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Forums - Microsoft - Microsoft: We don't want to upset Xbox 360 retailers with Games on Demand

yo_john117 on 26 March 2013
SvennoJ said:
yo_john117 said:
SvennoJ said:
yo_john117 said:

I see this as pretty much a confirmation of no anti-used games policy. Why would they anger the place where they get probably a third of their sales from? If Gamestop isn't selling your console; then you pretty much lost the generation.

Here's how I see it going down if the mandatory installs are true (which I now hope they are)

They would be having mandatory installs (which would go along with the HDD and Kinect with every Xbox) so that developers can make their game with those aids in mind which means better optimization for games.

I see the mandatory installs working two ways. The first is exactly like the 360 where you install it to your HDD but you have to have the disk in the tray for the game to work. Once you sell it it won't work anymore. The second way is you install it on your HDD and you pick the option for the Xbox to register that game to your Xbox Live Gamertag (most likely via watermark on the disk). That disk then becomes irrelevant and will not work on any other console that doesn't have your account signed in. Doing this would probably also unlock a feature where you can stream the game from any console you are on as long as your Gamertag is signed in.

By doing things that way they can appease gamers, retailers, and publishers all at once.

Your second method requires all next gen xboxs to be connected online to verify if a watermarked disc is already linked to an account. That is as big of a problem as blocking used games.

I think the mandatory installs are just a way to streamline things for the future. No more distinction between digital downloads and disc versions. Only the verification process differs, either an online check for digital downloads or a disc check for installation from disc.

I guess it is possible to add a writeable chip on the disc to link them to an account, but is that worth the extra cost?

That wouldn't be a huge deal at all because in the event that the person doesn't have access to internet, the second choice wouldn't even be an option. Heck it could very well be a code that you enter in too.

Then the 2nd person wouldn't be able to use the disc at all?
A code doesn't prevent multiple people using the same disc at the same time. Either the disc needs to know it has been installed before, or the console needs to do an online check before installing.

They could sell 2 different versions in stores. A version with disc installation and 1 code to register online, just as pc games work now and online passes. And a version that works with a disc check and can be resold. Kind of a slippery slope.

Naw, I'm absolutely positive if they implemented something along that line that they would have some sort of technology to counter that. Or like I said not even give the second option if you don't have your Xbox connected to Xbox Live. 

What I'm saying is I believe the second option would simply be another benefit of having Xbox Live (maybe even a Gold only feature)



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Adinnieken on 26 March 2013
SvennoJ said:
Adinnieken said:
If for Xbox 8 Microsoft is essentially using the disc as the means of distributing the software, not providing the ability to play from it, than it is likely that not far down the road will be the ability to walk into a store with a USB thumb drive, purchase a game, copy it to your thumb drive, and install it on your computer.

Go into Best Buy, log into a kiosk, stick your thumb drive in, slide your credit card in, and your game of choice is copied to your thumb drive. The only thing you have to do is stick it in your console where the license is tied to your device, and you're off to the races.

I don't think anyone is going to invest in the infrastructure needed for such a kiosk system. It hasn't happened for music, movies or tv shows. Without the ability to resell the used games, shops have no benefit at all to invest in a kiosk system. Psp go kiosks, where are they?

If I as a retailer make ... 10% of each sale on the kiosk why wouldn't I want it?

It saves shelve space.  It saves on inventory I need to manage.  Once people get acclimated, I don't even need an employee to manage it.  Just a kiosk that customers can walk up to, do their business, and leave.



Zappykins on 26 March 2013
Adinnieken said:
If for Xbox 8 Microsoft is essentially using the disc as the means of distributing the software, not providing the ability to play from it, than it is likely that not far down the road will be the ability to walk into a store with a USB thumb drive, purchase a game, copy it to your thumb drive, and install it on your computer.

Go into Best Buy, log into a kiosk, stick your thumb drive in, slide your credit card in, and your game of choice is copied to your thumb drive. The only thing you have to do is stick it in your console where the license is tied to your device, and you're off to the races.

