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The newest batch of rumours about Microsoft’s long-rumoured Xbox update are bordering on the unbelievable. Sources claim Microsoft may include a protection system that stops the console playing second-hand titles, plus those games will arrive on — gasp! — Blu-ray discs.
Both moves would be rather odd. The locking of used games would absolutely ruin the game-selling parts of the high street, which have grown to depend on the rapid turnover of games and the keen trade in second-hand titles. But is that a price worth paying to keep the big-money game developers and publishers, who loathe today’s trade-in culture, onside for another console generation?
The other part of the rumour, as reported by Kotaku, claims Microsoft will include a Blu-ray drive as its next home machine’s storage medium. This is also pretty bonkers, not just because of the HD DVD debacle, but also due to Microsoft clearly saying many, many times that it believes digital distribution is the future of selling games to men.
Perhaps Microsoft realises the internet still isn’t fast or omnipresent enough to support a few million people downloading Call of Duty at midnight on launch day? Especially if the future developers have up to 50GB of Blu-ray space to play with. [Kotaku]
Blu-Ray? Good to see Microsoft playing catchup again. The current Xbox is more like the PS2 with it’s DVD drive and non-standard hard-drive and reliance on memory cards.
Perhaps the Xbox720 will be catching upto the PS3 spec by the time the PS4 launches.
While the PS3 is technically more powerful than the Xbox 360 I would hardly say that they are playing catch up. Look at multi platform games. In most instances the level of graphics is equal to the PS3 counterpart, the only major differences are the disc swapping and the lack of a game install, something which is infuriating on the PS3 I must say.
Oh and the x-box supports standard USB thumb drives etc for storage now. Can you even buy xbox proprietary memory cards? I never bought one for my xbox when I had it.
Both are good consoles, there’s no reason to bash them.
(to eliminate fanboy bias I have a PS3 and I had an xbox, but I couldn’t be arsed carting both halfway across the world when I moved back to Blighty, so the xbox got sold. Region locking sucks nuts.)
The PS3 is being heavilly held back by the 360 when it comes to multiplatform games, which have to be coded to the lowest common denominator (the 360).
Take at look at platform exclusives, not only does the PS3 have WAY more of them, they are also literally 2-3 years ahead of what the Xbox is still chugging out.
Game installs again seem to be game dependant and mostly in the realm of badly coded multiplatform titles.
I didn’t have a install on Uncharted 3, and there were no obvious ingame load screens either.
The 360 of course also has game installs, try playing some games without them, and you get graphics downgraded to wii-like textures (Battlefield 3) or constant disk swapping (Forza).
The whole point of the The Xbox 360 was more to do with the quality of the online gaming. The Playstation online experience at launch was poor. Microsoft ruled the roost on that front. Also, there was no real leader in the HD/B-RAY Disc competition at the launch of the two consoles. That decision was made by Hollywood and the movie houses decided that Blue Ray was the future.
I would like to see Microsoft create a reliable piece of good looking hardware. They eally need to be looking at how Apple do things.
I own both consoles, but tend to buy XB games because the online gaming is better. Locking out re-sold games would be a silly thing for Microsoft to do. It would harm console sales and XBox live revenue.
Microsoft went with HDDVD. Sony went with blu-ray. Blu-ray just won. Its not a question of catch up. They supported different standards. Also the ps3 was released after the 360. So it’s not catch up if you release a product before another… I personally wanted a ps3, but they delayed the release date so I settled on a 360.
Is there anything you don’t have a problem with?
And before everyone goes into a rage like on Kotaku and other sites, it says MAY refuse to load used games, Not WILL. Seems when possible bad news appears, peoples ability to read goes out of the window.
Personally, this prevention thing should be in place and work for a full year after the games release date, after then allow second hand copies.
Days after a big game comes out, you can find second hand copies in Game/Gamestation/Game shop of your choice for just a couple of quid less then the brand new copy, understandably people might opt for the couple of quid cheaper option but that’s 35+ quid straight into the shops pockets and none going back to the Devs. Blocking the second hand copies for at least a year could impact the retail price of second hand copies once they are allowed to play on the console since the game isn’t fresh onto the market anymore and this should give the developers a year to get their share of the sales at least without Game stores offering slightly cheaper second hand copies the day after release.
Well put Tacos, but presumably this would also prevent the legitimate and legal original purchaser from using it on another console, either when they take it round to a friends or their original console dies and they get a replacement. Also presumably rental copies would have to be exempt from this.
That sounds like a pretty reasonable compromise. I’d be much happier to support something like that if the increased revenue translated into reduced prices though.
Just gonna keep 2 replies in one post to save the spamming.
