Xbox one

Gared

Gared

Covar said:
I thought the "I'm a PC" ads were great. Several years late to the party, but good ads. If they actually had run then while Apple had it's "I'm a Mac" campaign I think they would have done their job well. Certainly better than Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld shoe shopping.
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It's the "several years late to the party" bit that sank the ad campaign.
 
Frank

Frank

Ha ha ha, oh Microsoft.

Flagship Xbox One launch title Forza Motorsport 5 – which will make extensive use of the console’s cloud capabilities and always-online functionality – will also be playable offline now that Microsoft has changed its policies. However, it will require a one-time connection to Xbox Live before you can play.

In an interview with IGN, Dan Greenawalt, the studio head at Forza developer Turn 10 Studios, clarified how their day-one racing game will work if your Xbox One isn’t connected to Xbox Live.

“So when you first boot up the game, we’re going to ask you to log in,” he explained. “And when you log in you’re going to get the Drivatars and you’re also going to get a whole bunch of content: tracks and cars. Our production schedule is such that we are putting them in as late as possible and that means making them free as downloadable content on Day One.

“

We’re not making a launch game. We’re making Forza 5, at launch.

“[But] that is required content to play the game. We basically have designed the game to work with all that content no matter how late is coming in, in order to make the biggest game possible.”

In other words, because games have to be submitted to Microsoft testing, certified, and then pressed onto discs and shipped, Forza 5 has to be done much, much sooner than November. By requiring part of the game as a download on launch day, it gives Turn 10 extra time to finish everything. And so what you get on the disc you buy at the store won’t be the entire game. You’ll need to download the rest of it from Xbox Live (which should be possible to occur as you play, Greenawalt clarified).

After that, Greenawalt said, Forza 5 is like your refrigerator. “You have to fill it up with food the first time,” he explained. “And from then on, you connect whenever you want when you want to update your food. The Drivatars are as fresh as they are. It’s not like they’re going to degrade, but when you’re looking for new stuff – fresh stuff…it’s going to keep evolving. That’s the nature of this Drivatar system.”

“

When you first boot up the game, we’re going to ask you to log in.

Drivatar is Forza 5’s attempt at next-generation AI in that there is no pre-programmed artificial intelligence. Instead, a ghost version of yourself races on your behalf, using your repeated behavior and tendencies to mimic how you’d race if you were actually playing. Drivatars of random gamers all over the world are what you race against in your single-player campaign.

To that end, Greenawalt told us, “You do have to connect the game in order to get the latest Drivatars, because we need as many people training them as possible. And so rather than having just a launch-day set that was created by us, every day that people race is going to make the Drivatar set that much more accurate, that much more diverse, that much more interesting.

“All of the cloud and online features make the game far, far better,” Greenawalt summed up. “In fact I’d even say revolutionary. The things we’re doing with opponents and Drivatar are not something that anyone can envision unless you’ve played it. But we’re trying to get as much of that into the unconnected, offline mode as well.

“We’re not making a launch game. We’re making Forza 5, at launch.”
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Basically, despite them dropping the online check-in requirement, you're still going to need that broadband connection to play stuff like Forza, since most of the game will not be on the disc.

Same shit, different toilet.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

Well. At least people can't say "I bought the game on this disk, I'm entitled to do whatever I want with it" now. Because guess what? Your disk only contains half the game!

Microsoft must be some kind of millipede, with all these times it's shot itself in the foot.
 
redthirtyone

redthirtyone

I fail to see how the blame for this falls on MS. Surely the process here is nothing new - A game must be completed & approved in advance so game discs can be pressed & distributed to retailers in time for its release date. Turn 10 is the one who has decided to push an incomplete product.

Now granted, MS might have left them hanging when they backtracked on the "always online" requirement. But if you want to hang that on MS, then MS is fighting a no-win scenario, which is what some people seem to be pitting them against anyways.
 
Frank

Frank

redthirtyone said:
I fail to see how the blame for this falls on MS. Surely the process here is nothing new - A game must be completed & approved in advance so game discs can be pressed & distributed to retailers in time for its release date. Turn 10 is the one who has decided to push an incomplete product.

Now granted, MS might have left them hanging when they backtracked on the "always online" requirement. But if you want to hang that on MS, then MS is fighting a no-win scenario, which is what some people seem to be pitting them against anyways.
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Turn 10 isn't the publisher. Microsoft is the one calling the shots.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

So, I have a question. I know that currently there are different levels of Xbox live, like the basic connectivity so you can get games and the paid service for playing online. With the new one, and the PS4 as well, I would assume that you still have the basic functionality, which in this case would allow you to simply play the game, with the unpaid version of the online service. If you HAVE to pay a monthly fee just to play games, I'm skipping consoles entirely.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Frank said:
You have to pay the fee to play online for both next generation. I'm sure offline play is unaffected.
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No, I know that, but even the Xbox live system had the free online connectivity so you could buy and download games, etc, without any fee, but if you wanted to play online, there was a fee. I'm asking if this will still be the case, or if to have ANY connectivity to the service, IE store, movies, XBL, etc.. will require a paid subscription.
 
