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JWeinCom on 08 June 2013
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Machiavellian said:
JWeinCom said:
I love it. Microsoft announces features that in no way benefit the consumer and people try to defend them. How does this system benefit you in the least? Why should we lube up and take it up the *** from Microsoft when they're offering us nothing in return?

I've never finished Chrono Cross. It was a game I played and enjoyed, but I never wound up finishing. So, you know what I did recently? I plugged in my PS1 and popped Chrono Cross in and started playing it. No internet check, no calling Microsoft, no verification, no hassle.

I have a brother who is a LOT younger than me. Kirby Superstar was one of my FAVORITE games as a kid. When my brother was about 7 I wanted to play it with him. I could revel in nostalgia, and see him enjoy the game for the fist time. So what did I do? I plugged in my SNES and I played the game. Simple, easy, and awesome.

My sister isn't really much of a gamer, but I got the impression she'd enjoy Phoenix Wright. I suggested it to her, and I lent her the first game in the franchise to play at home on her DS (I was in college at the time). So she played it, enjoyed it, and later gave it back to me. No problem at all. She wound up enjoying the game so much that she bought the next 4 entries in the franchise (which I was able to borrow from her).

One week a couple of years ago, I was sick. I had to stay at home and was bored out of my mind. I decided to spend a whole day just playing duckhunt. I hooked up my NES (I did need a CRT TV) and blasted ducks for hours. No problem at all

I bought RE Revelations and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I lost the cartridge. After searching my house high and low I couldn't find the cartridge so I bought a new copy. A month later as you might expect, I found my copy of Revelations. I had a copy with nothing to do with it. Instead of trading it in, I sold it to a friend of mine (who was not on my 3DS friends list) for 10 bucks. I got more than the trade in value, my friend got a good deal. No hassle.

When I went to college, they had a backwards internet policy. They didn't allow wireless routers at all, and I had to log onto some sort of program (clean access agent or something) to get access. Furthermore, any gaming console had to be approved before I could connect it. Due to their ineptitude, it took about three weeks to connect my XBox 360 to the internet when I bought one. But hey, at least I could still play offline...

After Hurricane Sandy, my building had no power. I stayed with my grandparents for a couple of weeks. They only had dial up internet access. I spent most of the week playing DS,Wii, and Gamecube games. No internet? No problem.

Speaking of which, as a kid, I used to bring my SNES, N64, Gamecube, or PS2 with me when going to boring family gatherings. Me and my cousins would play games while our relatives engaged in dull small talk. No need to hook up to the internet, no need to contact Microsoft, and no fuss.

I had been anticipating Bioshock Infinite for quite some time. I got up at 9 in the morning, went to my local best buy, came home, and started my 360. When I started it up, it said "could not connect to XBox Live". Oh well. At least I could still play the game. P.S. it took 2 weeks and 4 phone calls to MS to get XBox Live working for me again (all of my other devices worked fine). If I had to wait 2 weeks to play a game I preordered and bought on day one, I would have been very pissed.

So, maybe you'll say that these issues are no big deal. Maybe you'll call them minor inconveniences. There are worse things in life than having to wait 2 weeks to play a new game, and having to go through a trade process to let my sister check out Phoenix Wright. But, the bottom line is this. When I buy a game, I should be 100% sure that I can play that game when I want and where I want 100% of the time. Whether I want to play it the day it comes out, two months later, 15 years later, at a friends house, at a hotel with no free internet access, at my grandparents house, at my friends house in his basement where he gets no wireless signal, or in a freaking submarine if I so choose.

I shouldn't have to go through any sort of hoops to play the games that I already bought. Anything less than 100% ability to use, trade, or sell, the products that I paid for is unacceptable to me. The reason I game on a console, and not a PC, is because of that 100% ownership and ease of use. Take that away and I have no reason to buy an XBox One rather than investing in a PC.

Did you read the OP.  Pretty much everything you just stated is solved by MS system.  Do you think in 7 years MS will not be here.  If your games is stored on the cloud, you and your family members will always have access to it.  No pulling out the old console, finding the disk and playing it.  You just download your game to you system and thats it.  Since you can share with 10 family members, you can just set them up and they can play anytime (well only one I believe at a time).  If you lost a game disk, you do not have to purchase another one because you can download it to your system.  If MS stays with X86 hardware, then by the end of this Gen, you might be able to keep your library and move to the next console or whatever it might be and your collection moves with you.  The thing is, if your collection is always with you, in the cloud then you possible will always have the ability to get to it.  I can see 7 years from now, you will be able to access your games from any device that you carry.


Did you read the statement?

I don't know if MS will be here in 7 years, in 10 years, in 20 years, or in 30 years, whether MS will still be in the games business, or whether their servers will still be up, or if the infrastructure will still be up to check my online status or go through whatever hoops they want me to go through. The point is that I know with 100% certainty that I will be able to play Super Mario Bros now or 100 years from now.  The XBox One, not so much.  I can't use the software without Microsoft's permission and if they one day 20 years in the future say "we're taking down the XBox One servers because it's been 20 years and we don't even make games anymore..." than I won't be able to use my software.  I need 100% assurance that I can use the stuff I buy.  No if, ands, buts, or asterisks.

The family member thing extends to people using the same console as far as I could tell.  If I have a family member who doesn't live with me, then as far as I could tell I'd have to go through their one time trade thing they have in place.  And they can't trade it back, so if I want to play it again, sucks to be me.

And what if I want to sell or lend a game to a friend or an acquaintance, not necessarily because I have an extra copy, but for whatever reason?  I want to sell it to someone who is not on my friends list.  I have to undergo a 30 day waiting period to sell something I own?  And forget about lending.  It's not like I should be able to let people use my stuff if I choose.

And you've completely failed to address more than half of the things I've mentioned.  If I want to play in my basement where I don't have internet access?  If I travel a lot and I'm staying in hotels?  At a relatives house with no internet access?  At a college with weird restrictions?  If I travel a lot and I'm in a hotel? 


We're not haters.  We're just people who want complete and total ownership of the games that we pay $60 for.  I don't think that's unreasonable.