Opinion: Xbox One and Playstation 4 are Effectively Online-Only Consoles

It's not the consoles themselves, but the broken state of unpatched games.

[WilliamUsher]

Dan Stapleton may have been on the Game Journo Pros, but he makes some good points here. Especially this line:

"Today, a “ship it now and patch it later” attitude from publishers means that a game installed onto an offline console has a high likelihood of arriving in an unacceptably unfinished and buggy state. These never would’ve made it past QA testing five years ago."

Is it possible? Could it be true? With IGN's recent ethics policy going public and an editorial covering a pro-consumer topic... is it possible IGN is turning into one of the good guys?

Who would have thunk it?

IGN, more pro-consumer than Kotaku and Polygon. Truly bizarre but very welcome.

Hopefully the days of the Game Journo Pros are behind us.

[DarkOcelet]

Its funny you say about IGN ethics policy when they didnt mention anything about Unity game breaking bugs but when LPB3 was reviewed, they slammed down the score because of some bugs that were patched early. Yeah, some ethics.

Which remind me, we as a Pharmacists students here in Egypt study Ethics in our first year and how to treat a patient/customer and etc etc etc. But when you actually talk to a pharmacist here, they treat you like a piece of $#!/. Some things never change. Sigh.

[-Foxtrot]

Yeah Unity got a free pass

I think the game is over rated but they even gave Alien Isolation a low score and I mean really low

They even made an article saying “were we too harsh on Unity"

The funny thing is about LBP3 is that it's better then the previous two.

[DarkOcelet]

Alien Isolation was the stupidiest score they ever gave to a game. The game was really awesome. Who ever reviewed it clearly didnt play the same game i did, the nostalgia in the game was amazing. It was really the Alien game we were waiting for. Maybe they will adapt Aliens if they ever make a sequel and hopefully they get it right this time.

[qwerty676]

@DarkOcelet

meh to each their own, I got bored of Alien Isolation pretty quick and it grew stale after awhile, i probably would have given the game a 6.8/10.

and you do realize all reviews are option based right? so why get mad over someone elses opinion aka "review"? if you enjoyed the game thats all that matters.

[Femto]

"Today, a “ship it now and patch it later” attitude from publishers means that a game installed onto an offline console has a high likelihood of arriving in an unacceptably unfinished and buggy state. These never would’ve made it past QA testing five years ago."

^this is pretty important for collectors, you can collect NES,SNES,Genesis, PS1, PS2, original xbox, and even 360/ps3 games and they will work just fine, later down the line when these systems get old and stop getting support, its gonna suck because for example:

someone pops in AC unity in, by the time the system stops being supported or cant go online for whatever reason, AC unity is gonna run like shit, not just AC Unity but most games, every fuckin game nowadays is getting big ass day one patches because they're broken as shit.

meanwhile that same person can pop in a ps2 game, ps1 game or whatever and it will run just fine, no 5gb patch needed.

[Godmars290]

And the thing there is because collectors don't represent the majority of consumers, game companies don't money from them, those companies simply don't care. This is why they're so focused on getting something out, getting the sales, ASAP while not really worrying about quality. Not when they can fix something later - if its sold well enough.

[Femto]

yeah point is, these devs need to stop releasing broken games that need multiple patches.

[rainslacker]

I doubt it would matter with Unity seeing as it's an online based game anyhow. but I get your point.

But the reality is is that most games actually don't release so broken that they are unplayable. They all seem to have patches, but not patching a game often doesn't make it unplayable. Seems most games that have problems, that those problems are centered around online implementation. Those kinds of games aren't really collectible to begin with, unless one is just going for a completion of library thing.

The games that seem to have the biggest problems are the ones that are big releases and are pushed to be released at a certain time of year...the holiday...because publishers are unwilling to delay a game to make sure it works properly because holiday sales are more important to them.

Nowadays, we can't expect one system manufacturer to institute a policy like Nintendo did with the NES that insured that games actually worked because they won't risk having a big release delayed on their system because of the competition. Nowadays, compliance testing is just there to make sure that games don't crash the system and not to make sure the games don't crash themselves.

@God

I actually think that publishers make more off collectors than they do off the average consumer...at least on a per person basis. Collectors buy lots of games, and don't generally resell/trade them. But I can agree they don't come anywhere close to the number of people that will just buy the game no matter if it's broken or not day one.

On a side note, the only reason I buy AC games nowadays is because their collector's editions have some awesome statues, otherwise, i find the games themselves to be a poor long term collectible due to the number of issues they have, and the ease with which they will be found long into the future.

