Thursday, May 23, 2013

Xbox One reaction


So, let's talk about the new Xbox, shall we?

Cons:

Cloud gaming = little to no control over your own saves if the servers are down
No backwards compatibility
Kinect has to be used to play
Used games face fees (40 to 60 dollars)
Games can't be shared between accounts (as in, you can't let your brother borrow the game and let him play on his account)
The XBox MUST check in every 24 hours
Indie developers can't publish games

Pros:

It does look pretty
Entertainment is fluid, but is it necessary?
Cloud gaming also means evolving achievements and using other servers to expand console's power.

Long story short, it's a huge mix of good and bad, but for me - personally- unless they can get a good set of exclusives I'm not picking it up.

But we'll see at E3.  This was just a taste.. but it isn't really my cup of tea.  Cloud is useful, but I don't like the lack of control over your own items.  Backwards compatible is nice, not necessary, and if it is a new system it's understandable... still annoying not to have it though.  Fees for not buying new is a jerk move.   Some people can't buy at launch.  They could be too busy, or they lack the money.  Don't punish them for that.  Kinect... is Kinect.  It's up to you if you like it or not.  Pretty is nice.  Pretty is not necessary.  Pacman is an arcade game, and that' s it's best version.  I can see why they would push entertainment, but it really is not necessary.  Let it play DVDs, have some streaming, but we have cable and TV for the TV.

However, the used games fees, the inability to share, and the not quite always on are dealbreakers for me.  Unless they fix those, we have a problem.  Not everyone has wifi, and some people have crappy wifi.  There shouldn't be any used game fees, let alone the cost of the game, and what happens when the game goes out of print?  And then there's library games, sharing games between family members... this will stifle sales until this gets changed.

We'll see how it plays out at E3.  19 days, several Nintendo Direct conferences, and a PS4 reveal until then...

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