Next Xbox Rumors

[KingIsaacLinksr]

*shrug*.  Either way, adding licenses or restrictions on discs will be unpopular.  I can't imagine anyone saying they want these coming to Xbox...

King

If the next Xbox came with disc licenses but the games were half the price how about then? I'm not talking silly DRM that some PC games have these days, this will be built into the hardware so no problem for the consumer.

You buy a game, type in your code (ties it to your gamer tag) and off you go.

Maybe, and this isn't in the same argument as DRM because technically, CD/DVDs are DRM that works.  This is more about whether or not the second market deserves to live.  In any case, I dunno if that would work, I'm not on consoles so I can't say if the price drop is enough.  I can say publishers won't go for it.  They may not make money off the second hand market, but losing half of their early profits would probably be upsetting.

King

[Dangelus]

The only reason reason why there is a second hand market is because new games are so expensive. Theoretically games are this price because of piracy which I can agree with to an extent.

Nobody is crying out for a second hand market for its games are they? Why? Because the games are relatively cheap. I know it isn't quite the same thing and part of the problem is the games themselves. A lot of these big console games have budgets like small movies. And they are crap, throwaway titles.

We need to get back to when games were challenging and cut all the bull. Half these titles are like watching movies these days with about 20% spent on the actual gameplay, the rest on sfx, voice talent etc. 

[KingIsaacLinksr]

you've described the entire problem with Modern Warefare 3 and other games like it.  It's why Indie titles are getting a lot of attention these days.  Because they did cut the bull and made games a visceral challenge.  Still, if AAA devs have anything down, it's presentation which isn't bad either. 

As far as the price thing, it's subjective.  People claim that $5 is too much on the iOS store so idk what people consider "cheap" on the console market.  Maybe it is $30, but it easily could be $10. 

King

[Jobydrone]

All the debate is basically Nero fiddling as Rome burns to the ground.  As more and more of the console demographic adopts high speed internet, pretty much all purchasing will be done online and that will be the end of the purveyors of used games.  It wont be exclusive in the next console cycle, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the next gen consoles have an option sometime soon down the road of a SKU similar to the PSP Go, which had no optical media, and everything purchaseable for the system is download only.  That system was an example of Sony being ahead of the curve when it comes to the downloadable market.  It will be very interesting to see how they do with the new Vita, considering they are adopting a very similar style of distribution while still offering consumers the choice of physical or digital media. 

There's TONS of full retail games on the Xbox marketplace now, many of which are less than a year old.  It is not anything of a stretch to see them releasing online for download day and date with the brick and mortar release.  Lower the price by ten bucks and I'd download a digital copy over a disc of a new release any day of the week, and not worry about being able to sell it back when I'm done with it.

Now that I have a large hard drive for my Xbox, I find myself perusing their online store quite a bit for games I haven't played this generation.  The problem with the Xbox marketplace is that there's nothing driving their pricing beyond their own model that they've decided on and are sticking to come hell or high water.  Older current gen titles that are in the 5.99 bargain bin at Best Buy are still priced at 19.99 or 29.99 on the Xbox marketplace.  There's hardly ever any kind of sales the likes of which you see regularly on Steam.  If there was some developer input in the pricing of their games, we'd see a much more robust marketplace over Xbox live.  I hope that's something we experience on the 3rd Gen Xbox.

[Jobydrone]

"Console piracy exists yes but you have to hack the console which is very difficult these days. The 360 hasn't been completely hacked by the way, you need to do all sorts of soldering and need a specific motherboard etc. The disc drive was hacked but with a license system in p,ace this wouldn't matter."

This isn't completely true, the Wii is very easily hacked with just a software modification that runs off an SD card.  And I'm pretty sure that the PS3 is in the same situation since the highly publicized hack that occurred last year, or was it 2010?  But PS3s with old firmware can be made to play pirated games without hardware mods.  I believe that the same is true for older Xboxes as well, but it depends on what motherboard you have and the newer systems are safeguarded against it. 

