Microsoft with Another Power Play

In probably one of the more pandering ways they could have announced it, Microsoft has finally pulled the Kinect as a pack-in starting in June, meaning the XBone will start being sold as a stand-alone console in June for $399.  It's surprising in all the same ways that it's not - I really thought Microsoft was going to be stubborn on this one, but I guess the allure of phantom sales was too strong for them.  The XBox One is now, officially and literally, nothing unique at its base, and that is honestly more than a little disappointing, even for someone who just straight-up has never been interested in an XBone.

The whole of this little experiment as I'm charitably calling it has been rather interesting to witness.  From its inception, the XBone has been this malleable box of variable evil in the eyes of many and that's solely because of the poor messaging and the poor attitude from Microsoft with regards to everything about the system.  Once they fell flat on their face, the following could best be described as "Flailing wildly, grasping at any and all articles of your clothing to drag themselves back to you, prostrate and begging for your time and affection" which is...well, not everybody cares for it, we'll say.

Objectively, nothing is wrong with any of this.  The XBone has now (or will, in June) become a system that is truly about what a console should be: something you can pull out of a box, attach cables to, do the set-up on and then just get to playing your damn games.  There's no Kinect to calibrate (or even think about unpacking) and no -direct- need to plug an ethernet cable into it (or set up Wi-Fi) because of some nebulous DRM scheme.  (Okay, you still need to do that to make the console more or less -functional- but, you know, baby steps)  It is just a system reminiscent of the one we've had for the last decade but shinier and with some extra bells and whistles of some immeasurable value because of their inherently subjective nature.

Is that a bad thing?  No.  Not in so many words.

I have never been a fan of the XBox in any of its incarnations, and I had no love for the XBone when it was announced because, as it was announced, it was a product incapable of being loved.  It was a standing monolith of spite personified, primed and ready to exclaim "Fuck you!" and punch you in your reproductive parts upon being unboxed.  I can't even say, as most are willing to do, that they were trying something new on the Digital side of things because they weren't - they were attempting to push some sort of Frankenstein's Monster version of Games for Windows Live on the system and telling you to sit down and enjoy it for all the 'benefits' that being tied unceremoniously to a server structure an inordinate amount of miles away will provide to you, because shit is futuristic, yo.  It was never going to work out.  It was never going to be a thing heralded from on high by all or even some.  It was destined to be as it was - loathed and mocked for treading on the grass with the "No Trespassing" sign on it.

The Kinect, though?  It had potential.  Perhaps insomuch as MSPaint has potential in being a program in which you can create photorealistic images of shit, where it is only barely on this side of impossible to actually make that happen, but potential nonetheless.  I have a hard time believing anyone who says they -don't- want what Kinect is technically promising, but can't dream of delivering, on top of what it can actually do with some reliability.

Much like Tablet computers, there's something innately futuristic about motion controls and voice commands that is ingrained as awesome future shit to me.  Maybe it's just the Star Trek stuff I watched growing up, but it does tickle parts of my brain that come right to attention when that premise shifts up.  The jumping around, waving your arms about to protect an imaginary goal from soccer balls with dodgy (at best) detection when not instantly calibrated before hand?  Yeah.  I can see people not caring about that.  But walking into a room and saying "XBox, on" and having that shit turn on, waiting for your next command?  Yeah.  That's the shit I can get behind.  Were it only as natural as it could be (rather than having to put on your super authoritative voice most of the time) it would be -really- cool, if just for the novelty.

But I am convinced that with some combination of -something- like the Kinect (maybe even the Playstation Eye 3.0 or whatever) and a controller of some sort (Maybe a Move Wand(s) ) that there could be something immensely cool or enjoyable about motion technology where it concerns gaming.  It might be a couple generations off, but there has to be something out there for it.  I was personally banking on Microsoft stubbornly keeping the Kinect around (even as a toss-away thing because they weren't requiring it) to have it as an option for developers to use.  For someone to finally get -that- idea and implement it and it gets big because, fuck, everyone has one.  That's unfortunately just probably not going to happen anymore.  With the Kinect stuck as it was last generation, it's going to get much the same support as that did (read: almost none) and we'll all just sort of point and laugh derisively at it and what is attempted.

Now, is this move going to make a difference?  Not...much of one, I don't think.

The damage has been done.  In some ways, the Kinect was holding the device back.  In some ways, the extra $100 was holding it back as well.  Some pretend that these were the only two albatrosses about the neck of the XBone and now it's free to soar the sales charts and reign King Supreme and that's just not going to happen.  The time for the XBone to soar was back when it released, and if there's another time, it's a solid year, perhaps two away. The initial rush of consoles purchased has happened and the PS4 reigns on top of that pile.  The stragglers are the ones reluctant to pay $400 for a Next Gen system for whatever reason, so bringing the XBone down to that price parity....doesn't really do a whole lot.  Were there people that were just -really- waiting for Microsoft to do just this?  Sure.  Not the 'masses', however, since it honestly wasn't something you -should- have expected.

Even still, a stigma is just a -hard- thing to shake.  The PS3 had the "no games" thing for a while as well as the "stupid price" thing, and it all just cast the machine in a negative light long after those issues had been rectified.  It's going to be the same way with the XBone, especially because all they've done is put themselves directly next to the PS4 for comparison....where it will only be seen as lacking.  The XBone without the Kinect is just a less good PS4 without the benefit of PS+ and all the fun stuff that Sony has been working on.  Microsoft's exclusive lineup isn't going to draw in any -new- customers, either.  Halo 5 isn't going to make a Playstation diehard eschew grabbing a PS4 in favor of an XBone.  Gears of War anything isn't.  Forza didn't. 

No matter how you see it, this move with the Kinect just seems born of desperation and short-sightedness.  I will be heartily surprised if it makes the thing sell like a PS4 for any amount of time, and who knows if it's going to help in the long run if Sony continues to do their best with services and Exclusives that you -can't- just expect?  The Order is new and exciting because it's -new-, and if Microsoft wants to grab a few new people, they're going to have to put new things on the plate.  That's what'll sell an XBone over a PS4 way down the line when both have seen a price cut and parents are finally starting to relent, deciding to grab one of these things for the system.  But who knows if -that- is the next move Microsoft is going to rattle over towards?

seriously, I just don't see the point and I really wanted to see them take a stance on the goddamn Kinect

XBox Games With Gold Finally Gets Good

Ever since Microsoft's Games with Gold promotion began, the games it has included have always been so very in demand and new and that's not an absolute lie or anything covered up with sarcasm.  Actually it's totally a lie covered up by sarcasm because that's kind of what I do.  Some of the bigger retail (which is the key word here) titles that have hit the service are Gears of War (as in, the first one), Assassin's Creed 2 and Halo 3, all of which would've been fantastic gets....a couple years ago or so, but right now, are merely a bit silly.  It'd be akin to Playstation Plus offering you a copy of Heavenly Sword or the original Uncharted in February.  Of course, I cannot say that won't happen, since Sony has said they won't redo games and the well will dry up at some point, but still, relevancy is a big deal and it's something that's been sorely lacking from Games with Gold.  That all changes next month.

Sleeping Dogs will be January's first Game with Gold, being free from January 1st to the 15th, where Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will finish out the rest of the month, but that doesn't matter so much.  I'm sure it's a fine game and blah blah blah, but Sleeping Dogs.  You might remember, but I liked Sleeping Dogs.  I liked it a lot.  A whole lot!  So any and all opportunity for the game to be played by someone who otherwise has not played it (what is -wrong- with you, by the way) is a good one that I encourage.  Encouragement might sound vaguely like threatening, since it might sound like I'm saying anyone who doesn't play Sleeping Dogs for the insane price of Free deserves what they get, but of course, what I -mean- is "nothing".  In that they get nothing.  In that they lose.

Good day, sir.

