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| tomman |
Posted on 18-11-20, 03:29 (revision 2)
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Dinosaur
 Post: #38 of 1315 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 58 days Last view: 18 hours |
Right now this rumor is doing the rounds: https://games.slashdot.org/story/18/11/16/2253219/cheaper-disc-free-xbox-one-coming-next-year-report-says https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/report-cheaper-disc-free-xbox-one-option-coming-next-year/ https://www.thurrott.com/xbox/192184/microsofts-building-a-disc-less-xbox-one-for-release-in-2019 While this is only a "unsourced report" so far, knowing MS' games division it wouldn't be too far-fetched: remember, they tried to pull this very same stunt all the way back prior to the Xbone release (remember the "TV TV TV TV!!!!" stuff), trying to tie discs to devices/accounts, killing the second-hand market and heavily eroding YOUR consumer rights in the meanwhile. Fortunately common sense prevailed, and after gamers revolted and threatened to make the PS4 the winner of this round of the console wars (spoilers: it actually happened, if sales charts are to be believed), forcing MS to backpedal and shelve their shady plans... for a time. Well, it seems they're back to the same crap (they claim that this will be an alternative hardware version for those already heavily invested into a digital-only market), but this time the reactions of the gamer public have been... less radical, so far. Unlike five years ago, a not so insignificant group actually WELCOMES this (not so consumer-friendly) move, claiming that they've yet to insert a disc on their Xbones and that they live in the Fairyland with unhackable credit cards, unmetered gigabit connections with five-nines availability, and bottomless HDDs (hint: upgrading the HDD on a Xbone is NOT a trivial operation and will void your warranty, unlike in the PS4 where Sony actually makes the procedure as user friendly as possible). Everybody wants cheaper consoles, but nobody cares about cheaper games, it seems (from what I've been able to read so far, consoles rarely -if ever- have Steam-like sales, and even worse, digital-only games can be as expensive as physical releases... if not even more costly outright!). Oh, and if you STILL want to play your game discs bought with your hard earned cash on those "alternative" discless Xbones, MS has got you "covered": they will allow you to "trade-in" your discs in exchange for licenses tied to your account. Not only you will be forced to forfeit your precious discs, but should you ever get the banhammer, you might lose your games forever. Much progress! Don't get me started with the whole game preservation angle... which unfortunately has been rendered quite pointless with "50GB+ launch day" patches and endless truckloads of DLCs :/ But hey, this is the future you gamers want. If the PS5 or Xbox 4 are going to embrace the discless digital utopia, why even bother buying consoles in the first place?! Remember, they're heavily locked down x86-64 PCs, so why not commit yourself to jump ship to PC Master Race™ for real? Ugh, I'm glad I no longer have time to play videogames anymore, much less to pay attention to what the industry pretends to disguise as "modern videogames" nowadays. Between this and the cellphone junk, this genre of entertainment is as doomed as TV and music. EDIT: There might be a very good reason of why MS is reconsidering their discless plans, so here goes my conspiracy theory: currently the BD-ROM drive on the Xbone comes from a single source, PLDS (Lite-On's ODD arm). This is important to know, because PLDS already exited the consumer BD drive market a while ago (they no longer make BD burners anymore: their last new design was introduced around 2012, and was discontinued sometime around 2016, same for their PC BD-ROM SATA drives). Their last PC-style BD-ROM drive is the custom jobbie for the Xbone (the DG-6M1S). While the Xbone sells well, I guess PLDS is not really profiting that much about making those drives, and they might have gave notice to MS to find another supplier, which in 2018 seems to be Mission:Impossible (realistically speaking, their other option would be Hitachi-LG -HLDS-, an OEM they've never very fond of, considering how uncommon were those drives during the X360 production runs). So maybe this would be a rare opportunity for Marketing and Engineering to be aligned on the same line of thought: Engineering can't be assed to keep dragging along with a BD drive noone wants to manufacture anymore, while Marketing can go ahead with their nefarious digital-only plans. Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™ |
| Wowfunhappy |
Posted on 18-11-20, 20:28
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Post: #1 of 21
Since: 11-08-18 Last post: 1254 days Last view: 1254 days |
