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I hear not so great stuff about Steam’s offline play as well, but that aside MS could’ve done something about the 24 hour check-in. Insist on the disc being in the tray for offline play, and tied to your account previously. Require people to de-Auth HDD play for a game from their account (while still tied to them and them alone) and prepare to go offline when they needed, even game by game if they had to. There were lots of things they could’ve done to alleviate the 24hr check, but even if they didn’t, all they had to do was explain what they were doing, which I still felt had enough advantages for enough people to work.

• Never worry about scratched/lost discs. Ever.
• Play all your games from your Xbox without discs, fast switch, set up multiplayer, on and on
• Share your games with up to 10 people, without giving them the disc, from across the world
• Only digital platform I know of at the moment that allows you to sell your digital media, yes only once, but who else does that?

I think MS made a huge mistake, the media and rabid fanboys who can’t be bothered to find out what they’re complaining about was a huge problem, I’m especially pissed (as you are) about how many of the same sources that griefed MS about their policies earlier are now giving them grief for changing back (I know it may not be the same author’s opinions, but The Verge is a non-extreme example of places this is happening).

But mostly, mostly I blame Microsoft. Almost 100%. For being so stupid that they couldn’t explain this to people at E3, take 20 minutes aside from your trailers and gameplay demos running on PCs to explain this properly, explain why it would’ve been good and be honest about what’s going to be bad.

I blame Microsoft for having no faith in themselves and caving like a house of cards at the first bump, and then going so far back that none of the original advantages the Xbone had over the competition were left.

So what’re we left with? A machine reportedly slightly less powerful than the PS4, with a 100 USD premium on the tag, and oh, the Kinect. Which I think is awesome, but good luck using that as your single differentiating factor apart from games (where the divide is nothing substantial either).

Congratulations Microsoft, you have once again proven that there is no bigger enemy to you than yourself.

Bravo.

13 minutes ago on Assassination, not journalism

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It’s just unbelievable. They come up with a concept that’s miles ahead of anything the competition has done, totally frak up explaining it to the users, rollback to what they’ve been doing for the last decade plus based on the taunts and jeers of the competition (who I feel were inferior but played the issue just right) and the naysayers and then get their concept snatched (I’m not saying Valve is copying, but by right it looks like MS would’ve been the first out of the gate with this concept) and the rug pulled out under their feet.

Microsoft is the original Bad Luck Brian.

27 minutes ago on Steam might let you borrow friends' games more easily than next-gen consoles

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Now the consumer wins.

Really? What did we all win? The same paradigm we’ve been in for the past few decades rather than a shot at doing something different, and possibly better?

31 minutes ago on Microsoft reverses Xbox One online check and used games policies following backlash

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Exactly, exactly, exactly.

I blame the media and rabid fanboys somewhat. I blame MS a lot more for being so intent in sticking its foot in its mouth that it can’t coherently explain a forward-thinking concept without raising the ire of the internet. This is not all their fault either, as there are a lot of people that will shoot down anything that comes from the haus of Windows, but all the major platforms get that. Deal with it Microsoft.

Grab a pair of cojones and stick to your guns MS! For shame, and now Steam is moving forward with plans to allow the borrowing of games.

You are your own worst enemy Microsoft.

33 minutes ago on Back to reality: Microsoft's new Xbox One policies retreat from the future

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No you can’t. The PS4 requires the disk.. so only 1 person can play at a time.

While I agree with you overall, I believe even the Xbone only allows one person to play the same game at the same time, however even then the games being digital means you could be in two different parts of the world and your friend could start playing right after you get off.

about 20 hours ago on PS4 appearance on Jimmy Fallon highlights Microsoft's struggle to explain Xbox One policies 2 replies 6 recommends

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Mind you, I’m of the view that people are giving the xbone way more shit than it deserves, and it irks me that people are totally ignoring the advantages of going digital (MS’ fault imo for not making it clearer), but you’re being a bit disingenuous about what you say.

