InquisitSean – Would Microsoft have been better off with the original “always online” Xbox One?

Did the backlash to Microsoft’s always online vision and subsequent U-turn cost them this generation? Sean attempts to answer the question.

[PhoenixUp]

God no

Discussion over

[ApocalypseShadow]

Yup. Very true.

Always connected?24 hour check ins?Camera spying for advertisers? Won't work without Kinect? Trade in games at *Authorized* dealers?

I don't think Microsoft sitting on the sideline as a third party publisher next gen because of those ridiculous policies would be considered "better off." It would have killed the Xbox brand this gen.

It's like asking if NBA legend Magic Johnson would have been better off with AIDS instead of being diagnosed as being HIV positive./s

[Godmars290]

"I don't think Microsoft sitting on the sideline as a third party publisher"

Aren't they pretty much doing that now? If anything when they were always online they at least announced some games.

That they're games that came out to lukewarm reception and sales or have yet to come out years later is besides the point.

[nix]

i remember seeing the PS4 vs Xbox One graph site which asked how many of you would buy one of those. it was almost 15 to 75. i think MS saw that and immediately changed their mind.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Absolutely.

Dear God there is no reason for such a stupid feature to even be discussed as an option I don't even understand the point in forcing the consumer to do something.

Is there a reason why nobody even wants to discuss why it's not optional?

Somebody wants to play their damn games digital they have the option to right now I'm still not understanding the benefit to the consumer by having less options.

Games already released with multiple versions anyway they easily could have had a version that still had the disc as a download feature where after the install the disc was completely useless but clearly you could have just simply specifically purchased a version that specified that.

Nothing stopping a consumer from purchasing the one time use install only disc version

Just like No One stopping anyone from buying the disc version in which the disc must always be inside of the system to play but the disc could also be traded in sold after the fact just like we have right now.

So I've noticed the only idiots who keep desperately trying to fight for this stupid feature are also the ones that have very little explanation of why we should be forced one feature as opposed to multiple options.

Microsoft only wanted this feature for one reason.

Market control, it had nothing to do with options.

[rainslacker]

I was thinking about this the other day about having both options related to physical purchase.

Then I thought to myself that the movie industry seems to have already solved this to some degree with their Ultraviolet digital downloads they include in many new movies.

While not exactly a direct corrolary due to the UV version being of lesser quality than a BR version, certainly MS could have come up with a way to manage that same thing with games.

However, in terms of having multiple releases to serve both, I can't see that working too well. Only way I can see it working is if there were some sort of barcode physically attached to the disc which identified that it may not be useable once used. Having two separate physical releases is the only way to do it the way you describe, and that is actually going in the opposite direction of what the publishers are trying to achieve.

@Shaggy

The games share thing I was always dubious about. It came in at the last minute, and seemed like a last ditch effort to sell their vision. There were no real details, and looking at it historically, I can't see that they could have ever gotten publishers to be on board with that. Sony did pretty much the same thing with 5 friends on the PS3, with very few restrictions, and they were forced to change it to two within a few years time.

MS either would have had the same thing happen to them, or there would be serious restrictions on how it would work to not make it as attractive as one might hope. Even with share play on PS4 right now, there is a time limit which makes it impractical for full gaming sessions which are beneficial to a single person.

I could see the 10 friends thing being abused to high heaven, which only hurts the publishers, and isn't what they want. It would only be benficial for MS to sell systems, but ultimately, overall software sales would likely decline big time.

If you're asking why publishers would agree to this, I'd say they wouldn't. The second hand market only affects long term sales of the game, not typically the initial first month or two of a game. Allowing 10 people to play a single purchase would hurt them a lot more than used game sales would. It's unknown if the resale of physical games being mediated and profitted on would make up for the loss of sale on a new game that came from a single person sharing with even a single friend, much less 10 of them. My guess is it wouldn't, and Sony already has a history here to see if it's something publishers wanted.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@Shag- " Microsoft was planning on making it so that you could digitally share games with up to ten friends on your friends list (as long as the originally owner wasn't playing it obviously) I also believe they had plans so that you could multiplay the same game with a smaller group (maybe 2 or 3 friends) "

Oh thats amazing.

Can you tell me why I need to have less options for that to work?

Why are they FORCING 1 option for that to happen?

If you want to share your games, that can only work with digital titles IF YOU WANT TO.