[LonDonE]

THIS 250%!!!!!!!!!
you are bang on the money mate with that one!
It annoys the hell out of me, and what's worse is the gamers of today lap it up and actually defend these companies WTF??? they are so badly conditioned they will accept anything and with a big fat smile!!
When you have been gaming since the beginning of the games industry like me and others it kills us to see this industry go from what it was to this!!!

@Godmars290
And that is why my friend I WILL ALWAYS LOVE NINTENDO!! and support them fully! see nintendo fans are some of the biggest collectors around and nintendo knows this, and still nintendo refuses to rush their game and takes their time always hence why when you fire up a wii u first party game you can take confidence knowing it will have a solid frame rate, be it 30 or 60 and it will more then likely not have a massive game breaking bug!

Granted zelda skyward sword did have a pretty big game breaking bug but 1 or 2 problem games in over 30 years of hits is a pretty awesome record!
Even nintendo nowadays is allowing garbage on their platform, remember when the nintendo seal of quality actually meant something?

I was gob smacked to see the master chief collection have such HUGE full game size patches, WTF is going on? Why couldn't they have just made 2 disks? on for all 4 single players and put the online on a separate disk?
The way they did it was stupid as hell!

Its truely sad to see gaming being raped so bad by corporations and companies who dont care! publishers like ea, ubisoft activision etc are destroying gaming! ms and sony have given them way too much control and its on sony and ms to say "NOPE this game is broken FIX IT NOW or no release" but they wont have the balls to do this

[hkgamer]

i would exclude 360/ps3 from that list. many games had day1 patches.

its sad for collectors. but i believe when ms and sony stop patching older games for god knows what reasons. it is time to hack the system and apply patches manually. there will always be communities for that.

i also beleive that patches are some kind of drm control.

[SegaGamer]

Spot on Femto, spot on.

[NewMonday]

@WilliamUsher

you guys need to focus on the big money publicity reviews like unity got, this is where the GJP get there big funding that corrupted the games media in the first place.

and make a Metacritic alternative free of IGN/GS/Polygon and other websites influenced by money.

on my twitter feed all you guys talk about are Anita and McIntosh 24/7, if this keeps up general gamers will lose interest and GG will be nothing but a sideshow propped up by right-wingers looking for a platform, becoming exactly what the SJW claim you are.

[WilliamUsher]

Check my feed, mate. I couldn't give two rat pellets about McIntosh or Sarkeesian. A lot of people -- especially on 8chan and KiA -- are focusing on ethics reform.

If some people want to touch the poop and take the bait from the LWs, then that's their business. But we have the FTC and the FBI cracking down on the corrupt outlets and nefarious individuals. Also, get informed, GG is mostly all left-wing. Just Google it up.

[NewMonday]

@WilliamUsher
didn't claim GG is right wing, just that those guys are spamming the feeds, perhaps I need to unfollow a few to clean it up

[Femto]

I used unity as an example because the game was broken as a whole, devs are exploiting patches, there is no way NO WAY that they devs played the games and it magically worked for them without the huge amount of glitches that everyone else got, are they even testing the game at this point? how can you release a game that broken? "oh we'll patch it later" the game received a few patches and its still trash and then they put out a video showing some dlc...like seriously? the game runs horrible but you're over here making expansions for it? FIX IT FIRST. there is no way that the problems with that game slipped unnoticed when they were playing it. that's not how things went back then, and unfortunately it will continue happening, this generation already started out pretty badly.

anyway i agree when it comes to their collector's editions they are really nice, only reason why i got that game was because it got it cheap for $19 and at the time they announced that patch 1.4 was rolling out so i was like "oh perfect timing, i got it cheap AND its getting patched"...nope

[miyamoto]

After the departure of IGN's PlayStation Team its not surprising the pro-Xbox tone the site has now. Dragging the name of PS4 down the low level of Xbox One's always online bs. Pathetic.
MS should learn that this FUD schemes has failed before and will fail again as long as the battle goes.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I don't know I would say online only...but clearly online required. If nothing else this past Christmas holiday proved how reliant both consoles are on online connectivity. It also showed us how both definitely have some baked in forms of DRM even if they claim otherwise.

[No_Limit]

Not only games but things like OS updates are also important so yiu can say online essential is more appropriate but in the case of AC Unity and Driveclub, I do agree that without online updates, gamers are SOL that bought thwm so I am glad Online plays a big role of helping them at least have a chance to improve.

