The Microsoft XBox One Launch Thread

[Tsuchiya]

Given majority of games appear to run at 720p with couple of exceptions, I'd imagine the xbox one would look great on your existing setup

:/ I wonder how long it'll be before people stop with the 720p thing. Although I was disappointed that most launch titles were just upscaled, I think the whole thing has been made too big a deal out of. Looking at Forza 5 running, I think the Xbox One will be fine.

 

[blesscheese]

:/ I wonder how long it'll be before people stop with the 720p thing. Although I was disappointed that most launch titles were just upscaled, I think the whole thing has been made too big a deal out of. Looking at Forza 5 running, I think the Xbox One will be fine.

Yeah, everybody lay off the 720p thing...

I'm going to instead bring up the topic of micro-transactions / pay-to-play or win...

What is this I'm reading about the pay transaction stuff in Forza 5

 

[MRU]

Yeah, everybody lay off the 720p thing...

I'm going to instead bring up the topic of micro-transactions / pay-to-play or win...

What is this I'm reading about the pay transaction stuff in Forza 5

Sames as GranTurismo 6 .... One car in GT6 will set you back $120 real money !!!!! seriously I hate micro transactions, especially on full price titles....

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:/ I wonder how long it'll be before people stop with the 720p thing. Although I was disappointed that most launch titles were just upscaled, I think the whole thing has been made too big a deal out of. Looking at Forza 5 running, I think the Xbox One will be fine.

I actually didn't mean it as a negative thing. It was that the user was holding off purchasing an xbox one because they wanted to upgrade their 720p setup to 1080p first, and my point was that given games output currently they probably would see no difference waiting to upgrade first than purchasing the xbox one and sticking it on their existing hardware, and look great now in the process...

And yes the 720p thing is well over played out at this moment.

Resolution will equal out eventually I'm sure in multi-platform titles.

 

[blesscheese]

I can see this on some schedule, maybe it depends on how 360 games continue to sell? I suspect the 360 pool is huge and how many will upgrade to the One right away?

I think all those points are pretty much on target. Generally, what I have seen is that the older console gets support for about a year (this is going back to Genesis/SNES era all the way up to now).

If anything, I would expect it to maybe last longer, for no other reason than it costs a lot of money to make a game now, and the publishers want to make as much money as possible...to not support a console (like the 360 or PS3) when the install base is much larger than the newer console would be ... unprofitable.

I think everybody will watch the sales figures of the new consoles, and use that to decide when to stop supporting the older consoles.

The wild cards are a) I think initial sales figures will kinda overestimate the longer term adoption rate, as there is a lot of pent-up demand for a newer console (i.e., the last XBox came out 8 years ago!) and the early-adopters/fanboi's are more than ready to buy the new thing, without regard to the actual games available.

Oh yeah, wildcard b) is how many exclusives M$ and Sony are willing to pay for. This is where M$'s deep pockets may have a larger impact.

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Shames as GT6 .... One car in GT6 will set you back $120 real money !!!!!

Holy cow

Well, I'll go back to my cave...

I can see the freemium model being an "ok" (if distasteful) thing for free games on the iPad, but man, after paying $$$ for the console, and $$ for the game, then they want $$-$$$ more?

Yikes...but on the other hand, if people didn't pay for it, they would stop doing it.

 

[MRU]

Holy cow

Well, I'll go back to my cave...

I can see the freemium model being an "ok" (if distasteful) thing for free games on the iPad, but man, after paying $$$ for the console, and $$ for the game, then they want $$-$$$ more?

Yikes...but on the other hand, if people didn't pay for it, they would stop doing it.

Yeah it's horrible.

I pretty much refuse to buy a game that has micro-transactions. It's just greed, plain and simple.

Sony claim you can unlock the car yourself, the reality is that you'd likely have to grind for 300+ hours in order to do so. That shows clear intention it was designed to be paid for.... It's shocking that it's acceptable in a $60 game.