[Dangelus]

Yep the Wii is softmoddable but soon to be replaced with a new system which I'm betting will be like fort Knox.

The PS3 has been hacked but like you say you limited to old firmware and being offline, also limiting the usefulness.

The 360, older motherboards with older firmware have to be physically modified with some sort of battery to "jolt" the OS into being able to run unsigned code. Some proof of concept tests were done getting a distribution of Linux to run on the system but this hack has never been practical at a consumer level. Older DVD drives were able to be modded to run pirated discs but this I believe was stopped with firmware updates and again it kept you offline.

My point is having to enter a serial at the OS level would negate all this piracy since you may be able to full the system that your disc is real but unless you can get in deep enough into the operating system you can't rewrite it to stop accepting license codes.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Yep the Wii is softmoddable but soon to be replaced with a new system which I'm betting will be like fort Knox.

The PS3 has been hacked but like you say you limited to old firmware and being offline, also limiting the usefulness.

The 360, older motherboards with older firmware have to be physically modified with some sort of battery to "jolt" the OS into being able to run unsigned code. Some proof of concept tests were done getting a distribution of Linux to run on the system but this hack has never been practical at a consumer level. Older DVD drives were able to be modded to run pirated discs but this I believe was stopped with firmware updates and again it kept you offline.

My point is having to enter a serial at the OS level would negate all this piracy since you may be able to full the system that your disc is real but unless you can get in deep enough into the operating system you can't rewrite it to stop accepting license codes.

Uhh, yeah, I'm sure there are a few hackers willing to figure a way around it.  Plus, I've heard that if you get another system and modify it somehow, that also works for pirates.  Don't ask me how, I don't remember the details. 

But yeah, to bring it back to the point, it is as Joby said.  We're rapidly moving to a digital distribution system that effectively kills the second hand market so it doesn't really matter at this point.  The only problem we have to face is the increased demand on ISPs at this point.

King

[Jobydrone]

"My point is having to enter a serial at the OS level would negate all this piracy since you may be able to full the system that your disc is real but unless you can get in deep enough into the operating system you can't rewrite it to stop accepting license codes."

Right all you'd have to really worry about is people sharing Gamertags and game libraries.  If you hard code it to the individual system and institute a license thing similar to how Xbox currently operates it could work. 

It's a difficult position for the big three to be in.  You want to support your developers because without the games, no one wants to buy your product, and used game sales are bad for developers.  You want to support your retailers, because they sell your products.  It would be a mercenary act to decide to destroy the major revenue stream keeping retailers like Gamestop, Game Trader, GameFly, etc. in business.  It would be a disaster for those companies, and like Chris suggested I highly doubt the console manufacturers are willing to burn those bridges by locking out second hand games from working on the next gen consoles.  We'll continue to see functionality like the "online passes" and content getting locked behind codes that are freely available to purchasers that bought games new but available for sale to used buyers in order to send some revenue from used game sales to developers and publishers.   

I really think if there was a more robust marketplace online supported by the console makers, and prices of games available digitally were reflective of the value customers place on one, two, or three year old content, then people would be more apt to buy older games new at a deep discount, benefiting the developers, rather than paying a retailer a lower price for a used copy that gives nothing to the developer.

[X]

I think in the end, it's going to come to publishers providing online content and other perks for people who buy the game and zip for people who buy it second hand. They will of course offer codes to unlock said content, but it will be at a fee so that the publishers can get a piece of the resale market.

Here's the simple math. I don't think that publishers care about used games needing to exist. If you can't buy it cheap, that means you might actually buy it at cost and that translates into more dollars for them.

[Rico]

Keep in mind the lending or transferring of digital content is in it's infancy.  Ebooks are starting to allow some of this to a degree.  I think games will also go this way eventually - also, to a degree.

[Jobydrone]

I think in the end, it's going to come to publishers providing online content and other perks for people who buy the game and zip for people who buy it second hand. They will of course offer codes to unlock said content, but it will be at a fee so that the publishers can get a piece of the resale market.

