| disolitude said: Its not because it devalues content but that may be the "PR" explanation. They had this policy in place on the 360 since launch as any update that goes through Xbox Live has Microsoft paying for server bandwidth and performing QA on it to make sure it doesnt break anything. This was a big deal in 2005 when the console launched. In 2013 they are offering cloud services for free to devs so I don't see this being the issue at all moving forward. |
It's a worse explanation than the reality, if so. I can get on board with the idea that it costs MS something to deliver it to you. Not so much with, "Ugh! If we let them give this to you for free, you'll just think everything should be free!" Which is basically what they said.
| disolitude said: What do you suggest should happen moving forward? How do we embrace technology and keep the old spirit of gaming alive? How do we fix the repetitve and predictable "AAA" gaming? Does it need fixing to begin with? Am I just Riggs Murtaugh at this point when it comes to gaming? |
I kind of feel like I keep saying this over and over again, but I suggest making going digital a very compelling option. Steam did it, and they did it on an open platform without killing off or degrading the retail experience. Everyone who is a loyal Steam customer today was lured there by Valve's carrots, not beaten there with sticks. There is no reason that Microsoft can't continue with the retail market for those who want that option while simultaneously trying to convince people to go digital by being price competitive, something they have steadfastly refused to do this generation. Maybe that's because they haven't wanted to piss off retailers, or because their use of spacebucks made them settle into a very rigid 400 MSP/800 MSP/1200 MSP/1600 MSP pricing scheme, but the latter is going away and if the former is the case, well, they were willing to start squeezing them out this generation anyway. So fuck it, go whole hog on making people want to download their games. They could get even more creative by making games timed digital exclusives for the first month or so, which would send digital sales through the roof and get people who are hesitant about going digital to give it a shot for perhaps the first time. Or giving all digital versions free season passes. Or any number of possible other incentives.
I'm not sure any of this fixes how predictable AAA games are, though, because like I said, I don't think the homogenization of AAA games is all that related to used games in the first place. The companies who are guilty of this will always continue to chase trends and ape the last wildly successful thing until forever. It's about maximizing profit, and with or without the used games factor, AAA games will still be absurdly expensive to make so they will always try to make them a "sure thing".
