't see how reducing the possible consumer base by cutting out people with poor internet is going to benefit publishers and developers when games like Tomb Raider selling 3+ million aren't turning a profit.

ShadowHearth

I would not be surprised if on new Xbox announcement MS will just go "we won't force you to have full time Internet connection! **** yeah! We are awesome!"
Where's in reality they wanted to have it, but this shiet storm just showed how pissed of people can get.

As for your man. He is an idiot and should be fired. The whole "people should get with the times. Internet is great" shows the ignorance and lack of knowledge of the prick.

CastorTroy

Wonder if it's a "must always be connected" in the way the sky box must always be connected.
I'd say always being connected will also lead to them abusing the system by pushing lots of ads

Antar Bolaeisk

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd also love to see an accurate estimate of all the money the publishers and developers supposedly lost to piracy.

Well I know they spend billions on all their drm systems which are inevitably circumvented, not to mention all the copies not sold due to people being put off by restrictive DRM. That's all pretty much money lost.

With regards to drm coming to consoles, it's inevitable, all you need do is look at the PC to see where consoles are going.

One thing I think consoles would be very well placed to do is gaming as a service, pay a monthly subscription and have all you can eat gaming (though download the games rather than stream them). This at least is a tangible reason for always online gaming and I would be shocked if neither console, let alone both, don't offer this.

SolvableKnave

CastorTroy wrote: »

Wonder if it's a "must always be connected" in the way the sky box must always be connected.
I'd say always being connected will also lead to them abusing the system by pushing lots of ads

The skybox doesn't need to be Always-Connected. I've never connected mine and it still works

Azza

Antar Bolaeisk wrote:

Well I know they spend billions on all their drm systems which are inevitably circumvented, not to mention all the copies not sold due to people being put off by restrictive DRM. That's all pretty much money lost.

Any evidence to back up that claim. Billions sounds like a major major exaggeration.

CastorTroy

SolvableKnave wrote: »

The skybox doesn't need to be Always-Connected. I've never connected mine and it still works

That was my point. All the documentation for the Sky box says you must have the box connected to a phoneline at all times, but in reality it doesn't matter unless there's something you want to do.

Otacon

CastorTroy wrote: »

That was my point. All the documentation for the Sky box says you must have the box connected to a phoneline at all times, but in reality it doesn't matter unless there's something you want to do.

...like in this case, play games.

:pac:

richymcdermott

Grumpypants wrote: »

They will care when their game under sells and the publisher can't afford to green light their next project.

But overall I think the always on is more to combat piracy, Microsoft got screwed this gen when the Xbox got hacked and it impacted all the way down the line. Microsoft lost money, publishers lost money and developers lost money. The only way Microsoft could catch the hacked machines was when they went online and they got caught. It makes sense for them to ensure everyone goes online this time.

Do I care if the xbox 720 requires an always online connect? Nope I'll still buy it, if they are smart they will make it use a tiny amount of bandwidth so people without broadband can easily hotspot through their phone.

I'm pretty much connected 24 hours a day these days. Even when my crappy broadband is down I have a mobile dongle and my 3G phone to connect through. If all three are down then I might just have to do something else for an hour until its fixed. It is not going to put me off enjoying hours of gaming on the off chance that I may not be able to play for a few hours once a year.

But remember this is a luxury item, it is mainly aimed at people who are living in houses with a lot of disposable income and most of those are connected to the internet in some form now. This is the main market they are selling to.

Sony have been losing money for years, have had to deal with for piracy with both psp and ps3 , and have had hacks on the ps3 console.

but they offer free online service and looks to have invested alot into the ps4 yet they are not going down the drm route ms seems to be doing.

stevenmu

CastorTroy wrote: »

That was my point. All the documentation for the Sky box says you must have the box connected to a phoneline at all times, but in reality it doesn't matter unless there's something you want to do.

That's a really interesting point. It might be a case of of them saying "it must always be connected", but it's actually only for certain services.

There were rumours about it being a complete entertainment center, and I think there were also rumours about it having TV/movie functionality. It would be very cool if it was "always on" and would download you favourite shows etc as they were released so you could watch them whenever you got in.