Yes, this is what's happening now and it is at least something for the devs and publishers.  I don't know for sure how much it is going to work for the average consumer, though.  I was talking to a friend who is not a hardcore gamer, but enjoys playing.  He was talking about the new Batman Arkham City, which offered it's Catwoman content free for people who bought the game new behind a code unlock and made used buyers pay to unlock it.  He was asking me if he should install it, even though it was free, almost ten percent of the content of the game, and about a 30 second download.  I think his experience, missing out on the content of the game just because he isn't entirely clear what it meant to download and install it, will be the majority rather than the minority experience, and it ultimately is a loss for the consumer.

Here's the simple math. I don't think that publishers care about used games needing to exist. If you can't buy it cheap, that means you might actually buy it at cost and that translates into more dollars for them.

Some dollars is better than no dollars.  If a three year old game is up on Xbox Live marketplace at 300x the price you can buy it used, who would buy it online ever?  I'm saying there should be some parity with used content pricing and online downloadable pricing, then many, many more people will be buying their stuff on the marketplace which then transfers into more sales for the devs and publishers.

Right now, games are similar to movies in that they live or die by the sales they get in the first week or two after release.  This shouldn't be, especially with massive number of great games that get shoved aside and forgotten to make room for the next new big thing.  With the availablility of old games online, this doesn't need to happen, as long as the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Store price things in a way that makes sense to consumers.

Edit to add this link, funny but this article publishedthis morning speaks to exactly what we're talking about:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/02/why-sony-needs-to-be-flexible-on-ps-vita-download-pricing.ars

[Jobydrone]

Keep in mind the lending or transferring of digital content is in it's infancy.  Ebooks are starting to allow some of this to a degree.  I think games will also go this way eventually - also, to a degree.

Yeahhh, I'm not sure about that one.  It makes sense if and when things go all digital and physical media goes the way of the dodo, but I still don't think it will happen.  I think you're going to have to actually give a disc to someone if you want to lend it out.  I would highly doubt even in an all digital world you'll ever be able to transfer licenses or lend content the way you can on the Kindle right now.  That's what free game demos are for.

[QuadShot]

you've described the entire problem with Modern Warefare 3 and other games like it.  It's why Indie titles are getting a lot of attention these days.  Because they did cut the bull and made games a visceral challenge.  Still, if AAA devs have anything down, it's presentation which isn't bad either. 

As far as the price thing, it's subjective.  People claim that $5 is too much on the iOS store so idk what people consider "cheap" on the console market.  Maybe it is $30, but it easily could be $10. 

King

King, not sure what you mean by the MW3 comment? MW3 is an awesome game, in the look, feel, experience and even the soundtrack. Granted, the offline campaign is short, about 4-6 hours, but these games are intented for online mutiplayer gaming. The campaigns are really designed to just get you used to the gaming engine, how the controls work, feel, etc. I see nothing wrong with gaming companies shelling out mega-movie sized budgets to create film like games. Why is that an issue?

You know, it's like the whole George Lucas Star Wars argument. Zealots complain about him changing and "improving" the Star Wars films, accuse him of being a greedy money grubbing dork, yet STILL buy his goods! Here's an idea: if you don't like, then don't buy...that's the BEST way to protest something. Just my opinion...

[X]

King, what game systems do you currently have? It doesn't seem like you're coming from a first hand perspective with your comments. Big games are still getting a lot of attention and maybe 1 out of 50,000 indie games get a nod. Advertising are skewed to the big titles as well with the on system ads. What system are you using where indie games are getting more attention?

[KingIsaacLinksr]

@Al: presentation shouldn't mean the game is just a really fancy movie which games like MW3 and Battlefield seems to be going towards.  That's what I was talking about.  Yeah, they are multiplayer games, I'm just talking single player. 

@X: On PC platform they are getting a lot of attention and services such as Steam are giving them some spotlight attention.  iOS as well. 

King