 

[Taustin Powers]

Sony claim you can unlock the car yourself, the reality is that you'd likely have to grind for 300+ hours in order to do so.

Is this really the case? I haven't seen any solid info on that. Few reviews that I read did not mentio excessive grinding at all.

 

[thehustleman]

In game purchases should be banned on a retail game!

In a free to play game, there should be a purchase limit where once you hit it, everything is unlocked

 

[MRU]

Is this really the case? I haven't seen any solid info on that. Few reviews that I read did not mentio excessive grinding at all.

That's what I have read on user forums and the article on ign

Gran Turismo 6 Microtransaction Prices Surface
You'll have to pay £119.95 if you want the Jaguar XJ13.
by Luke Karmali DECEMBER 5, 2013


An update to the PlayStation store has revealed how Gran Turismo 6's microtransactions will work.

We told you last month that GT 6 would be the first entry in the popular racing franchise to allow you to trade real-world cash for in-game cars, but at the time we weren't aware how much it would set you back. Now, that's all changed.


You'll be able to buy in-game credits in denominations of 500,000, 1 million, 2,500,000 and 7 million. The cheapest pack is set to cost £3.99/€4.99, while a million will cost you £7.99/€9.99 and you'll need to exchange £15.99/€19.99 for 2,500,000 credits. As you'd expect though, the best value pack is the one containing 7 million credits, which sets you back £39.99/€49.99. We're still tracking down US prices, and will update this story when we know more.

When microtransactions were originally announced, we included an image that offered some insight into the different cars you can buy. But how much will it cost you to buy the most expensive car in the game, the Jaguar XJ13 if you want to do it with real-world money?

Well, it costs 20 million credits. While you can always grind these the old-fashioned way (by playing the game), the speedy/expensive way will require two packs of 7 million credits, another couple of 2.5 million credit packs and a final pack of 1 million. That'll cost you a stonking £119.95.

The real question is whether the introduction of microtransactions will adversely affect the traditional Gran Turismo progression system. Those with concerns should remember it's entirely optional, so if you'd prefer to earn all vehicles and upgrades through simply playing the game, you can.

Keep an eye on IGN this Friday for our Gran Turismo 6 review.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Junior Editor. Some people think he looks like Tom Daley. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

I then read from numerous users on playstation forum complaining that have bought the game the in game currency to get to the point where you could buy the car, because you would have to buy other cars in the process to unlock enough events to get to the point where you could earn that amount of currency is hundreds of hours..

Now whether that's an exaggeration or not - I don't know as I would not buy the game regardless, but could quite believe it.



Euro gamers review also highlights it

Gran Turismo 6 is next-gen in other ways, too, with the spectre of microtransactions lingering near. Polyphony's at least been wise to partition them away from the game - if you weren't aware of their inclusion beforehand, you wouldn't know they're there at all. The economy is, to all intents and purposes, identical to Gran Turismo 5's - prize cars aren't handed out quite so generously, but payouts are on a similar scale while car prices likewise remain frozen.

That's not to say it isn't a problem, though. Gran Turismo 5's economy was broken, an issue belatedly acknowledged by Polyphony in the implementation of seasonal events with bloated payouts that soon became the place to grind out credits. Seasonals are back, though right now the payouts are paltry in comparison to their predecessors, meaning the grind that faces players just before they unlock Gran Turismo 6's final tier is daunting. There was an opportunity to redress the balance this time out. By offering a fast track to progression through microtransactions, the problem is once again acknowledged, although the solution right now is far from savoury.

 

[Liquorpuki]

I hate microtransactions too but it's endemic of the industry's shrinking profit margins

The price of a AAA game would be above $100 on today's console generation if it kept up with inflation. Instead it's capped at $60-70 with devs monetizing the difference through other means. Like DLC, or Season Passes, or $150 collectors editions where they throw in a $2 plastic toy and a $5 book of art.

Kinda why I was hoping the whole XB1 digital market would take off. If they did it right, it would've created a new business model with some wiggleroom for pricing to eliminate this gouging stuff.

