Despite promises to the contrary, Kinect was no longer a mandatory part of the Xbox One bundle not long after launch, and now the camera peripheral with a once bright future is dead. The console was given price cut after price cut in an effort to compete with PS4, efforts that ultimately failed. The console war is lost, and it was the first battle that proved costliest for Microsoft. The Xbox One reveal event was a hugely important moment that helped to decide how the current console generation would shape up.
Microsoft made so many errors in judgement, so many public relations blunders, and so many misguided design choices when it came to their third video game console that they practically handed Sony a license to run rampant with PS4. John can generally be found wearing Cookie Monster pyjamas with a PlayStation controller in his hands, operating on a diet that consists largely of gin and pizza.
His favourite things are Back to the Future, Persona 4 Golden, the soundtrack to Rocky IV, and imagining scenarios in which he's drinking space cocktails with Commander Shepard. You can follow John on Twitter at www. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Connect with us. Share Tweet. Poor thing just needs a little cuddle. John Cal McCormick. You may like. Lost Judgment is an Intricate Web of Conspiracy. Click to comment. Leave a Reply. Popular New Spotlight. Greatest Horror Films 2 weeks ago.
Film 4 days ago. Film 3 weeks ago. Games 2 weeks ago. Games 3 weeks ago. Games 6 days ago. Games 15 mins ago. Film 5 hours ago. Games 6 hours ago. Games 23 hours ago. Game Reviews 23 hours ago. Friday Film Noir 1 day ago. Games 4 weeks ago. Games 1 month ago. It didn't last long, though. Almost immediately afterward, the presentation's focus on just about anything except games generated intense whispering and negative tweets. The fact that almost half an hour passed before games were brought up in any significant way was not missed.
Journalists from other countries were dismayed at how America-centric the features seemed. I was asked several times what "fantasy football" was. Making the situation worse were conflicting stories trickling out about Microsoft's new stance on gaming after the first round of interviews with executives. Would every member of a family really need to pay full price in order to play the same single copy of a game?
Did the Xbox One really perform a quasi-DRM check once a day and shut down any player who wasn't connected to the Internet? Microsoft didn't do itself any favors by avoiding the questions it knew everyone was going to ask, and even at the end of the day, there was very little hard information to be had on games. On the other hand, Microsoft reps were very forthcoming about the technology itself, going so far as to give tours through the working areas where the Xbox One had been designed, mocked up, prototyped and stress-tested.
This quick peek at the Willy Wonka-esque inner workings of the labs where creation happens was quite illuminating, and provided an interesting context before we dove into the improvements of the Xbox One controller and the new Kinect. Nearly every rep was keen to say that the controller had received 40 individual improvements, although no one took the time to outline each one.
Allowing physical games to be given away once after this process was generous, from a digital-first standpoint. Plus, with a constant or at least regular internet connection, players could share their entire digital libraries with friends at the tap of a button.
The current video game marketplace makes Sony's jab at Microsoft's game-sharing policies look hopelessly out of touch. The video showed two people sharing a game by simply handing over a box, but who actually buys discs anymore? The Xbox One probably wouldn't operate very differently today had Microsoft stuck with its original plan. Players can share their libraries with friends, download games to their Xbox accounts and take them to other consoles, and stream media all day long if they'd like.
But maybe Microsoft's dedication to digital gaming would have paid off in unforeseen ways. It could put more pressure on the PS4 to play catch-up -- maybe Sony would have given in to demands for cross-console play by now. It is the lone holdout in that regard, after all. Microsoft had a wild idea, and looking back, it was a good one. However, selling DRM to video game fans isn't easy, and Xbox leaders took every wrong turn they saw.
They could have laid out a clear vision of gaming's digital future, expressed all of the benefits this system could bestow upon players, and then branded the Xbox One as the only console capable of fully delivering on this promise.
Players simply wanted to buy into a future they could believe in, and the Xbox crew couldn't keep its story straight. Look at it this way: Just one year after Microsoft's disastrous Xbox One reveal, Sony stole E3 once again with the announcement of No Man's Sky , a gorgeous-looking indie game that promised to drop players into a vast, constantly connected universe where their discoveries could be shared with explorers around the globe.
There was an offline mode, but the game's online aspects were key. No Man's Sky lit E3 on fire, drumming up waves of excitement that propelled the creator to instant video game stardom, landing him a private meeting with Elon Musk and a spot on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Few people expressed concern about the game's reliance on online connectivity -- they simply wanted to dive in. Sony sold the dream, rather than the process, and it worked even though No Man's Sky 's most ambitious promises didn't pan out right away.
The excitement for an online gaming ecosystem was there. Players wanted it, even if they didn't know it yet, even if they didn't believe the infrastructure could support it.
In , 70 percent of US adults had broadband at home, up from about 55 percent in Today, that figure has plateaued -- a 70 percent internet-adoption rate seems to be the sustainable, attainable sweet spot in the US. And, it's most certainly higher among people who regularly play video games. The market was ready in Xbox just didn't prove that fact to anyone. Microsoft will have another chance, and probably a few more after that, to get the online-console-gaming thing right.
0コメント