COYVB

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd also love to see an accurate estimate of all the money the publishers and developers supposedly lost to piracy.

It's impossible to arrive at a figure really. Every download isn't a lost sale, as most downloaders download buckets of games they'd never have entertained buying. Interestingly, when it comes to movies and music at least, those who download the most tend to spend the most on buying the stuff they like

Grumpypants

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Really? Locking games to an account is going to combat piracy? How well does that work on PC?

If the console gets hacked the first thing they will get rid of is games being locked to a single account. This is purely aimed at the second hand market.

I'd also love to see an accurate estimate of all the money the publishers and developers supposedly lost to piracy.

I also don't see how reducing the possible consumer base by cutting out people with poor internet is going to benefit publishers and developers when games like Tomb Raider selling 3+ million aren't turning a profit.

Ask Gabe he will tell you it works really well. Locking games to single accounts was probably the single most important step in reviving the PC market because developers can now make money again even if they continue to fall foul to pirates, they manage to sell enough legit copies on Steam to make a living.

If a console gets hacked are you saying that the people hacking it are going to spend all the money to hack it, lose their warranty, risk it breaking, risk getting their console and gamertag banned just so they can still go to the store and pay a fiver less for a used game? Or will the majority of them download games for free?

Piracy numbers are hard to nail down due to the nature of piracy but looking at this article you can see that Crysis which took 3 years to hit the 3 million sales mark had been downloaded almost 1 million times in the first year on just one torrent site. Spore hit 1.7 million downloads in 3 months.

The Witcher 2 enjoyed huge success and was DRM free when it hit the 1 million sales mark their CEO announced the downloads had hit 4.5 million!

Cutting out a tiny % of people with poor internet to bring in greater revenue from the others is their long term plan. Microsoft get a slice of every single game sold on the xbox. They want to protect that long term income.

I always see the argument what about people in countries with no internet? Well MS don't care about them they are not their market. Ferrari don't worry about people who live in poor countries with bad roads when selling their cars. It is not the market they are after. MS only need to sell to the hundreds of millions that have good internet connections to make money.

Grumpypants

SolvableKnave wrote: »

The skybox doesn't need to be Always-Connected. I've never connected mine and it still works

Really? You can watch Sky One without being connected to that great big Sky Satellite in space?

ShadowHearth

Grumpypants wrote: »

Really? You can watch Sky One without being connected to that great big Sky Satellite in space?

I am pretty sure he was talking about phone line, which sky forced on you.

Antar Bolaeisk

Azza wrote: »

Any evidence to back up that claim. Billions sounds like a major major exaggeration.

No, I just plucked it out of the air, I apologise. However, I also didn't give a time-frame within which those fictional billions were spent.

SolvableKnave

SolvableKnave wrote: »

The skybox doesn't need to be Always-Connected. I've never connected mine and it still works

If you read through the literature that arrives in the post every few weeks it must be connected to the internet in order to make use of the on demand and box office content. You can get Sky without a phone line but they change you a one off fee, or at least they used to. I just pulled out the Ethernet cable from our Sky box and the on-demand content has all but disappeared.

If you want to make the comparison between the proposed restrictions on the upcoming Xbox and Sky, it would be more apt to say that you can watch Sky as long as the dish on the side of your house and the satellite in space are communicating. If you take the dish down or there is very sever weather you won't get your Sky channels.

CastorTroy

stevenmu wrote: »

That's a really interesting point. It might be a case of of them saying "it must always be connected", but it's actually only for certain services.

There were rumours about it being a complete entertainment center, and I think there were also rumours about it having TV/movie functionality. It would be very cool if it was "always on" and would download you favourite shows etc as they were released so you could watch them whenever you got in.

But the problem then could be "Here's all these great features for the system we will give you in exchange for you always being connected..... if you live in America. Outside America you have a lot of features you can't use."

Retr0gamer

Grumpypants wrote: »

Ask Gabe he will tell you it works really well. Locking games to single accounts was probably the single most important step in reviving the PC market because developers can now make money again even if they continue to fall foul to pirates, they manage to sell enough legit copies on Steam to make a living.

