Xbox: Year In Review

So THAT'S where 2015 went. I thought nothing happened this year. Turns out I was too busy playing Xbox to notice.

These stats are from xbox.com's "year in review" thingy.


Also, here's something interesting these stats revealed, but they speak more about Microsoft than anything else:

▼

Xbox 180

Microsoft is reversing two of the more cartoonishly evil attributes of their new console. You can now play and trade games with ease and functionality closer to that of... the consoles we have always owned. And that Always-On DRM seems to have been shot down. Granted, there's still the matter of the price and the Kreepy-Kinect, but I honestly didn't think a console developer had it in them to throw bad ideas away.

This still puts it at a distant 4th place, if I'm taking into account modern consoles(and the 3DS). But it's no longer the Hindenberg-level disaster it was last week. This isn't a great thing, but this had the potential to set a very bad precedent for the medium and I'm glad someone at Microsoft came to their senses.


Now if we could just get them to do something about Windows.


END OF LINE

~A.H.

E3 2013: Playstation 4

So, let's recap:

The Xbox One requires an always-online connection, or else after 24 hours it will brick itself and prevent you from playing games. You have to pay a fee to let a friend borrow a game, or to play a used game. The Kinect is mandatory and always listening/watching everything you do, like Orwell's Eye of Sauron. It costs $500.

The Playstation 4 doesn't pull any of that crap, and it costs a hundred dollars less.

▼

Xbox One: "Living Games Technology"

This is from Microsoft's page about their new console, the "Xbox One".

This is terrifying.

Forget about what this means for the problem of "Boosters", people who just leave the Xbox turned on so that they'll accumulate experience in online games while not contributing, thereby ruining every multiplayer game ever. There's an even bigger pitfall to this idea:

▼