A love letter about the Xboxone and the future of gaming

[BigusSchmuck]

http://adequateman.deadspin.com/the-xbox-one-is-garbage-and-the-future-is-bullshit-1736054579
Glad I didn't get one lol.

[Elder]

I haven't liked where the industry has been heading for a very long time now.  This is why I play more retro stuff now than new.

[PukeSter]

Maybe people should have supported the Retro VGS Turbografx. The industry might be in a better place. 

[Elder]

I've often wondered what would have happened if the Turbo was a success.  Back in the day I always found what the Turbo had on CD was far better than SEGA's heavily marketed FMV-based games.  Playing Gate of Thunder sure beats the snot out of playing Sewer Shark.

[sirhcman]

I've had a Xbox One since launch, never a problem and it has been one of the best consoles I've ever owned. The guy complains about the system having to install games but also complained that his 360 sounded like a jet engine and had drive failures from playing the games from disc. He sounds like a guy who would have backed the RetroVGS

[CrackTiger]

Maybe people should have supported the Retro VGS Turbografx. The industry might be in a better place. 

I've often wondered what would have happened if the Turbo was a success.  Back in the day I always found what the Turbo had on CD was far better than SEGA's heavily marketed FMV-based games.  Playing Gate of Thunder sure beats the snot out of playing Sewer Shark.   

The Sega-CD has a comparable library of non-"fmv" games as the Turbo-CD. Way too many to list. If someone were to say that they prefered the Sega-CD library to the Turbo-CD, I'd understand why, even if I don't agree.

Playing Keio Flying Squadran sure beats the snot out of playing Hawaii Bikini Girls.

[Elder]

The Sega-CD has a comparable library of non-"fmv" games as the Turbo-CD. Way too many to list. If someone were to say that they prefered the Sega-CD library to the Turbo-CD, I'd understand why, even if I don't agree.

Playing Keio Flying Squadran sure beats the snot out of playing Hawaii Bikini Girls.

Indeed that's a true statement, however to the masses they sure wouldn't know that back then.  All I ever saw were the FMV commercials for games.  To be fair, I never even saw TurboDuo commercials back then, but I still think it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if say they had strong marketing for something like Rondo of Blood compared to say SEGA's marketing of Night Trap.  Maybe nothing would have happened, but I like to think that perhaps things would have been different.

[NecroPhile]

OMG!  This thing is a piece of shit because I'm too stupid to remember my log in info. and too lazy to figure out how to set it up properly!!!!

The guy sounds like a bitch.

[BigusSchmuck]

OMG!  This thing is a piece of shit because I'm too stupid to remember my log in info. and too lazy to figure out how to set it up properly!!!!

The guy sounds like a bitch.

Sounds like the end users I work with on a daily basis.

[GohanX]

OMG!  This thing is a piece of shit because I'm too stupid to remember my log in info. and too lazy to figure out how to set it up properly!!!!

The guy sounds like a bitch.

The whole article reeks of millennial narcissism.

[SignOfZeta]

I've had a Xbox One since launch, never a problem and it has been one of the best consoles I've ever owned. The guy complains about the system having to install games but also complained that his 360 sounded like a jet engine and had drive failures from playing the games from disc. He sounds like a guy who would have backed the RetroVGS

Both are shit. Now do you understand?

I've never touched a XBone, but frankly this sort of shit is exactly why. I've been playing video games since the days of TV tennis clones and b/w TVs. I outlasted most of my friends, but this is the generation I call bullshit. The WiiU was bad enough, but at least it's been trouble free since I went through setup process. My lusting after new game machines started in 1979, now it's dead.

You know, you can buy a Mercedes S class with radar guided cruise, night vision camera, a DI turbo V8, 9 speed automatic transmission, four wheel drive, and 16 air bags. It maybe the best car in the world and it is a machine that is orders of magnitude more complex than a stupid fucking X Box and all you have to do to drive it is turn the fucking key. "Set-up" from new takes literally seconds.

These new consoles are putting you through this because the OEMs are lazy and the customers are taking so much Ritalin and Zoloft that they don't complain.

[SignOfZeta]

OMG!  This thing is a piece of shit because I'm too stupid to remember my log in info. and too lazy to figure out how to set it up properly!!!!

The guy sounds like a bitch.

Sounds like the end users I work with on a daily basis.