Again, how does steam stop piracy? As far as I'm aware having steam works built into your game is as much protection from piracy as having a paper mache umbrella to protect you from the rain.

Think about what you are saying. Are the hackers really going to go 'oh noes! games are locked to a single account, the nextbox is totally hack proof!'. If they find a way to hack the machine and blow it wide open having games linked to ann account isn't going to do jack to prevent piracy. It hasn't worked with steam. Do you actually think that more games on PC are selling because steam is stopping people from pirating games or is it because it's a fantastic integrated system that makes sense which offers a great platform on which to play games, form communities and offers exceptional value for money during it's sales?

The only real reason for always online consoles is data gathering so they can find out what to advertise to you and sell your data as a commodity for advertising and if they block second hand games then it's a way for them to control the market even more by taking away your some of your consumer rights in exchange for more money in their pockets.

Grumpypants wrote: »

If a console gets hacked are you saying that the people hacking it are going to spend all the money to hack it, lose their warranty, risk it breaking, risk getting their console and gamertag banned just so they can still go to the store and pay a fiver less for a used game? Or will the majority of them download games for free?

I've done it as have thousands of others to play import games since I've had a PS1, so yes.

Grumpypants wrote: »

Piracy numbers are hard to nail down due to the nature of piracy but looking at this article you can see that Crysis which took 3 years to hit the 3 million sales mark had been downloaded almost 1 million times in the first year on just one torrent site. Spore hit 1.7 million downloads in 3 months.

The Witcher 2 enjoyed huge success and was DRM free when it hit the 1 million sales mark their CEO announced the downloads had hit 4.5 million!

I know all this which is why I was asking for accurate figures on revenue lost due to piracy, which you won't find. Also those are for PC based games not for console based games.

Grumpypants wrote: »

I always see the argument what about people in countries with no internet? Well MS don't care about them they are not their market. Ferrari don't worry about people who live in poor countries with bad roads when selling their cars. It is not the market they are after. MS only need to sell to the hundreds of millions that have good internet connections to make money.

I actually find it stupid and narrow minded of MS. Those poorer countries with not internet are the ones that MS should be looking toward to sell the next XBox at the end of it's life cycle since they will have much better economies in the next 5 years. Sony has had great success marketing the PS2 in emerging nations such as India, China, South America. Really with videogame budgets getting out of hand they really need to be broadening the market instead of reducing it, because if a publisher can't reach enough people to make their game profitable they'll go bust or look elsewhere.

Grumpypants

richymcdermott wrote: »

Sony have been losing money for years, have had to deal with for piracy with both psp and ps3 , and have had hacks on the ps3 console.

but they offer free online service and looks to have invested alot into the ps4 yet they are not going down the drm route ms seems to be doing.

Yip and I will be buying my PS4 before my Xbox 720, the PS4 is shaping up to be the better option but having to connect to the internet is not going to stop me buying the Xbox either.

I'm not supporting their move i'm explaining why they are making the decision (if in fact it is true, seeing as no one knows for sure yet)

I can see the Twitter guy's point although it was badly made but then again that is what happens when you use Twitter for anything you just sound like a snappy arrogant ass.

Mobile phone needs to be always connected to the mobile network to work. This is true.

His hover does need to be always connected to the electricity network to work. Unless you have some fancy robot battery powered hover. This is true.

The sky box needs an always on connection to the Sky satellite to work. This is true.

The industry is moving to an always connected model, not just to piss people off but companies want to have you connecting to their company on a more regular basis. That way they can monitor your habits and sell you more crap you don't need.

Look at the PS4 in their press conference they promised to know what you are going to want! That will be because the machine monitors everything you do and will guess what you want. Didn't he say the console will have the game downloaded before you even realize you want to buy it. Now I don't think for a second that will actually work but that is what they are going for.

nesf

stevenmu wrote: »

That's a really interesting point. It might be a case of of them saying "it must always be connected", but it's actually only for certain services.

There were rumours about it being a complete entertainment center, and I think there were also rumours about it having TV/movie functionality. It would be very cool if it was "always on" and would download you favourite shows etc as they were released so you could watch them whenever you got in.

