This week, Will, Norm, and Loyd discuss PRISM, the next-gen console wars, the Playstation 4’s price, wearing Google Glass, and the largest four-sided dice ever. Oh, also WWDC stuff, including new Mac Pros, new MacBook Airs, iOS 7, and OSX Sea Lion (Mavericks is a dumb name).
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Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
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Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
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Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
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Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
I really cannot wait for E3 to pass. So much whining from people who before the Xbox’s reveal were doing nothing but whining about discs and shit. As soon as anyone tries to move away from them and towards a digital future, out come the whiners. Oh well, at least I have a podcast to entertain me while I level in Neverwinter.
Man I love when Loyd comes on the show.
With the whole iOS7 redesign, I really am not a fan of the redesign, but I feel the icons are the least offensive of the redesign. Some of the icons definitely are a bit weird, but I wouldn’t say are hideous. I’ll have to give it a second look. The entire os definitely needed a refresh, but I do not like the direction that was taken.
Will, I resent your remark about my name being dumb.
Something funny about people whining about whiners. People want ownership over the things they buy. They don’t want to be restricted by online check ups from Big Brother. They don’t want to be watched by a camera in their living room constantly. How is any of this anything anyone would want from “The Future”? How is removing options and imposing restrictions “the future”? It’s pretty easy to see why someone would not want the xbone even if there is something as neat as discless gaming (which is already possible now), or download game sharing (which is also already possible now). But hey, continue to whine about whining, meanwhile…boy that PS4 and Wii U sure looks pretty cool.
Funny thing, Smash Up is up on Geek and Sundry’s ‘Tabletop’.
Yeah, because those things totally suck on Steam. No wait, I still greatly prefer steam over current console markets. Even though I can’t sell games (I like to support devs and publishers, big surprise, right?)
And I didn’t say there weren’t reasons not to want the Xbone. I just said I was fucking tired of people whining on the internet because those people have far fewer good reasons to be pissy about this stuff. The games looked awesome at the MS conference, much more often than they did at the Sony conference, so I’m going to go where the games are. But of course everyone that said “They need to show more games!” immediately switched from “I’m picking PS4 for the games! Because they care about me as a gamer!” to “eh, who cares about the games, I care about the extraneous elements of the console that obviously won’t impact my experience because I have already spent the last week posting daily about how much I hate having to always have internet!”
I’m fine with people having criticism, my issue is that everyone is just shitting all over Microsoft because someone on the internet started whining and now it’s just a circle jerk of “der, fuck MS they have shit games and shit policies and shit.”
The only issue i have with the Xbone is how short the always online thing is. And the funny thing about it is that it only exists because they are letting you do some pretty crazy things like let family play your games and spreading XBL Gold features to the whole console instead of just the one account, etc. People ignore the fact that the always online thing only exists because of very positive features. Wanna let your friend borrow a game so he/she can know if they want to buy it for themselves? Not only will you be able to do that, but you won’t have to give up your access while you do it. Want to show your brother how cool the new game you got is? He can totally play it. You think that kind of stuff comes for free? Fuck no. Just like Sony said about now requiring a fee for multiplayer: you need to invest in something to make it good. You have to give something up for other things. And not being able to basically get your money back on a game just because you feel entitled to free money is a small price to pay.
Selling used games? You go right ahead and say “I don’t think developers have the right to prevent other’s from profiting from the work they put into creating a property” and then you can talk about how used games are the savior of the free world, despite the fact that the PC gaming industry is growing strong without them. Otherwise, you just seem like a hypocrite to me. You can’t have it both ways. Either you’re supporting the industry, or not. The argument that “well it keeps the money in the industry!” or “Well it gets people to buy sequels new!” is total bullshit. First of all, all of that money goes into the profit dumpsters at GameStop. How many people do you really know in the real world selling their games to their buddies or on Ebay? Probably not many compared to the people that trade their games in for $5 at the local Gamestop. That’s what the used market supports. A retail outlet that no one particularly likes for any reason other than “that’s where I can buy games.” Second of all, most people I know who buy used games, keep buying used games. They don’t do it because they “might not like it” they do it because “they want to spend less money.”
That’s why Steam was so successful. That’s why iTunes and the App Store are so successful. Because of the direct nature of those transactions, they have bigger margins, and can afford to lower the prices. This point was made very well during last night’s Giant Bomb after hours podcast, where an indie was talking about the benefits of being digital, and how they were able to be much more efficient and sound as a business, which lets them be more “indie” about the games they want to make, because they don’t have nearly as many shitty things eating into their profit margins.