The only difference is that Microsoft has provided a system to make it easier for publishers to achieve this

The PS4 allows you to trade and resell your physical disks just like you did before, because it is the same system as before. Publishers can go out of their way to keep you from doing so however. On the Xbox, you can’t sell/trade your games as you wish, as it’s tied to your accounts, but some games can be traded/resold if the publisher goes out of their way to do so.

But there are advantages to how MS is doing things, having 10 people share a library of games, even if they’re not even living close by, that is killer. Your games can be accessed anywhere, without discs. Your game library is sitting on your console, not requiring a disc for the game to be played. All these are great advantages that, for certain people, can make up for the inability to trade/resell as before, for some it isn’t enough.

3 days ago on Microsoft's Don Mattrick defends Xbox pricing: 'We're delivering thousands of dollars of value' 1 reply 1 recommend

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First off, no I didn’t know that. I heard about the Win 7 PCs with NVIDIA silicon that were running BF4, but I didn’t hear that about Titanfall (not saying you’re wrong). Also, I’d like to give things a pass considering that these games are probably not ready for the limelight, but I can’t fathom why they couldn’t use a DevKit (maybe not enough polish on the xbox version?) or at least use an AMD card so MS wouldn’t have the fact that those PCs had NVIDIA cards thrown in their faces.

no less staged than the BF4 multiplayer

Well, all the onscreen controller cues seemed to be for the xbox, or at the very least there were no obvious shout outs to them being the PC versions.

I do believe these games will look and work as well as they did on stage, but I know there’s precedence for the bait-and-switch, since I have no facts to base my hopes on, I may just be gullible.

But… my comment had nothing to do with all that. I still think it’s going to be a brilliant game.

3 days ago on How 'Titanfall' was born amid a mire of lawsuits

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The story line on this may be weak, but honestly I don’t care. I don’t know why you say gimmicky though, what are you referring to? As far as multiplayer goes, this thing looks insane, and that’s also why the story is just icing, it’s not integral to gameplay.

Some games are meant to be played for their stories, as they weave some sort of narrative, some games, it’s all about how it plays. This is one of the latter. These guys seem to get competitive fps multiplayer like few others.

I’m just glad that Zampella and West don’t look like a pair of one trick ponies, the fact that they strayed from the war game scenario is enough to get them points in my book.

7 days ago on How 'Titanfall' was born amid a mire of lawsuits 1 reply

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Is the cake, really in fact, a horrendous, salacious, lie?

8 days ago on Watch this: Apple's imperfect video about perfection 1 reply 2 recommends

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I was referring to the allegations of astroturfing in the /r/gaming hub. The moderators of that sub have done way more work in to investigating those claims than either of us have. They have posted up their findings in a forum where people are welcome to dissent and poke holes in their logic, which has not happened. Their conclusions sound fair, balanced and reasonable.

What makes you so sure that there was astroturfing going on there? Mind you, I already prefaced my comment making it clear I’m talking about the specific issue that was mentioned in the comment I replied to, not what astroturfing MS has taken part in elsewhere/in the past.

The stuff you mention, yeah, I’ve read about it. I’ll bet some of it’s true too. A corporation is not a person. You have a large number of decision makers, and policies change. While it would be great if companies would stay away from all unsavory practices all the time everywhere, this is usually just not the case. What does vague references to past actions have any bearing on what’s being talked about here?

9 days ago on Sony PlayStation 4 at E3 2013: everything you need to know 1 recommend

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Do you think that’s an inconsequential number of people?

9 days ago on Watch this: Apple's imperfect video about perfection 2 replies

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Jeez. I can’t believe the amount of people making such a big issue about the fact that… a big(ish) issue was made of something small.

I hadn’t seen the video before, though I read about it in the liveblog. I was glad to get a chance to watch it, along with the knowledge of an interesting little factoid about the video.

9 days ago on Watch this: Apple's imperfect video about perfection 1 recommend