"Xbox One" has awesome games. Haters are missing out. (So is most of Europe now)

[Enigmatism415]

I do admire people like Carn sticking to his guns, but boy oh boy is this console an untenable pile of rubbish.

[Carnivol]

^Not "sticking to my guys", just being realistic here and not overreacting to stuff that doesn't really affect me. I play games, not consoles. You'll find me where the games I wanna play are
(To be honest, I loved Don's comment about "buying a 360 instead" - kinda like saying "Don't want an iPhone as your MP3 player? Get the iPod touch instead then!)

Anyway, people expect customer support to provide good answers on stuff like that?
People should try to ask them about buying stuff from other region marketplaces on current gen system and ... lo and behold ... same replies ... but you still can, if you're not dumb ;D

[Rombie]

In a world with less restrictive checks that's true. I am certain people will find ways around as always. I guess just like anything people worry about things with a cloud of uncertainties around it. Especially in cases where the changes seem to have little justified reason you know. Hah

[Enigmatism415]

Well Carn, you're lucky to live in one of the best countries in the world, but when I look at all of the grey on that map (Brasil but not Portugal? Seriously?), it all seems absurd. Since I plan to move to Japan at some point within the span of the eight generation, it especially wouldn't make sense for me to even consider owning an XBOX. I will concede that Dead Rising 3 looks very very exciting, and I guess I'll have to hope that I can track down someone in the states who will actually own one of these things and play it at his or her house.

But hey, if it makes sense for you then it makes sense for you. No hard feelings if this ends up being Microsoft's final installment in the XBOX series.

---

By the way, any word regarding the XBOX One's ability (or lack thereof) to play Audio CDs? The PS4 cannot (which is not a big deal for me anyway because I rip all of my CDs losslessly on my laptop before throwing them onto my iPhone). I'm only asking because I want more fuel for my Sony Fanboy-itus.

[Scream]

Just set up a VPN connection on your router (I imagine it can't be done natively on the console), it will work fine unless they do some Paypal-esque security procedures. Anyone who travels a lot is probably subscribed to some sort of VPN service anyway considering how often you'll run into this country restriction crap (stores, google play, banking, streams etc). So only the real n00bs will suffer.

I imagine that map will be much greener at the end of 2014 though, it seems Microsoft are preparing for a smooth launch in Asia.. I guess they want to avoid those "PS4 outsells Xbox by ten billion in Tokyo" news articles for as long as possible! Though after I read this today http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...hes-them.shtml I couldn't give a crap what happens to them.. Linux for me in the future I think!

[Branden_Lucero]

i'll be getting both so i dont really give a sh*t. just dont expect the PS4 to get play time any time soon as there were far more games on the X1 i wanted.

[Carnivol]

[[STARS]TyranT]

I don't know how anyone can watch that video and be honestly positive about the console. But hey. Maybe I can't see the 'future'.

If anyone wants to watch a fucking tv programme yet still be able to accept friend invites means that they aren't totally invested in the film/TV programme in the first place, if they are that distracted.

If the future involves not having ownership of something I use my money for, then I guess that's my loss, right?

[TheSelfishGene]

Anyway, people expect customer support to provide good answers on stuff like that?

Absolutely yes. Everything about this console has raised so many questions so far (importing consoles pre-local launch. Importing games from other regions. Used games. Sharing games. TV support. Privacy concerns etc...) that people will want clarification. Especially pre E3 where people were contacting microsoft with sensible questions and being told more information will be available soon.
Even if customer service twitter isn't the place to get the answers, I'd have expected them to point people in the right direction to where they could find the correct information (and then get back to their regular business). The fact that Microsoft don't seem to have a consistent story reflects poorly on them.

If anyone wants to watch a fucking tv programme yet still be able to accept friend invites means that they aren't totally invested in the film/TV programme in the first place, if they are that distracted.

Maybe it's attractive to people with ADD?

Launch map has been updated too

[Code_R]

X-Boned

Absolute train wreck. There are a few games that would interest me for XBone but honestly they killed it. Some of their ideas are just mind boggling and seem to be coming from corporate suits living is some cuckoo land bubble. Some people will literally buy anything of course, but I find it hard to imagine them having much success. And I've been getting most games for 360 since the original Dead Rising and Gears of War were new - no such thing as fandom to me, just practical considerations.