What does that have to do with ELIMINATING ANOTHER DISTRIBUTION METHOD?

" easy, we all know that publishers are loosing sales every time someone buys a second hand game"

Ok, so this has nothing to do with the consumer? Thanks, you proved my point.

In order for a game to be used, it must be bought new in the first place. No evidence has shown that those who bought it used were EVER going to buy it new.

So what happens when this "share" system has people basically not buying games new, just sharing, when do they start stopping that for those amazing "publishers" that um "are loosing sales"?

"And to be fair, this whole thing about 24 hour connection, don't people keep their consoles connected to the internet 24/7 anyway?:"

I don't. I have a business where I have servers for certain clients and many times I must close down my network based on a potential threat and for a few hours or maybe a day or so I don't connect to the internet.

Sorry but why would I want that FORCED?

You give no real answer to how this helps the user, you give no real answer to how it even would make sense for consumers and no explanation of WHY getting rid of another option is even necessary.

[dcbronco]

@EDMIX

Always on has huge potential if you use a little imagination. I don't agree with it being used to prevent used disc, but as a game component it could be huge. Just look to mobile but think on console terms.

You could have daily events and quest. Say, a unique weapon is hidden in Tamriel. Everyone searches within their SP game and once found the NPC players start talking about that powerful staff EDMIX found in Whiterun. Which sets off the ability for others to invade your game to steal it. Which is why you own as many properties as possible. It adds a lot of other potential things I won't go into.

Look at a game like GTA. Where you have clubs that play a set of comedian performances you could now have live performances by many comedians exclusive to each console. You could have live music or talent contest with real people. MoCap is getting really good real time.

It could be used(don't whine) as an advertisement platform for a show or artist coming to town. Which could finance getting the cost of online for consoles back to free or at least lower. Music companies could introduce new artists. Comedians test new material by doing short sets at clubs. Anonymously on GTA would be a far better place. Always on is teh future. Of the cloud.

@Rain

Sharing games was on Steam for a long time. It's actually on Xbox now. They introduced it very low key.

https://m.youtube.com/watch...

[Godmars290]

@dcbronco:
The thing was, first and foremost, MS planned using always online as a means for information gathering for advertisers. That's why Kinect was literally attached to the console. Its also why Kinect shriveled up and died after always online stopped being a thing.

[dcbronco]

Ok, Mars. Let's say that was the point. Easily spoiled with a cover. Also still possible on 100s of millions of phones, laptops and PCs. But that doesn't eliminate the many incredible things it could have brought as a gaming tool.

Also simply adding full experience cloud ability and enhancements like I mentioned IF you had it always on would have made many leave it on. Developers could have made some tasty lemonade out of those lemons. Plus if Microsoft had a PR department worth a damn they would have been fine.

[Godmars290]

@dcbronco:
Again, the point is that any value Kinect might have had as a gaming device, by example of many of the games for it, were given secondary priority to its potential for earning passive revenue for MS. Likewise cloud servers were more for holding all the farmed data coming.

If the Xbox brand had games, had more than just online multi aimed as exploiting the gaming community, it wouldn't need "good' PR behind it.

[andrewsquall]

Not even that, they pretty much weren't even ready for the OFFLINE version of the console.

Game streaming, game trials, Games With Gold, large F2P games (that are out of their control, f2p Killer Instinct was released because they could control the size of that games and its updates). All of these things had to be drip fed onto Xbox Live over the course of 2014, all of these things launched day one on PS4.
The one thing Xbox Live got at launch was finally large players capability in a AAA game like Battlefield 4 but another thing PS3 was doing 5 years previously. The other thing was launching AAA retail games the same day on its digital store, another basic PS3 thing since 2012.

Incidentally when Xbox Live finally had all these things for the very first time in place (basic features that PS3 had for years), going into Xmas 2014, Xbox Live went down.....a lot. And when they DID finally get all this stuff ready, PSN got Game Sharing, rocketing PSN yet again YEARS ahead of what Xbox Live is capable of.

Imagine what Xbone's launch would have been like if it required you to be online and basic things like game streaming were delayed lol. It would have sold abysmally less units.

[Software_Lover]

What????????

[SirBradders]

I'm a playstation fan at heart but damn you talking out your ass boy.

[rainslacker]

MS probably would have been.

But it's the consumers I'd ask this question of.

Would they have been better off?