Er, anyway.  XBox Live Gold is almost required for those who have a 360 and/or indeed, an XBone, so this has a potentially far reach.  As such, there better be some people picking the damn game up, if just to get ready for Triad Wars which is actually going to be like Sleeping Dogs in most aspects if a screenshot confirmed to be from Triad Wars is any indication.  Because it certainly looks like an open-world game from that at least, and I'm most happy about that.  My worry that they'd delve into something silly for a new iteration of the franchise was definitely not misplaced because of Squeenix, but I'm glad that it was at least unfounded in some way.  Still, this is definitely something to celebrate in any case - the game will only be a little over a year old when you get it for free through Games with Gold which is a milestone for the service as far as I know, and it might just be an indication of the offerings coming in the future.  Even though I don't have a 360, nor Gold because of that, it's still something that we can all hope for, because hopefully some worthy competition will keep Playstation Plus shining now that it's more or less required for the PS4 as well.  Since we'd all hate it if Sony got complacent because of that.

It's kind of amazing that Sleeping Dogs has been free on everything -but- Steam now

So That's What Snap Looks Like

Last week when I took a look at the UI video for the XBone, I was explicitly impressed by it, but mentioned a lament for the lack of the Snap feature that has been touted so highly.  I took it as a worrisome sign that it was not show-cased and it seems as if I were a bit premature with that.  (No jokes, please)  Of course, I didn't quite expect them to release a nearly two-minute trailer exclusively for that feature since...well, the UI video was meant to be comprehensive.  It was, too, aside from the whole "they completely left Snap out of it" thing.  Unfortunately, while the UI video was comprehensive and informative, I cannot say exactly the same thing for the Snap video as you've already no doubt learned.

It's...functional as a video showing off a feature, but it's nowhere near as good as the previous one.  It doesn't go in-depth, it doesn't -really- demonstrate the feature, but it shows that it's a thing that is possible and that happens, so I guess that's good enough in their eyes.  Or...perhaps as I feared, it's not exactly working all that great just yet, so the exposure was minimal.  Maybe not, maybe I'm just being cynical and/or pessimistic, but these are the types of things you're trying to stamp out with demonstrations, not further fueling them.  Still, that has been Microsoft's MO lately.

I'm more or less tepid to Snap as a result for now.  Some of the uses seem superfluous at best (The TV Snap is pretty much -only- good for Sports channels, since what else can you enjoy with a tiny screen and no volume?) whereas some are absolute game-changers in theory.  The internet explorer bit is something that a lot of people scoffed at because "Hurr, hurr, I look up that stuff on my computer/laptop/tablet/phone" and -yes- you can, but it's simply more convenient to bring it up on the same exact screen like that.  However, I'm worried about the versatility of it - the screen real-estate allotted is minimal, meaning the websites will be squished and I'm not sure how you would navigate text-heavy sites like GameFAQs and the like.  If the XBone pauses your game every time you Snap something, does it pause when you want to interact with it too?  Or can you do -something- to scroll the screen up a bit without breaking your game flow?  I personally doubt it, and I assume that would get ridiculously annoying eventually, but perhaps it won't actually be so bad.  This is, of course, something they could have shown off, but failed to do.

I would have liked some more examples of things you can do with Snap.  Can you, for instance, snap Skype on and do a video call with a friend or family member while playing Forza?  Can you snap on the Marketplace and buy a game to start downloading while you're running through Ryse?  Are you able to snap on any of the video services and switch audio to them, like Youtube?  That would be helpful for advanced tutorial needs, but that's one that I highly doubt, personally.  Still, any and all of this were things that they could have taken time to actually explore and explain, or even just touch on a little more than it was done, but none of them were, and I highly doubt a follow-up "Here's a second video about Snap because oops", so I suppose this time I -can- be disappointed and/or wary about the feature and its completeness.  I suppose we'll all know for sure next Friday, however!  With any luck, if all the annoying things are true, they can be addressed.

oh sure, let me just pause the game five times in a single minute so I can scroll up this site on the side so I can read the full paragraph, ob boy

In Which I Resume the Status Quo

My last post about the XBone was fairly positive, but that's mostly because I made sure that it would remain that way throughout because that was the point of the post.  This post is under no such obligation.  This post is another in the line of many "Goddamnit, Microsoft" posts that exist because they should, because Microsoft has clearly learned nothing. I wish this weren't the case because I know that I'm personally tired of rehashing the same points over and over again, but it's kind of appropriate to do so since I'm not the one who is doing it first.  I am in the responsive position here, not the instigative position.  If it weren't such a critical issue, I would have more or less given up on it by now, but it is certainly -not- that.  It's a big deal, bigger than we like to admit, and that it's barely getting addressed is the real issue.

In a recent interview, Albert Penello, Microsoft Senior Director of Product Management, prefaced a statement with "I always have to be really careful what I say here," and then proceeded to do no such thing, much to my amusement and frustration.  Protip:  If you ever say, "I do feel like we never got a chance to have a rational conversation about what we were trying to do," then you should probably understand that you're being very, very condescending, since it basically infers that your side was correct, but the other side was simply so rabid and/or unintelligent to understand your rationale that you just dropped it entirely.  As we know that is entirely -not- what happened, and the insistence, however passive-aggressive, that it was is just irresponsible.  I'll get to that in a minute, however.  More importantly is this little tid-bit, likening the XBone announcement (which he refers to as "the Dark Days", another good sign) to the original Duke controller.

"I always tell this story about how we did so much user testing on that thing, about how comfortable it was. Every piece of data we had said that was the best controller ever made. And then we showed it to customers and they're like, 'Oh my god, this thing's huge! It's gotta be uncomfortable!'

And you're like, 'Okay, we're done.' Because I'm not gonna be able to tell you about all the work we did, and all the data I had, and, oh by the way, when you feel it, it is really comfortable. Sometimes the customer just says 'No.' I look at it this way: I'm done; I've made up my mind. And we go, well, we've gotta fix it. It's not worth it. And that's where I think we were on the digital stuff. We'll get back to some of the cool stuff, and we have a lot of the cool stuff still in there."

Do take note that unless he's talking about -another- Duke controller that was much larger than the one that we got, it doesn't spell out a whole lot of anything for this story.  Since the Duke was famously large and, despite Penello's assertions, uncomfortable, which is why the second controller was made during the OXBox's lifetime that was much smaller and the prototype for what the 360 got.  So what I'm getting at here is that this is a really bad story to tell, especially in relation to this topic.  Which makes the fact that he stated earlier on,

"The thing I want to be super explicit about, because I do think people are worried about, is once we made the decision to go to physical disc security, we're not unwinding that decision. We're committed to the physical disc; we're committed to trading and loaning. This is my official: 'We're not going back on that.' I don't want anybody to think we 'got' them, and then tomorrow I'm gonna go back to the old stuff, 'cause that's not gonna happen."

...needlessly suspicious!  Speaking, sir!  You are bad at it.  Note the same smarmy condescending tone to this little anecdote as well, further reinforcing...well, what I've said. 

But that's not the worst of it.  Not by a -long- shot.  The worst comes right at the end, and it's the part that just absolutely makes my blood boil because it is precisely the wrong thing to say ever.

Regardless, Penello admitted that, in the end, it was the right decision. He still believes the all-digital future is coming. "We just think that's the way the future's gonna go," he said. "We may have been right. What we were wrong about was that it's just too soon. People just weren't ready to make that leap right away."

This.  This thing that you're doing right here?  Stop doing it.

You don't get to proclaim that the thing you're doing is ahead of its time.  Things are only declared to be ahead of their time after history has played out and you go "Hmm, I wonder why this thing is happening" and then you find out the progenitor of it.  In this case, the Dreamcast is the thing that was ahead of its time since it was wacky enough to try and introduce internet-based multi-player gameplay, even though internet as a whole was not even a standard, much less good.  Microsoft took this concept and added their own...'improvements', which, combined with the Dreamcast's following despite the lack of real purchasing power behind that, prompted the others to follow suit.  That is why we have online multi-player and such in our consoles, rather than it simply being a PC thing, though it could be argued that it, too, was an 'inevitability'.

All of what that translates into for me personally is "See you again for Round 2", which almost makes me weary just thinking about it.  This time around was hard enough, but we managed to put up a brick wall of common fucking sense.  I believe that's due in no small part to the fact that digital purchases are still on shaky grounds with Consoles, especially with the shift between this gen and next and the almost-lack of connectivity in-between.  We'll not have that cushion when the XTwo and the PS5 are announced since they'll likely retain a PC-like architecture meaning there should be no trouble making them backwards compatible with the XBone and PS4.  Since the entire library of games will be digital at that point (minus the few that get de-listed for licensing issues and such), it might not cause much of a kerfuffle there.  On top of that is the theory that the internet -is- getting -slightly- better in an average sense, but not an 'everywhere' sense, and I'm just seeing a lot more people becoming accepting of the idea of something like the XBone was originally set to be.  The bad parts of it.