[Zombie_X]

I still say PS4 will be the champ this round, and if the rumours are true, the X1 is weaker than the PS4 by a bit. A lot of people, gamers especially, care about graphics. So they'll weigh that into it as well.

[Canas Renvall]

Wow, and Micro$$$oft gets even more petty still.

Microsoft Employees Poaching Customers at Best Buy Wii U E3 Demo Kiosks

And here's video of one such encounter.

Unbelievable. First bribing Spike TV, then canceling post conference media round ups to avoid bad press, then Don Mattrick's "Stick with the 360" comment, now crashing competitor events? I have never once hoped for a console to fail. Competition is good for the consumer. But this has gone too far. I hope the Xboner chokes and fails harder than the Virtual Boy.

[Guest]

I like how their solution to playing games on the road is to take a 360 lol.

On the argument of graphics, that all depends on the developer and how they choose to optimise their games. Capcom's MT Framework games for example are always superior on the 360, as on the 360 the engine usually uses hardware anti aliasing where as on the PS3 it uses v-sync. V-sync gets rid of screen tearing but as a result causes a lower frame rate, where as with anti aliasing it reduces jaggies and allows the engine to keep a steady frame rate. Unless you really care about the tiny bit of screen tearing in cutscenes you are almost always better off playing an MT Framework game on the 360 if you care about graphics and frame rate.

Again nex gen it will all depend on how developers choose to optimise their multi platform games as while the PS4 might be more powerful, the XBO might offer developers better solutions for optimisation resulting in a high quality product on the less powerful console. Of course if developers just use the hardware properly then the PS4 should always produce the higher end results, as did the PS3.

[[STARS]TyranT]

But being as the PS4 is using the same AMD processor using the X86-64 (exactly the same as the Xbone) the differences should be minor now, both are essentially the same to develop for.

[Carnivol]

Yup. Both systems run on the same CPU. PS4 has the advantage of faster RAM and a better graphics card, but the depending on how things are wired in terms of access to that RAM, the benefit of it might not be much to write home about. The One also technically can benefit greatly from outsourcing of various tasks to the cloud and either gain or free up resources based on it (the sky's the limit, har har)


The use of the HDMI input is kinda interesting. It's basically a matter of using it to whatever extent you feel necessary yourself. Be it insta-switching between one thing and another, PIP window-esque functionality with movie/TV and gameplay, or creative daisy chaining of split-screen multiplayer in games w/out split-screen support. This is why I find these features interesting; a lot of people only see the ONE thing people explain/demonstrate to them, other people see infinite possibilities. (Like how some people see "Internet" as just the digital version of their local news paper)

I think it's shitty practice to straight out trash other people's events, but I must say that it's also shitty practice to build your entire sales pitch around the faults or short comings of your opponents, rather than the strengths of your own (the latter being how politics works in many places - rather than selling yourself and your strengths, you're hightlighting the faults of the alternative.)

Absolutely yes. Everything about this console has raised so many questions so far (importing consoles pre-local launch. Importing games from other regions. Used games. Sharing games. TV support. Privacy concerns etc...) that people will want clarification. Especially pre E3 where people were contacting microsoft with sensible questions and being told more information will be available soon.
Even if customer service twitter isn't the place to get the answers, I'd have expected them to point people in the right direction to where they could find the correct information (and then get back to their regular business). The fact that Microsoft don't seem to have a consistent story reflects poorly on them.

Very true. They clearly didn't prepare well enough for it, but then again, they're a much bigger brand/corporation/whatever than the competition ... and with the security around the One before its reveal ... this is the backfire, I guess.

What's a bit "sad" is of course their own inability to actually straight out address these things directly in an official manner, rather than having people "discover" things themselves through various sources (such as customer support; which in its web form is actually a mixture of an outsourced company + volunteers, depending on which element of support you're contacting.) BUt then again, many of these questions/problems haven't really been concerns in the past "pre-launch." So, while they're kinda "with the times" in terms of online trends, I guess they might be out of touch with a few elements on the userbase side of things (on what really is a very vocal minority, such as the whole region locking things)

The dumbest they did was probably cancelling all the interviews they had lined up - and for God knows what reasons, when they clearly manage to get someone as disconnected as Larry to answer crap in a somewhat fashionable manner (retarded headgear aside).