Common consensus seems to be that they wouldn't have been.

At the very least it wasn't something that the consumer seemed to have wanted. Particularly at the time. Now we see some people saying it would have been great, but nowhere near enough to think that it was something that the majority wanted.

While I'm all for allowing companies to try new things, experiment, see what works, forge new paradigms or business models, what ultimately matters is what the consumer wants, and if said offering is beneficial to the consumer.

MS would have been fine if their new things, outside the connection requirement(which they're getting in other ways now), were not applied to the physical stuff. They could have been seen as pioneers in digital buying rights and have been given credit as being the first company to systematically give consumers benefit to their digital purchases....something that other companies are experimenting with now. In the end, they just ended up looking like what they are, a company which only looks out for it's own interest, and the consumer be damned.

Then there was Kinect spying on people to charge more for movie rentals....something no other form of media does. Sounds great for the consumer right? Maybe something there for having first run movies still in theaters in the home, but not for general streaming purposes.

Or collecting data to target ads. Sounds awesome for MS, but people are getting tired of the constant barrage of advertising in their daily lives. Can't believe MS actually used this as a bullet point in their reveal. Can't imagine how deluded their marketing department or board members are to think that people would think that was a good thing. I know these things exist everywhere now, but we don't see Google touting it as a major positive for their search engine.

Staying connected....yeah, great idea in a modern world where internet is flaky for many people. While many may be fine with it, there was no need for it outside of DRM purposes, and the consoles have been managing that kind of DRM fine without a check in.

MS didn't get what they wanted, they took their toys and went home, and dropped the ball on being an innovator.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

God no if they did that it's like Reiner betraying survey corps. That would be messed up.

[ziggurcat]

No.

[CyberSentinel]

The lack of quality exclusives, still would of limited Xbox One's success.

[Bigpappy]

No it wouldn't. The exclusive narrative is nonsense. M$ had never had more exclusives than Sony. They both were lacking exclusives at the start of the Gen in 2013. The lack of power compared to PS4 and the perception that they were trying to push DMR are the to things that pushed many of their fanbase over to Sony. Price had a little effect, but that was not the deal breaker. Lack of power was the main factor. When Sony went with 8Gig of DDR5 and the mush fasted band width, that is what started the superior console buzz. Their early exclusive sold like crap.

[CyberSentinel]

I disagree, the performance gap between Xbox One and PS4 isn't that wide. Look at Nintendo consoles. What sells so many Nintendo consoles every generation? It certainly isn't the system specs. It's the exclusives. M$ bought their three biggest franchises, (minecraft,halo,gears) they didn't create them. M$ always plays it safe, and safe will eventually place them in last place.

[Bigpappy]

Nintendo does sell well every gen. Did you already forget about the wii-u and Game cube. The Switch is selling so well because it is a very smartly designed console. It appeals to several demographics. It works for console gamers and casuals who always dreamed about taking their games on the road with them; It works for hand held users who like the idea of having console like power and games on their handheld. I am not a hater of exclusive, especially games like Zelda and Horizon, but you guys at as if as long as you release a Zelda game, millions of people are going to run out and buy whichever Nintendo is available. That is not true. The console itself needs to be appealing.

[Phill-Spencer]

Bigpappy but selling 25 million wii u with barely any third party support shows that exclusives do matter. Same will be the case with switch because of its limited specs in comparison to x1 and ps4.

Even if the exclusive games would only caused 10-20million console, it's still a lot. I bet ms would be happy if there noexclusivebox one would have sold 10-20 million unit more.

I know, i made up this number but you guys who JUST THIS GEN have been decepted into thinking that exclusives don't and dismiss the importance of exclusive will soon have a hard awakening.

[Phill-Spencer]

"M$ always plays it safe, and safe will eventually place them in last place."

That's what they rightfully deserve. And i'm glad that so many gamers didn't buy x1 and therefore didn't support ms' halfar$ed commitment to the console market

[LightofDarkness]

"M$ bought their three biggest franchises, (minecraft,halo,gears) they didn't create them."

So did Sony: Guerrilla Games, Naughty Dog, Psygnosis, Evolution Studios, Media Molecule, Sucker Punch, Bend; all of these existed either independently or under different ownership until Sony bought them.Sony bought their way into gaming just as much as MS did, they just did it before you gave a crap. Heck, Sony Santa Monica basically thrives on third party developer "partnerships." They're one of the few homegrown studios they have, and their only contributions till now have been God of War and some puzzle game I can't remember. Even MS has MGS who function similarly.

