New Xbox basically kills off used games

[warpus]

I think what Microsoft is trying to do is to create a catch-all device that has a plethora of various uses... a swiss army knife of sorts. I guess the thinking in their heads is that this will translate into more sales.

I'm not convinced either way.. and I also don't like that it's supposed to be "always on". Microsoft, always trying to solve problems that don't exist

 

[sophie]

Cable internet is still popular (I have it) but most companies offer internet only plans, which I have. Sports is still a big draw but MLB has been streaming online for years and it seems all the professional leagues now have their own channel full of their own content that they want to maximize; I am sure if the right opportunity presented itself, the NFL would, for example, love to sign a huge bajillion dollar deal with, say, Apple or Google (or both) to offer them ala carte access to the NFL network, for example.

You still need cable for watching MLB games live in market. MLB.tv still only lets me watch Giants games several hours after the fact (assuming I had a subscription). So there's still that, but again, nothing the internet can't solve (however morally/legally grey it may be)

 

[God of Kings]

Another thing, MLB online will not allow you to watch games featuring your local team. In Canada's case (yes the entire country), one cannot watch the Jays (and another team in some provinces alongside the Jays)!

 

[Zelig]

I don't understand why it matters what the price was in 1993, or at any other time in history.

Because if you weren't outraged about prices in 1993, you certainly shouldn't be outraged about prices now.

Thing is, though, in the UK, a new game was around £40-45 in 1993, and is around £40-45 today, while if they kept up with inflation they would be around £80. What's happening in the UK that the cost of games can reduce almost by half, that isn't happening in Australia?

I don't know that it hasn't happened in Australia? Maybe games in 1993 were $100, I have no idea.

I think it's more for fairly affluent people in their late 20s, 30s and 40s, who have lots of disposable income, who will pay full price for games or are willing to wait a few months until it comes down. These are the people who will be streaming Netflix and flicking back and forth between TV and games and using Kinect to Skype Grandma etc etc. I think this is the segment they're aiming at.

I don't think it's for casual gamers in their early 20s or teens, who don't have much disposable income and thus rely on used games.

They were part-way into development for multimedia xbox system, which would do all the TV things, without the next-gen gaming ability, at a lower price, but apparently canned it.

And inevitably Sony will probably price its PS4 way above what most people will want to pay when they first come out, since this is Sony we are talking about.

My bet is $600 for the PS4 at launch, so just $100 more than the xbox. Xbox probably gets more appeal for low-income people with their monthly payment thing including xbox live.

I really don't see how this will help Microsoft crack the market on online streaming for Netflix, Amazon, etc. That stuff comes with practically everything now. My Bluray has it, my Tivo has it, and if I get a new TV it will probably have it. So what is MS doing to set itself apart from those things? Making it less appealing as a gaming platform? Doesn't make much sense to me.

I have no interest in owning a standalone bluray or tivo, and their interfaces for anything "smart" is pretty much universally atrocious.

Xbox also integrates with PCs, you can stream across network to an xbox using only a PC to control it.

This is also why I don't have any ebook readers and insist on buying old-fashioned paperbacks (either online or at bookstores)--cheaper, and Amazon can't rescind my license to view the material and force me to accept their arbitration, waive my right to sue them, etc.

You can get ebooks not from Amazon.

I'm not convinced either way.. and I also don't like that it's supposed to be "always on". Microsoft, always trying to solve problems that don't exist

Well it's a PC, specialized for entertainment, and like every other modern PC, it's designed to be always on.

 

[sophie]

Another thing, MLB online will not allow you to watch games featuring your local team. In Canada's case (yes the entire country), one cannot watch the Jays (and another team in some provinces alongside the Jays)!

Yes, that's what I said. You can't watch live games of teams of whose territory you currently live in. For me that's the Giants and the A's. This is due to MLB's antiquated blackout restrictions (Regional Sports Networks pay a substantial chunk of change for the exclusive rights to those games and their accompanying advertising money) If you hold a subscription you can watch the games in the archives, usually a couple hours after the end of the game. You can also circumvent the restriction with programs like Tor which change your ip address's location.

 

[warpus]

Well it's a PC, specialized for entertainment, and like every other modern PC, it's designed to be always on.

I suppose it makes sense in that context, but it's a divergence from what all previous consoles have done... none of which have really been media boxes or whatever, but this still doesn't sit well with me.. it's like they want you to consume consume consume 24/7 or something

I shut down my media pc when it's not in use *shrug*

@Owen, doesn't that discourage most people from buying the service? I have a friend who pays for it every year, but he's a White Sox fan living in Canada, so the blackout thing doesn't affect him.