EDIT: There might be a very good reason of why MS is reconsidering their discless plans, so here goes my conspiracy theory: currently the BD-ROM drive on the Xbone comes from a single source, PLDS (Lite-On's ODD arm). This is important to know, because PLDS already exited the consumer BD drive market a while ago (they no longer make BD burners anymore: their last new design was introduced around 2012, and was discontinued sometime around 2016, same for their PC BD-ROM SATA drives). Their last PC-style BD-ROM drive is the custom jobbie for the Xbone (the DG-6M1S). While the Xbone sells well, I guess PLDS is not really profiting that much about making those drives, and they might have gave notice to MS to find another supplier, which in 2018 seems to be Mission:Impossible (realistically speaking, their other option would be Hitachi-LG -HLDS-, an OEM they've never very fond of, considering how uncommon were those drives during the X360 production runs). So maybe this would be a rare opportunity for Marketing and Engineering to be aligned on the same line of thought: Engineering can't be assed to keep dragging along with a BD drive noone wants to manufacture anymore, while Marketing can go ahead with their nefarious digital-only plans. But, no way MS kills off the models with a BluRay altogether. I'm sure they will still be manufactured, to placate GameStop if nothing else. Would it be overly difficult for MS to just find another manufacturer for the drive? It's not as though BD drive makers are in short supply. |
| tomman |
Posted on 18-11-20, 21:02
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Dinosaur
Post: #39 of 1315 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 58 days Last view: 18 hours |
Posted by Wowfunhappy Well... they actually are. Last time I've checked, there were only 4 OEMs for BD drives: Hitachi-LG (HLDS), Lite-On (PLDS), Pioneer and Matsushita (Panasonic). Pioneer is not known for doing custom OEM jobs, while Panasonic actually has been the exclusive provider for every Nintendo optical disc format, and outside that, they aren't known for OEM projects (in fact they barely make ODDs nowadays). Everyone else either went bankrupt (Toshiba-Samsung), got absorbed by somebody else (Optiarc), or quietly left the market (QSI). In general, outside game consoles and standalone players, optical disc drives ARE a endangered species :/ But there IS hope: in a surprising twist of fate, Lite-On decided to return to the ever-shrinking UHD-BD drive market with this portable model, just announced a month ago. I guess they actually decided they can make drives for almost free nowadays, and there is still profit to be made even after the licensing/patent fees (which actually are the biggest cost on anything tech-related). As long as MS keeps paying them, there will be BD-ROM drives on your Xbones... at least until MS forces the world to embrace a discless utopia, which is what they're trying to do now. Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™ |
| wertigon |
Posted on 18-11-24, 13:40 (revision 1)
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Post: #1 of 205
Since: 11-24-18 Last post: 155 days Last view: 27 days |
It could just be they are making a Nintendo and moving storage to SD/flash based cards instead. Today you can get a reasonably fast storage in the order of 256 GB from these technologies, and being a proprietary game console, proprietary extensions to the current SD standard would not be impossible. I think optical media with denser data storage than Blu-Ray would be way too unreliable to produce, so this move would make sense. I agree a game console without physical media is impossible to fly in the US today, due to how ass-backwards the US is with internet speeds. Not even sure if an uncapped 10GBit line is possible to get in the US - it is in Europe, though a bit pricey. For me living in a small-ish town in Europe and having a 100/100 uncapped line for €30 though, physical media are pretty much a thing of the past. For better and worse. If Apple has taught me one thing it's that the large majority simply doesn't care. Convenience über alles... |
| RetroJim |
Posted on 18-11-29, 06:02
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 Post: #9 of 26 Since: 11-15-18 Last post: 2071 days Last view: 2070 days |
I doubt they'll use an flash media cards for sales purposes. The design of the console is for streaming and downloadable content only. GameStop has lost a lot of favor these past years due to either lack of availability of titles or the fact digital downloads are cheaper to buy, faster to get as higher bandwidth broadband proliferation continues, and just easier to maintain since you own the digital copy forever. It's easier and faster to replace an HDD or SSD to a higher capacity model than buy enough game media disks to install the same capacity. Especially when you see 1TB 64-layer 3D TLC drives from companies like Samsung, Silicon Power, Toshiba, Western Digital, or SanDisk for under $150. Find me on Facebook at @jimsretrogaming |
| CaptainJistuce |
Posted on 18-11-29, 09:27
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Custom title here
 Post: #89 of 1164 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 63 days Last view: 9 hours |
Posted by wertigonNot even a case of internet speeds. Retailers don't want to sell a game console without also being able to sell games. They did their damnedest to make sure the PSP Go tanked harder than an Abrams, and were largely successful because where you gonna buy hardware if no one will sell it to you? --- In UTF-16, where available. --- |
| Nicholas Steel |
Posted on 18-11-29, 10:07 (revision 2)
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Post: #35 of 426
Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 499 days Last view: 14 days |
Posted by james4591 Downloadable games are very often more expensive than physical releases of games in Australia and downloadable games often have fewer and worse discounts. AMD Ryzen 3700X | MSI Gamer Geforce 1070Ti 8GB | 16GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM | ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) Motherboard | Windows 10 x64 |