I don't know anything about the guy, but he sounds like a normal person with a life that is very busy and like someone who hasn't been properly conditioned to think time sucking piece of shit electronics deserve so much respect that we are supposed to patiently wait for what amounts to probably hundreds of hours of watching progress bars over the lifespan of the system.

"End user" means "someone who isn't being paid to like it".  Just because you may be the master of something doesn't mean that everyone else should be able to eat shit and breath the thing. It's not a bassoon or a radio telescope, it's a fucking toy you hook to your TV to have fun. It should work for anyone with an IQ over 60 and a half hour to spare. 

Console makers are dealing with a continuously shrinking market share, and while this eternal Stygian slog shit isn't the reason why, it isn't helping. If only losers with no life even have time to use the thing, you are limiting your audience.

[BlueBMW]

I just hate that when I do go to use the PS4 (and to a lesser extent the PS3 and Wii U) it seems to always need an update every time I turn it on.  Since I dont use it but every few weeks or so i seem to always need an update.  So while I may power it on for a quick whatever before work I end up letting it update and turn off without even a single moment of game play.

[sirhcman]

These new consoles are putting you through this because the OEMs are lazy and the customers are taking so much Ritalin and Zoloft that they don't complain.

Yea thanks for the reminder, my loser ass is almost out of pills!

[NecroPhile]

The updates are the most annoying thing that could be done better.  If they were more like your phone or pc, where they're often updating unobtrusively in the background, who'd give a shit?  Once set up and running they will do a lot of it in the background, but only if you let it and don't turn it off off.

You know, you can buy a Mercedes S class with radar guided cruise, night vision camera, a DI turbo V8, 9 speed automatic transmission, four wheel drive, and 16 air bags. It maybe the best car in the world and it is a machine that is orders of magnitude more complex than a stupid fucking X Box and all you have to do to drive it is turn the fucking key. "Set-up" from new takes literally seconds.

You're seriously comparing a game console to a fucking car?  The car works 'right out of the box' because it mostly does just one thing: be a car.  Even so, if you actually want to use all the features you paid for you'll be spending time bluetooth pairing, programming homelink to open your garage door, transferring your xm radio account info., etc.

[SignOfZeta]

A car is a significantly more complex thing than a games machine. It goes, stops, turns, and crashes. It plays music and videos, gets you places with voice activated GPS navigation, has to meet extremely tight emissions and fuel economy standards and will usually go 100,000 miles before it needs any real repairs. And this is a Civic I'm describing. An S class does way more. A XBone may *seem* complicated, but really almost everything it does comes out of its HDMI port. That's not a lot of genuine work.

Both the car itself and the work it does are HUGELY more complex than any console ever made. If you don't agree, you haven't spent much time thinking about it.

My main point is that no matter what they do, all you need to start a car is the key. Sure, there is WiFi to set up, Bluetooth shit, etc, but you don't actually HAVE to do that just to play a game. We're basically at the point where if you want to play a game the day you bought it you have to take the day off work or sacrifice sleep, because it ain't gonna fucking run when you first put it in. A car doesn't check for the newest software and then refuse to function unless you update.

[elmer]

IMHO ... blame Microsoft and Xbox Live for the state of things.

5th gen systems were the first that included the console manufacturer's SDK libraries as part of each game.

With the 6th gen, it all started to go to heck.

Sony's PS2 shipped each game with the latest PS2 Operating System on each game disk.

This was OK, because everything was still transient ... turn off the console, and you're back to boot ROM.

But the XBOX 1 had a hard drive so that Microsoft could put a permanent Operating System on it, and each game shipped with the latest Operating System Update code built in.

So then you get a delay if the game needed to update the OS on the XBOX hard drive. Not too bad, but it was the-start-of-the-end.

Then Microsoft saw that gamers were loving online gameplay with GameSpy and other services ... and they weren't making any money from it.

So XBOX Live was born ... and the XBOX 1 already had a hard drive, so it could be permanently installed/updated/connected.

And Microsoft wanted online gaming to be a money-maker (it was generally free-for-the-user before that), so they had to make it "compelling".

Therefore game publishers were told that they had to add XBOX Live features into their games, even if they were single-player games.

At first this was just "achievements", but later on it was expanded into full-time connectivity for "high score tables" and "what-are-your-friends-playing".

So every game becomes always "connected", and can't run without XBOX Live libraries.