Call me cynical, but the short-sightedness of it is what makes me believe it's possible.  That there were even defenders of the XBone this time around, with the majority of them being people crowing from the rooftops, "Fuck you, got mines" is more than enough to crush the spirit a little bit.  The issue is that it's just not something that should be done, because it's not something that can be done.  Internet Infrastructure is not a world-wide standard.  Internet Service Providers are considered, as a general statement, to be among the worst companies out there (up there with Gas Companies, Insurance Companies and EA for some reason) and there is a reason for that.  They are providing a service that is infinitely invaluable because of short-sightedness and by that virtue, they have free reign on what they can and can't do, with the latter being 'not a whole lot'.  What's going to change that?  I ask that as a real, actual, legitimate question.  It's not rhetorical, I'm not going to say "Nobody, that's who" because I don't know that.  But I also do not know -who- is going to make the ISPs start behaving like the less-evil multi-million dollar corporations out there.  And somebody has to do it if we're all gung-ho for this stupid notion of an "Always Online" future.

I'm still just shaking my head at the condescending vibe that oozes from every single word said, goddamn

In Which I'm Mostly Positive About the XBone For Once

Do I really have to preface this post with a reiteration of my past opinions on the XBone?  No?  Okay.  Because I'm not going to for now.  What I am going to do is direct you to the above video of what is apparently a real XBone running the real dashboard in real-time.  And it is rather delightful, I should say.  While I applauded the use of the PS4's UI on-stage some time back for its simplicity while still showing off the nuances, there's something to be said still for a nice sit-down, "Here is how everything works" presentation when it's handled well, and this was nice and smooth with only a couple things I can really complain about.  That's..kind of the point, obviously, and it's probably not -completely- indicative of every situation, but it's still promising.

The first thing that needs to be said is, of course, how seamlessly the game goes back into play once you resume it from the Home menu no matter what you were doing previously.  I'm personally used to this already with my Vita since I frequently pull out of a game to access the internet browser or check a Youtube video for some help, but I understand that it is a new concept to some people and am still appreciative that it works as well as I've already seen it work.  Though, I do have to agree with Chance in wondering how the One will handle the whole "People play more than one game" thing, since Yusef could have been playing a different game entirely on his XBone, or even if he was playing Forza, he still has his own instance that obviously can't really be transferred over like that.  For having "everything of yours on any XBox One" (the pinned things, it seems) available, that one thing seems like it's the most -important- thing to have, but I don't think it's actually feasible.  Though, I suppose at least that's when the whole "You can download your (bought and downloaded) games to any XBone and use them so long as it's you actually using it" comes into play, so you still -can- get to your game, and I imagine your saves can automatically go to the cloud, so you'll be able to pull it from there.  It might take a bit, given file sizes and all, but still.

I would like to call special attention to the Skype demo.  Even though I'm not a fan of Skype at all, nor do I really care about its inclusion, I have to admit that I'm really, really impressed with what they showed off.  I never would have even thought that the Kinect could be 'smart' enough to actually zoom in and follow you if you were moving about and doing that was a real smart bit of forethought.  Even though you're mostly going to be using it when you're just sitting down and playing, there's something to be said for if you have it set up in an area where there's a lot of visibility and things you can do.  Maybe you're cleaning house and talking to someone else, or something along those lines, since, hey, it's totally possible with that set-up.  I dare not think of some ways that it will -actually- get used, but the -intended- usage is neat and actually uses the Kinect to its capabilities instead of just making it kind of like a webcam for that as I might have expected.

Really though, I'm not quite sure what to think about with the whole Game DVR.  As someone who watches a lot of Let's Plays of games and the like, I clearly understand the appeal of simply watching a video game being played, and with reactions (though not necessarily facecams) but that's not really what this is for.  So the next usage would seem to be little tip videos, showing you how to do something specific or what have you, but that seems to be a little limited as it's hard to tell just how long you can make these Game DVR videos.  I understand not being able to do 'walkthrough/Let's Play' length videos for multiple reasons up to and including HDD space concerns, copyright concerns with the companies that aren't cool with those types of things and that sort of thing, but if you can only do 30-second clips (I'm sure you can do longer, it's just a matter of how, and how much longer) then...what's the point?  To be fair, this is all shared concerns for the whole Share aspect of the PS4 as well.

I do find it a bit concerning that there was not even a single instance of them attempting to use the whole Two-App thing with the Snap interface, since that's something they've been touting for a while.  The worrying idea is that perhaps it's not working up to snuff and thus wasn't shown off because it would have looked bad, but we are officially past the "Well, it kind of looks bad" phase in terms of end-game functionality.  Because we are -at- the end-game here.  The console will be released in two weeks (if you don't get it early as someone has who is in the process of being banned from Youtube, Twitter and possibly Live as we speak) and the Day One patch is already live - it's where it's going to be at launch.  Maybe that function simply won't be available - I haven't really paid attention to news about it - and in that case it can be patched in later on when it's in a working state, but still.  It's a really weird omission for an otherwise stellar little presentation.  They officially have my attention in some capacity for now.

I made it the whole post, that is kind of amazing

Some Encouraging Project Spark News

It seems that Project Spark, Microsoft's game-building game, will not require XBox Live Gold to play in any of its versions on the 360, PC or XBone.  Seeing as that is a Microsoft Studio title, as first-party as can be, that's quite a surprising development, but not an unwelcome one.  It also makes a lot of sense to do which I posit is most of why it's surprising.  Despite me being a little disappointed in Project Spark, or what little of it has been shown off, I'm still nonetheless interested in it, especially now that the XBone left Crazytown and is a viable, purchasable console now.  Because I am just a whore for the concept of creating things even though I'm terrible at actually executing the creation thereof.

Of course, that's kind of where the rub is - everything points to being able to play Project Spark without XBox Live Gold.  Semantics are a wonderful, terrible thing, of course, so one could actually infer that silver members can only do that - play the game.  Play other creations people have made.  The worry, then, is that you will still need Gold to actually be able to create and share your little games that look suspiciously like Fable even though it's supposed to be set in space or something.  It would certainly make sense, since it makes -more- sense than Microsoft being cool where it concerns this game.  It's not that we want to be cynical, that we don't want to believe, but, well, I think we've all touched the fire one too many times, and we're pretty sure it's still going to burn.

We're watching you, Microsoft.  Keeping an eye on you in case you go all Crazytown again.

yes, it was a short post but what else is there to say about a game that has like three minutes of footage out there

More More Microsoft News

I'm gonna be honest here - I'm getting a bit tired of posting XBone news.  I had to search for the new box art picture instead of using the same old image I tag the XBone posts with (you know the one) just to switch it up a bit.  The obvious response is "Well, then just don't post the news, duh" and yeah, it is kind of obvious, but, well, there ain't shit else going on and a few pieces of news came together that made for an interesting little chat.  So I figured I'd do it and then hopefully get it out of my system and then hopefully we'll get some news about other things, since just about all of it has been about the XBone and not a near-bit of it very positive.  I've been one of the people who have been, uh, vocally against what the XBone was in its original inception, of course, and I remain one of the unswayed by Microsoft's furious back-peddling and desperate attempts for further affection, but even I've basically lost the verve and the concern with which to talk about the XBone in any manner, even negative.

First up in the parade of bad news and worse decisions, one of the other main things that folks have been clamoring about regarding the XBone from the onset of it, even alongside the whole DRM nonsense.  The Kinect 2.0, as it's been dubbed, was previously listed as required for the XBone to do basic things like function whatsoever, which people didn't like for one reason or another.  "The room is too small for it to be utilized", "there's 'no good use for Kinect'", "I don't want it constantly watching and listening to me and even though you can turn it 'off', how off is it really?" and such things, which are valid concerns in one way or another.  While there wasn't going to be some sort of NSA situation going on, there was and still is, I suppose, a very real chance of Kinect 'spying' on you to direct you towards ads that it thinks you want to see, which is almost and oxymoron because nobody wants ads, even if they're advertising the brand of coffee you drink in the morning or the brand of chips you snack on at night.