[poor_cus_of_games]

The xbox one definitely is. When live was down over Xmas I couldn't play any of my physical games offline.

[Moldiver]

If thats the case, How come I was able to play COD online, while downloading forza on XMAS day. I got My XB1 on Xmas day (bought PS4 at launch), So you are definitely talking shite, when you describe it as an, online only console that suddenly stops working when XBL has problems. Biggest lie in this thread.

[Jrmy84]

Duh!

[Jrmy84]

Mybad, read that wrong.

[NeoGamer232]

It was obvious that this generation would need online. But, gamers looked at it in denial and this is where we are at today...

25% of all game sales are now digital and being controlled by DRM, 75% of games ship and require an online day one patch, and 50% of gamers were fooled by Sony because 75% of Sony's PS4 games are digitally distributed only and controlled by DRM.

Welcome to 2015 people...

Oh, and just so you are aware, by 2020 you will probably not be able to buy retail games anymore. So much for your little revolt against MS. DRM is here to stay and online is a requirement... Console gamers are moving to the Steam model. Deny and disagree all you want...

[Kivespussi]

If this means prices of Steam too, count me in!

But seriously though, you're right. Consoles need internet. Look at Xbox one, you can't use the thing for anything unless you can connect to the internet at least once. On PS4 you can't see your trophies unless you're online. Offline gaming was a huge selling factor of last gen consoles along with not having to worry about updates to be able to play the game. Consoles are becoming very much like PCs unfortunately because now there just isn't many reasons to buy one over PC except for exclusives and simplicity. That's basically it, really.

Edit: Actually, with GOG around, I think PC is becoming less controlled by DRM, exactly the opposite of what they were 2 years ago when you had to be connected at all times (you can launch Steam in offline mode but that has it's restrictions too... Like not being able to play games that haven't got the latest patch, etc.) to play anything.

[guyman]

"50% of gamers (WTF?)were fooled by Sony because 75% (biggest load of crap i've ever read) of Sony's PS4 games are digitally distributed only and controlled by DRM"

LMAO. Wow, talk about pulling statistics out of your a@@ to satisfy your bias! and of course, it's only Sony that's in the wrong. All other competition using DRm in some way or form is a negligible point /s

[NeoGamer232]

So, all the indie games that are the basis of their exclusives are not DRM controlled? And yes, 75% of the exclusive games on PS4 are Indie games are they not?

[DigitalRaptor]

"So, all the indie games that are the basis of their exclusives are not DRM controlled?"

In the same way ALL digital titles on PS3 were DRM controlled? How stupid do you think we are?

The blatant difference you are trying to make negligible, is that Microsoft wanted to remove you consumer rights by applying DRM to PHYSICAL discs, so that you had no choice either way. They wanted to control the way in which you sold back your games.

A huge chunk of the market are still choosing to buy retail discs and doing what they want with them after the point of sale. Games that were going to be digital only would never have had this issue because you know what you're getting when buying a digital license.

Yet again, an apologist is defending physical DRM, acting like if we all bent over, we'd be better off for it. The stupidity is real.
------

"And yes, 75% of the exclusive games on PS4 are Indie games are they not?"

Go and count them, then come back with confirmed figures.

[ziggurcat]

PS4 is not even close to being an online-only system... what in the world is the author smoking??

[Torque_CS_Lewith]

Not Sony's bong, unlike you. Read the article. Heck read the summary!

[isarai]

If you take a step back out of the Ubi-bubble for a sec and look at everything released, in actuality there were only a few games with botched launches and the majority are from Ubisoft. In total There's really only like 5 maybe 6 games with bad pre-patch releases meanwhile Destiny, FFXIV, 2 CoDs, killzone, about 5 F2P games, and Diablo 3 have all launched fine besides the standard initial staggering all online games get when they get their first wave players in. Not to mention the dozens of SP game that released in perfect working order like Shadows of Mordor, Evil Within, etc

[hkgamer]

the age of offline consoels is definitely over.
but in real honesty most products made today have online features.
every smartphone released is pointless if you never connect it online.

obviouslt it would be best if we could buy a game that works fully off the shelve, but pc has been patching games for over 10 years.
if you dont have internet in this day and age then i guess gaming is probably not something you should be interested in.

[Mrtemper]

And this is why MS charged 10 G's for patches and or recertification.

[lonelyplayer]

I was able to play my ps4 games offline on the holidays.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

Ummmmm noooope.

Sorry but a man frequently disconnects his PS4 when he's looking to do a long run in a cinematic game. Unless you're playing Destiny you don't need online to enjoy single player.