Then Microsoft has to figure out how to keep people wanting to pay money for XBOX Live ... and so it has to continually update itself with new content, and in order to fix bugs and exploits, you're only allowed to connect to XBOX Live's servers if you have the latest Operating System.

But every game is required to be able to connect ... so no game can really run unless the XBOX Operating System is updated.

But once Microsoft required that kind of connection ... then Publishers knew that they could count on it, and so figured out that they, too, could make money from it.

Thus the constant stream of paid-content. And once again, that now means that the game itself must go through constant updates.

And so to today.

So ... IMHO, the current situation is Microsoft's fault for wanting to make gamers pay subscription money for XBOX Live! 

[Gredler]

car metaphor comparison

Quite a reach for that metaphor comparison but maybe you got it, we'll have to go to the booth for a ruling on the field.

I agree, largely, though. When a game takes longer to boot and get into than it takes to beat many other games, it's silly to consider it an option. 9/10 times that I load up a modern console I end up playing an older one while waiting for updates and groups and connectivity, and then feel satisfied with my game session before the modern console even boots. True spit.

[EmperorIng]

Industrial machines are cooler than videogames.

All I ever saw were the FMV commercials for games.  To be fair, I never even saw TurboDuo commercials back then

I know people hear love mouthing off on that "Feka" thing, but from what I've seen Johnny Turbo cared a whole lot more about Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective than uh, good games like Ys.

[SignOfZeta]

car metaphor

Quite a reach for that metaphor but maybe you got it, we'll have to go to the booth for a ruling on the field.

I agree, largely, though. When a game takes longer to boot and get into than it takes to beat many other games, it's silly to consider it an option. 9/10 times that I load up a modern console I end up playing an older one while waiting for updates and groups and connectivity, and then feel satisfied with my game session before the modern console even boots. True spit.

What metaphor?

[PukeSter]

car metaphor

Quite a reach for that metaphor but maybe you got it, we'll have to go to the booth for a ruling on the field.

I agree, largely, though. When a game takes longer to boot and get into than it takes to beat many other games, it's silly to consider it an option. 9/10 times that I load up a modern console I end up playing an older one while waiting for updates and groups and connectivity, and then feel satisfied with my game session before the modern console even boots. True spit.

If only you supported the Retro VGS, it is very possible we could have this industry standard in 2015.

[Gentlegamer]

For me, it's not so much the system updates and online profiles (but that does suck), but the parade of utterly broken games that are shipped like Battlefield Hardline, Assassin's Creed Unity, and Batman Arkham Knight.

On top of that, it seems like both MS and Sony cheaped out on the build quality of their respective consoles and controllers.

Not enticing for me to enter the current gen.

[Gredler]

What metaphor?

I was referring to this,

You know, you can buy a Mercedes S class with radar guided cruise, night vision camera, a DI turbo V8, 9 speed automatic transmission, four wheel drive, and 16 air bags. It maybe the best car in the world and it is a machine that is orders of magnitude more complex than a stupid fucking X Box and all you have to do to drive it is turn the fucking key. "Set-up" from new takes literally seconds.

Metaphor is the wrong word, probably. Comparison? I will edit my post


Fixed. I still think the comparison is a bit of a stretch, but agree with you that modern systems extra's are bogging down the experience to the point where they're more and more difficult to find time for in comparison to more simplistic games.

[SignOfZeta]

What precisely is "a stretch"?

[Gredler]

What precisely is "a stretch"?

It seems hyperbolic to suggest that it is easier to start and drive a car than start and play XBox One / PS4, so that comparison sounds a bit excessive, and that excessive comparison is what I mean by a stretch although the basis is true and I agree. I apologize if I offend you with my suggestion that your comparison formally known as a metaphor was out of place or inaccurate.

[jlued686]

Actually, I think this generation is better than last. I fucking hate turning on my Xbox 360 for my kids because literally every single time there is a system update required. My PS4? I keep it in sleep mode and all my updates download in the background. Boom. Done. Same with the WiiU.

[NecroPhile]

Of course the internal workings of a car are complex, but what relevance does that have?  It's a comparison that makes little sense, but if you insist on bullshit analogies, then regular maintenance (gas fill ups, oil changes, tires, etc.) is correlative to console software updates.  Both are required on a regular basis, neither is required every single time you use the machine, and the only substantive difference is that the dealership will have done all the initial delivery prep work for you.

