Teamxbox - One thing came to mind when I saw the new dashboard last week - "Is it time Microsoft gave gamers a break?". Xbox Live is a fantastic service, and as a games journalist and "hardcore" gamer I use it on a daily basis but as the days fall off the calendar I wonder if Microsoft's business model for their online service is stuck in the past. Are the guys in Redmond looking back, rather than forward?
The Xbox brand has done a lot of good over the years, but their various blunders are pretty wild to look back on in their magnitude.
Microsoft recently revealed its plans to incorporate Copilot directly into video games, with Minecraft being the first showcased example.
F*** AI
"Hey Copilot, what's a good meme to prove I dislike AI".... https://giphy.com/clips/sou...
Two trillion dollar company that just can't wait to put as many people possible out of work as fast as possible.
It feels like every single thing they do is making gaming worse and destroying the industry.
Why all the hate? Im actually excited about this! Always wanted this kind of immersion, and an AI companion with me all the time helping me out knowing the status of my skills/inventory/progress and giving me tips on the best approach or how to craft something specific is game changing for the industry.
Hate all you want about AI, but this is just the start and I can see the potential already. You wont be complaining in the next 5-10 years about this, but rather complain if a game hasn’t implemented it.
Microsoft's Activision subsidiary announced today that it is opening a new game development studio to take advantage of the huge talent pool growing in Poland. It'll be the second Activision studio based in the region, joining Infinity Ward Krakow, although this studio is, in fact, not working on Call of Duty.
Is it open mic night here on N4G?
Oh you're being serious.
SMH
MS is not in the business of giving breaks, they never have been. They are about making money and only making money. They want paid for "everything". That is why they charge for their online services, everything has to pass certification (fees for most) and nearly everything on their console is proprietary (license fees). They want paid.
Edit: Disagree away but tell me why or how you think I'm wrong. I would be very interested to hear your, or anyone's, opinion on this.
If you can not afford $3 a month then you picked up the wrong hobby.
Also if you are crying about Live fees then you always have the option to buy a PS3 which has free PSN and according to N4G users has the same or better experiance than Live.
People have the choice on what to spend their hard earned money on and the fact that they choose to spend it on Live shows that 90% of gamers do not care about paying $3 a month becuase they experiance it provides justifies it.
Edit @ Rezzah: Thats my point - why cry about paying for something when you have the option to choose. MS is not holding a gun to his head and forcing him to pay for LIVE.
By now millions of people should know that PSN is free but they still continue to pay for Live....why is that?
Edit 2 @ Jobesy: Stop being ignorant becuase you what I mean. When you plan on buying something you either have the cash upfront or you budget for it.
Edit 3 $ Rezzah: My bad I meant to say 90% of Xbox gamers - the other 10% are people like the author of this article who owns a 360 but finds it hard to pay for Live.
Never have paid for live and never will.
My best experiences with the xbox are when 8 are linked together to play halo LAN with friends in the same room. Great times.
As for online gaming I go for my pc and ps3. It's not that I can't afford to pay a subscription, its because I can't be bothered when you can get essentially the same experiences for free.
I pay over $100 a month for cable... $100 A MONTH. I still get commercials. LOTS of them. Often times they are totally irrelevant to me. Boner pills, anxiety medications, tampons, the list goes on forever. I pay $60 A YEAR for Xbox Live. Most of the ads are relevant to me and, IMO, not intrusive. Nobody makes you click on the ads. Hell, you can set up your Xbox to boot right into a video game if you want to. Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.
I am so tired of all the bitching about the ads on the new blades. Frankly the way they have implemented the ads on the new dash is far superior to the previous dash its not even funny. I get ads on pretty much every service out there, free or not free so I honestly am not too chuffed about this.
It's time to move on folks. Focus on important things like.... games.