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[GlyphGryph]

Secret of Mana was NOT a better game for it's multiplayer, neither was Baldurs Gate. I could count on one hand the minutes I was torn away from the single player experience by the multiplayer. I'd probably just need two fingers.

I suspect we may have some fundamentally different opinions on things. But I would argue the multiplayer components in these games did NOTHING to hinder your enjoyment, and greatly, greatly increased my own - objectively, that means they are a better game for it, even if it's not better for you (as long as it's not worse, and I think you'd be hard pressed to argue either of those were)

And you use Fallout Online as an example. I would number it's users in the hundreds.

Side effect of being an illicit quasi-legal game, though. And honestly, that was one of it's strengths - a key component of terrible multiplayer in my experience has been trying to build that multiplayer to appeal to EVERYONE (even in games that are smart enough not to try appealing to everyone)

All this is 'in my humble opinion' of course, but I'm yet to be convinced by the multiplayer component of a single player game.

Have you played the multiplayer in Portal 2?

[Shadowlord]

Fun fact, here in America literally no one gives a fuck about the NSA scandal.

Of course not, that would be thoughtcrime. You don't want the Eye of Sauron to notice you, do you?

</mixingreferencesrecklessly>

[Bdthemag]

Fun fact, here in America literally no one gives a fuck about the NSA scandal.

Of course not, that would be thoughtcrime. You don't want the Eye of Sauron to notice you, do you?

</mixingreferencesrecklessly>

It's true though. There's no public outcry, no protests, not even ONE riot (I'm still waiting for one, dammit.) We just sort of go "Well fuck, that sort of invades my privacy I guess. I guess I'm angry?

[Graknorke]

"Heartbroken Xbox One employee lets rip."

given time to mature it could have turned into something worth having as a gamer much like DLC

I lol'd.

I don't think that this person actually gets gaming culture/gamers as a whole.

[Tellemurius]

Fun fact, here in America literally no one gives a fuck about the NSA scandal.

Of course not, that would be thoughtcrime. You don't want the Eye of Sauron to notice you, do you?

</mixingreferencesrecklessly>

It's true though. There's no public outcry, no protests, not even ONE riot (I'm still waiting for one, dammit.) We just sort of go "Well fuck, that sort of invades my privacy I guess. I guess I'm angry?

Unless it involves money problems we aren't going to bitch about it unfortunately.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

"Heartbroken Xbox One employee lets rip."

given time to mature it could have turned into something worth having as a gamer much like DLC

I lol'd.

That was a fantastic read. You got to give Microsoft credit for finding and employing the most delusional people in the world. Clearly an equal opportunity company.

[nenjin]

I feel that if we spent less time on them and more time explaining the great features we had lined up and the ones in the pipes gamers and media alike would have aligned to our vision.

See, they did a fine job explaining the features. That's what got them the reaction they did, boldly telling us exactly what they were thinking and what their vision for the future is.

But I do so enjoy the backhanded criticisms of the market they're supposedly there to serve. "Gosh, this would have been so great if people had just, you know, agreed that we know what's best. But oh that's not a criticism of the consumer, at all."

Just like Windows Vista and Windows 8, I suppose. It's not the decisions MS made that caused problems. It's not their refusing to listen that resulted in their product being unpopular. It's not the forced transition that led to the breakdown. It's the market refusing to buy-in that caused it to fail.

I mean, seriously. It's like a game developer saying "It's not that our game isn't fun, it's just that most people refuse to see the fun."

Many will argue the development system is broken, and I disagree. The development system is near broken, it’s used gaming that is broken, but regardless I think more emphasis on this from both us at Microsoft and publishers would have gone a long way in helping educate the gamer, but again it is us who dropped the ball in this regard for that we’re sorry.

OMG, fuck this guy. "It's not the multi-million dollar costs and 300% profit expectations that have broken things. It's a dying industry who we're going to blame, just like piracy, for 'putting us out of business'."