Obviously, all that build-up is to simply say that the Kinect is no longer required except in the rare case that a game requires Kinect, of course.  Which will be few and far in-between as even Microsoft's Kinect Sports thing was delayed til a few months or more after launch, meaning the number of games that -require- Kinect at launch will be zero I believe.  Of course, the bigger thing is that unless you're planning on talking to your XBone, waving at your TV or playing that new Harmonix game that I can't be bothered to search the name of, you can safely leave the Kinect that will be included in your XBone box right where it is, since absolutely everything about it appears optional now aside from its purchase.  The announcement made a lot of people think that the Kinect could safely be taken out of the box from the getgo, resulting in a hefty price drop, but I seriously doubt that's going to happen.  This is less of an issue of programming and whatnot, and more of an issue of they've probably already started mass-producing the things, so they're -going- to be in the damn boxes whether you like it or not.  Similarly, others have been suggesting that -down the line- there will be a Kinect-less box after the initial 'shove Kinect down everyone's throat' phase and I'm...not inclined to believe in that either.  It's a game of too little time at this point now, and while Microsoft has been screwing the pooch left and right here, splitting things up like that would be silly even for them.  I think.

Speaking of mass-production and shipping, the XBone was initially supposed to launch in 21 Markets, and that number has been reduced to 13 surprising absolutely nobody.  Given that they're still throwing things in the box as shown by the unboxing vid that let slip the Chat Headset that was previously going to be sold separately, but I guess they just decided to throw them in since they were already manufacturing them as well.  Really, it's -far- easier to -include- things than it is to take them out which is why I'm saying that the Kinect is going to stay in for the launch bundles at the very least.  (Also because the unboxing video kind of...well, makes it 'official', I should think)  What with production apparently going on at the moment, though not quite as fast or well as they would like it to be going and all.  What's curious about that is that I can't help but wonder if those countries are going to be the ones where the console -launches- or if they're going to be the ones where the console -launches- and XBox Live for it is up and functional, meaning the region-free aspect of it would be quite moot otherwise.  There is the whole matter of that Day-One Firmware update for the console as well as the update that Forza 5 will require to be a functioning game that will be unavailable to those were Live for the XBone isn't supported.

And while we're on the topic of XBox Live (geez, it's almost like I put thought into the flow of this post), there was a little announcement that....is kind of good?  It actually seems a bit redundant and dumb, but it's not actively harmful or out-right silly like some of the other bits of news, so it gets a pass, I suppose.  A season pass, actually, because I am so clever since the news is that the XBone has a "Season Pass Guarantee", meaning that every time you buy a (supported) 360 game with a Season Pass, you will be able to access the Season Pass content if you then buy the game again on your XBone.  Why you would do that is....quite a bit beyond me (unless the game is just really good and only gets better on the Next-Gen machines for some reason), but it is rather nice that the option is -there-.  Though I do believe GameStop is going to offer some sort of "upgrade" trade-in thing so that you get so much credit towards an XBone version of a game for the 360 version, which makes the offer a whole lot more tantalizing if you're into that sort of thing.

Aside from trying to assuage some RROD-type fears by stating that the XBone will fix itself when it's overheating, there's not a whole lot of other news about the thing which is great, since that was a lot to cover when I didn't even really want to do it in the first place.  With any luck, that should be all the XBone-related news from now until Gamescom which is...in like a week.  Great.  Regardless, Microsoft's presentation will be a short one, though they're hyping it up to be something big.  I guess we'll see what comes of it, but until then, I will hopefully not have to type the words "XBone", "Kinect" or other such things again.  After all, can we just...you know, find some other news to make a big deal about?  There should be more news-worthy things, it's almost the end of Summer!  Almost.

honestly, I probably shouldn't write about it because I'm so whiny, but I want to write -things- and it's like the only topic there is some days

XBone Requires Live Gold for...Pretty Much Everything

In what is no doubt the least surprising thing about the XBone, all those features that were stuck behind the pay-wall of XBox Live Gold are going to be the same way with the new system, as well as the shiny features showed off exclusive to the XBone like the game recording feature, the Twitch integration, NFL Leaderboard integration, Skype and the new and improved match-making.  Some of that isn't a surprise, especially the match-making since you need Live for Multi-player -anyway- so obviously a new shiny thing attached to that is going to be behind the very same pay-wall, but that's kind of semantics.  Basically, this narrows the amount of things you'll be able to do with a Live Silver account down to "Play single-player games, buy games off of XBL and gain regular Achievements" since even the new 'dynamic' Achievements seem to be locked to Gold.  All of which basically means that you may as well tack on $60 to the XBone's already higher price, since it's damn-near mandatory.

Some would argue that Sony's decision to put PS4 multi-player behind a similar pay-wall in Playstation Plus accomplishes much of the same in making it mandatory, but I'd say there is a very, very fundamental difference between the two and their implementation.  From what I've seen, the -only- thing behind with pay-wall is multi-player which means, yes, you can't play online with your friends without it (unless you're playing an MMO like DCUO) but you can still socialize with them regardless.  Party chat, all of the sharing bits, all the social interaction things that aren't specifically tied to playing Killzone:  Shadow Fall MP with your buddy are unrestricted if you choose not to throw down $50 for a year of the service.  Not to mention if you want to enjoy Netflix on your TV and don't want to have to keep going back to your PS3, your Wii U (assuming they ever fix the Wii U's Netflix app) or something else that is presumably letting you watch Netflix without paying more than Netflix's own subscription, you can do that on the PS4.  Same with all of the other programs and applications of a similar nature.

Without throwing what appears to be a console warz-type pitch, there's also the idea of perceived value associated with the services as we've seen them.  Live Gold simply allows you access to all of these things that you're paying for otherwise in Netflix and the like, while also letting you play multi-player in games.  Playstation Plus went an entirely different route with the Instant Game Collection, giving subscribers access to dozens of games over the course of the year simply for subscribing.  Plus was always an additive entry prior to the PS4 and will likely persist in that capacity, where Live Gold has always been the barrier of entry.  They have started a program where you get some free games per month and it's true that the games appear to be 'yours' in that they're not tied with you actually subscribing to Live Gold, but it....comes off as a little too late, not to mention it's a temporary program until the XBone is launched.  Then things look as if they'll return to the status quo.

It just seems like a missed opportunity.  Obviously, you -want- people to subscribe to the service, but you can do that through incentivizing rather than force.  Honestly, even if the PS4 -didn't- require PS+ going forward, I'd still have it because of the IGC, even though that's an extra $50 a year.  It's damn worth it.  When and if I eventually buy a 360 to catch up on a few exclusives, I honestly don't know if I'll get Gold at all and if I do, it will be begrudgingly at best.  I see it as $60 that I don't -need- to spend, nor do I want to.  And you know what?  That argument is always rattled against by people shouting "If you're paying full-price for Live, you're doing it wrong" and to that I say "Fuck you".  I don't need to shop for deals that may or may not exist in the time-span between when I get a 360 and when I need gold, nor do I think it's an effective way of combating the issue.  It's $60 that I don't feel like paying, don't think I -need- to pay, and if that $60 becomes $35 because I stumble across a sale it's not fundamentally different.  I -want- to spend the $50 on Playstation Plus because of what it gives me not what it allows me to do.  That is all the difference there can be.  Live Gold is simply a service that I, nor do many people, feel is worth buying into because of the amount of things that are behind it when it's clear that they don't need to be.

Of course, anyone thinking that anything would come -out- of the pay-wall in the 360-One transition was simply fooling themselves, so this news isn't -really- news.  It's simply an affirmation that Microsoft is happy with the money Live Gold brings in and they don't feel they need to change it up.  Which....good for them.  Clearly they don't since people happily pay for the service and swear by it, but it's just another one of many chances they could've utilized for even the smallest bit of good will, and it's just clear they're not interested.  Still, it does ensure that we'll hear about all these features from the folks who end up picking up the system, since it's out of necessity rather than want, and some of the features are down-right neat sounding.  The Twitch integration for one, and I suppose it is good that they're jumping on Skype, considering it is one thing that legitimizes the Kinect that they're forcing in.  One just has to wonder what else is going to show up and get added to the list of "things you need Live Gold for".

people have been shouting for them to remove the pay-wall from the Netflix thing for ages, they could have at least done -that-

Even More Indie Confusion

Brian Provinciano of Retro City Rampage fame is one of the many suspicious of Microsoft's new plan.

