But the descriptions of the "Durango" as an always online console that requires full game installs and disables optical disc usage later isn't making me feel like getting the machine.

Might as well buy a new computer.

It doesn't sound good for the used game market. With Steam apparently looking to support the gifting/trading of used games between accounts, it would seem daft for Microsoft to let them run away with that idea, particularly with the Steam box looming on the horizon.

But as you said in the title, it all seems a bit murky at the moment.

In Reply To #2

Forbes ran an article suggesting that MS might enable discs to be reused via Uninstalling from the original console and purchasing an activation code later on. They say this might keep the used game market open, but it will force stores to lower their prices since users will still have to pay a fee.

It seems unlikely that MS would just hand victory in the console market over to Sony like that.

It also seems... convenient that the 'always on' rumours emerged just after the Sim Shitty debacle, in a "what's the worst thing that could happen with the new console?" kinda way.

(and stopping used games sales - which is basically the point of 'always on' style DRM - is that something Microsoft really give a tuppenny fuck about? EA, Activision, Ubisoft et al might care quite a lot about it, but MS? They make their money on the license and then on the DLC (which you buy whether you have a new game or a used game), so I can't see them caring too much)

And wasn't Kinect meant to be 'always on, looking directly into your soul (or 'living room') at all times and uploading its terrifying visions directly to Microsoft HQ (and/or Bill Gates' brain)' when it was originally announced?

It all seems terribly familiar. By which I mean "it seems like the same bullshit that always gets thrown around when we're in rumour mode before a new console gets properly announced"

(use 'seems' a few more times, Dave)

Not that I don't think developers don't want to move away from CDs and towards digital-everything, but their core market (the US) and most of their ancillary markets can't really support that yet (connection-speed-wise), and I don't think anyone is ready to give up huge swathes of customers just like that.

Agreed, though it is of course possible that Microsoft will be doing this solely to please the publishers and thus score some nice exclusives.

I'm guessing Microsoft will have some form of support for always-on DRM built in, simply so publishers won't have to build it themselves (botching the "Xbox Experience" in the process). Some publishers might use it, others won't. Those who use it will most likely have implemented some other, even nastier, form of DRM otherwise.

That's the problem with rumors. Even when based on fact, they rarely reflect the whole truth.

Personally I've never understood why people ever bought XBox'es(original or 360) to begin with since their best games end up on PC anyways. At least the Playstation has a decent list of exclusives. Sadly most are unknown due to Call Of Madden 20xx and Battlecreed or whatever.

In Reply To #6

I originally bought an xbox so I could play games sat on my sofa, on a 50" TV, plugged into my existing surround sound setup. I didn't expect it to dominate my gaming life the way it ended up doing - I always had that "PC games are better" mentality (and they were a LOT better at the time, too)

In addition to the comfort factor, I think the ease of use has a lot to answer for.

Yeah, consoles are basically just PCs, but they're easier than PCs. Multiplayer gaming is a piece of piss on a console (there is a bit of an idiot-tax you have to pay; they're so easy to use that you are likely to end up playing with cunts if you play something popular).

Even the best designed multiplayer experience on PC is still a bit faffy. The worst are... well, you know what the worst are like. And god help you if you're trying to play with a friend who has issues and doesn't know how to do something like open his ports.

On a console you basically just press 'A'.

Similarly, I don't need to install a game when I bring it home from the shop (haha, I mean "when it gets delivered from Amazon"), I don't need to hunt for patches online. I don't have to piss around with any settings. I don't have to worry that the game will just fucking hate my system and not work (or require a shitload of effort to make work).

On a console, I can just put the disc in, have it auto-update if there have been any patches, and start playing.

Consoles still aren't better than PCs - the current crop are starting to look quite elderly by comparison, even. But they're a fuck of a lot more straightforward, and that does make a difference.

(plus, remember how in the old days games came out on PC and then they knocked out a shoddy console port? It's very often the other way around now... there are quite a few 'eventually came out on PC' games that are markedly inferior (at least in terms of playability). It shouldn't happen, but it does.)

I bought my first console so a bunch of friends and I could play sports games
Together.

I bought my first console to piss my brother off.

He'd spent £650 on a 3DO (remember that? No, most people don't), and then when he needed the money a couple of years later I bought it - and 50 games - off him for £50.

Which I thought was pretty reasonable, because mostly I just wanted to play Star Control II and Wing Commander 3.

Maybe the rumors aren't so far from truth.

In Reply To #10

Oh good.

Nice to see they're still breeding execs who are dicks, too. I wouldn't want those to die out.

In Reply To #11

Apparently, the guy's been fired.

Just because he's fired doesn't mean it won't be always on. Sounds like he was fired for causing a shitstorm, not for being wrong.

I try to see DRM issues from both sides of the fence, but this "always connected" style of DRM gets me steamed something fierce.

I must admit that I'm actually warming up to the idea of an always-on console.

My internet connection has proven to be extremely reliable, so that really isn't an issue for me. I don't pirate games and tend to buy them new, not second hand. If it's anything like Steam, it might actually make games cheaper for me in the long run.

As for the DRM part: as Sim City has shown, setting up DRM-servers for a single game is tricky. It's hard to anticipate demand. That will be a lot easier when need to handle every game on a console.

Problem is of course that not everybody has an internet connection as reliable as mine and not everybody has the luxury of buying every console and game they like, so I fully understand the objections, but personally, I won't really mind.

I like Steam. Why would I hate a console for doing pretty much the same thing?

I have a very stable (and fast) internet connection - I think it's as a legacy of spending so time on dial-up, I'm now willing to spend money on extra-fast internets.

And I quite like Steam. I've bought a shit-ton of games through it. I have an Xbox Live account, which is pretty much always connected when I'm playing even single player games (and is necessary for updates, achievements and talking to friends and so on).

If my computer or my xbox is on, chances are it's online.

I'm still not a fan of this sort of DRM though.

Those games I bought through Steam? I don't own them. Playing them offline (even though in theory an option via Steam) isn't actually all that workable in many cases - and that becomes necessary when Steam craps out, which it does much more often than my connection ever does.

Similarly, I lose my XBL functionality now and again, and that means I can't play any XBL arcade games. It means I can't use any DLC in my single player full-price games (which sometimes means "I can't play them", because it's integrated so heavily)

These are massive companies, devoted pretty much entirely to keeping a service 'always on' - and the best they've ever been able to manage - in a country with some of the best and most comprehensive internet provision on the world - is 'mostly on'.

My internet connection is pretty damn stable - but it does drop, occasionally.

And the debacles like Sim City, Assassin's Creed II and so on - these still occur despite being backed by massive companies with resources to spare to ensure it shouldn't happen.

-

I can't foresee an 'always on' system that isn't riddled with regular, gargantuan fuckups that stop me playing the games I own.

And the 'mostly on' systems that we have now - they're the best of a bad bunch. They're not good. I don't really want that to be the model of the next console generation.

Steam is far from as intrusive or as godawful as Origin or Games for Windows Live, but I still wouldn't let it fuck my sister.