Xbox One

[sunteam_paul]

In addition to my list

Kinect required: Fail
Voice Commands: Fail (seriously, I had them on my Windows 95 PC and it was cool for 5 minutes, then I turned it off because it was dumb).

[MotherGunner]

None of you guys are buying it anyways!  Stick to PCE.

[Arkhan]

I can't wait to flail around naked in front of the kinect while screaming Megadeth lyrics, to see what the Xbox does.

[sunteam_paul]

I'm gonna get one just so I can shout 'XBOX - OBEY' at it all day.

[bob]

It really does look f*cking stupid.
They are STILL fumbling around with a seperate device for the camera.  The damn thing looks as big as the box itself. They should have just built it into the damn box. 
When will the M$ retards understand this isnt the direction gaming should go?
God i hope this fails worse than a female parallel parking.

[FiftyQuid]

Microsoft has confirmed that all Xbox One games will require mandatory installation onto the system's hard drive and, to install the same disc onto another user's drive, a fee must be paid.

Individual games will be tied to Xbox Live accounts, Microsoft said, meaning that the software giant can detect whether a game has been sold to a retailer and repurchased, or handed from one friend to another. In such instances, the second user must pay a fee.

"On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play," a Microsoft representative told Wired.

The company added that, once discs are installed on the hard drive, games can be played without a disc being in the tray.

The Wired article then elaborates: "What follows naturally from this is that each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner."

It added: "Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc."

Microsoft did not disclose what the second-user fee would amount too, and did not clarify further on the matter.

The article claims that there is no sweeping 'always-online' requirement for future Xbox One games.

I love how they use the word "fee" here.  It's going to be full retail price, not a fee.  Using the word fee in this manner makes it sound like it'll be $9.99 to use it on another machine.  We all know it will be the full cost.

[KingDrool]

Well, no we don't...

But we can guess.

[Nando]

I love how they use the word "fee" here.  It's going to be full retail price, not a fee.  Using the word fee in this manner makes it sound like it'll be $9.99 to use it on another machine.  We all know it will be the full cost.

Solid assumption.

long gone are the days of, "hey want me to bring this game over?"

No wonder Gamestop is looking into old school games, their frigging business model has just been Angry bird'ed 

[TheOldMan]

It's all about the benjamins, guys. Every decision they make is to get more $$ from your pocket to theirs.
Video games are a main-stream, big-budget operation now. Everyone is trying to get as much $$ as they can.

"Pay for pre-owned : Fail"
Not for them.
You buy the game for x$, turn it in for $X/100. Someone else buys it for $Y. They still have to pay whomever made the game to play it. And no one had to pay to produce that 'extra' sale....

"No backwards compatibility : Fail"
Not for them.
You don't want to pay for the same game twice? Too bad....

"No transfer of XBLA games : Fail"
Not for them.
Same reason as above.....

"All games need installation : Fail"
Not for them.
Now they can meet any deadline they set: "We'll patch it later...."
So what if the game sucks in the beginning. It'll get better later....
And of course, you have to pay for the priviledge of them fixing the problems (ie, X-Box Live)

"Kinect required: Fail"
Not for them.
Now you have to buy something else to take 'complete' advantage of the system.
Or pay extra to get it with system included

"Voice Commands: Fail"
Not for them.
Recognition software pretty much sux. Voice commands are gonna be slow, and/or require an internet connection.
But who cares? They get bragging rights, as the first console to feature them.....
Though the kiddies will love it. ("What's it do when you say f*ck? How about Sh*t? Cooool.")

"Why not just use my PC instead?"
Why not? That's really all it is. Except it's stripped down (so they only have to support specific hardware).
Look for lots of ports from the '1' to the pc in the future - so you have to pay twice again.

