Just to clarify before the xbox fans explode – I’m not saying that you are an idiot if you buy the Xbox One, I’m saying that Microsoft treats its customers like idiots and so if that’s your thing then you should support them by being first in line for an Xbox One with a nice side serving of backtracking, broken promises, and PR bullshit.
Believe it or not i actually quite like Microsoft as a company. I am a huge fan of all their Office products, i program in Visual Studio, and I develop processes at work in SharePoint. These are all world class products and when MS talk about them then they keep it simple because the products speak for themselves. “this is SharePoint 2013, we have added these features...” simple.
So why does a company that is based on sensible tech with clear intentions turn into a vague, buzzword spewing, smoke & mirrors, crock of crap when it comes to the Xbox? Why are they patronising me with “rocket science technology”? Do they think that I am going to be impressed by “5 million transistors”? Is that honestly the best thing they could think of to say about the Xbox One or do they just think so little of us that they just don’t give a crap? Seriously 5 million transistors ???
This behaviour is nothing new, it began right around the announcement of “Project Natal” which developed into everyone’s favourite overpriced dust gathering webcam – Kinect. Natal promised us the ability to scan real world objects into games and to engage with sophisticated AI software which would recognise our expressions and emotions. What did we get? A load of awful arm flailing, a couple of abysmal attempts at hardcore games, and then finally Microsoft accepted it was crap and just made it into a microphone for voice controlled features which nobody uses anyway, and would have worked just as well through the regular xbox mic.
Fast forward a few years and here we have the Xbox one being announced under a similar fine mist of bullshit. We are told that the Xbox one hardware is superior to its competitor, when it clearly isn’t. We are told that hardware doesn’t matter anyway, except clearly when it’s 5 million transistors. We are told that Xbox One’s account based policies are the future, but then they aren’t. We are told that Kinect is the future because it can see our heatbeat, I say that that is just plain stupid. We are told the power of the cloud will add around 300% more processing power, I found this insulting enough to write a separate blog on the issues surrounding such a bold claim.
The original Xbox was the hardcore console and I loved it for it. The Xbox brand now makes me cringe, and I mean that literally. From the slimy suits who get up on stage to the patronising corporate drivel that falls out of mouths insulting us as idiots who know nothing about technology. We knew these DRM features were not necessary, we knew they could easily be turned off, we know that a camera that can read your heart rate is going to add NOTHING to 99.9% of video games, and we know that the cloud isn’t going to make a console more powerful than a competitor box with better specs.
I will not support a product that treats me like an idiot, but hey each to their own.
We were expecting problems with mod support, but there are a lot of other issues.
This is why you get the GOG version on gog you can select the version of the game to download.
On pc fallout 4 fallout new vegas and skyrim are all broken on steam because they all got the same "next gen" update.
Skyrim dec 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/sky...
Can not find new vegas but anyone that modded it knows the script extender there was also broken
Not accidental, they want modders to stop modding their older games to force them to mod Shitfield.
There doing the same on starfield with a mods store and blocking mods
There goal is like blizzard and what they did with fallout 76 you make mods they can sell and you become a slave.
On skyrim they have "trusted" mod devs now basically a badge that lets your mod on the store you get a crumb of the sale when someone buys it.
lol to the disagrees, the last Skyrim update broke mods too. They've been trying to kill mods to monetize them in creation club for years, it's not a stretch that they purposely put out patches just to break free mods.
The disagrees are from people who have common sense. They aren't trying to kill mods. Most mods for any game will break with a new update because they rely on files/code that have been changed. This isn't new. Even with Bethesda this would happen way before the creation club. Mod support is literally one of the things that got Bethesda to where they are, and they're one of the only devs that releases comprehensive mod tools for each of their games.
Over 14 GBs and doesn't change much at all? What? Taking up that much drive space for a pathetic 'remastering' is shameful.
Par for Bethesda.
LOL people are actually expecting massive improvements or something? From Bethesda?? the same people who released Skyrim multiple times and the all look like shit? THAT Bethesda? are people for real?
The ps5 version doesn't change a ton but from my small playtime it's enough to make me want to replay it just to have it running at 60.
A side note to this my PS4 version no longer boots after it's "update" so I guess that's what it feels like to own a Bethesda game on PC
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
A voice actor from The Coalition's third-person shooter series, Gears of War, has hinted at a new game announcement coming in June.
Hopefully Microsoft will go back to the original story line and get away from that woke nonsense from the last Gears game Gears of Woke! But were talking about Microsoft so all the betting money is on more of the same woke nonsense.
The Locust trilogy concluded with Gears of War 3. I don’t get how Gears 4 and 5 are “woke” .
Good blog. Yeah, it's not like people who buy Xbox One are idiots, but Microsoft certainly does not have very much respect for its fanbase, especially the core gamers. My choice on Xbox One was decided a long while ago when Microsoft started integrating GFWL in a lot of PC games.
As soon as I saw the XBox One DRM plans, I was like "nope, not gonna be fooled". And yes, I know they rolled back the DRM, but they've tried that stuff TWICE now (thrice if you include Xbox Live, which is a form of DRM) and it's pretty obvious that's their end goal.
5 Billion transistors :p
But yes Microsoft has been stumbling all over the place. No one really argue that. I have all 3 consoles and their mishaps has me leaning to PS4. Shame though, I was a big Xbox fan.
I'm still waiting for clarifications in Sony's camp as well. For the first time since Sega Master System versus Nintendo Entertainment System I'll be watching on the sidelines to see exactly how it all pans out.
Seems to me both camps are trying to sell us a glorified rental system and I don't like it. Goes for both Xbox Live and PSN plus.
Just to clarify.......
You are saying that you are an idiot if you buy the XBone.
Just be a man about it. Or are you just like the N4g submissions? All title.
A product cant "treat you" like an idiot. You buy a product, you like it or you dont.
But how quickly people forget. I guess that's why people live in the now and not the past.
To each his own. Game on.
I think the difference in their marketing strategies between the Xbox and their other software products is that their productivity software isn't being sold to the general masses, outside of the basic Office package of course.
When you look at Office, VS, sharepoint, etc, they are being sold to corporate decision makers, and people who develop on those tools for whatever reason and understand those tools. With these kinds of people it's not usually good to treat them like idiots, because they're not. They can smell PR BS from a mile away, so it's best to keep it simple and explain what the new features are, and how they will affect productivity.
When you look at the Xbox brand, or even Windows, it is a mass consumer product. It has to sell to everyone from young children to dear ol' grandma. It's selling to not what I would call idiots, but the lowest common denominator. Those PR buzzwords work on people like that. Sony does the same thing too, although I will admit they do treat people less like idiots. Sony itself had a few indiscretions with the PS3 in this regard.
The thing I find about most forum goers, and possibly myself to a degree, is that we're really tech minded, although in many cases not technically knowledgeable. Some people see "da cloud" and think it's awesome. Some People see "Kinect can do this" and suddenly everyone who never cared about it thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread. So obviously, this type of marketing PR works. It gets people talking about what they want them to talk about.
I single out MS for those examples, but it's true for Sony and Nintendo as well.
Now, with the X1, MS made some serious errors in how well their PR would go over among the general gaming community. They treated the fairly well informed community like the general masses. We are not that. We could be likened more towards the corporate buyer, or serious software user who is knowledgeable of the product and can, for the most part, cut through the PR BS. And many did just that. Everything backfired on them, and they clung to their ideals for a while, and continued to treat us like idiots because that's what they know to work for the general masses. It may still work when they go full force into marketing it outside the online forums such as this one.
I speak in generalities of course. There are still plenty on here, and other forums, who lap it up without much critical thought.