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I think you're supposed to call it "The X-Box," which is what a lot of people call the 360.

I interpreted the name as acknowledging that there is so little regard for the original X-Box that a lot of people use the phrase "X-Box" in reference to the 360. Moving forward, Microsoft wants to push the new X-Box as an all encompassing entertainment unit as well a flagholder for the brand. They don't want you to focus on the One as a new console so much as the next iteration of a brand identity. So the idea is that all 360's should be old and discarded like an out of date computer--not fetishized like the NES or Genesis. The user base is supposed to migrate to the next iteration. The most recent X-Box is the "The X-Box," and the old one is just garbage.

The naming of the X-Box iterations has actually been really interesting.

X-Box: "This also-ran is a box that plays games. Ascribe whatever you want to this variable. We don't know what we are yet."

X-Box 360: "Whoops! Let's start over. Hello: my name's X-Box. I can play games like Halo and Call of Duty."

X-Box One: "I am the only X-Box. Forget all my past selves. I am everything. TV, movies, video games: I am your media."
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Hm. Did anybody talk about the messaging inherent in the color choice?

I was thinking the other day about how the PS4's chrome black did it no favors.

After the PS2, people wanted something fun and/or new. A new generation of kids and their parents gravitated toward the Wii. The 360 felt like the antidote to Sony's presumptuous dynasty, which arrogantly offered no incentive to buy.

Not saying the color and texture differences were a determining factor for early adopters. But as the narratives of each company were being written by which games were released and the dilapidation of the Japanese game industry, PS4 looked all the more like Darth Vader, as the 360 started to evoke Luke Skywalker.

The 360 seemed friendly and inviting and casual, whereas the PS4 seemed faux mature and oddly assured of it's own dominance and control.

The new X-Box reminds me more of the PS4. Could be that they're trying to look more like an entertainment unit that can blend in below the TV like other electronics (ala the PS2), which I see as a contrast to the sore-thumb white of the 360, which seemed to suggest itself as a user-friendly, discrete experience ala Apple branding.
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Huh. This is definitely the most excited about E3 that I've been since the last big Consolegeddon.

Only this time instead of wondering which console I'll buy, I'm wondering if I'll ever buy one at all.

I don't have any reason to buy a console I can only buy used games for. I've only ever bought a new game if it was discounted to, like, $15. Otherwise, nearly every game I've ever bought in my entire life has been used.

Obviously, if Xbone (or the PS4) stays this draconian, it will be hacked to shreds. But that's going to take a year or two and probably instigate some sort of ongoing war with Microsoft, which will require constant updates to the work around.

The whole point of gaming consoles is to be easier to use and more consumer friendly than PC gaming, at least superficially. If both consoles end up as complicated and anti-consumer as the most draconian PC games, why bother with either of them? Kinda gross and sad that anyone would pay, like, $500 to play Halo or Gears of War.
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Not that either Microsoft or Sony really care about me as a consumer, right?

I mean, look: console developers don't make money on selling consoles. They usually sell them at cost or at a slight deficit. Retail stores also sell them at cost. As I understand it (and definitely correct me if I'm wrong or oversimplifying), console developers make their money from the licensing fees that games pay to be on their systems, maybe some cut of each unit sold, and then whatever profits come from first party games (which are only really created to give the game box a relative value to other game boxes, thus ensuring a steady stream of licensing fees).

Game developers, in turn only make money from selling games and game related products (downloadables). They don't make any money from used games (unless people who buy used then buy downloadables).

So, I mean, if every single gamer like me (someone who literally only buys used or extremely discounted games) were to--y'know--stop buying games, no developer would notice or care. It doesn't effect them in any way.

Similarly, if I don't buy a game console, in terms of actual revenue, it doesn't effect either Sony or Microsoft in any way.

The consumers that Microsoft and Sony care about and serve are rich or financially stable people--rich geeks and middle-to-rich families. These are the groups that buy things new, that buy stupid peripherals, that buy downloadable content, etc. These are the people that employ the AAA video game industry.

So the only issue with draconian DRM policies, then, is that rich geeks and families sometimes buy used games too. So, they might decide to go with the console that provides used games. But even if Microsoft loses these people (and becomes second to Sony), this isn't such a losing proposition. After all, developers will still have a good reason to license games with Microsoft. For the most part, they don't have to worry about losing revenue to the second hand games market. Even if more people own PS4's, the XBone version of a game could prove more profitable, simply because everyone who buys it will have to buy it first-hand.