"I don't understand why they're all up on the whole "lets be a media center" thing. "

Because there is lots of money to be made in it, and they want their slice.
From tracking what you play and where you go on the internet (information which they can then re-sell)
to in-game ads (you know they are coming) to small 'fees' for streaming shows to your machine.
There are lots of ways to make money from a 'media center', and you can bet all the game makers are looking for a
way to cash in on it.

...
I disagree with companies trying to rake in every last penny they can (obviously).
Especially when the company officers are not held responsible for the results of their greed. (Get hit with a big
lawsuit? Go bankrupt. Private assets can't be seized. Who cares about the people who work here, anyway)

That's why I don't develop for more modern consoles.
Fun for us is just business to them.
I won't be buying any of the new generation consoles for a long while.....

[Arkhan]

by the time you buy one, the features won't work anymore because the servers will be dead!

[esteban]

MODERN ERA GAME CONSOLES: They make perfect sense to corporate executives and content partners and any other business alliance that can profit. As far as actually creating a solid platform that we (gamers) will enjoy...

[SmaMan]

Hey it could be worse, we could've had that Always On DRM that was confirmed in the early SDKs... now we just have to pay and have online activation!

So yeah, even though they said it wouldn't happen, you pretty much still have to have an almost always on connection to activate/pay for the damn software... 
Looks like I'll be sticking with the Wii U this gen.

But y'know what's great about being a radio news producer? I get to look at these "revolutionary" press releases. And their use. Of sentence fragments.

[Mishran]

Happily can pass on this Gen. Gonna stick with my old school systems. When games were made to be FUN!

[bob]

Happily can pass on this Gen. Gonna stick with my old school systems. When games were made to be FUN!

When consoles were meant to play games.

[KingDrool]

Holy f*ck:

Xbox One games will require a one-time activation code to use, but you'll still be able to trade and sell them online, Microsoft tells Kotaku—although we're not 100% clear on the details.

Speaking to us at the big event in Redmond today, Microsoft corporate vice president Phil Harrison clarified a couple of details about the system's used game policy and explained that there will be a solution for people who want to trade games with their friends.

Here's how the system works: when you buy an Xbox One game, you'll get a unique code that you enter when you install that game. You'll have to connect to the Internet in order to authorize that code, and the code can only be used once. Once you use it, that game will then be linked to your Xbox Live account. "It sits on your harddrive and you have permission to play that game as long as you’d like," Harrison said.

Other users on the console will be able to play that game as well, Harrison said. So you don't need to buy multiple games per family. "With the built-in parental controls of the system it is shared amog the users of the device," he said.

But what if you want to bring a game disc to a friend's house and play there? You'll have to pay a fee—and not just some sort of activation fee, but the actual price of that game—in order to use a game's code on a friend's account. Think of it like a new game, Harrison said.

"The bits that are on that disc, you can give it to your friend and they can install it on an Xbox One," he said. "They would then have to purchase the right to play that game through Xbox Live."

"They would be paying the same price we paid, or less?" we asked.

"Let’s assume it’s a new game, so the answer is yes, it will be the same price," Harrison said.

But that doesn't mean used games are dead. In fact, Harrison told us, you'll be able to sell your Xbox One games online.

"We will have a solution—we’re not talking about it today—for you to be able to trade your previously-played games online," Harrison said.

The Xbox exec wouldn't give further details on how this system will work, but we're assuming that once you're done with a game, you can trade the code online and it will be erased from your machine. But what will you get? Other games? Microsoft Points?

No matter how the final system works, it is not likely to please GameStop, the world's biggest buyer and seller of used video games, but it could be a tantalizing way to share games with your friends in the virtual space.

Update - Microsoft's Larry Hryb has issued the following clarification:

Another piece of clarification around playing games at a friend’s house – should you choose to play your game at your friend’s house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your profile.
What this means is that if you take a game to a friend's house and try to play the game on their system using their account, you'll need to pay. If you take it to their house and try to play it on their system using your account, you won't need to pay.

In other words: playing while you're there is free. If you want to lend it to them for a few days/weeks? They'll have to pay.