It seems Sony's still the only one out there getting it right in terms of Indies, though Microsoft recently announced that they're making strides in the right direction....if you believe spin at its face, that is.  Essentially, what Microsoft has announced is that Self-Publishing will be possible for games on the XBone and on top of that, every single XBone console will eventually double as a dev kit.  This would allow you to run down to the store, buy an XBone, take it home and work whatever voodoo that involves to turn it into a dev kit/debug unit.  Because it's not going to be as simple as flipping a switch and 'woooo suddenly I'm a game developer'.  Not to mention that allowing you to be able to mess with the innards of the XBone as you would anything with code and such with reckless abandon would open all sorts of unsavory doors, so there's obviously some bits that haven't been mentioned just yet.  Apparently this was supposed to be big news at Gamescom, but it just so happened to leak out beforehand.  Mysteriously.

"Suspicion" seems to be the operative word in terms of reactions among both consumers and Indie Developers alike, and it's not unwarranted, of course.  Even without Microsoft's numerous foot-in-mouth moments subsequently followed by furious back-peddling in what comes off as a desperate display of "PLEASE LOVE US", their previous attempt at the Indie Scene with XBox Live Indie Games was less-than-stellar in concept and execution.  An annual fee allowed you access to the development tools with which you could eventually create a working game for the service that was then checked by other XNA developers (I believe) for QA purposes (pretty much, I just heard Zeboyd asking/talking about "Peer Review" for the XBLIG versions of their games before release) before being unceremoniously placed into the roster next to the rest of the games similarly added without much regard to grouping or visibility.  Of course, that is kind of how these things go, things like the App Store and such that allow 'self-publishing' in this way, which is akin to "Yeah, just kind of put it out there and make sure we get our cut for storage" which is...less than ideal.

Whether or not Microsoft's plan for the XBone will be like XBLIG but 'better' or something else entirely that might actually be good has yet to be seen and will likely remain under wraps even beyond Gamescom.  It's highly doubtful this system will be able to go up and running by launch, of course, and first-hand experience is really where it's going to count, as well as how Microsoft handles the marketplace thereafter.  It -does- sound like Microsoft is making strides in that area in a sense as they previously announced that all the games will be in the 'games' section of the store, thus no "XBLA goes -here-" and "XBLIG goes over -there-", but really that was never the biggest problem.  The biggest problem with indies on the 360 was that you...basically never knew when the games went up because they went up 'whenever'.  Sony has the right of it here, I think - Games go up Tuesday, Mobile games go up Wednesday.  If you're even a little familiar with your Playstation devices and such, you know that, so you'll know to check new releases and you'll be able to find all the new games, indie or otherwise, held within.  Then they also have an Indies Section that, well, actually has visibility as well.

Something else that's curious is that Microsoft seems to be promising full compatibility of the wide spectrum of extra essentials to Indies as well.  Specifically, Mark Whitten, VP of the XBox Division had this to say:

"Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We'll have more details on the program and the timeline at gamescom in August."

This is new in terms of Microsoft's treatment of indies for the most part.  Even Kinect integration, something that obviously could have happened on the 360 seems new unless my googling has failed to inform me of a time when XNA developers were allowed to work with the device for 360 purposes.  Additionally, add me to the list of people who believe that you don't just get to say "the cloud" and we fucking know what you're talking about.  Does it mean cloud saves?  Cloud storage?  Cloud computation, as some XBone games are touting already even though that kind of requires internet which was something of a problem as we have discussed?  Will you be able to have some sort of cross-compatibility with Windows 8 thanks to "THE CLOUD"?  Any of this is something you could mention instead of just saying "THE CLOUD" as a thing of reverence.  Regardless, it'll be interesting to see just how many Achievements you can add to your indie game and how updating it can or cannot change that, since that's something that has been played around with quite a lot by actual developers (in terms of adding DLC which adds Achievements/Trophies to the overall list).  Actually, it'll just be interesting to see how it handles updates in general, considering some of Microsoft's difficulties with that.

Meanwhile, on the Nintendo side of the world, Nintendo has made a strange move in telling Japanese Indies to shove it.  Or, more succinctly that they're just not accepting Japanese applications for development on the Wii U, despite Nintendo's moves to make the device friendly to Indies of all types.  It's especially weird that they're not taking applications from Japan of all places, considering that's where they're based, but there are some reasons at play here that do sort of make it a little more understandable.  I don't know a lot about the Japanese Indie Scene, but I have to imagine that a good portion of it is likely Visual Novel-based, since that's really big in Japan, and I have to also imagine that a good portion of -that- is...well...not what Nintendo is looking for, I'll say.  I mean, maybe I'm wrong on that, and it's definitely possible that I -am-, and that the Japanese Indie Scene is just rife with platformers that blow Nintendo's own out of the water or something, but I'm just saying that that's possible.  Still, it's just a weird move, especially amidst all the other drama surrounding Indies.

So yeah, it's just kind of amusing to see all this going on and Sony just kind standing off to the side with the bulk of Indie Developers just looking on going "Okay".  I'm not sure what all moves they actually made in wooing the scene as heavily as they did, but it paid off with dividends and it's continuing to do so.  If nothing else, this is all at least a good exercise in realizing the importance of goodwill.  Sony's gained it massively, Microsoft pissed all theirs away and Nintendo is somewhere comfortably in the middle.  Who knows how this'll all play out when plans are actually outlined and put in place, but I wouldn't expect something of a large-scale event occurring.  It takes a lot of work to shift developers away from something, but most of the time it takes something negative to something else, so unless Sony screws the pooch at some point, they might just be around for a while.  Still, with a little competence, a little humility and a little courting, Microsoft could endear themselves back eventually.  I just don't see that happening, though.

well, something negative or truckloads of money, but

Forza 5 Shipping as an Unfinished Game

Note the title of this post.  Now note the title of the Joystiq post I'm sourcing primarily: "Forza 5 has a mandatory day one download".  Now note the title of the IGN post they sourced from: "Forza Motorsport 5 Requires One-Time Internet Connection".  Hell, look at the title of Eurogamer's post about the topic: "Forza 5 mandatory day one download adds Drivatars for offline play".  Now marvel in wonder in disappointment when friggin' Kotaku of all places manages to title a post the correct way to deliver the message from this Forza 5 news: "Forza 5 Isn't All On The Disc".

It's hard to make it really clear what I'm talking about without giving you the source material, so let's do that.

“So when you first boot up the game, we’re going to ask you to log in,” he explained. “And when you log in you’re going to get the Drivatars and you’re also going to get a whole bunch of content: tracks and cars. Our production schedule is such that we are putting them in as late as possible and that means making them free as downloadable content on Day One.

“[But] that is required content to play the game. We basically have designed the game to work with all that content no matter how late is coming in, in order to make the biggest game possible.”

After that, Greenawalt said, Forza 5 is like your refrigerator. “You have to fill it up with food the first time,” he explained. “And from then on, you connect whenever you want when you want to update your food. The Drivatars are as fresh as they are. It’s not like they’re going to degrade, but when you’re looking for new stuff – fresh stuff…it’s going to keep evolving. That’s the nature of this Drivatar system.”

“You do have to connect the game in order to get the latest Drivatars, because we need as many people training them as possible. And so rather than having just a launch-day set that was created by us, every day that people race is going to make the Drivatar set that much more accurate, that much more diverse, that much more interesting.

“All of the cloud and online features make the game far, far better,” Greenawalt summed up. “In fact I’d even say revolutionary. The things we’re doing with opponents and Drivatar are not something that anyone can envision unless you’ve played it. But we’re trying to get as much of that into the unconnected, offline mode as well.

“We’re not making a launch game. We’re making Forza 5, at launch.”