The point is not to criticise Sony here, but at least be consistent with your logic if you're going to cite this as a reason for MS's failings of late. Sony do the same, they just made wiser investments.

[Razzer]

He said franchises, not studios.

[Razzer]

Price was the number one factor, imo. That $100 gap at launch along with the worst marketing strategy ever crippled X1 right off the bat.

[Z501]

"They were both lacking exclusives at the start of the Gen in 2013"
"They"...???

You forgot to factor in the PS3 ALSO existed in 2013. Along with, The Last of Us, Ni No Kuni, Dragon's Crown, Beyond Two Souls, etc.

TL;DR
'Sony just hit us with all these PS3 games, and they're releasing a next gen console in the same year, AND it's a $100 cheaper' SOLD!

[spicelicka]

Lack of power was never a factor. That's the argument fanboys like to use to undermine an opposing console. At launch Ryse was the best looking game, there was no discerning difference in power. The main reason was the stupid decision to bundle kinect with it, which made the console $100 more than the PS4. This gave the console a bad start. No one walked into a store thinking "oh the PS4 looks so much more powerful", it was a matter of paying $399 vs $499, simple as that.

"8Gig of DDR5 and the mush fasted band width" that's just impractical bullshit, none of that is noticeable visually. It's all about how developers optimize the graphics. Battlefield 1 looks spectacular and just the XB1 version looks better than anything on PS4 during launch. What the suggests is that graphics and performance is always improving, Now take any game of Wii U from launch till now, you won't find anything matching XB1/PS4 launch games regardless of improvements simply because that console is NOTICEABLY weaker.

As far as the power is concerned, it's true the PS4 has slightly better capabilities but Xbox has been consistently cheaper by at least $50 since kinect was removed. People need to let go of that "power" argument because the cheaper price justifies it, after all Wii U was accepted for having significantly weaker hardware at a lower price.

[Dragonscale]

@big, still downplaying exclusives lol. So having great exclusives has nothing to do with PS4 success? Lmao.

[rainslacker]

I think it's always a combination of a lot of things which determine a console's sales, and the comparisons between them is also true.

At the start of this gen, it seemed more like Sony did everything right, and delivered pretty much something the developers and the consumers wanted at an attractive price. MS did everything wrong, and delivered an acceptable console solution to developers and consumers, at a larger price.

The exclusives thing at the start of the gen may not have been a big factor in terms of offerings, but Sony itself had spent enough time cultivating this notion that they would deliver last gen, whereas MS tappered off and started having the stigma of only having one big game a year. The lack of overall exclusives at the start of the gen was also curtailed on Sony's side, because they had things like DriveClub which looked great, and The Order, which looked great, comapred to MS which at the time had really only shown off Quantum Break, and teased a Halo game. GeOW was up in the air at that time due to Epic not wanting to make one, and MS not having brought the IP yet. Forza was predictable, and Fable was going in a direction which likely wasn't all that appealing to Fable fans who just wanted another Fable game.

OTOH, we knew Sony as coming with UC4. GOW was up in the air. GT had been rumored for a while, and was likely coming. TLOU Remaster was obviously a big deal to some degree. Quite a few 3rd party exclusives were rumored or announced.

Sony just started off stronger for long term expectations than MS did. Sony had games to show, such as some were, whereas MS had a few decent looking games to show, with nothing more than some promise that they had one billion dollars tied up in game development.

Looking beyond that, MS hasn't shown much of that one billion dollar investment, Sony is still showing off games. MS beyond what is already known only promises they have signed some stuff we may see in the next 2-3 years. Things are repeating themselves here, except Sony has a nice steady supply of exclusive support coming almost monthly for the next two years along with all the multi-plats.

It's not hard to figure out why Sony was more successful at the start, nor is it hard to see why they are more successful now. Power and price certainly played it's part at the start, and even now on the power side(until X1X releases at least when price may take over again as MS is actually cheaper on the X1S side but just not enough to overcome PS4). But outside those two factors, games are the only really differentiating factor outside some services or features which may be important to smaller groups within the community.

Because of this, if MS doesn't change this perception of no games(which I feel I described well enough as a perception and not a reality), then I don't see them changing anything.