While I like your idea, I don't think it even needs to be that hard.  They should give retailers the option of selling the game on disk or the game on digital.  Disk would be the standard thing it is now (disk, case, booklet), digital would just be a code and a map/booklet.  You enter the code, and the game downloads for you - when the console is off if you have a slow connection.

That way they still have to come into the store for a purchase- but the stores can save space, shipping, and offer more games - as a digital card takes so much less space, shipping and manufacturing energy that a disk and case.  I bought Alan Wake digitally, and that's about all it was (although it was just a card, and no little booklet.)   And if I delete it, I'm supposed to be able to download it again, for free.  The nice benefit is I don’t have to go hunting for a disk if I want to play.

I remember the numbers last year something like half of things sold digitally on Microsoft's Consoles went through a retail store.  Either the game, or the MS points cards, etc, half were connected to retail.  It does not benefit anyone to lose the retail experience and put Gamestop out of business.



 

Really not sure I see any point of Consol over PC's since Kinect, Wii and other alternative ways to play have been abandoned. 

Top 50 'most fun' game list coming soon!

 

Tell me a funny joke!
Adinnieken on 26 March 2013
Zappykins said:
Adinnieken said:
If for Xbox 8 Microsoft is essentially using the disc as the means of distributing the software, not providing the ability to play from it, than it is likely that not far down the road will be the ability to walk into a store with a USB thumb drive, purchase a game, copy it to your thumb drive, and install it on your computer.

Go into Best Buy, log into a kiosk, stick your thumb drive in, slide your credit card in, and your game of choice is copied to your thumb drive. The only thing you have to do is stick it in your console where the license is tied to your device, and you're off to the races.

 

While I like your idea, I don't think it even needs to be that hard.  They should give retailers the option of selling the game on disk or the game on digital.  Disk would be the standard thing it is now (disk, case, booklet), digital would just be a code and a map/booklet.  You enter the code, and the game downloads for you - when the console is off if you have a slow connection.

That way they still have to come into the store for a purchase- but the stores can save space, shipping, and offer more games - as a digital card takes so much less space, shipping and manufacturing energy that a disk and case.  I bought Alan Wake digitally, and that's about all it was (although it was just a card, and no little booklet.)   And if I delete it, I'm supposed to be able to download it again, for free.  The nice benefit is I don’t have to go hunting for a disk if I want to play.

I remember the numbers last year something like half of things sold digitally on Microsoft's Consoles went through a retail store.  Either the game, or the MS points cards, etc, half were connected to retail.  It does not benefit anyone to lose the retail experience and put Gamestop out of business.

Not everyone has a high speed connection, and the system which the Kiosk is based on could potentially house several terabytes worth of games.



SvennoJ on 26 March 2013
Adinnieken said:
SvennoJ said:
Adinnieken said:
If for Xbox 8 Microsoft is essentially using the disc as the means of distributing the software, not providing the ability to play from it, than it is likely that not far down the road will be the ability to walk into a store with a USB thumb drive, purchase a game, copy it to your thumb drive, and install it on your computer.

Go into Best Buy, log into a kiosk, stick your thumb drive in, slide your credit card in, and your game of choice is copied to your thumb drive. The only thing you have to do is stick it in your console where the license is tied to your device, and you're off to the races.

I don't think anyone is going to invest in the infrastructure needed for such a kiosk system. It hasn't happened for music, movies or tv shows. Without the ability to resell the used games, shops have no benefit at all to invest in a kiosk system. Psp go kiosks, where are they?

If I as a retailer make ... 10% of each sale on the kiosk why wouldn't I want it?

It saves shelve space.  It saves on inventory I need to manage.  Once people get acclimated, I don't even need an employee to manage it.  Just a kiosk that customers can walk up to, do their business, and leave.

High initial costs. A secure software system to handle 'printing' games won't be cheap.
Low usage expectations. Digital music kiosks do exist here and there, hardly anybody uses them, and you don't even need to buy extra transfer storage media for that.
Is it going to burn a blu-ray on the spot? Or does the customer have to invest in a fast writing 50gb usb stick for transfer? (The fastest SSD cards take 20 sec per gb atm, over 6 minutes for a 20gb game, about 10 minutes for an 8 speed blu-ray burner)
Low user experience. Why go to a store to browse on a machine, plus only 1 user can print / browse at a time.