If anything I'd rather take $10-20 DLC instead of invasive microtransactions. Forza and GT6 are already getting negative PR. I hope other companies pay attention and get scared off.

 

[blesscheese]

I hate microtransactions too but it's endemic of the industry's shrinking profit margins

The price of a AAA game would be above $100 on today's console generation if it kept up with inflation. Instead it's capped at $60-70 with devs monetizing the difference through other means

I have a slightly different take on this...in a nutshell, big corporations have smelled profits an a synergy of video games and movies, and so have snapped up publishers and studios, essentially eliminating competition, but also increasing their infrastructure and their need to pay more people more $$$$$$$$ who don't really have anything to do with video games.

Here is a link to LA Times article on Activision CEO from today

You have to register for it, so I'll just pull out a couple of quotes:

In his only big-screen film role, Activision Blizzard Inc. Chief Executive Bobby Kotick appeared in "Moneyball" as a penny-pinching owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team.

The art-imitates-life moment was vintage Kotick, who has earned a reputation for fiscal restraint among Wall Street investors while playing ball in the big leagues with pals such as DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and billionaires Eli Broad and Elon Musk

But friends describe him as smart, wickedly funny and charming.
"We had breakfast at the counter at the Beverly Hills Hotel at 7:15 on a Saturday morning, and somehow or another Bobby knows every single person sitting in every single chair," said Katzenberg, who met Kotick through a mutual friend, casino magnate Steve Wynn.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said Kotick introduced him to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on a bike ride at the annual Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Kotick said retailers continue to bet on "Call of Duty: Ghosts," the latest installment in the company's decade-old franchise. Activision shipped more than $1 billion worth of the new game, which was written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan ("Traffic")

Despite the uncertainties, Activision Blizzard raised its outlook for the year. Its third-quarter revenue, however, fell nearly 18% compared with a year earlier, to $691 million, because it released fewer games. Net income declined 75% to $56 million in the quarter because of lower revenue and costs related to the Vivendi transaction.
The company's shares rose 10 cents Monday to $17.30.

After more than two decades under Kotick's control, Activision's $12-billion market capitalization dwarfs its competitors'.

Sorry for the long post, but the other issue you didn't mention was that, in the days when a game cart cost $49, the cartridge contained actual memory chips, which would cost between $5-10. The cost of a DVD nowadays is almost negligible in comparison. Anyway, as you can see with Activision, at least, they ain't hurting. The issue is, are their profits huge enough to satisfy shareholders...btw, they didn't mention what their CEO made last year, let me google it...

Holy crop, the Activision CEO was the second highest paid CEO in 2012, behind only Larry Ellison! Kotick even made more than the CEO of Goldman Sachs!

 

[thehustleman]

I hate microtransactions too but it's endemic of the industry's shrinking profit margins

The price of a AAA game would be above $100 on today's console generation if it kept up with inflation. Instead it's capped at $60-70 with devs monetizing the difference through other means. Like DLC, or Season Passes, or $150 collectors editions where they throw in a $2 plastic toy and a $5 book of art.

Kinda why I was hoping the whole XB1 digital market would take off. If they did it right, it would've created a new business model with some wiggleroom for pricing to eliminate this gouging stuff.

If anything I'd rather take $10-20 DLC instead of invasive microtransactions. Forza and GT6 are already getting negative PR. I hope other companies pay attention and get scared off.

That market can still take off, but they gotta be smart about it.

No reason a download should cost the exact same as the disc.

When I buy a download I don't get a return (in case it sucks), I don't get to trade or re-sell it to someone else, plus they save the costs of pressing and manufacturing the game and they don't have to pay a third party retailer their cut, no shipping fees, no manual or on disc printing, so they are cutting costs, but wrongfully not passing the savings along to the consumer.

 

[Liquorpuki]

That market can still take off, but they gotta be smart about it.

No reason a download should cost the exact same as the disc.