I cut out as much of the editorializing and whatnot as I could to simply give you the quotes from the post, since I provided the links anyway, and that should allow you to read the rest if you so desire.  But, I mean, the whole point of this post -is- to give you the whole picture on the issue, of course, so it may not be necessary.  Also, note the spin in place that has spurned a lot of misinformation about just what's going on here.  It's quite well done, of course, but it's annoying in how well it's seemed to work, given the comments from those particular sites from people asking for clarification and people touting misinformation with a "This is not news" tagline.  There are also people simply misinterpreting the news pretty clearly to push their own agenda, with the overall response pointing to this not being something to be outraged about despite all the obvious merits of it.  So I'm going to make it easy.

If you throw down $60 (or however much) on Forza 5 inside the confines of a store, walk out with a case that holds a disc of the game, go home, put that disc in the XBone and you cannot, for whatever reason, download the Day-One Download?  You cannot play the game.  The reason for this is that the full game is not printed on the disc.  It is that simple, and it's definitely a first.  A bad first at that.

How is this possible?  Well, it's explained quite clearly in the above if you read it correctly.  When the discs are going to start being printed, Forza 5 will not be a complete, finished game.  So they're printing what's going to be done of it and then working on it up until the days prior to the game launch, (hopefully) submitting it to QA and then letting the rest of the game go up on XBox Live for you to download on Day One.  The same day when, you know, a million other people are going to be downloading that data and the XBone's mandatory day one firmware update.  This is not a recipe for disaster on its face or anything, not to mention the undercurrent of it.  Regardless, it's something that needs stating and I cannot stress this enough:  THIS IS NOT A PATCH.  THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE.  It's astounding that that one point is not clear, because I'm sure if it was a little more clear, people wouldn't be so understanding of it.

Or maybe they would be, I don't know.  People arguing for this are basically throwing every point that we rallied against the XBone for to make this acceptable and the disparity between people arguing for and against it is much, much closer than it was for the XBone's policies.  "If you're buying the XBone, you have to have internet for the day one firmware anyway, so this isn't a big deal." "People barely play Forza offline anyway." "If you're complaining about this, you're using the internet, so you have no room to complain." and the old-standby "If you can't afford the internet, you shouldn't be buying a $500 entertainment machine." are all thrown around, I assume unironically, and it just makes my head hurt because I start questioning whether or not I'm being unreasonable.

I'm not.  If you're selling a game on a disc, the game should be on the disc.  Full Stop.

It doesn't matter if the "Drivatars" basically requires the internet to fulfill their promises and were what Forza 5 was seemingly built around because Forza 5 still claims to have an off-line singleplayer portion to it.  It doesn't matter that they're "using every bit of time up to launch to make it the biggest game it could be".  It doesn't even matter if the download isn't going to be all that big (though it's certainly going to be).  Doing this kind of thing is bullshit, and defending it on any level basically tells everyone that you're in the "Fuck you, got mines" camp which is truly not the place you want to be.  You're willfully ignoring that a Disc is supposed to -be- the game, not merely a pass to play it as the original XBone would have made it.

So, sorry all you people wondering why this is news.  It's because it is news, no matter how much you want to plug your ears and go "La La La" until it passes.  If it's an isolated incident, then that's just a blip on the radar, but if it starts a trend of "Fuck worrying about finishing the game on time" rather than responsibly delaying a game you can't finish, then that's going to be no better than what we were expecting with the original XBone, if not worse.  All it takes is one company trying to mimic this and then not managing to actually finish the game before the release date because....well, it's a gamble.  You're betting you'll be done with a goodly bit of time left for QA and some companies out there simply aren't good with time management.  Hence the myriad of delays you see games get almost every day.  Hopefully, this'll be the last time we hear of news like this.

I get that more people are going to buy an XBone now that it's not completely abhorrent, but you don't have to blindly defend it from actual criticism

The E3 Recaps

Almost more fun than E3 itself is the spin that people take on the events afterward.  I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone of the famous "Never" bit from Giant Bomb from years back, and there are innumerable other examples I could throw down right here.  That's not the point.  Or...it's mostly not the point.  The point is that I'm trying to lead-in to talking about the E3 recaps from VideoGamerTV, one of those Youtube groups that has all sorts of folks uploading to the same channel, I believe.  Probably.  Gonna be honest, I didn't look into them at -all- aside from collecting the recap videos because I'm at a surplus for Youtube channels I watch yet my time is heavily, heavily budgeted already, so I don't need or want more.  The recaps are hilarious, thus I'm going to talk about the recaps.

The Playstation one above was the first one of the three I saw and was quite fantastic the first time I went through it.  Of the three, it's probably the least out-and-out funny, but that's more than likely because it doesn't -need- to be funny.  One of the things it plays up pretty heavily is, of course, Sony's triumph at E3 and it does so in a way that, while humorous, really sort of captures the mood or the thinking of the majority of us that was likely going on while it was happening live.  So I didn't have to stop the video and belt out a peal of laughter at any point, but it -was- still entertaining the whole way through.  Definitely worth a watch, if just for the Indie section alone.

"Do you guys like Indie Games?  Because we've got all of them.  Fuckin' all of them.  Count it:  all of them."

If there can be anything said about the Microsoft video, it's that it 99% -only- covers the actual E3 presser, which is pretty much a good thing overall, I should say.  No sense bringing that negativity into it, though there are just a couple bits where a little snark is thrown that way if you're thinking along those lines.  It is a shame that the video was taken from a laggy livestream, thus making the video choppy as hell, but, well, that was likely the E3 experience most people got anyway, so, true to form again.  If I had to pick a favorite part of that video, it'd definitely be the bit where they tried to make sense of the "Driveatar" because.....yeah.

Good luck with that.

I've gotta be honest.  My whole reason for doing this post was just so I could post the Nintendo abridged one.  It is by far the best of the three and it is -still- funny even though I've watched it half a dozen times.  It's just stellar and really kind of captures the feeling that it might not exactly be all the games we -wanted-, but they're games we'll play and enjoy all the same.  Really, the whole thing, aside from the Wind Waker bit which I just didn't understand, is all fantastic.  It just didn't feel right -only- posting this one even though it's the one I enjoyed the most.  So really, if you haven't watched the other two, at least watch this one.

"Crotch!"

This Post Has to Have "XBox One-Eighty" in the Title

I do believe that the Earth quaked a little earlier today when Microsoft announced one of the biggest backpedals in recent memory, vowing that most of the policies described as "Toxic" about the XBone will be absent from the console at launch.  Instead of the XBone being this thing that acts as a sort of hub for your games (since it would rip them to the HDD) with all sorts of restrictions on it, it has now become....well....a game console.  A game console that has a bunch of extra stuff that we've also been whinging about from day one (TV stuff, I'm looking at you as is....you know....every not in North America) but a game console nonetheless.  Finally.  It is...something of an absurd situation, much like the celebration of Sony's PS4 announcements, when this has to be something brought up and explained.

Specifically, the list of changes looks like this:

• No more 24-Hour Check-In
• No Mandatory Internet Connection at all aside from games that require it (Obvious) and a first-time connection when you set up the console
• Disks work like today and like they will with the PS4 - Buy them, sell them, trade them, loan them, the game is on the disk and the disk is your key
• Disks will not rip to the HDD, thus you have to have them in the console to play
• Family Sharing Plan thing is dead, dead, dead
• Digital Games work just like today in that you cannot sell or trade them
• The Console is Region-Free (Which I don't think it was ever stated as it wasn't?  This is probably due mostly to, y'know, blu-rays anyway)

All in all, it's a win for consumers.  So, basically this has been met with overwhelming positivity, right?

Hahahaha.

If anything, this has simply made people angrier as a whole than anything else and it's all at once completely understandable and not.  Fans of what the XBone was going to be are now angry because "whiners" have ruined their "perfect digital console" and are further incensed by the people who are still not buying an XBone because they're still suspicious of a company that was ready to go full-steam-ahead with these ideas until they were very loudly shouted down.  They're mostly incensed because they view these people who were 'never getting an XBone anyway' as non-essential - they were not part of the 'target market' (I'm really running with the air quotes, huh) so their opinions should have never factored into it.  All of these thoughts and opinions have me feeling and thinking so many different things that I find it's far, far too difficult to really condemn or defend them, but at least try to explain the sides and facets to them.