@Darrell Jones – Agreed, the rental copies and taking to a friends/second console are issues that would have to find workarounds, a possibility is that it takes a iTunes account style approach and you can activate it on a few accounts (5 I believe) and to get some back you just deactivate that computer from been allowed. I guess you would need some sort of user account the game is tied to, to stop it from been abused, but alas that is a really complicated way to just play a game at a friends, and I guess the rentals would be noticed by the console as a rental and bypass the second hand check.
@mike1_2 – Reduced prices would be the big thing for a lot of people too, some devs might be willing to sell for £5 – £10 cheaper if they know they are guaranteed the money for the year after release day, but that depends on the Publisher overall.
It seems like a nice idea for the developers, but I think it will be too unworkable. And I very much doubt many developers would be likely to lower their prices if they know they have monopoly for a year. Especially seeing as how more and more games have a multiplayer element added, which is only ever busy for the first year anyway. Waiting a year after release would spoil the gameplay for too many gamers. Games like Skyrim and Mass Effect wouldn’t be effected I guess, but with the pre release build up these games get, who would want to wait a full year to save £10?
My guess is if anything, with no seconhand purchase option availiable, it could eventually push the prices up further if they thought they could get away with it…
Digital distribution is a great idea, I can’t wait to download all of my console games at 70kb/s. I may even get them fully downloaded and installed before the sequels comes out. I somehow doubt Microsoft will go fully digital with their next console.
“Microsoft may include a protection system that stops the console playing second-hand titles”
That’s a bit pants isn’t it… 10-20 years down the line, myself and many video game collectors won’t be able buy old games to relive the past. Imagine buying a Sega Megadrive from however many years ago today and if it had the same protection it would suck.
What about if your console breaks and want to play the games ‘YOU OWN’ on the replacement… that’s going to be a bit of a headache isn’t it.
If this happens, I will no longer support Xbox and go elsewhere… seriously.
I’d imagine the games would be tied to your XBL account rather than the console itself.
I can understand the game devs frustrations, but culturally the idea of reselling something you don’t want any more is innate, and I would imagine trying to suppress this would alienate many.
I don’t see them adopting Blu-Ray as being ‘catch-up’. More like ‘waking up and smelling the coffee’.
If MS adopted online distribution, with the size of games nowadays I’d start downloading the game on a Monday night and, if I’m lucky, start playing sometime Wednesday. And then my ISP would tell me that I either have to pay for going over my limit or not download anything for a month. Or alternatively I could drive to the shops, lay my cash on the counter, and be home and playing. All within an hour. I know which I’d prefer.
I’d also like to see what Blockbuster have to say about the game locking feature. I bet they make a fair income from game rentals, which wouldn’t be possible if a particular disc could only be run on one machine.
they should leave the pre-owned market alone as its a good way for people to get games without resorting to hacks, mods and copying.
want another positive of the pre-owned market? – i bought demon souls pre-owned, liked it, then bought dark souls new as a direct result.
any form of online-pass is an immediate don’t buy advert for many people.
I’m not for or against download only games but they can get round the whole surge of people downloading the latest blockbuster game by making most of the game downloadable in advance. Some lightweight but crucial part of the download such as a decryption key could be the actual thing that is downloaded on release day which will allow all the downloaded content to be usable. This would massively avoid a huge bandwidth surge on release day.
I don’t think its surprising for them to support blu-ray. I think it’s still early to fully go digital where there will be some homes without as good connection. Some people will prefer physical media, and something to support blu-ray films they already have doesn’t do any harm. Maybe a few years after for digital, though I’d still like the option for physical.
As for the locking used games. That would be horrible. What about times when you bring a game over to a friends house? Will you not be able to do that anymore? Or make it more difficult? If so I think there will plenty of people put off.
I hope that there’s the option to download ALL new titles, as speeds increase every couple of years so before the console is out I can’t see why it can’t be 100% digital distribution.
As with everyone else, it’s not really catch-up, for the many reasons listed above me. Blu-ray was inevitable, and necessary for the most part because it makes the whole thing easier for game delivery. Personally I would hate to have to download every game I want to play, I just don’t have the connection for it. As for the second-hand gaming, well, as someone who pretty much exclusively invests in titles based on the strength of their multiplayer (I still haven’t played the BF3 campaign, but clocked impressive hours on multiplayer), it’s sort of a non-issue for me, because the studios have already made pre-owned games useless to me. Great, I can buy game X for £7 pre-owned, but it’ll be £14 for a new multiplayer code, or £20ish just for a brand new copy. The main reason it bugs me is that whoever sold the game on no longer uses their servers, so i’m not adding to their load, just replacing a previous user.