When I buy a download I don't get a return (in case it sucks), I don't get to trade or re-sell it to someone else, plus they save the costs of pressing and manufacturing the game and they don't have to pay a third party retailer their cut, no shipping fees, no manual or on disc printing, so they are cutting costs, but wrongfully not passing the savings along to the consumer.

I agree. The same way MP3 albums pass savings down to consumers and we went from $15-20 CD's to $10 albums

I don't see it happening this console generation though. You pretty much have to overhaul the whole distribution business model at competitive disadvantage to the stakeholders of physical media. Like how Apple killed Tower Records.

In this case, the same companies putting out digital are also stakeholders of physical media. Originally MS was willing to take the hit to make it happen but not anymore. Now they're like everyone else and trying to maximize profits on both channels.

 

[barkomatic]

I hope this microtransaction garbage doesn't take over retail games. I'll quit console gaming altogether if its going to cost me $200 per game total to play effectively.

My experience with games that have microtransactions on the iPhone/iPad have been that they developers make it very, very difficult to play the game without buying stuff. They want you to buy of course, so developers make it really repetitive and boring to get to the point where you can get an item on your own. Ugh.

 

[MRU]

I hope this microtransaction garbage doesn't take over retail games. I'll quit console gaming altogether if its going to cost me $200 per game total to play effectively.

My experience with games that have microtransactions on the iPhone/iPad have been that they developers make it very, very difficult to play the game without buying stuff. They want you to buy of course, so developers make it really repetitive and boring to get to the point where you can get an item on your own. Ugh.

Yeah Rovio's New angry birds go game is prime example of that...

 

[Liquorpuki]

I hope this microtransaction garbage doesn't take over retail games. I'll quit console gaming altogether if its going to cost me $200 per game total to play effectively.

My experience with games that have microtransactions on the iPhone/iPad have been that they developers make it very, very difficult to play the game without buying stuff. They want you to buy of course, so developers make it really repetitive and boring to get to the point where you can get an item on your own. Ugh.

I don't think you have to worry. Microtransactions on mobile are there for a different reason than on consoles.

On mobile they're there because the games are disposable and the pricepoint is so low, the only way to get people to download your game is to make it free. If it's free the only way to monetize is through microtransactions. And since everything's disposable, it's more cost effective to make crap games that use crappy gameplay to bait you into paying $10 for gems.

On consoles, microtransactions help combat shrinking profit margins but that $50-70 base price isn't gonna drop to the point every game has to follow the Zynga model. And fortunately there are a ton of other things devs can use instead of microtransactions to bring in alternate revenue - DLC, Collectors Editions, Season Passes, etc.

 

[TriforceGal]

I'll be picking up an Xbox One for Halo 5 or Gears 4

 

[Joybulb]

And fortunately there are a ton of other things devs can use instead of microtransactions to bring in alternate revenue - DLC, Collectors Editions, Season Passes, etc.

But dlc IS a microtransaction.

 

[alent1234]

I hope this microtransaction garbage doesn't take over retail games. I'll quit console gaming altogether if its going to cost me $200 per game total to play effectively.

My experience with games that have microtransactions on the iPhone/iPad have been that they developers make it very, very difficult to play the game without buying stuff. They want you to buy of course, so developers make it really repetitive and boring to get to the point where you can get an item on your own. Ugh.

some PC games have been doing it for years and with both next gen consoles having hard drives i think its coming.

total war and a train sim game would sell you individual units and trains
skylanders has physical characters you have to buy to unlock parts of the games

 

[Liquorpuki]

But dlc IS a microtransaction.

Yeah you're technically right, but the way I look at it
DLC = actual Content
Microtransaction = a $20 box of "gems" you buy so you don't have to grind or wait 24 hours for something to finish... basically DLC without the C

People don't really get mad when the DLC is exclusive or the equivalent of an expansion pack. They get mad when core gameplay is intentionally crappy to bait you to spend $$$ on microtransactions to skip the boring stuff.

Anyway, for those w/ an XB1, PvZ: Garden Warfare is well worth the $40