I remember rumours of a completely stripped down XBox, no DVD drive or anything that would basically work as off the XBox marketplace and more importantly act as a Netflix box.

Retr0gamer

What people are worried about is that being always online will prevent them from playing any games at al because for some people this is an issue especially people with crap or flaky internet connections. Being online isn't necessary for playing a game like power is necessary for a hover or a mobile signal is necessary for making a phone call. It's arbitrary and forced on the consumer and the consumer is not receiving anything in return for it.

What MS are basically doing is denying people the ability to play XBox games at all if their internet is ****, something they were perfectly capable of doing a few weeks ago.

There's also the worry of servers going down or making games unplayable. It doesn't matter how big your company is it seems that if you make something always online you are going to end up with problems. Diablo 3 and Sim City proved this and if the launches of those two games are the future then I can see why people are worried.

richymcdermott

Grumpypants wrote: »

Yip and I will be buying my PS4 before my Xbox 720, the PS4 is shaping up to be the better option but having to connect to the internet is not going to stop me buying the Xbox either.

I'm not supporting their move i'm explaining why they are making the decision (if in fact it is true, seeing as no one knows for sure yet)

I can see the Twitter guy's point although it was badly made but then again that is what happens when you use Twitter for anything you just sound like a snappy arrogant ass.

Mobile phone needs to be always connected to the mobile network to work. This is true.

His hover does need to be always connected to the electricity network to work. Unless you have some fancy robot battery powered hover. This is true.

The sky box needs an always on connection to the Sky satellite to work. This is true.

The industry is moving to an always connected model, not just to piss people off but companies want to have you connecting to their company on a more regular basis. That way they can monitor your habits and sell you more crap you don't need.

Look at the PS4 in their press conference they promised to know what you are going to want! That will be because the machine monitors everything you do and will guess what you want. Didn't he say the console will have the game downloaded before you even realize you want to buy it. Now I don't think for a second that will actually work but that is what they are going for.

this is the problem those products needs to be connected to a service or electricity to work , games should not need to be always online to play games.




we are in a bad recession for both to be a company and consumer , it does not help publishers pissing off consumers with all these rules and **** just to play a game.

there are still parts of the world that these companies should cater to like what retro said above south america , india and mostly recently china lifting the ban of ps ,nintendo and ms gaming.

Banjo

A mobile phone needs a network connection to work because it's primary function is to connect you to that network
A vacuum cleaner needs to be connected to the electricity network because electricity is required to power the motors without which it cannot perform it's primary function
Sky Box needs a connection to the satellite to work because it's primary function is to decode the signal from that satellite

A games console requires access to the electricity network for power. It requires access to a display of some kind so you can see what it's doing (unless you're fortunate enough to have chosen the glorious WiiU ). It only needs an always on network connection if the network connection is core to the primary function of the console. The console plays games. If they're not MMOs, then they don't need an always on network connection. So it's really not a fair comparison.

Personally, I feel any attempt to limit the 2nd hand market by punishing 2nd hand buyers is short sighted. It's going to affect 1st hand sales, because if you hurt the 2nd hand market you hurt the trade in market, which makes it harder to flip titles, take your trade in and buy more 1st hand titles.

History has shown that if they want a stable, expandable base they have to entice the 2nd hand market, not beat it with a stick. Making it mandatory to purchase a license to use the software or to unlock the disk hurts - and thus shrinks - the market overall. Making it optional but attractive only grazes the market a little (since the prices people will be willing to pay will factor in a chunk of the optional additional cost to Sony/MS, thus driving prices and trade-in values down) and creates a new stream of revenue that's currently closed. Since DLC has become pretty much mandatory on every major-label title that gets released, the obvious option is to have a DLC module for online play or even local multiplayer (for the Fifa and split screen FPS student crowd) if you want to be really scabby, and put a one-off license for that DLC in the retail box so you're only charging 2nd-hand players.

VinLieger

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I actually find it stupid and narrow minded of MS. Those poorer countries with not internet are the ones that MS should be looking toward to sell the next XBox at the end of it's life cycle since they will have much better economies in the next 5 years. Sony has had great success marketing the PS2 in emerging nations such as India, China, South America. Really with videogame budgets getting out of hand they really need to be broadening the market instead of reducing it, because if a publisher can't reach enough people to make their game profitable they'll go bust or look elsewhere.