In typical Zeta-hates-MS fashion, he's blowing things out of proportion.  Barring out of the box hardware failures or not having the IQ required to follow simple instructions, initial setup takes well under an hour, and much of that time will be while it downloads the update, time you can use to take a shit, make a sandwich, or go jerk off to your amiibos.

[LostFlunky]

I just hate that when I do go to use the PS4 (and to a lesser extent the PS3 and Wii U) it seems to always need an update every time I turn it on.  Since I dont use it but every few weeks or so i seem to always need an update.  So while I may power it on for a quick whatever before work I end up letting it update and turn off without even a single moment of game play.

Yup.  I seem to only use the PS3 for watching BD's now.  I would be willing to wager that mine has spent almost as much time with an update progress bar on the screen as it has with a game display. 

I am not sure if the Wii-U is updating on it's own time, but it is always ready to play when it gets turned on.  Like me.

[BlueBMW]

Wii U seems much better about it than the others.  I havent used an xbox360 much so I cant comment on that one.

PC isn't exactly guilt free in this matter either.  Every time I go to play something on steam, steam has to download and install some update / phone home / fuckery.  While its typically a short delay, its still annoying.

[Gentlegamer]

Wii U seems much better about it than the others.  I havent used an xbox360 much so I cant comment on that one.

PC isn't exactly guilt free in this matter either.  Every time I go to play something on steam, steam has to download and install some update / phone home / fuckery.  While its typically a short delay, its still annoying.

That's the flip side; Steam has made updating PC games really easy compared to the old days of hunting around on Fileplanet and being put in a queue for that Daikatana patch you just had to have.

[Sadler]

You know, you can buy a Mercedes S class with radar guided cruise, night vision camera, a DI turbo V8, 9 speed automatic transmission, four wheel drive, and 16 air bags. It maybe the best car in the world and it is a machine that is orders of magnitude more complex than a stupid fucking X Box and all you have to do to drive it is turn the fucking key. "Set-up" from new takes literally seconds.

You have to turn a key? Jesus, what is this, 2004?

[SignOfZeta]

Of course the internal workings of a car are complex, but what relevance does that have?  It's a comparison that makes little sense, but if you insist on bullshit analogies, then regular maintenance (gas fill ups, oil changes, tires, etc.) is correlative to console software updates.  Both are required on a regular basis, neither is required every single time you use the machine, and the only substantive difference is that the dealership will have done all the initial delivery prep work for you.

In typical Zeta-hates-MS fashion, he's blowing things out of proportion.  Barring out of the box hardware failures or not having the IQ required to follow simple instructions, initial setup takes well under an hour, and much of that time will be while it downloads the update, time you can use to take a shit, make a sandwich, or go jerk off to your amiibos.

I'm trying to have a legit conversation here. It's a shame that this forum is so utterly hung up on bias detection, hunting for ulterior motives, past flame outs, etc that we can barely even have the time left to listen to what people are saying.

The comparison is valid. A XBone and an S Class both represent make or break consumer products that nobody actually needs from companies that represent the absolute top of their field. Both are hugely complex and cost billions to develop.

It occurs to me that maybe you guys aren't thinking about the car in the same way I do. I'm not really so much talking about tires and pistons and shit as much as I am the computerized side of it. These cars know who is driving them. They know how much they weigh and exactly what position every part of every seat is. They know where they are in the world. They have forward facing cameras that constantly scan the road ahead to DETECT LIFEFORMS so that you don't run into them. It does this with a combination of radar, infrared cameras, and very powerful software. The same system actually scans the road ahead for potholes and makes preemptive changes to its dampers to optimize for the impact. It can parallel park itself. It's instrument panel doesn't have real gauges at all but rather it displays computer graphics of gauges on two LCD displays of HD spec meaning that in addition to all of this its also doing the only thing an XBone or any game machine actually does, which is drive a display. Even leaving out the "car stuff", the totally unnecessary extraneous bullshit alone is far more impressive than any game machine, and yes they do it with voice control.

So why does one go with the push of a button and the other wastes your whole fucking night? Simple. One audience has zero patience whatsoever and the other will put up with anything. That really is the only reason.

The game machine that has pissed me off more than anything was the PS3. Have you ever had to do a totally pointless update just to play a game you already have 30 trouble free hours into only to have the system totally lock up? Have you then patiently waited a whole day to see if it had recovered before yanking the plug and then discovering upon reboot that it feels it must rebuild its file system which takes eight motherfucking hours if your HD is big enough? I could recap a whole fucking Duo in that time!