It makes more sense to have display cases on the shelves to browse. Then when you want a digital version (linked to your account, no need to have the disc in the drive) you get a cheap disc in a sleeve with a code to take home. A shop can pre-burn the discs and have a secure machine to dispense the codes to save on shipping costs.

Anyway what incentive do shops have to actively help eliminate the 2nd hand market?
What incentive do customers have (apart from not needing the disc on startup) to get a one time use disc over one that they can resell later?



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Adinnieken on 26 March 2013
SvennoJ said:

High initial costs. A secure software system to handle 'printing' games won't be cheap.
Low usage expectations. Digital music kiosks do exist here and there, hardly anybody uses them, and you don't even need to buy extra transfer storage media for that.
Is it going to burn a blu-ray on the spot? Or does the customer have to invest in a fast writing 50gb usb stick for transfer? (The fastest SSD cards take 20 sec per gb atm, over 6 minutes for a 20gb game, about 10 minutes for an 8 speed blu-ray burner)
Low user experience. Why go to a store to browse on a machine, plus only 1 user can print / browse at a time.

It makes more sense to have display cases on the shelves to browse. Then when you want a digital version (linked to your account, no need to have the disc in the drive) you get a cheap disc in a sleeve with a code to take home. A shop can pre-burn the discs and have a secure machine to dispense the codes to save on shipping costs.

Anyway what incentive do shops have to actively help eliminate the 2nd hand market?
What incentive do customers have (apart from not needing the disc on startup) to get a one time use disc over one that they can resell later?

The consumer only has an incentive if the price goes down.

Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us don't really care about the second-hand market.  If they're in it, like Best Buy is, they'll take new sales over second-hand in the long run because the only reason they entered the second-hand market is because Game Stop is so financially successful doing it.  That SHM starves BBRs like Best Buy and Wal-Mart not only with the original sale, because a kid walking into Game Stop will trade in a game to buy the next one he wants, but another potential gamer will walk in and pick-up the game taking away another potential sale.

Kill the SHM and new unit sales will increase.  Make it digital, make it inclusive for BBRs, and give customers an incentive to use it and it'll work.

I personally like a digital library of games.  As someone who had 8 Xbox 360's go bad, 7 of them because of a DVD drive failure, I can atest to the benefit of a digital library.  Would not want it any other way!

I can go to my nephews console, download a game, and play it on his console while I'm logged in to Xbox LIVE.   I don't need to remember to bring a disc or take it home.   That's awesome to me.

Do I lose the ability to sell the games?  Sure, but you're talking about a feature I don't really care about.  I kept my original Xbox games long after I sold my Xbox.  My nephew wouldn't agree with me, though I could convince him of it.

There would be trade-offs and the trade-offs have to offer value.  I won't disagree with that. 

Oh...If I don't have Internet, and the only means of getting a game is via a kiosk that makes me wait all of 6 minutes to transfer 50GB of content...I'll wait.

A kiosk can be multi-faced with a single data store.  For example, a cube.   



SvennoJ on 26 March 2013
Adinnieken said:

The consumer only has an incentive if the price goes down.

Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us don't really care about the second-hand market.  If they're in it, like Best Buy is, they'll take new sales over second-hand in the long run because the only reason they entered the second-hand market is because Game Stop is so financially successful doing it.  That SHM starves BBRs like Best Buy and Wal-Mart not only with the original sale, because a kid walking into Game Stop will trade in a game to buy the next one he wants, but another potential gamer will walk in and pick-up the game taking away another potential sale.

Kill the SHM and new unit sales will increase.  Make it digital, make it inclusive for BBRs, and give customers an incentive to use it and it'll work.

I personally like a digital library of games.  As someone who had 8 Xbox 360's go bad, 7 of them because of a DVD drive failure, I can atest to the benefit of a digital library.  Would not want it any other way!