[SirBradders]

It wasn't so much the power difference but the price being higher for an Xbox bundled with mandatory kinect.

Fast forward 6 months they doe over their fan Base, dropped support for kinect and lowered the price. Now it's less important about price because there is no disparity in price vs power gap.

[Eonjay]

Nothing you said even compares to how they would have got beat if they keep up their initial policy. The used game thing by itself was bad enough. The Kinect policy was even worse and it caused a higher price for something nearly everyone didn't care about.

[zb1ftw777]

I love my xbox, but no, they would not have.

I love Canadians also, but they have no idea how to create consumer friendly entertainment technology.

MS mistake was to put their hands in a Canadian leader.

[Goldby]

just a heads up.
Its a Canadian company that is making the ALL Controller.
We created the Telephone, the pager and blackberry
Ever heard of the Canadarm?
Also, Imax, yeah thats canadian.
Walkie talkies also canadian.
Instant replay, you can thank us for that
Computer track balls as well.

So maybe do some research before saying we havent brought anything to the table.

[zb1ftw777]

Of all the western countries in the last 100 years, Canada is nearly in last place with the number of inventions.

Socialism is awful for a system that innovates technology.

Awful.

[Goldby]

Not going to complain there.

We may invent it but unfortjnelty its other countries that know how to properly implement it

[SgtSlaughter212]

In what way did Canada "create" the telephone?

[Goldby]

Alexander graham bell was a Canadian citizen when he invented the telephone

[ninsigma]

No. Pre-orders were pretty low after the announcement. It was after the changes that the numbers picked up.

[chris235]

personally i do think that their original plan would have been a huge step forward. that is, if you wanted a piece of tech that just so happens to also being able to play games. if they backed up their original xbone idea with stellar first party games they would have gotten away with it. but that's what you get when you are competing in a market without knowing the market very well. else they would have thought of the most important asset a console can have.

[rainslacker]

I think if they changed it up a bit so the DRM was only attached to the digital stuff, and found a good way to work out the friend share thing, that they probably could have done something great and moved things forward on the digital front, as there are things which keep people away.

But the second they tried to control people's physical purchases it wasn't going to work. The always online thing wouldn't have worked, and if they had kept it, it probably would have kept people away that simply couldn't or didn't want that restriction. A 24 hour check in may have been OK, but hardly necessary for digital purchases, so ultimately, if they removed the physical, it likely wouldn't have mattered, but for digital, it wouldn't have mattered either as most people who are digital only would likely not have much problem with that.....at least not most of the time when their internet is working.

MS was taking one step forward, but also took several steps back, and in this case seemed to change staircases from the one going to the consumers room, to the one going to the publishers/their own room.

It backfired on them in a big way, and their complete incompetence in explaining it despite how easy it was to understand, and their seemingly inept ability to address the consumers concerns in favor of acting as if one should just accept it for what it was going to be ruined any vision they had.

Now of course, they're doing it the way that I always knew it would come to pass. Move more games to GaaS and make online connections obligatory in the games themselves. But at least with that, the consumer can decide on an individual games level if it's important to them, and not be turned away from the system at large because one company, or a conglomerate of publishers decides they want to move things in a certain direction.

Funny thing is, if the entire industry just got on board and decided this was the way it was going to be, they'd get what they want. But the publishers know they'd lose too much money right now from physical sales, and they aren't willing to take the risk. On top of that, since this will likely be a huge thing that can be used to entice customers for a long time(see Sony saying no restrictions), it's likely that outside of some back room likely illegal market manipulation agreements, that it'll not come to pass for the next 2-3 generations. Maybe one day, but we're good for a while.

[Silly gameAr]

I think Don was actually better than Phil. Don bought the games in 360's hay day. People like to crap on Don, but he made xbox 360 enticing in those early days.

[andrewsquall]

@Silly gameAr Xbox 360 was one of the most easily avoidable console for me ever, that also apparently was very popular for some bizarre reason.
Since the start of this gen I have said I would EASILY buy an Xbone over an Xbox 360 anyway and even then there is still no reason for me to do that but it is definitely not as easily avoidable as 360 was.