This is the bizarre thing, they arent even pricing themselves out of the market they are actively choosing not to even try selling a product to A LOT of people. Are they under the impression that everyone else has the internet coverage the states has? Sure our broadband infrastructure outside major population centres is still quite patchy

Grumpypants

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Again, how does steam stop piracy? As far as I'm aware having steam works built into your game is as much protection from piracy as having a paper mache umbrella to protect you from the rain.

Think about what you are saying. Are the hackers really going to go 'oh noes! games are locked to a single account, the nextbox is totally hack proof!'. If they find a way to hack the machine and blow it wide open having games linked to ann account isn't going to do jack to prevent piracy. It hasn't worked with steam. Do you actually think that more games on PC are selling because steam is stopping people from pirating games or is it because it's a fantastic integrated system that makes sense which offers a great platform on which to play games, form communities and offers exceptional value for money during it's sales?

The only real reason for always online consoles is data gathering so they can find out what to advertise to you and sell your data as a commodity for advertising and if they block second hand games then it's a way for them to control the market even more by taking away your some of your consumer rights in exchange for more money in their pockets.



I've done it as have thousands of others to play import games since I've had a PS1, so yes.



I know all this which is why I was asking for accurate figures on revenue lost due to piracy, which you won't find. Also those are for PC based games not for console based games.



I actually find it stupid and narrow minded of MS. Those poorer countries with not internet are the ones that MS should be looking toward to sell the next XBox at the end of it's life cycle since they will have much better economies in the next 5 years. Sony has had great success marketing the PS2 in emerging nations such as India, China, South America. Really with videogame budgets getting out of hand they really need to be broadening the market instead of reducing it, because if a publisher can't reach enough people to make their game profitable they'll go bust or look elsewhere.

Fully agree the main reason is to collect data and sell you stuff. But don't under estimate the impact the consoles have had on the industry and a main reason for this is that they are closed systems with limited piracy.

Even the Xbox which is the easiest to hack still has limitations. Most people buy two, one for online & one for offline. Why ? Because when they go online and connect to the Microsoft network MS can scan the system and find the software and ban the console. They release new OS updates and link new games to that OS. These are just steps in stopping the casual pirate. They will never stop the serious pirate but if they can make it more annoying to pirate than buy then people will buy. This is why Steam works.

Microsoft are thinking hey lets move this step from when a player wants to go online to when they want to play any game. If this also stops used games then it is another bonus for them as every used game sold is about ten dollars lost in licensing revenue.

So always online helps cut down piracy, cuts down lost revenue from used games and allows them to monitor patterns and behavior. This is why they are doing it, again not defending it just explaining their thinking.

It is hard to put a real figure on sales that never happened. Would people have actually bought the game they pirated?, did they download it to demo it then buy it?, did they pick it up a year later on sale?.

MS have the option to release a Nextbox 1.2 for emerging markets in 5 years once they have sold enough that the manufacturing costs have come down. Same way Sony didn't sell the PS2 into emerging markets at launch they waited for the market to peek then went looking at other options when they could manufacture and sell it cheap in these markets.

If you are looking at emerging markets where the average annual wage is 3 grand there is limited sales potential releasing a 500 euro console. Imagine what would happen if they released a 4,000 euro console here? Only a hand full would buy it and it would be just pointless.

Icyseanfitz

"big francis video"

lol

damn late again

tuxy

Retr0gamer wrote: »

R

If the console gets hacked the first thing they will get rid of is games being locked to a single account. This is purely aimed at the second hand market.

Yes this was my point. It's really just a measure to stop people selling games second hand. There has been uproar over this. But many of the people that are pissed think steam is the best thing ever.

ShadowHearth

XBOX goes that way and good old CD Project Red goes this way:

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/witcher-3-drm-free-6406393

Can anyone show me where their offices are, because I want to throw my money at them.

MS should learn a thing or two...

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

steam doesn't require you to be always online to play your games...