While it's true that every product simply has some people that just won't buy it no matter what - you're never going to sell your new chicken product to a vegan, for example - and they should really be factored in, you need to keep in mind just what your target market is and be able to determine if your target market is large enough and willing to buy in.  The target market for the XBone as it was was basically:  People who had reliable, stable and fast internet, people who have no qualms about digital purchases and sharing (and also have reliable, stable and fast internet) and people who live in the countries that Microsoft can reliably support with such a plan.  That target market....is honestly smaller than many people would like to believe thanks to the poor state of global infrastructure, and even a bulk of the people -in- that market weren't willing to buy in, meaning it was an even smaller one to begin with.

Conversely, it was completely within anyone's rights, interested buyer or not, to complain about how the XBone was shaping up, because it was a terrible machine for this point in time.  As far as I'm concerned, it was a terrible machine for -any- point in time, because I don't think Infrastructure is going to get to the point that everyone pushing digital is assuming we are anytime soon (soon meaning decades here) but I'm in the minority there.  The internet is not a right.  It's not water, it's not food, it's not housing - it's not classified as something necessary for your quality of life and as long as it's in the hands of the same people that refuse to improve upon it because they're making mad bank as it is, it won't be.  So this goes for everything as far as a 'digital future' involves, not just gaming.  Online banking, purchasing, straining out physical media more and more as time goes on is silly, but I worry that we're not going to figure that out until someone's gone over a cliff, so to speak.  Microsoft curiously toed that edge with a machine that will not work without the internet and thankfully was talked back from that precipice (because of pre-order numbers, I assure, not care for the consumer personally) but it sets a dangerous precedent all the same.

This was Microsoft's vision of the future today.  This missive from the company clearly states that it has not lost that vision of the future,

For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.

but rather insists that you'll be fine with that vision anyway since you'll abide by what the restrictions were regardless,

While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.

which simply means, to me, that we'll have to worry about Round Two of this nonsense whenever the XDeuce is announced.  That's...not particularly appetizing to me since I simply see trends continuing as they are, meaning the five, six or seven years between now and then might be the difference in a lot of people standing up for consumer rights and instead adopting the 'fuck you, got mine' manner of thinking that many XBone supporters were clinging to.  That's likely a little unnecessary at this point, granted, since it's hard to tell what'll happen next week, much less in the next half-dozen years, but I'm sure it's something that a lot of people with the distaste of the XBone as it was before today are considering as well, given the level of Microsoft-distrust that still exists.  It can't -all- be simply residual, after all.

Regardless, what this honestly means is that the XBone has been elevated from this very niche market to something that is as accessible as everything else, meaning it's much, much more attractive to quite a few people out there.  Not everything is fixed with the console as Mandatory Kinect is still something many folks have been grumbling about, rightly or no, and will continue to grumble about because that's not looking like it'll change.  Combined with a higher overall price, the fact that many, many people have been indoctrinated into the wonders that is Playstation Plus and the idea that a lot of people have simply found reasons to attach to the PS4 means that this might not do a -lot- for Microsoft in the short-term, but thankfully it might in the long-run.  I know I've personally elevated the XBone from "Never buying it ever" to "Might get on the cheap for exclusives" like Project Spark (even if I'm still grumbly about the Fable filter) and there are likely plenty of people who -wanted- to like Microsoft, but couldn't and now feel that freedom with these policies taken down.

Personally, I'm just....disappointed by it all, really.  The fact that the XBone was presented as it was as a viable machine in the first place speaks more to a dissonance between companies and consumers than anything else possibly could, aside from the abysmal PR that's gone on since then.  And the basic fact is that we got lucky.  Microsoft was very easily in a position to force the XBone as it was down all our throats to attempt to make it the standard and the resistance would've been fierce at first (obviously since it was), but, well, people end up moving on.  Nobody was going to press the issue everyday it existed, much less multiple people and eventually fatigue sets in for the people who -can- run with that model but don't particularly want to, so long as the games were there.  Microsoft clearly flashed a lot of cash to developers and probably could've continued to do so for a year or two which would've been all that was needed for the final "ugh, fine" moment.  I'm obviously glad that none of this is going to transpire, but if Microsoft of all companies, thought this was viable, who's next?  And how many 'next' companies is it going to take to 'force' this model to be viable?  If we continue to be lucky, we won't find out, so....well, let's just start banking on luck, folks.

I kinda bummed myself out with all this, to be honest, how annoying

E3: The Grades

It's kind of a hack thing to do, or at least reeks of self-importance, to actually give 'grades' for E3 showings and the like, which makes me not want to do it.  But at the same time, I'm not being super-duper serious about it, so you can basically take whatever I say, run it through the Whose Line Is It Anyway? points system, and you basically have exactly what my grades are worth.  (Hint:  The worth is zero)  I mean, it's not like I'm going to be -super- silly about it, but definitely not going to sit here and pore over everything to get a completely and totally 'informed' opinion and also try and be objective about it.  Because, obviously, I -can't- be objective about it.  So having fun with it is the next best choice.

Microsoft

Microsoft went into E3 with a -lot- of things being expected of them.  Expectations of explanations regarding their still-confusing and Draconian-sounding DRM schemes that are hard-built into the console itself.  Expectations of explanations regarding their equally-confusing -not- Draconian-sounding "Family Sharing" ideas that are apparently a thing but have yet to be explained in a way that allows you to see the catch, leaving them simply as things that seem to defeat the entire purpose of the Draconian DRM.  Expectations of a clear, concise message about any one thing.  Expectations of a lot of games to be shown.

And, well....we got games, at least.

Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy as just saying "They had a bunch of games and they were all awesome and it was great!" because, well, that's just lying.  There -were- a lot of games and while some of them were technically impressive, most of them...well, weren't.  Killer Instinct's revival was quickly mired with the double-tap of news that it's free-to-play with just one fighter where others are purchased and it's being developed by Double Helix Games who have...a less-than-impressive catalog of projects.  Dead Rising 3 eschews the campy B-movie quality of the previous games in lieu of a....*sigh*  'gritty', heavier experience that will be published by Microsoft Game Studios, meaning a multi-platform port is at least a year off of release.  Ryse:  Son of Rome has QTEs for the sake of having QTEs, I suppose, because they complete themselves with incorrect inputs, leading some to think they're just for bonuses or something.  And Project Spark, pretty much the -only- game I really care about, is pretty much LittleBigPlanet, only done with what appears to be the Fable engine.  (Seriously, does that not look like Fable?)  (Seriously the second, "Build, Play, Share?  Really?)

Titanfall is something that I am told is awesome but I haven't quite checked it out for myself yet.  However, I will err on the side of calling it awesome.

Grade:  D+.  Microsoft brought the focus on games in a big way, which is appreciated, but that's pretty much all they did.  Showing MGSV on stage gets you points regardless of anything, and I am all for cribbing ideas and running with them as Project Spark is doing, but I'm not too optimistic on the execution - especially since I will never, ever play it.  Their continued insistence against explaining anything coherently was pre-cemented by cancelling all their E3 meetings beforehand, meaning the only things we -did- get were along the lines of the rather unfortunate PR disasters that Microsoft employees seem to be tripping over themselves to perform lately.  In the end, even though they brought the games, nobody really walked away happy except for the diehards, and those people would be happy if the XBone kicked you in the nuts every hour on the hour.

Sony

Where moods were dire for Microsoft's entrance into E3 because of what we knew, outlooks were similarly bleak for Sony's conference for the most part, with only a few spots of hope here and there.  "Well if Microsoft is being super restrictive with their console, it's obvious that Sony is going to go the same route!," was the cry from the rooftops.  There was an abject refusal to believe that Sony's device would be any less restrictive from the consumer stand-point than Microsoft's on a widespread basis, because nobody could see a reason why it would be on Microsoft's device and not Sony's.  Well, mostly nobody.  Yet even those of us that chose to believe there was some sense left alive in the industry were hard-pressed to assume that Sony would come out and absolutely kick in Microsoft's teeth from a PR stand-point.

So, really, all of us were wrong about something where it concerned Sony.

