The Glade 4.0

http://bit.ly/xz6jQk

I’m a bit torn. I don’t like seeing a restriction on what you can do with used games, but by the same token, A) PC gamers have long dealt with this and that market seems fine, B) I love the idea of game creators and publishers making more money, and C) I’m all for anything that causes the complete and utter destruction of Gamestop.

I agree on all three points.

I'm not keen on the talk of a smaller controller, though.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I can't tell from the article (and of course, these are all just rumors), but it may be that they're looking to make a smaller controller in addition to the standard. I mean, they didn't do much in the way of resizing the controllers from the Xbox to the 360 (ignoring the embarrassing "Duke" controller...).

Farsky:

Genuinely curious as to what about GameStop irritates you so.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

1. Their complete shift of focus from new games to being a pawn shop. Want a new game? Go to Amazon, or Walmart, or anywhere but GameStop...they don't seem to want your business any longer.

2. Their reprehensible behaviour of opening their handful of new game copies and then selling them as "new."

3. Their even more reprehensible behaviour of directly stealing from their customers.

4. Their parasitic business practices that net them immense profits off of a used game while the game creators and publishers see none of that money.

5. Their apparent inability to hire anyone who has the slightest idea about video games.

That's a start.

How about their obvious platform biases and refusal to keep full lineups for companies that don't pay them to carry their products?

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A good start indeed. Thanks.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

So... no more going to my friend's house to show him my new Xbox game? No more letting my friend borrow, or borrow from my friend, his cool Xbox game?

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So they're going to crush Gamefly, Gamestop, as well as all the local game shops that handle used games? Not to mention the idea of "I just bought this game, and I can't go to my friends and play it" like Mook said. The xbox live account system already sucks *** (just try going to a friends and signing in or playing a game on PC that uses *shudder* windows live while your wife/kid tries to watch netflix on the Xbox.) I can't believe they would ever actually put something like that in place, the consumer backlash would be extraordinary.

I'd prefer to see a system in place somewhat like Steam. You get an activation code when you open the game, and once used, it's tied to your XBLA account. Once there, if it's installed to your HDD, you don't even need the disc. Rejig the XBLA sign-in so that you can easily sign in as a 'guest,' and sign in under your friends' account to share with him. If you're offline, you have to put the physical disc in to play, but you can skip the authentication.

I'm just thinking out loud. I'm sure there are holes, and it doesn't solve the Gamefly problem, but honestly, they're so overpriced it's not even funny. Bottom line, I don't mind seeing a move toward a Steam-ish system vs. the current system in place.

Didn't we have this discussion last generation? Being able to rent/barrow games leads to those games being bought if they are good, at least for me.

If we shell out 50+ on a game and it's utter garbage what's our recourse?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Yeah, it's what, 1 game for 15.95/mo and 2 for 22.95/mo? Personally, I purchased a lot of games that I wanted to play, would play through once, and then not pick up again, so gamefly actually saves me quite a bit of money. If I don't purchase 1 game I would've bought for 60 bucks+tax, I just paid for almost 3 months of gamefly on the 2 game plan. I used to buy at least 1 game a month (more, during the big release periods), so that's pretty significant. I still purchase games, but I'm much more selective, and will often wait for sales/etc. Regardless, I still believe they'll have to have some solution for the rental market, if they do go ahead with this mess.

Call me old school, but I need to have a hard copy. I don't particularly like paying for something that I don't have full control and possession of.

That online copy that is tied to a service to validate it to be able to play it just doesn't feel permanent enough to me. I certainly hope, as far as consoles go, that they do not go the STEAM route.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but even now, you don't own that game. You own a license for that game. Owning the physical media is irrelevant.

It's why you have those FBI warnings and whatnot on DVDs/Blu-rays when you watch them.

I should also point out that I used to have the same opinion as you, but then I took an arrow to the knee. I still prefer physical media for watching movies; they're nice and convenient, but an iTunes or Amazon VOD encode visibly differs from a Blu-ray in quality. However, there is no such quality difference with nonphysical game purchases...all of the assets are being downloaded to your local drive anyway, so that's an irrelevant concern. The only hurdle to jump is the "but I don't own it!" mentality, but as I stated, you don't "own" it now.

I have a love-hate relationship with Steam, even so.

I can understand if I'm playing one game on one computer that someone else cannot play my copy of that game on another PC. That makes sense. If two people want to play the game at the same time, buy two copies. Yeah, i get it.

What doesn't make sense is that if I'm playing Portal 2 on Steam, my husband can't log on to the other computer and play Arkham Asylum, because they're on the same steam account. With physical copies that wouldn't be a problem.

But I still buy games on Steam. Then, if they're single player, I download a cracked copy and install them instead. Because **** DRM.

The change about used games would irritate me ...if I cared about console games one way or another. I don't. I will continue to play most games I want when they reach sub $20 in the steam bargain-bin, and play them on PC.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Farsky:

I see what you're saying. To clarify what I guess I am trying to say, think of it this way:

I don't "own" The Legend of Zelda, but I can still power up my NES and pop the cartridge in and play it.

Sure, this is an extreme example, but I have more control over that physical cartridge than I would of an installed version that is tied to an account. (Assuming Steam-like controls on the new Xbox) I don't want to have to redownload "my" game should the hardware crash. I'd rather be able to pick up a new one and just pop the disk in and get right back to playing.

I guess it's just the old gamer in me refusing to fully accept the new technologies that have evolved.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

For some of us, it's easier to download a copy than to find the physical media.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Next question: is ownership going to be tied to a user ID or do I loose my rights to my games if my 720 goes belly up?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

These are all kind of meaningless to even debate before MS has given any word on it. A system like this could EASILY work if games are tied to ID's and not consoles, if it's only limited to digital purchases, etc.

No point getting up-in-arms about it yet.

But...this is the internet. If we don't passionately discuss rumor, what are we supposed to do?

Linking a game to the gamer tag would suck ***. Would that mean that only one person in the house could play the game? Would I have to go back to the days of sharing a profile with the boy?

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Raell Kromwell

As easily as you made that assumption, I could make the assumption that they will allow guests to play the games. Man, that was easy. Whew! I feel a lot better about the next Xbox now. Or maybe having a game tied to your GT might mean only that player can use online. Hmmm, no. That would be far too close to the MMO account model that is already widely accepted. Who knows!

Sure you can. Just have your husband play Steam in offline mode. As long as the PC and/or game has been played online recently, it should work fine in offline mode, and won't need to log into the steam account at all.



If your hardware crashes, you still have to find the discs and reinstall the game, then patch it, and also make sure to keep up with your CD-keys. Also, you do know that you can use the "Backup Game Files" option in Steam to create a physical disc of the installed game, right? That way, if your hardware fails, you can just reinstall from the physical backup disc. And not only that, but the backup makes a copy of the game in it's current state, including patches, so that when you reinstall, you don't have to spend as much time downloading all of the game updates, and you can get back to playing sooner.

Trust me, it took me a long time to get over my initial hatred of Steam. I resisted for the longest time. But now I realize, resistance is futile. I really much prefer the Steam approach to games, and I hope many more companies start to embrace it in the future, instead of treating paying customers like common thieves.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

I know. I remember Nintendo postulating about this when the Wii came around.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"