And let's not forget that rich geeks and families are the demographics that really will buy an XBone, just because they gotta have Halo. So consumer ignorance/apathy could carry the day, anyway.

So really, as I see it, the only reason for these giant companies to not go DRM-crazy is the fear of alienating consumers (and more consumer-friendly developers) so thoroughly that their brand is irreparably tarnished to the point that consumers and developers just sort of give up on them. I don't see that happening in a single generation. Though I think if this sort of unchecked greed continued for two generations the entire console market would collapse and fold into PC gaming.
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I listened to a few game journalist podcasts the other day, and one of the narratives that was thrown out is that publishers have been lobbying both MS and Sony to go DRM crazy for the last ten years, basically saying they would support the console with the most stringent DRM. I can especially imagine American companies that publish on PC doing this.

If this is the case, I wonder if we should consider MS to be a naive patsy or, alternatively, maybe--again--consumer outrage won't matter and developers really will be more keen to work with a second place console with more draconian DRM.
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Another good point from a podcast:

People aren't necessarily up in arms about DRM because they can't BUY used games. They're also upset that they can't SELL used games (at least: not on their own terms). In the end, if GameStop is a "select retailer," as I'm assuming, this won't have much of an effect on the gamer who buys a game for $60, beats it, and sells it to GS for $20. But it does wrest people like us (me) from the comfortable notion that the games we buy have an intrinsic value.

I mean, I guess in the back of my head, I'm comforted that a lot of the games I buy have an aftermarket value. I often buy them for discounted prices and see their values rise as they gain the perception of rarity.

Things is, I've never actually sold a game. But in some primitive, hoarding, cave man way, I like that my shiny rocks are worthful, rather than worthless. I don't like thinking of games as bought experiences. I've always thought of them as objects.

So MS is trying to revolutionize the way people (especially game enthusiasts) PERCIEVE REALITY. They are doing this by slapping ice cream cones out of our hands.
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We're kind of ignoring RobotRocker's point that it's fairly likely that both the PS4 and the XBone are going to end up letting publishers decide if they implement DRM ("letting publishers decide"--as if they could do it on their own!).

So--y'know--in a year the two might not really be functionally different.

Heck, in a year XBone might have a SKU that comes without the Kinect for $350 or something (unlikely, but plausible).

Never say never, basically.

I mean, for me, none of this really matters. I haven't really checked out any of the games that are being discussed. It'll be at least three years before I buy one of these things, if I buy one, and it'll only happen if, like, Last Guardian comes out or something.

But, so, y'know: if I do get one, it'll be pretty easy to make an informed decision by then.

Though--yeah--even with DRM aside, the PS4 seems to be the better offering:

>No "always on" requirement
>Lets indies self-publish
>Probably going to be the default home for querky Japanese games


Wait.... Does the XBone play Blurays? Just curious. I feel like that's still a perk for families who rent physical movies from Netflix or maybe home theater nerds.
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Wait, so in Japan is basically just, like, PS4 vs. Wii U?

So they're, like, practically living the one console future at this point, huh?
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I mean. I guess the Xbone has better exclusives?

Kinda miss them playing the heel, though.

The Kinect will endear them to families, I think, especially now that the DRM between the two is the same.

Nobody will really care about this in a year, but yeah: Now Sony can coast on good will for a bit.
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It makes me very very annoyed that the actual data to Skull Girls, Fez, Braid, and Scott Pilgrim are on my 360's HDD, but when I got a new 360 I had to log in online to unlock them.

At this point, I will definitely think twice about downloading a game on a console, when it can be downloaded to my PC and (in most cases) I'll actually know whether I own it or not.

Starting to wonder if I'll be among the first of a generation of lapsed gamers who say, "Yeah, I lost touch with that stuff when it got all complicated with DRM and licenses and stuff. In my day, if you bought a game you owned it."

Christ. Imagine if Squenix could revoke your ability to play all the Squaresoft JRPG's you bought for the SNES so they could resell them to you.

I mean, that's basically what Sony was trying to do by blocking the existing backwards compatibility on PS3 units. They had started selling PS1 and PS2 games for download, and--y'know--fuck consumers.

Shameful.
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On the bright side: when you pirate a DRM-laden game there are no victims!
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TXT, is there a joke to your avatar? Is it the weird shading around her eyes?
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For people who are worried about being spied on by a Kinect:

Can't you, just like, put tape over the lens and the mics?

Or is it able to see through things somehow?

Do you think it could see through a meat sheild?

Like, if you encased it in raw meat?

Takashi, what would be the best material for making sure the Halo 6 team isn't watching me bone?
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