My reaction to Microsoft’s E3 presentation

by Paul on Jun 11th, 2013

In the lead-up to E3 I tried to remain objective about the new Xbox and I have so wanted to be convinced by Microsoft that the path they are taking is one that I feel happy following and handing over cash for, but now that we have full disclosure of the facts about both consoles there is no denying it now; I will not be buying the Xbox One. In fact, I don’t think I feel happy handing over another penny to Microsoft in the immediate future.

Before I go into the reasons why, I should tell you a little about my gaming history so as to reassure you that this is not some Sony anti-Microsoft fanboy rant, even though it’ll probably seem like it. Where all this comes from is a deep sense of disappointment and anger from a long-time Xbox fan at the way Microsoft have handled the announcement of the Xbox One and the decisions they have taken seemingly to placate publishers like EA at the expense of gamers.

I bought a Xbox 360 about six months after it launched. I have over fifty games for the system. I would play the thing every evening. The Xbox Live service was exemplary and I loved everything about the system. Well, almost everything … little niggles started to creep in, such as the way my console was evolving into an entertainment hub, with gaming being relegated down the list. Each time I’d do an update, that creep was growing more and more obvious. The fact you had to pay an annual subscription to play online with your friends also irked me a little. I don’t mind paying a yearly subs for a service but the dashboard should not be littered with adverts. If I’m honest I’ve never really been one for online gaming anyway as I’m very much into my single player games so after four years I cancelled my Gold subs. I haven’t regretted that decision once.

I bought my PS3 about a year after I got the 360 and truth be told I only ever used it as a Blu-ray player with all my gaming taking place on the 360. However, it was round about the time I got Gran Turismo 5 that I found that I was slowly starting to use the PS3 for games more and more. I can’t quite put my finger on the exact reason, and I know that my earlier point about the 360 evolving into a media centre is equally true about PS3, but the fact is the PS3 just appealed to me more as a gamer. Sony may have boasted that “it only does everything” but it didn’t make it all so obvious and jarring compared to Microsoft. It was when I started to buy cross-format games for the PS3 rather than the 360 that I realised that there was a definite shift in my gaming allegiance, and then came the clincher … PS Plus.

I signed up for PS Plus straight away. For the same price as a 360 subs I am getting free games each month. Critics argue that they are not technically free, nor are they mine to keep as I have to re-subscribe each year in order to access them, but my logic is this; for £3.30 a month I am able to download at least two games and can play them at my leisure with no restrictions (as opposed to a demo which is content or time limited). If I play through them and love them that much I’ll go out and buy them on disc anyway to keep hold of them should I ever decide to quit the service, or just so that I can delete the digital copy to free up some room on my hard drive. If I play them and come away with a “meh” conclusion, the game is deleted safe in the knowledge that I played until I was satisfied that I had seen enough to judge and haven’t had to buy it at retail for £20 or more, or rent it which would cost me around £10 a month.

So, for the last couple of years the situation has been completely reversed. The PS3 is where I do all my gaming now and the Xbox 360 doesn’t get used at all. It’s now my son’s console and he sits and plays the LEGO Batman games on it. I did get Forza Horizon, which is a great game, but other than that … no 360 gaming for me.

With that in mind, hearing what Microsoft have planned for us with Xbox One is deeply troubling. I have no interest in plugging my Sky box into the Xbone to have Microsoft’s overlay while watching television. The thought of earning achievements for watching television may appeal to the fat lazy slobs out there but to me it’s just ‘urgh’. I have no desire to change channel by yelling at my Kinect. I do not want to be told that the Kinect must be plugged in before the system will operate. I find the idea that Kinect is just sitting there waiting and listening for a command to be the worst kind of privacy intrusion, no matter what Microsoft may say to convince me otherwise. I am absolutely and resolutely against being told that I have to go online every 24 hours in order to validate my console and that failure to do so will render the machine inoperative. Some argue that in this age of high speed wifi connections such a requirement shouldn’t be a problem but the point for me is that the online is there to supplement the gaming experience should I want it to. If I want to ‘go dark’ over a weekend in order to play a bit of Bioshock in peace without the steady stream of notifications during play then I should have the choice of turning on my console and playing without having to go online to do so.