The thing is, there are only 24 hours in a day. It's a finite thing. Even the smelly fat losers who live their lives for AAA modern gaming have this limitation. Therefore the stupidity has to, literally has to, stop getting worse. Otherwise in two or three generations we're going to have to own all three game machines just to be sure at least one of the fuckers is able to run.

And of course they'll get ahold of themselves before then. Probably by the next generation they will have managed to make a much more complex machine that is also nowhere near as needy as the current stuff. The issue is that they should have been working on this now.

[Arkhan Asylum]

most of these issues are completely moot if you just de-network your PS3/PS4/etc. like me.

relevant updates are on the discs.   Unless some game changing fix was implemented in an update, fuck it.

I don't feel the need to dick off online and share my experiences/trophies/bullshit with people I don't know or give a shit about.

I just put discs in and play the games. 

I only go online to download outfits for DOA5, or to see if there's a free game. 

[xcrement5x]

most of these issues are completely moot if you just de-network your PS3/PS4/etc. like me.

relevant updates are on the discs.   Unless some game changing fix was implemented in an update, fuck it.

I don't feel the need to dick off online and share my experiences/trophies/bullshit with people I don't know or give a shit about.

I just put discs in and play the games. 

I only go online to download outfits for DOA5, or to see if there's a free game. 

Yeah, I skip almost all updates if it is just "because".  I will update the PS3 to get on Netflix, but I've learned that the PS3 can take a million hours so I'll turn it on in advance to make sure there are no updates.  Does it suck, yes.  But it would suck a lot more to not have Netflix & Crunchyroll so I've learned how to make the best out of it and not let it impact my life. 

[NecroPhile]

I'm trying to have a legit conversation here. It's a shame that this forum is so utterly hung up on bias detection, hunting for ulterior motives, past flame outs, etc that we can barely even have the time left to listen to what people are saying.

If it's not bias, I guess you're just 'special'.

The comparison is valid. A XBone and an S Class both represent make or break consumer products that nobody actually needs from companies that represent the absolute top of their field. Both are hugely complex and cost billions to develop.

It occurs to me that maybe you guys aren't thinking about the car in the same way I do. I'm not really so much talking about tires and pistons and shit as much as I am the computerized side of it. These cars know who is driving them. They know how much they weigh and exactly what position every part of every seat is. They know where they are in the world. They have forward facing cameras that constantly scan the road ahead to DETECT LIFEFORMS so that you don't run into them. It does this with a combination of radar, infrared cameras, and very powerful software. The same system actually scans the road ahead for potholes and makes preemptive changes to its dampers to optimize for the impact. It can parallel park itself. It's instrument panel doesn't have real gauges at all but rather it displays computer graphics of gauges on two LCD displays of HD spec meaning that in addition to all of this its also doing the only thing an XBone or any game machine actually does, which is drive a display. Even leaving out the "car stuff", the totally unnecessary extraneous bullshit alone is far more impressive than any game machine, and yes they do it with voice control.

Nobody is arguing that an S-Class isn't more complex, so I honestly don't know what you're rattling on about.

So why does one go with the push of a button and the other wastes your whole fucking night? Simple. One audience has zero patience whatsoever and the other will put up with anything. That really is the only reason.

An S-Class won't waste your time with updates (other than optional trips to the dealer for reflashes) simply because it can't; it has nothing to do with what buyers of $100k cars will tolerate.  Want proof?  Look up how a Model S operates.

The thing is, there are only 24 hours in a day. It's a finite thing. Even the smelly fat losers who live their lives for AAA modern gaming have this limitation. Therefore the stupidity has to, literally has to, stop getting worse. Otherwise in two or three generations we're going to have to own all three game machines just to be sure at least one of the fuckers is able to run.

And of course they'll get ahold of themselves before then. Probably by the next generation they will have managed to make a much more complex machine that is also nowhere near as needy as the current stuff. The issue is that they should have been working on this now.

As has already been stated multiple times, you can let the updates run in the background.  It works more or less the same as your computer or phone, rarely requiring user intervention and usually ready to run when you want it, so what's the big deal?  You go on and on about updates as if they take hours of time on a daily basis, and that's simply not true, not for system updates anyway; and now that games require full installs, I believe they update in the background too.

[Psycho Punch]

You should have at least compared the PCE to a locomotive... For shame.

edit: I was reading this thread as if it were about the PCE for some reason, wtf?