I can go to my nephews console, download a game, and play it on his console while I'm logged in to Xbox LIVE.   I don't need to remember to bring a disc or take it home.   That's awesome to me.

Do I lose the ability to sell the games?  Sure, but you're talking about a feature I don't really care about.  I kept my original Xbox games long after I sold my Xbox.  My nephew wouldn't agree with me, though I could convince him of it.

There would be trade-offs and the trade-offs have to offer value.  I won't disagree with that. 

Oh...If I don't have Internet, and the only means of getting a game is via a kiosk that makes me wait all of 6 minutes to transfer 50GB of content...I'll wait.

A kiosk can be multi-faced with a single data store.  For example, a cube.   

True, it's a good prospect for big electronic stores.
Incentives in price, or a week earlier availability would get people to sign up.

I personally like a digital library of games.  As someone who had 8 Xbox 360's go bad, 7 of them because of a DVD drive failure, I can atest to the benefit of a digital library.  Would not want it any other way!

I'm the complete opposite with that. I also had 360's and ps3's fail. Redownloading all my xbla/psn games was annoying every time and takes a huge chunk out of my monthly internet cap. Storing saved games online is a nice feature, but I rather have a simple synchronize savegames to usb stick option.

New game sales might go up a little bit without the 2nd hand market but I think total full price sales will suffer. A lot of those are financed with trade in credit. Less total games in circulation also means less dlc sold. Yes the industry will get a bit of that money that game stores take with 2nd hand sales, but I have a feeling the overall industry will initially suffer from these stores going extinct.

Oh well I'm going to enjoy the current system while I can. I'll be trading in a couple games to buy Bioshock Infinite. Then probably trade that in to buy Lego city undercover next. The latter I'll keep for the kids, Bioshock infinite sounds good for a few playthroughs but I don't see myself coming back to a game like that.

Btw the 6 minutes is for 20Gb, Killzone 3 at 41.5gb would be closer to a 15 minute wait.



Adinnieken on 27 March 2013
SvennoJ said:

True, it's a good prospect for big electronic stores.
Incentives in price, or a week earlier availability would get people to sign up.

I personally like a digital library of games.  As someone who had 8 Xbox 360's go bad, 7 of them because of a DVD drive failure, I can atest to the benefit of a digital library.  Would not want it any other way!

I'm the complete opposite with that. I also had 360's and ps3's fail. Redownloading all my xbla/psn games was annoying every time and takes a huge chunk out of my monthly internet cap. Storing saved games online is a nice feature, but I rather have a simple synchronize savegames to usb stick option.

New game sales might go up a little bit without the 2nd hand market but I think total full price sales will suffer. A lot of those are financed with trade in credit. Less total games in circulation also means less dlc sold. Yes the industry will get a bit of that money that game stores take with 2nd hand sales, but I have a feeling the overall industry will initially suffer from these stores going extinct.

Oh well I'm going to enjoy the current system while I can. I'll be trading in a couple games to buy Bioshock Infinite. Then probably trade that in to buy Lego city undercover next. The latter I'll keep for the kids, Bioshock infinite sounds good for a few playthroughs but I don't see myself coming back to a game like that.

Btw the 6 minutes is for 20Gb, Killzone 3 at 41.5gb would be closer to a 15 minute wait.

I loved Bioshock on the first play thru.  Additional attempts to get all the achievements have proved unsuccessful.  Adventure games are much harder to replay I think, but the story is usually awesome.



Buckwheat on 27 March 2013

How has Microsoft lost touch with reality so quickly?  There are two sides to every story.  I'm sure they don't want to upset the brick and mortar stores, but at the same time game developers won't be pleased to hear these comments.



Predicting that Second Son (PS4) will outsell Titanfall (XOne) in lifetime sales.  Click here for sales comparison thread.

MonstaMack on 28 March 2013

What I don't like to hear is having games on demand titles coming later. Sony has day one titles for PS3, MS should do the same. There are a few titles I'd download on day one (though not many) and it would be a awesome feature.



It's just that simple.