Frank

Frank

Bowielee said:
No, I know that, but even the Xbox live system had the free online connectivity so you could buy and download games, etc, without any fee, but if you wanted to play online, there was a fee. I'm asking if this will still be the case, or if to have ANY connectivity to the service, IE store, movies, XBL, etc.. will require a paid subscription.
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I'm pretty sure the service will be the same. You can buy games and such from XBL without a gold account, but Netflix and Youtube and everything else will probably still be behind the paywall for whatever dumb bullshit reason they'll claim that isn't give us money.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
It sounds to me more like Forza 5 wasn't going to be ready in time to be a launch title, and microsoft realized "oh shit we have NO launch titles!" so they stepped Forza up with this crazy "half the game on the disk, actual content gets downloaded later" scheme. I'd put even money on Forza's launch getting screwed the hell up.

And really, did anybody even give a shit about the forza franchise until now?
 
Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

GasBandit said:
And really, did anybody even give a shit about the forza franchise until now?
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Only people who actually gave a rat fuck about accurate driving physics (aka probably only my brother and I).

We used to play the earlier Forza titles in an actual seat torn from a car with the force feedback steering wheel and pedals.

That said... they've probably screwed up the accurate driving physics on this new one in favour of gaining more sales... so... yeah.
 
Shakey

Shakey

PatrThom said:
Sooo...the XB1 is ultimately just a VCR-sized Apple TV?

--Patrick
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Except better? I don't think the apple TV could play any current console games, let alone next gen games. The only thing to compare this to is the approval process for games?
 
Shakey

Shakey

PatrThom said:
More a realization of what Microsoft's business model probably is with this device.

--Patrick
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Well, yeah. Apple TV was kind of a flop though. XBox1 will succeed for no other reason than it's there for the games. The TV and entertainment will come second. It is a good step for MS to make with these policy decisions though, so no need to rag on them for it.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Shakey said:
no need to rag on them for it.
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If I ever rag on Microsoft for anything, it's their habit of being Microsoft, where they release a product designed for a preconceived market segment with a cultured* usage model, but if consumer sentiment starts to drift from its preplanned destiny, they stubbornly try to push it back to match the prepackaged existence they had planned out for it.

--Patrick
*like pearls, not like bourgoise.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Microsoft in general has been making some piss poor decisions. Look at Windows 8. Another example where they think they are driving consumer taste and are being told emphatically that they are pushing for things consumers don't want.
 
Gared

Gared

I wonder if this decision carries the same sort of "unfortunate side effect" as their decision not to require once daily sign-in. Hopefully this one won't wipe out the software deployment strategy Microsoft was pushing for when they decided to use Win 8 across all of their platforms - whereupon a software developer could submit un-compiled code and choose what platforms they wanted that code to run on, and when a customer purchased said software, the store would check for the appropriate platform type and compile the code then deliver the end product, without the devs having to submit three separate versions of their software (and having to constantly do maintenance updates on all three versions), one for each platform.

Of course, that sort of strategy very specifically wouldn't work for some publishers (Mojang, for example, where Minecraft for PC is very different from Minecraft PE). Plus, part of me can't help but wonder if part of the point of the project wasn't to cut down on the amount of server space the Microsoft store needed. And, of course, there's the part of me that would be very concerned about letting Microsoft's compilers do all of the work, so that there was no time for bug testing by the devs between compiling and deployment.

You know, on second thought, this sounds like a horrible idea. I hope they've scrapped it.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Gared said:
Hopefully this one won't wipe out the software deployment strategy Microsoft was pushing for when they decided to use Win 8 across all of their platforms - whereupon a software developer could submit un-compiled code and choose what platforms they wanted that code to run on, and when a customer purchased said software, the store would check for the appropriate platform type and compile the code then deliver the end product, without the devs having to submit three separate versions of their software (and having to constantly do maintenance updates on all three versions), one for each platform.
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Dear Microsoft: we don't want to use the same control scheme for an OS on very different products such as a small phone and a large desktop PC. We sure as hell don't want the same programs to run effectively exactly the same on those different platforms.

Is there really someone at MS who hasn't gotten that message yet? It's like trying to force people to use the same fuel for their car, bike, truck, train and airplane. Yes, you can do it, but it's far from effective or easy.
 
redthirtyone

redthirtyone

Looks like MS might have finally learned to play their card last:

XBone might have a new release date of Nov 8

Not confirmed yet, but if true it would come out a week before the recently announced Nov 15th release date of the PS4. Still somewhat odd to me that both days are Fridays, but it makes more sense than the current target date, which is the Weds before Thanksgiving (thus making a logistical nightmare for online retailers promising "release day delivery").

I'm good with the 8th... happy birthday to me :minionhappy:
 
redthirtyone

redthirtyone

36 days until XBone release & no sign of any consoles being received in our Amazon facility.

Same goes for PS4 - 29 days & no sign of any PS4's either.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

redthirtyone said:
36 days until XBone release & no sign of any consoles being received in our Amazon facility.

Same goes for PS4 - 29 days & no sign of any PS4's either.
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They are probably going to do last minute shipments to keep the stuff off of youtube and review sites. The second those things hit the warehouses is the second they start to "vanish".
 
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