It seems like it would affect most other people though - since.. well.. if you're a baseball fan, wouldn't you usually be a fan of a team that's closeby?

 

[sophie]

@Owen, doesn't that discourage most people from buying the service? I have a friend who pays for it every year, but he's a White Sox fan living in Canada, so the blackout thing doesn't affect him.

It seems like it would affect most other people though - since.. well.. if you're a baseball fan, wouldn't you usually be a fan of a team that's closeby?

Well it's ostensibly a way for you to get games when they are out of market. (So if you living in Toronto are an avid Giants fan and want to get the games, you'd subscribe to MLB.tv to get them). You can also buy the subscription in smaller packages; it doesn't require a year-long commitment, so if, say, you were leaving California for a 2-week stay in New York you can throw down 20 bucks and get MLB.tv for a month. It's also basically the only way (short of online streaming-sites; again moral/legal gray area) you're going to be able to watch any games that aren't nationally broadcast. So it's excellent for people who appreciate baseball beyond their chosen team. If you live in-market the assumption is you'll just watch the games via cable. And if you don't own a tv or are too poor to afford cable WHAT GOOD ARE YOU TO US THEN?

Really that latter part is the problem with MLB broadcasting today. For me mlb games are really the only justification to have cable. It's clear Major League Baseball is unhappy with this and wants to turn MLB.tv into a more unified structure to provide baseball to everyone rather than the frankly feudal system baseball has been operating within for decades now. Selig likes the idea of revenue sharing and clearly wants a more equitable playing field for the league. The problem is that the local cable deals are just waaaaaay too lucrative for owners to spit at - so it's not changing any time soon.

But the RSN market in the MLB is quite clearly a rapidly expanding bubble so we'll see what happens in 7 or 8 years' time when the bubble inevitably pops and some poor small market soul is stuck with blown-off hands. It's already starting - just look at what's happening in Houston and San Diego.

 

[Zelig]

I shut down my media pc when it's not in use *shrug*

There's not much point in doing this, "off" still uses like 6W unless you unplug it, vs. like 8W in sleep.

 

[bhsup]

Yes, that's what I said. You can't watch live games of teams of whose territory you currently live in.

Isn't that only if the game isn't sold out?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There's not much point in doing this, "off" still uses like 6W unless you unplug it, vs. like 8W in sleep.

Sleep causes more wear and tear on the components than off.

 

[Zelig]

Sleep causes more wear and tear on the components than off.

I don't think there's much evidence of this if you're talking about periods of "off" of less than a day. Most things that would be affected by wear and tear are turned off in sleep mode anyway, fans, video cards and hard drives are all off, basically just RAM remains powered.

 

[KMRblue1027]

Isn't that only if the game isn't sold out?

No MLB has a rather notorious blackout policy that anyone in the local market cannot get any of their games on MLB.tv. Baseball games rarely sellout except for Phillies, Red Soxs, or Giants games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_blackout_policy

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't think there's much evidence of this if you're talking about periods of "off" of less than a day. Most things that would be affected by wear and tear are turned off in sleep mode anyway, fans, video cards and hard drives are all off, basically just RAM remains powered.

Are you sure the fans, etc are off in sleep mode for all or most devices? What about custom rigs? I will have to try it on mine tomorrow.

 

[warpus]

There's not much point in doing this, "off" still uses like 6W unless you unplug it, vs. like 8W in sleep.

My media box is in my bedroom, which is why I turn it off. It's not that loud, but I can still hear that fan..

Really that latter part is the problem with MLB broadcasting today. For me mlb games are really the only justification to have cable. It's clear Major League Baseball is unhappy with this and wants to turn MLB.tv into a more unified structure to provide baseball to everyone rather than the frankly feudal system baseball has been operating within for decades now. Selig likes the idea of revenue sharing and clearly wants a more equitable playing field for the league. The problem is that the local cable deals are just waaaaaay too lucrative for owners to spit at - so it's not changing any time soon.

I don't know much about baseball personally, but yeah.. HD soccer is really the only reason I have cable. I wish a service like mlb.tv would exist for soccer, but the situation is far more complex, at least in terms of the number of leagues and cups that I follow and would need access to. In terms of MLB, if there weren't blackout issues, it's just 1 league, so if you get mlb.tv, you get all the games. I follow the EPL, MLS, FA cup, I need to see champions league games for 2 continents, league cup, canadian championship, every once in a while the europa league, the world cup, euro cup, qualifying games.. I can find streams for all this online, but it's never HD and it's never too reliable.