The only way I can express my displeasure about this is by not purchasing the console. Buying one sends the message that I’m alright with all of these things and content to accept them. I am not. What really gets to me the most is that Microsoft have made all of this so much more complicated than it needs to be. The need for a daily check-in stems from having all games installed to the hard drive. Why must all games be installed to the hard drive before you can play them? Why must part of the computing be done in the cloud? Are Blu-ray discs not big enough? Their whole approach to this goes against everything a console should be.

People say that I should focus on the positives, embrace the efforts to innovate and look at the games that will be coming for the system for proof that Microsoft still cares about the gamers. To that I respond with I am really struggling to find any positives, that there is no real innovation here (if they can provide examples I’ll be happy to listen) and as for the games … there is not one game on that list they trotted out that justifies spending £429 on this machine.

The used game restrictions aren’t that big an issue for me. Nine times out of ten I keep any games I buy but I can of course see why so many are up in arms about it. Gaming is an expensive hobby and if you’ve played a game to the point of exhausting all of its content, or you just don’t like it, you should be able to go to a store and trade it in for another game. To have that ability removed because a publisher decides you can no longer do so is not fair or right.

This is even before we consider that this is all pretty confusing and detailed information to be taking in for a new system. Can you imagine what this is going to be like for your typical family, where the parents have no interest or knowledge of the gaming industry and are asked by their kids to get them ‘the new Xbox’ for Christmas? That sure is going to be a fun morning in that house trying to get the system up and running. I hope they have an internet connection, otherwise they’ve just bought their children a £429 doorstop.

Contrast all of this with Sony’s show last night. To stand up and say there will be no requirement to sign in every day, that you can give away games to friends or trade them in at stores ‘til your heart’s content, that the console will be region-free, that the whole process remains as it is currently with you buying your games rather than licensing them. Everything about the PS4 seems so much more open, clear to understand and geared towards the gamer rather than the publisher; to make it easier to play and to make it more cost-efficient for those who can only realistically fund their hobby by trading in at games stores or by resale on eBay in order to get the funds to buy another game.

The PS4 may well be a media hub, playing Blu-rays and letting you download your music, but it’s the way it’s all been presented to us. Sony’s no-nonsense approach is so refreshing; the PS4 is a games console first and foremost and everything else is just a handy bonus. In my opinion Sony dealt a massive blow to Microsoft yesterday, one that will have convinced thousands, if not hundreds of thousands to give Xbox One a miss and get a PS4 instead. It is a blow that I think Microsoft will find very hard to recover from.

Just consider this; with Xbox One, because of the reliance of the cloud and the need to sign in online every day, Microsoft could withdraw the service at any time making all your games unplayable. God forbid someone decides to target an attack at Microsoft, taking down their servers and making every single Xbox One around the globe unusable until they get their systems up and running again. With Sony there’s none of these extraneous requirements. When you buy a game it is yours forever and free to play forever. If Sony take down the multiplayer servers in a few years time, your game still remains completely playable offline.

A few months ago a (now ex-) Microsoft employee called Adam Orth was tweeting about the yet to be announced fact that Xbox One would require a daily internet check-in. His response to the concerns gamers had? “Deal with it.” Never have three words demonstrated the contempt Microsoft has for the core and from that point it coloured all future discussions about Xbox One for me. I know I won’t be buying one and I don’t even feel like I’m missing out either. That’s certainly a very sad state of affairs for me as I love games and nothing excites me more than finding out about the next big thing. But this? It’s a step in completely the wrong direction.

What do you think? Do you agree with me or do you think I’ve got it all wrong? Let me know in the comments.

Categories: Features