And once again, they're treating gamers as if we're stupid and uninformed for disagreeing with their highly industry-specific take on their profits. Newsflash: what an executive considers a reasonable profit margin and what an average person considers a reasonable profit margin are two very different things. Never mind the fact their own execs came right out and said "We expect informed gamers to reject this. We expect less informed people to be the ones who embrace it." So now the problem is that no one was informed enough?

I also like his take on the Family Sharing Plan. As if the current console gen where families could just fucking play the game they bought is some kind of mythic beast never before seen.

I mean, he fucking says it right here himself.

This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour.

Congratulations. You just tried to reinvent the freeware demo and call it something completely different. That's straight up 1984 doublespeak.

Another feature that we didn’t speak out about was the fact we were building a natural social network with Xbox One

Yes, that's what gamers were clamoring for. Not better games, smarter games or a free-er console. No. We wanted yet another social media page.

The entire notion of communicating with friends you met online would have been natural and seamless. No reliance on Facebook, or Twitter (though those are optional for those who want them).

Translation: We wanted our own slice of the social media craze.

For people who don’t want these amazing additions, like Don said we have a console for that and it’s called Xbox 360.

Funny, I was going to say for people that didn't want these "amazing" additions, they'd just not buy your goddamn product.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I love how the guy raves about "family sharing" and then reveals it's a 10-15 minute time limited demo. Microsoft are just so thoughtful and polite!

 ... It's called a fucking demo you moronic fuck. They've been around since pre-fucking-history.

[BigD145]

How over-privileged can you and your family be to think all that "sharing" was a good idea? Let's not bother with demo's anymore. Let's just make trailers without gameplay and get SOMEBODY to buy at least one copy of a game and tie it to their system. A $60+ demo for 11 people. With all the quicktime events and exposition in intros you might not even see gameplay in 1 hour or less.

[Shadowlord]

They can just release a three hour demo which is simply a cutscene from the game, and nothing else. Thinking of you, MGS.

[majikero]

So they made progress then started shitting all over it?

[nenjin]

So they made progress then started shitting all over it?

This guy is basically sulking in a passive-aggressive fashion.

[Sensei]

Nenjin pretty much picked it over, but still there's a few choice quotes...

...something worth having as a gamer much like DLC (we went from pointless horse armor to amazing season passes like Borderlands 2!)

Borderlands 2 was wayyyyy too DLC heavy. That's why I didn't buy it.

It is impossible to continue to deliver movie like experiences at the current costs without giving up something in return. It’s what gamers want and expect, the best selling games are blockbusters, the highest rated are blockbusters, the most loved are blockbusters.

That's an incendiary quote right there. Argumentum ad populum, argumentum ad critics who everyone knows are bribed, and seriously has this guy never heard of Minecraft?

When your family member accesses any of your games, they’re placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs).

So, Family Sharing was just a shallow marketing scheme all along? This is the first I'd heard of it- I bet they were putting off on announcing that since they knew how much fallout they'd get. And here I thought the family plan could've been the one thing that might justify Microsoft's shot at a Steam-esque sales model. In the next sentence:

One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting.

You call dumping someone onto the marketplace window "seamless"?

There weren’t many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony’s horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales...

The irony is palpable. I wouldn't call giving out a demo an "approach to game sharing" either.

I'm extremely confident that this guy isn't speaking from the heart here. There's no way he's lamenting the loss of great gaming experiences to be had, just his lost time and money.

[Remuthra]

It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad that Microsoft apparently thought the Xbox One was and is a good idea. I fail to see any way that DRM would ever be something that a gamer would want.
In a thread years in the future...
-So I personally won't be buying Half Life 3. It was a total disappointment, what with its lack of not only the customary anti-piracy online protection, but of any DRM whatsoever. It's like they wanted to just ship the game out and let people do whatever, like they don't even care. This is why Valve and their poor excuse for an online buying client are so widely criticised. I'm going to save my money for EA's newest game. They're the company that really have our interests at heart!


I also like they say they're sorry not for producing such a terrible console or for trying to manipulate their customers or for thinking these new features were more than at best a good ancillary point, but for failing to manipulate us successfully enough to get us to buy it anyway.

[majikero]

Depending on what future games it will have, they might hold those future games hostage and demand you buy the XBox.