This is why I think most of the people whining about the used games bullshit are doing it from a place of naive ignorance, rather than an actual position. They don’t consider the business realities, they don’t consider the other markets that have shown they are wrong about used games being “essential” and that in fact eliminating them gives developers the freedom to escape “the man” because of the margins. It’s why those guys love PSN. Sony works really well with their indies in ways that make the business aspect of making a game much easier, and provide them with a means to go as directly as possible to the consumers, short of putting up their own website and releasing a little PC game (which will likely not get nearly as much exposure, which is why Steam opening up to smaller Indie games is so cool for those guys).
Mostly, I’m tired of all of the negativity, the incessant whining during what should be an awesome and exciting time, and a bunch of people blowing things completely out of proportion because they want to act enraged about things that won’t even impact them. There were great games shown across all of the press conferences, and all anyone gives a flying fuck about right now seems to be in the “shit we whine about until we all pull a MW2 boycotter move and buy the fucker anyway because hey that Remedy game looks awesome and sounds like a perfect fit for their considerable talent.”
If you care so much about selling someone else’s work because you’re a cheap bastard that you won’t buy an Xbone, fine. That’s okay. You’re a cheap bastard, and you don’t have to buy the thing. That doesn’t mean it’s a totally shitty platform. It just means it’s catering to different people with different needs, expectations, and priorities. Just like the PS4 had very little to show other than multiplatform/Indie games at their conference, showing their focus. I’d be surprised if you could remember one big announcement that wasn’t at the PS4 announcement event, multiplatform, or an existing franchise. All I can remember from Sony off of the top of my head was the spectacularly (and apparently real time!) “The Order.”
So if the cost of not having the same level of DRM that the Xbone has is a lack of what Sony usually excels at: diverse exclusives, I’d say I’d rather get an Xbone. Because we care about the games, remember? Except when it’s convenient to continue our shit throwing session. Then we care about not games.
I don’t know how you guys use your PS3 controllers, but my Dual Shock 3 is four years old and still holds a charge for 10 hours; slightly longer than my 360 controller lasts on two brand new Duracells. I much prefer recharging my DS3 with a USB cord to using AAs.
The PSP game transfer program was rumored but never implemented. As a Vita owner, it would have been nice to have a digital copy of my PSP games.
Is it just me or is Loyd out for blood with Norm?
Never heard of him.
Steam does not have the restrictions the Xbone has. You sacrifice your ability to resell your games for cheap prices, which some people find is an adequate trade off. But it’s also on an open platform, the xbone isn’t. Steam has competition from Origin, GoG, Amazon, etc. The Xbone won’t, they’ll only have Microsoft and it’s approved retailers. Microsoft has shown they do not understand digital distribution (as does Sony and Nintendo) with their Games on Demand prices. They have not made a convincing argument of why we should go digital and give them control.
What are you even talking about? Yeah, the games did look pretty cool at the conference. But having to deal with the restrictions isn’t enough of a trade off for people. The games also looked great at the Sony conference too, as did they in Nintendo Direct. Most of the games that were awesome looking at the Microsoft conference were multiplatform, so that’s not really much of a big deal. The rest were CG trailers that showed nothing but a concept. But hey, CG trailers are neat I guess.
What are you talking about? You think people are giving Microsoft shit because one person started complaining about them? You’re not making any sense. Who is this person people are emulating?
I can already game share on PS3, Steam, and Xbox 360. I can lend ten people my games any time I want right now. Not only that…I can lend my disc games any time I want too. There is nothing special about what the Xbone is doing. PlayStation Plus is also shared for the entire console with the PS4, so once again, there is nothing special about Gold now applying to the whole console.
Developers and publishers are not entitled to anything except the first sale. This is how it works for everything in existence. They can keep going “Oh woe is me” and act like they’re special little snowflakes in front of the consumer, but they’re not. Every thing has a used version, they need to deal with that. And so do you. There is no proof of used games being the source of the industry’s woes. There is proof of gross mismanagement and budgeting being the problem. When games like Tomb Raider sell 3 million copies and are considered bombs because it cost 100 million dollars to make because some how Square-Enix throwing money at something would make a b-tier game anything but, or when DmC bombed because fans didn’t care for a reboot, or when the last Army of Two bombed because no gave a single shit about that franchise and the developer shut down before the game even went gold – none of that has anything to do with used games. It’s not the fault of the consumer to make up for the gaming industry’s continued stupidity with AAA development and give up their consumer rights. Plus there’s the fact that Europe is actively fighting for resale of digital products.
I think you’re in for a rude awakening if you think this is anything like the MW2 boycott. This is on mainstream news now. The U.S. military is actively mocking the xbone. This is real. This is happening. No one but the most die hard of fanboys, those who do not care about any of the problems this box will bring to the industry and for consumers and those who are just ignorant are the only ones who care about this box. Microsoft is counting on people not reading the fine print, and while I’m sure it’ll be sold out during holiday…consoles have a longer battle to fight.