20 quid for a play and charge kit, 90 quid for a wireless network adapter, 50 quid for 12 months of Xbox Live. These are the 3 items that 95% of people that bought an Xbox 360 from me when I worked in Gamestop. You didn't even have to attempt the upsell, they were ESSENTIAL things that everybody NEEDED and Microsoft know that.
And the funniest thing is a console that is 450 quid plus all those things = 610 quid i.e. the price of a PS3 at launch lol.
Lets not leave out the fact that 180 quid for a 120gb hard drive was a pure ripoff especially compared to the 500gb hard drive I put in my PS3 at the same point in time.
Proprietary hard drives weren't the only thing, headsets were locked down too back at a time when PS3 could even use your USB Socom headset or any USB headset for that matter.
Then there is the matter of all the horrible stuff of Live like not letting you even play a demo with your Silver account for 7 days after its out or FORCING you to pay a sub to use Youtube, Netlfix and, get this lol, INTERNET EXPLORER in 2012 haha.

Xbone is a better console than Xbox 360 in just about every single way. In fact, some of the best things about Xbone are all the things PS3 could do last gen. And some of the worse things about PS4 are the things it adopts that 360 did (like not being able to store video files on its hard drive and other basic things like that).

To sum up, there was NOTHING enticing about the 360 back in the day (at least for us who could see all the massive, glaring, in your face, problems) and the elephant in the room, RROD, did not help it either.
I'm still baffled to this day how so many people refer to Xbox 360 as "the good ol' days of Xbox" when everything only got better the day after the worse games console reveal in history.

[Silly gameAr]

@andrewsquall

Yeah, that's all true The 360 did have it's share of problems and multiple addons, but it had some games that I couldn't mess out on.Gears of War was my favorite series on xbox last gen, easily.

[rainslacker]

It's easy to look at things in retrospect and realize what he did for Xbox. It's easy enough to sit in the here and now and say that someone isn't doing something as well. Mattrick has the advantage right now because we know his past, and we can look at it on the larger perspective. With Phil, we only have the here and now, so time will tell how he will be thought of.

But with Mattrick, he did bring games. The last 2-3 years of 360, the vision changed to the casual front, but during that time, Mattrick brought in new customers with that Kinect focus. It was at the expense of more hard core games, but at least games were coming.

And that's the difference between Mattrick and Spencer. Mattrick, we knew his vision. He could express it, and sell it.

Phil, who can say what his vision is? It's not more games. He promises more games, but almost three years in, and we just have cancelled games, a couple mid-tier titles, the standard trio of expected games releasing or likely being worked on, and some promises that we'll see something in a couple years. Kind of like that promise that they had one billion dollars tied up in new game development....which should have something to show for it by now.

Phils vision, if it is indeed his, seems to be all over the place. Saying that more games are coming. More power. A shift in focus from game publisher to console provider. a shift from Xbox as a console to Windows as a platform. GaaS being more "impactful" which is exemplified by SoT and CD3. Seemingly no long term plans for Xbox as a whole outside the platform focus shift from console to Windows/Live(MAU). No vision on what he'll do to grow the brand as a whole on the games/console level. The seemingly desperate addition of features to try and stay relevant in the news while their closest competitor keeps turning out games, and the constant jabs at the competition to try and seem more important in the grander scheme of things. And the list goes on.

Phil isn't growing the Xbox platform, he's a PR mouth piece to grow the Windows/Live platform, and while that may not be his vision, but rather MS vision, it's what is happening, and nothing Phil is saying is hiding that, nor will he just express a real vision for Xbox going forward. One can't spend over a year claiming more power and hope to grow the brand. Power is fleeting and temporary when it comes to computers. What may work now, won't remain relevant for long, and while there are those who go on about power in the fan boy wars, I thought people learned long ago that power wasn't the most important aspect. MS is playing in the 32 vs 64 bit era, whereas the competition is playing in the era of it's the games that matter.....which is what we saw when the PS2 was considered the golden age of gaming, and it feels like it's coming back to that with the PS4, and possibly even the Switch.

[Phill-Spencer]

No they wouldn't have been better off, the would be even more irelevant than they are now.
And btw i don't think the doing much worse than last gen. This gen they hadn't had the headstart and the built in sales inflator mode the x360 had aka rrod. These things created the illusion that the xbox brand was more important than it were in reality.

