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Non-NEC Console Related Discussion => Console Chat => Topic started by: Nando on August 28, 2013, 09:09:56 AM
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http://consumerist.com/2013/08/28/worst-company-champs-comcast-ea-team-up-to-let-you-play-games-through-set-top-box/
"XFINITY Games powered by Origin delivers console-quality video games from Electronic Arts directly to your television using your Comcast X1 set-top box. You can access a catalog of available games through the XFINITY Games powered by Origin web storefront."
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Christ, what took so long? Seriously, I thought this would happen far sooner.
That being said, EA+Comcast=Shit Sandwich
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What took so long? They had to make sure it didn't offend their new empress.
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It's actually not bad, I know the team working on it.
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"use your iPad as a controller for the games"
How is that 'not bad'?!?
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"use your iPad as a controller for the games"
How is that 'not bad'?!?
it's a total rewiring of user input. We are not the target audience, I assure you.
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and yet they wouldn't publish for dreamcast
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"use your iPad as a controller for the games"
How is that 'not bad'?!?
it's a total rewiring of user input. We are not the target audience, I assure you.
That's correct.
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After I saw this article, I did some checking on Comcast's X1 box and found the page: www.comcast.com/x1 (http://www.comcast.com/x1). Since I've got two DVRs and they haven't upgraded the technology in nearly 10 years, I called to see if I could upgrade. In case anybody's interested, here are the details:
X1 HD DVR - $20/month, $70 installation fee
X1 HD Box - $9/month, $30 installation fee
I balked at the installation fee, so they knocked it down to $25.50 and $5.50 respectively. Turns out I didn't need two DVRs anymore because the standard HD box can access the content on the HD DVR, which is cool. Since I was paying about $36/month for both DVRs before, I'm now saving about $9/month.
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Yea I plan to upgrade too. They are nice little boxes. I have some at the office, but can't show due to NDA.
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Yea I plan to upgrade too. They are nice little boxes. I have some at the office, but can't show due to NDA.
Have you seen/played any games on it?
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Yes, the ones we are making. Target audience is def the casual type and looks pretty cool. Will be interesting to see how it does over time.
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I thought Trip and all his great ideas left EA years ago?
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LOL you think so? Read about 3DO.
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Haha. I was being sarcastic.
This just sounds like him.
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Funny story. When Trip hired Bill Dully away from Topps to COO for 3DO, I had a chance to meet him to discuss gaming in general. Bill asked me if people like 3DO games, I was like HELL no, if you want to make money, stop making Army men games and go M rated. Later they started Four Horsemen which was supposed to be the Devil May cry of 3DO. They never did finish it and Dully went back to Topps.
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Funny story. When Trip hired Bill Dully away from Topps to COO for 3DO, I had a chance to meet him to discuss gaming in general. Bill asked me if people like 3DO games, I was like HELL no, if you want to make money, stop making Army men games and go M rated. Later they started Four Horsemen which was supposed to be the Devil May cry of 3DO. They never did finish it and Dully went back to Topps.
The damn thing was so expensive and gaming wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today. I do remember the 3DO trying to market it self as an educational machine as well as a gaming machine. Silly Advertising folk.
Road Rash is probably one of the few games that stands out to me and there was some sort of game show game that was pretty fun too. Wasn't there a street fighter port for it too?
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There was a Streert Fighter that was pretty good. Btw the story with Dully was during 3DO's PS2 era.
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I should care about this because....?
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"use your iPad as a controller for the games"
How is that 'not bad'?!?
:lol:
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I should care about this because....?
You shouldn't. It's not meant for you and is therefor good.... or some such nonsense.
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I need to get some new boxes, but Comcast doesn't exist in my area.
If it is the same price to get these as my old ass stuff, hope they bring an equivalent to Time Warner.
...which I will never use the functions of.
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Got my X1 box last night and as a DVR/Cable Box, it's actually quite good. The interface is pretty well thought out as are some of the features. One improvement is that it automatically selects the HD channel of whatever you're looking for. For example, if I select our local Channel 4 (CBS), it'll redirect me to Channel 234 (its HD counterpart) automatically. Also, when you hit "Last" it pulls up the last nine channels you watched. Additionally, the DVR is nearly five-times bigger than the old one and you can record four programs at once while watching a fifth (first-world bullshit, I know).
The guide and menu features are nice, too, especially when you want to search. The remote's keypad is just like a phone, so you just type the word you're looking for and it'll pull up anything that matches. If I'm looking for "Walking Dead", I just type 9255 and it'll automatically read it as "WALK". And if I see a show in the guide, and then select it, I'm able to choose past episodes to watch from OnDemand, and they're sorted by season.
Also cool is the sports feature. You only have to hit a button and it'll pull up a side-window showing you all the scores and times for every game, even the ones that aren't televised in your area. And if you click on one of the games that is televised, it'll take you right to it.
OnDemand is also massively improved, looking more like a Netflix app than the old crappy menu they used to have with the annoying video loop they had running.
Then there's the Apps section, which is where I assume the EA Origins thing will go eventually. Right now they have Weather, Traffic, Pandora, Facebook, and some other stuff. It's all pretty slick and loads up rather quickly. It'd be pretty sweet if they got Steam onto this thing, but wishful thinking, I suppose.
A couple negatives:
-The box doesn't shut off. It's always on, so there's the power concern.
-There's no reminder option anymore. It was nice to see a show coming up in a few hours and to be able to set a reminder to flip in on.
-No Input Select on the remote. This is a big negative for me because I often am switching from cable to AppleTV to BluRay and it was nice having a remote that could change the input. That's a really big oversight, IMO.
Overall, it's an incredible improvement from their old, shitty DVRs. Glad I upgraded. Thanks for alerting me to it!
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j-
Great feedback, mind if I send it over to our Comcast X1 contacts? Perhaps these are improvements they can make via updates.
Let me know, thanks!
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Knock yourself out, man.
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Odd request, but could you take a pic of the UI :D
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I'll try to remember when I get home later, but they have pretty good pictures here:
http://www.comcast.com/x1
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Well, one week in and I've got some more feedback. While the box itself is nice and has some great features, it's buggy as all hell. There are times when I'm unable to even change the channel. It'll just sit there and do nothing. I've had to reboot it a number of times because of it.
Just a bit ago, I couldn't do anything and an error message came up, so I had to call Comcast and have them remotely refresh the box. Then, after watching TV for ten minutes, it rebooted itself out of nowhere.
I'm being patient because I realize it's a new product and they're still ironing out all the bugs, but man...this shit gets annoying sometimes.
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Ask for monies for being a beta tester. No, don't.... they might try to pay you in shitty EA games. :mrgreen:
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No shit, eh? I actually had to call three times last night; two more after I made that post. The third time, the customer service person told me a way to refresh from home so I didn't have to call anymore. Apparently this type of error just started popping up and they're working on fixing it. But in the meantime, it's a pain in my ass...