Do you own a house? Did you buy it from the original builder? Did you pay them? How about your car? Did you pay the car manufacturer? Your hand-me-down clothing? Your argument is pure bullshit. They are not entitled to anything except the first sale, and that is that. Who is the xbone catering to exactly? The audience that needs to watch football, play fantasy football, while playing their video games, while taking a break from waiting thirty second before a fighting game match, while using their tablet to perform air strikes, who also enjoy talking to their TV and is willing to pay $500 for inferior hardware to the competition? Who is this audience? This is an oddly specific audience. Sony was only showing off launch titles for the conference. Microsoft is showing off a lot of their 2013 and 2014 line up right now. They’re both going to reveal stuff at Gamescom and TGS. Sony has already said that they’re working on 30 titles or something internally. This is such an asinine argument.
I care about games, I also care about being able to play my games any time I want without some multibillion dollar company controlling the way I do it. Your deflecting is quite bad. Please, maybe you should think about why there is this much negativity every where and why you are annoyed. Because if there is this much negativity with the internet, the enthusiast press and the main stream press…then maybe it’s you that has a problem and not them.
So, a lot of people seem to misunderstand why the always on XBOne is a problem. There’s really two ineligant numbers that explain the real reason, but let me set this up first. An XBox live account is something you have to sign up for to connect your XBox to the internet, whether you do anything with that connection or not, you have to have it just to use the connection. XBox Live Gold accounts are paid subscriptions to use your XBox live account online in multiplayer games and to access the Microsoft market pages and use other programs. You need neither to use an XBox without a connection but as soon as you connect it to the internet, you need an XBox live account to identify yourself.
So, here are the two numbers:
75,000,000
and
46,000,000
75 Million is, roughly, the number of XBox 360s sold as of March 2013.
46 Million is, roughly, the number of XBox live accounts as of March 2013, and only 25 Million of those actually go online with their accounts to play multiplayer games and use Netflix and such with their XBox Live Gold accounts..
So roughly 29 Million 360s were sold that no one connected to the internet. That’s 29 Million people who bought consoles and games and will be unable to do anything with their bricked system if they buy the XBOne.
So, maybe you think that’s just a bunch of people in third world countries or something where they don’t have internet. Well, there’s also the 100 Million people in the USA that don’t have access to the required broadband internet that the XBone requires and an even larger number than that simply don’t have access to stable internet connections. Not because there isn’t internet available there, but because for large swathes of America there’s only one internet company per town and they tend to go down frequently, and often enough for days at a time.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-18-xbox-live-at-46m-users-as-xbox-division-sees-sales-jump-56-percent
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124326-Microsoft-Predicts-100-Million-Total-Xbox-360-Sales
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june13/broadband_03-22.html
Steam has a handshaking system similar to the XBox One, but a longer duration before it bricks your games. Steam will delete your locally stored user data on your computer after several days to a week of continuous offline usage. It doesn’t do anything to your game data, but without the user data you can’t use steam offline and you can’t use any game you got through steam or even ones you bought at retail but require steam activation. Setting steam to save your userdata for offline mode only means you can use Steam in offline mode, it doesn’t remove this feature. Also, every game that requires Steam activation (read: The vast majority AAA and some AA games for PC now), opens steam to authenticate your steam authentication on the system, and when Steam deletes your userdata it wont open steam until you go back online, period.
So, yes. Steam is restrictive, and no, they do have advantages over other sellers for PC games. Mostly because many new games require Steam whether they need an internet connection to play or not.
The iOS stuff I’ve seen looks pretty wretched IMO. Not a fan aaat all. (Full Disclosure: I don’t own a smart phone, as I’m on a cheap-ass Cricket branded Huawei thingy. Looks kinda like an old-school ball-style Blackberry. So it affects me not one whit. Still think it looks ugly, either way).
Re: Multimonitor Displays with laptops – Why on earth would you not use both displays? Use the large display for main work flow/school stuff/whatever, use the laptop screen for the less active stuff that you still need up. Everyone I know (anecdotal, I am aware) that has a second monitor and a laptop uses both (including myself). It’s silly not to unless you have like some weird workspace issues or are at a place that your second monitor isn’t. [Note: Unless mac laptops have some serious issues with stuff like this that I’m unaware of being a PC user?]