The absurdity of the night has started to sink in for all of us in the passing days, of Sony getting deafening cheers and applause for simply saying "Yeah, the PS4 is going to work like the PS3 today in terms of used gaming and game lending and internet requirements", but the onus is on Microsoft for calling all of that into question in the first place.  Despite the absurdity of it, Sony's stance on gaming is nonetheless a victory for us all, even with the proponents of a "Digital Future" and the few Microsoft supporters stating that the XBone is simply a generation too soon.  In no uncertain terms, we are not on the precipice of this digital future nor are we a generation away from it, because global infrastructure is simply not there.  Nor is it close.  We are not to the point as a -people- on a worldwide scale where the internet is a provision or a right.  To suggest otherwise is foolish, and to acknowledge that the games industry, like most industries, is a worldwide on makes it that much more obvious.

That's more of a topic for another night, however.

As for Sony's games showing, well, it's something of a hard thing to pin down.  It's easy to overlook in a sense, but Sony bringing up a score of Indie Developers to show off an impressive list of Indie games that will be playable on the PS4 (continuing the absurdly strong relationship that's been heavily emergent in the last few months) easily adds enough games to the list to suggest that maybe they did, in fact, show off the most games at E3.  Perhaps it's because these Indie Games are known quantities at this point, it's easy to overlook them, or perhaps it's something else, but no less than eight Indie Games were featured on-stage on top of the other games shown, while I'm willing to bet a number of them are going to go PC/Playstation-only as well.

If your call for games actually means "New games that we haven't seen before" then Sony's list comprises only four titles:  The Order:  1886 which is a new IP, Mad Max which is a single-player multi-platform offering from Avalanche Games set in the universe of Mad Max with little to no relation to the movies, Final Fantasy XV (Which is actually Final Fantasy Versus XIII rebranded) and Kingdom Hearts 3.  However, I don't think you can be disappointed with the content of that list, even if you're disappointed with the length of it.  Because it's perfectly valid to be disappointed with the length of the list - I am.  I'm disappointed specifically because there's nothing Vita-related on the list.  The Walking Dead Season One with 400 Days DLC doesn't count, to me, even though I'm going to buy the ever-loving shit out of it.  I expected, I wanted something, even if it was just a new Uncharted, or, dare I even speak of it, another portable iteration of God of War (beyond the ports of the first two games in HD) and we didn't even get that much.

It's...disappointing.  I would imagine TGS is the place for the Vita by and large anyway, but now all my expectations fall squarely on that event.  Yet from that, I don't expect Uncharted or God of War of course (though Uncharted -was- shown off during the initial Japanese reveal of the Vita ways ways back) but rather Gravity Rush 2, the inevitable port of Monster Hunter 4, Dragon's Dogma Quest, Phantasy Star Online 2 and dare I dream of Final Fantasy Type-0 Vita.  Japanese games for a Japanese event, of course, which leaves me wondering where Western games -can- be announced aside from...simply announcing them.  Which is a viable enough option, of course, and if an inFamous title for the Vita were announced tomorrow from official channels only, I wouldn't give a shit about that fact, but the fact that finally, an inFamous game on Vita.  Still, in comparison to the huge relief for the PS4, my mis-givings really aren't that big, and ensured I walked away from Sony's E3 with an entirely positive mindset, as did most.

Grade:  A-.  The combination of a $100 system undercut preceded by a merciless beatdown of Microsoft's over-the-line XBone policies ensures that this E3 will be the latest E3 that we always, always talk about.  They didn't slouch in showing off games, certainly, though they didn't have many reveals which is, of course a bit unfortunate, but in the grand scheme it's not really a mark against them.  I'm personally bummed by the lack of presence of the Vita in the presser, but I can understand it in a sense.  At the end of the day, though, Sony gave us not only a presser that was memorable on its own merits and because it had a clear, concise message to it, but also a presser that was memorable because it needs to be.  Standing against ludicrous digital policies while not eschewing the digital marketplace wholesale is important for growth as is continued acceptance of the physical marketplace with the knowledge that we simply are not ready to not have that option.

Nintendo

Nintendo's strange idea to completely eschew a normal presser event at E3 in favor of little Nintendo Direct-like events certainly raised a few eyebrows, and everyone had their own reason for believing why Nintendo did it.  Some simply saw it as a way to cut the 'fat', so to speak - keep the press stuff to press events and give the gamers the games so to speak.  Others expected a little something....more.  Something as a more tangible reason for doing so.  Needless to say, the latter camp was in for a bit of disappointment, since all Nintendo really brought were games, which isn't bad in of itself, but the games were ones that....were not surprising in the least.  I admit, perhaps it's a bit silly to say that Sony had four reveals but that's not a problem, versus Nintendo's three that -are- a problem, and it may have a smidgen of bias inherently, but I'll try to explain what the difference is from my point of view.

Who saw Sony announcing/revealing a Victorian-era steampunk game about hunting werewolves in London?  Anyone?  Nobody?  Okay.  Who saw Nintendo announcing/revealing a new Mario game, a new Yoshi game and a new Donkey Kong game?  Everybody?  Okay, the guy in the back honestly didn't expect another Donkey Kong and that whole row didn't expect a new Yoshi game, but the level of surprise is much, much lower.  It's something of a strange position to be in because nobody dislikes Zelda, Mario, Pokemon or any of the other first-party games, and there's not necessarily a 'fatigue' setting in (as some people say for, like, yearly franchises or what-have-you), but there's a whole combination of reasons that set people to be disappointed when Nintendo makes games using the same stable of characters again and again.

The easiest way I can explain it is basically this:  What Nintendo is doing is like if Naughty Dog were still making Crash Bandicoot games today.  Would today's Crash Bandicoot games be awesome?  Probably!  Am I suggesting that Nintendo's series should have been left back at the NES or SNES days?  Of course not.  There's just....a middle-ground approach.  You can't build a console specifically around old characters with new ideas, despite Nintendo's success at doing just that (though, it's not doing a whole lot for the Wii U at the moment).  You have to introduce actual, physical new things through your first-parties and have the intention of running with them.  To my knowledge, Xenoblade Chronicles and Pushmo are the only -real- examples of this at the moment (both first-party, both with sequels out or on the way) but Xenoblade Chronicles is -just barely- because of that stupidly tiny printing Nintendo made.

Leverage this against Sony's PS3 First-Party efforts which have brought us inFamous, Uncharted, The Last of Us, LittleBigPlanet (started as second-party, is now first), MAG and Starhawk (among others) as new to compliment the returning God of War, Sly Cooper, Killzone, MotorStorm and Gran Turismo games.  The old and the new work off of one another and add a little bit of spice to everything, so to speak.  If Nintendo would just have a couple of their studios -not- make a Zelda game, -not- make a Donkey Kong game, but instead make a new series that they could, you know, -then- make between the others, we'd all be much, much happier with them.  So it's pretty much for that reason why we have a Nintendo offering that has a -lot- of first-party games....yet reactions are so mixed.

Still, from Nintendo's presentations, we got a name for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 2 as it's now formally called The Legend of Zelda:  A Link Between Worlds, announcements of New Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country:  Tropical Freeze alongside footage of  Pikmin 3, Mario & Luigi:  Dream Team, Super Smash Bros. (the new one), New Super Luigi U, Xenoblade's Sequel, Mario Kart 8, The Legend of Zelda:  Wind Waker HD, Bayonetta 2 and The Wonderful 101.  Which is, of course, not -bad- by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm personally hoping Xenoblade Chronicles getting a sequel means the rest of us will be able to play Xenoblade Chronicles for less than $100 Used in the future, but I admit that may be a bit optimistic.  And we got all that without the blather and without the filler of a presser (I think, at least), so, hey, bonus points right there.

Grade:  B-.  I want to be harsher on Nintendo, but I cannot, nor will I fault them for showing games, even if the games aren't exactly the ones I (or others) want.  Except Bayonetta 2.  I want that.  I haven't even played Bayonetta 1 yet (Yes, Chance, I know) but I want to be all over that.  And Xenoblade sequel, but I want to friggin' be able to play the original first in -some- fashion.  I can only hope that Nintendo has something of an epiphany with the Wii U's potential in the near future and springs up a few new series that fans can complain about having too many iterations of twenty years from now.  Or even just goes weird with something like the rumored StarTropics revival that was apparently false  Just do -something- to shake things up a little.

Squeenix gets an F-- for failing to show Drakengard 3 and Type-0 Vita