I can't wait until all pro sports are easily accessible online in a pure HD format, but for now.. I have no choice but to shell out $100+ a month..

As a sideeffect of this I do watch quite a bit of Jeopardy though! .. but alex trebek is annoying me more and more every single day

 

[Dachs]

Isn't that only if the game isn't sold out?

Like KMRblue said, that's not the case. No game, regardless of attendance or ticket sales, can be viewed in a local market on nationally broadcasted channels. This move was supposedly started to protect local cable interests, which would be able to pick up the games instead, but MLB's blackout map is pretty insane.

North Carolina is in the blackout area for Orioles and Nationals games, but MASN, the Washington/Baltimore provider, hasn't been able to actually get on to Time Warner's packages in the state, meaning that if you're an Orioles/Nats fan there, you go to a bar, you torrent, or you're screwed.

Hawaii's even worse, because it's blacked out for every single West Coast MLB team. Southern Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Las Vegas get blacked out for zillions of teams; that's not so bad for the Pennsylvanians, but Iowa and Vegas notably don't have teams of their own, so frequently the providers can't get onto the packages there. Stuff like that.

This is (one reason) why MLB is slipping back into the dark ages, while the NFL, with its infinitely saner TV policy and the likes of Sunday Ticket and Red Zone, keeps getting more and more popular.

 

[Mise]

Because if you weren't outraged about prices in 1993, you certainly shouldn't be outraged about prices now.

It's different people, and a different situation. We've clearly moved further down the demand curve: prices are lower, and more games are sold. So that means that more people are buying games now, who back in 1993 wouldn't have bothered. Say that 100,000 people bought a new computer game in 1993, whereas 1,000,000 people bought a game now. That means that 900,000 people don't view $100 as a fair price, but do view $50 as a fair price. So when prices go up to $60, maybe the 100,000 people who would buy games in 1993 at $100 wouldn't complain, but a large percentage of the 900,000 who didn't buy games at 1993 prices would complain.

It also means that a game bought in 1993 was worth more to marginal gamers, due to its rarity: a marginal gamer might only get 2 new games a year in 1993, so the private value of each game was worth more. I had a Sega Megadrive for 5 years and I only had 5 games; it took me a year to buy the same number on the 360, so it's only logical that each game has a lower private value to me. I certainly wouldn't pay $100 for those 5 games, but the $30 or so on average that I paid was worth it. If you were spending $100 on a game in 1993, you wouldn't waste time on titles that were crappy or that you weren't going to get much replay value out of. But spending $30 or $50 in 2013 means you can go much lower down the scale in terms of game quality, meaning that the average quality of the games we buy has gone down (relative to the competition, of course). Therefore, when people think of the price of games going up, they aren't necessarily complaining about the price of top games that we are happy to pay full whack for (e.g. new CoD or Fifa game), but those $30 games that they bought 2 years after release that we probably play for a month then get bored of.

In general, whenever the price of something falls and then rises again, people will complain: when it falls, the product will capture an increasingly marginal segment of the market, who will be more sensitive to price rises than those who were willing to pay the higher price previously. If computer games have fallen as much as you say they have, then it should not surprise you that the average gamer in 2013 is far more price sensitive than the average gamer was in 1993.

 

[illram]

Yeah local sports is the one stumbling block for me. I basically either try and tune into big games with a digital antenna, which is only mildly annoying, or walk down to the local sports bar and watch, which can be good or bad. Or go to a friend's house.

Hopefully if more people abandon cable those big cable contracts will become less lucrative and there will be an opening up of that market. But I agree that remains the biggest reason for cable to ever remain relevant and it sucks because its totally artificial.

 

[Maniacal]

Link to video.

 

[GoodGame]

Sounds like they use online activation to play games, or is the fee paid at the used game store?

If the activation fee is reasonable, then it's no big deal, although I don't think it's very reasonable to ask for such a fee.

 

[Antilogic]

You can get ebooks not from Amazon.

Quite aware of that, but I was using Amazon as a specific example of behavior that was discussed previously on this forum that I do not approve of.

Spoiler :

Link to video.

Hilarious. Hopefully for gamers who are still using the Xbox, also not true.