Companies aren’t Big Brother. Big Brother is the Government. Wish people would stop making this mistake. [NOTE: unless it’s a (clever?) reference to PRISM and/or the NSA stuff, I suppose] The X1’s restrictions are bad: yes. Pretty damn awful, I’d say. However cheering for / being OK with the PS4’s “Here’s the status quo motherfuckers.” is also not a good thing. Especially with a company that has a history of anti-consumerism behind them, and left more than enough wiggle room to allow third parties to DRM and online checkup all they want. It’s way too early to call Sony the good guys of this debate. Now if they release the PS4 AND block third parties from doing this kind of stuff as well, then good on them, feel free to praise ’em for that, as I suppose that’s kinda cool. Still status quo mostly but eh whatever I guess? [I don’t know nearly enough about Nintendo to comment on their stuff, though I’ve heard that they have some pretty bad policies on this front as well. Everything tied to one console, and if it’s stolen: too bad. You just lost all your shit.]
I love character driven books… I’ll check it out on your recommendation!
Whining you say?
The History of Signal Bars if you are still wondering. If you remember old phones there was a bit picture of a cell tower (power line tower) with 4 – 5 bars along side it. The bar strength was shown as taller was stronger If you had a 5 signal bar strength you then could be hear with no static and you were then heard “5 by 5” a military code for being heard clearly over the radio.
Oh I wanted to point something else out too. Project Spark, what you were probably referring to as “that kids game” is a game engine. It’s a very boiled down, easy to use, and simpler to jump into game engine that lets you make your own games without years of programming experience. Think of it as the minecraft or the lego of game making.
You said on the podcast that the new Mac Pro will have Haswell Xeon processors. I don’t think so. In fact, we don’t even know when, or if, there will be a Haswell Xeon. The latest Xeons are based on Sandy Bridge-E. The next Xeon update will be the Ivy Bridge-E Xeon, which is expected to hit the market by the end of 2013.
Holy wall of text..
I just had a beef with that argument.
Houses, clothes, cars etc are physical objects, which deteriorate with use. Except for possibly disc wear (which I consider pretty low risk) the digital media, i.e. the game code, is exactly the same the 15th time it’s sold as the 1st. And in reality you’re just buying a “license to use”. So I have some sympathy for the game companies trying to reduce used game sales.
That’s why I have no problem with steam. I support companies that make games I like (usually small niche ones, like Paradox) by buying a fresh copy. This is partly because I want them to continue making games for this small market. You know; dying genres like strategy..
Then again I’m not buying an Xbone or PS4 anyway so who cares.
People were cheering because so many were so sure that Sony, Microsoft and other game publishers were all colluding with each other to eliminate used games. The desperation from the twitter campaign with #NoDRM, Sony continue to not answer questions, and “games journalists” like Ben Kuchera from the Penny-Arcade Report constantly bringing up how “This is the future, deal with it” made a lot of people lose hope, when in fact, all of this was on Microsoft. They should be cheered on for not pulling the crap Microsoft is pulling. Sony’s stance is exactly the same as the PS3, there were only two always online games (that didn’t need to be) on the PS3 with Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 and Final Fight: Double Impact. Leaving it up to the publishers puts blame on them and makes it easy to avoid games with awful DRM.
What people should be giving Sony shit for is putting multiplayer behind a paywall.
Nintendo’s lack of an account system is bad, but it’s not as bad as Microsoft’s where every retail game is just a download game now.
We’re also paying for the case and the manual (when a company isn’t too cheap enough to produce one) too. Disc rot is an issue, disc scratches are an issues with DVDs, not so much with blu rays. If we were only paying for a license and not the delivery mechanism, then do I still have the ability to play games which I’ve lost the disc for over the years? Do I still have the license to use? Does Capcom owe me a copy Mega Man X4 since I bought the license to use the game when I was 12? It is a bullshit argument imo trying to side step the industry’s real problems with budgeting and trying to be the next Call of Duty.
will the saying is wish in one hand and shit in the other see which fills up faster and yes I know you probably knows this
@MordeaniisChaos
The problem is that game development is very small, but a huge investment. If game developers and publishers marked games at prices that made them a profit at first sale, then they’d have been over $80 by now. This has been pointed out over and over again. The people who are making games are forced to mark their prices at what people will pay, which doesn’t cut it, so they have to make properties last longer (through DLC and expansions) and come up with new monetization schemes (Free-to-Play, Freemium, Project $10). But people bitch and moan about those too, so what are they going to do?
Also, totally not how everything works in existence. The entertainment industry alone points this one out. Production houses and Directors get profits from when you see movies in the theater, when you buy the DvD, when Netflix rents out the movie, when they play it on TV, when someone does an adaptation of it, when merchandizing happens, when someone options a sequel or a spin-off or does a movie similar to it. Record Labels get a cut when you buy a CD, when you buy Merch, when a radio station plays a song on the radio, when someone does a cover of a song, when they put a song into a “best of”, when it’s played at an event, when a song is sampled in another song. All of these are how the rest of the entertainment industry gets a cut over and over and over again.