[strayanalog]

It no doubt cost them Gen 8, as no one likes to be peed on and told it's just raining. But, truth be told, a lot of what that machine stood for is more common now, i.e. people streaming media and a lot of the big titles (For Honor, Overwatch, etc) can't be played offline, as the author points out.
In the end, I definitely would have had more respect for them if they had stuck to their principles instead of doing that lying "we can't just turn off DRM" U-turn.
Would the Xbox One had a harder sell? You bet it would. Would I have bought an always online console? Hell no. But at least I would have a better understanding of who they are and know they care enough about their own vision of gaming to be different.

[andrewsquall]

For Honor was a disaster at launch and also its first 3 weeks on the market with constant online problems and that was also when most players stop playing too. Please don't use that as a "good" example. Its also an online only game first with a tacked on lazy campaign. For Honor isn't exacly an Elder Scrolls game with always online, its a simple combat game only.
Overwatch is basically an online only first person shooter too. They existed before this gen you know.

Going by For Honor alone, THERE is your vision of gaming with an unnecessary online only game that didn't help it whatsoever or drive the industry forward.

[strayanalog]

I understand that, andrewsquall, but before you start stomping on my face for no reason I was talking about how this "always online" would have made them different than their competitors. I'm not condoning or condemning. I'm talking about individuality. Pushing the industry forward is an entirely different conversation.

[Godmars290]

The issue was would consumers be better off with an always online Xbox.

[rainslacker]

The media likes to ignore the consumer side of things to try and make arguments like this.

But realistically, since it obviously was at least not something the consumers wanted, we can answer the question from that point of view. In this case, it'd be that MS likely wouldn't have been better off. Their sales would have suffered, and while they may have done something different, and achieved some level of metric worthy statistics, ultimately, it would have hurt the brand because the consumers wouldn't have brought in, and it's arguable if it would have been advantageous enough to make people accept it over the long haul.

In some ways, I wish MS had gone through with it so the market could be gauged. While I like to postulate that such things would be the death knell of any console, it's hard to say that with 100% assurance without some way to measure the results. My only fear would be they were actually successful, and it'd become a norm. OTOH, even if they did go through with it, the results would be tainted, because how do you judge it based on one player making it a thing, as the market shifts all the time, and there is no way to tell if it'd be accepted or good across the baord.

[emty]

Quite possibly true. Certainly not something anyone that visits N4G would understand.

[Razzer]

"Anyone that visits N4G" would include you.

[Relientk77]

No lol

[Gwynbleidd]

I would have liked that version of Xbox with family sharing, no disc required to play, 100% cloud-compute adaption hence more dev support, 100% Kinect adaption hence more dev support... I mean who would have been hurt to check into the internet every 24 hours to play without disc and insert a disc if it would have been more than 24 h. And we would have been able to trade in digital games! MS hat great plans and Xbox Ones potential has been better before they had to overhaul the whole OS and change so many things.

[holtzy]

no

[_LarZen_]

Looking at where Microsoft is today the answer for that today is pretty clear a resounding yes.

Games today are more like services where you have to be online anyways. So Microsoft's vision for heavy Kinect integration and always online would difference them much more and in a more positive light then today. Especially since they obviously have little interest in investing heavy in first party studios and exclusive games.

So yeah Microsoft and Xbox would defiantly be better off not listening to fanboys going crazy in social media.

[B1uBurneR]

No. Absolutely not.

[CloudStrife900]

Absolutely not. Microsoft made so many bad choices with the Xbox One to start with. Pitching it as an all-in-one entertainment system to try to appeal to as many people as possible, and the rubbish surrounding always online and anti-game sharing was a big bump in the road. Thankfully they turned it around. I dare to think what state the brand would have been in if they hadn't.

[Derceto]

What kind of stupid question is this? You see how crappy the Xbox is doing? It's fully due to the aftermath of this moronic push for "always online".

No, they would not have been better off.

[Max-Zorin]

No. And they would be better off, without Phil Spencer and Aaron Greenburg.

[StarElite]

And Major Nelson. Honestly team Xbox needs some some fresh blood because the current team isn't doing jack, to boosts peoples confidence in the brand.

[Gamist2dot0]

Well now that Phil Harrison is gone, I can only hope the Xbox division to turn around. The PS3 did poorly when he was with Sony, then he moved to Xbox and look what happened.... Either that or luck wasn't on his side.

[dcbronco]

Yup.

[Grown Folks Talk]

As far as sales go, likely not. At least initially. As far as features go, yes. They'd be much further ahead in many areas. Digital trades, family share, more cloud based features, ect.