| CaptainJistuce |
Posted on 18-11-29, 14:03
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Custom title here
Post: #90 of 1164 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 63 days Last view: 9 hours |
Hi there! I notice you typed "digital" when you meant to type "downloadable"! CDs, DVDs, and BRDs are all digital media! It is a very rare system indeed that supports analog games(LaserActive and, ummm... LaserActive?)! --- In UTF-16, where available. --- |
| RetroJim |
Posted on 18-11-29, 15:12 (revision 1)
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Post: #13 of 26 Since: 11-15-18 Last post: 2071 days Last view: 2070 days |
Retailers still have the problem of Downloadable Content Packs through mediums like Steam, or even the online stores you can purchase a downloadable copy through, which by all accounts can supplicant or even replace pre-order packs from places like Gamestop, or even have the original authors sell paraphernalia like toys and promotional items on their own sites which literally takes Gamestop out of the equation and loop. And just for good measure: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820156174 Crucial MX500 3D-TLC V-NAND 2.5" 1 TB SSD for $139.99. It's this that's making Gamestop irrelevant, as well as providers like Comcast offering me 200MB/6MB connection for about $45 a month which makes downloading about 16GB of data for a game I play take only a trip to Costco and back to buy household supplies for the month to get done, if not entirely less. Plus, 1TB is more than enough space to last for about a dozen or more titles of various size. Plus, the fact of Steam is, I buy it, it's mine forever. All I have to do is add another SSD or HDD when storage runs low in space, or just assign an SSD or HDD specifically to Steam's folder, call it a day, and add more drive space in a JBOD setup as needed. Find me on Facebook at @jimsretrogaming |
| tomman |
Posted on 18-11-29, 18:49
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Dinosaur
Post: #52 of 1315 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 58 days Last view: 18 hours |
Not everybody lives in the land of $150 1TB SSDs and unmetered Fast Ethernet pipes, please remember that. We PC gamers are willing to live with dodgy DSL lines and multi-gigabyte downloads because that has always been part of the platform (the "you are on your own" bits). But on consoles that's simply not going to fly that easily. People buy console games expecting to arrive home, insert the disc, open a beer/soda, and start fragging martians or whatever. But apparently it's the "new normal" to expect consoles to work like PCs, down to the pricing models... except that you don't get Steam sales with your console. Also, let's remember the "you don't own your Steam games" bit. The day you get permabanned due to some silly ToS change, or Valve goes tits-up, it's over. The day Nintendo goes under? You will still be able to play your Switch gamecards. Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™ |
| RetroJim |
Posted on 18-11-29, 18:59
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Post: #14 of 26 Since: 11-15-18 Last post: 2071 days Last view: 2070 days |
DSL is pretty much dead in most places. Even AT&T, one of the biggest DSL providers switched to Broadband through its U-Verse. It's still bad service, but they're trying to compete with Xfinity's Broadband. Broadband isn't what it used to be with the shared bandwidth issues. It's gotten a lot better and less expensive. Find me on Facebook at @jimsretrogaming |
| tomman |
Posted on 18-11-29, 23:53 (revision 1)
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Dinosaur
Post: #54 of 1315 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 58 days Last view: 18 hours |
Did I forgot to say "there are countries beyond just the United States of America"? ...looks like I did. DSL is still big in Latin America, where things like FTTH are a pipe dream for most (there has been improvements all across the board except for the well-known commie shitholes, but we as a continent are quite far from "livin' the dream", bandwidth-wise) Also, good luck trying to buy that $150 SSD in places like Brazil. Unless that SSD is assembled locally, that will be more like $1500 thanks to wonderful protectionist trade policies. Oh, I forgot that 'murica is about to live that dream too-- best I stop there, as this is not the Politics thread. Suffice to say, Tectoy tried marching down the discless road, but failed miserably: remember the Zeebo? Most likely not, because it went nowhere, even with CHEAP games aimed at a developing economy (it did failed mostly due to poor marketing and cellphone-grade hardware, but the discless factor did nothing to help to grow its already minimal marketshare). Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™ |
| tomman |
Posted on 19-04-17, 02:32 (revision 2)
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Dinosaur
Post: #261 of 1315 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 58 days Last view: 18 hours |
Introducing the Xbox One S All-Digital edition, or "Xbone SAD" for short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBDSMNE3_oQ Yes, it's now official: the discless Xbone is about to hit the stores. Forgoing the BD-ROM drive will save you $50, which sounds like a total ripoff considering that you can actually find a new Xbone S with a disc drive for less than the $250 that MS is charging for the Xbone SAD, if you know where to look (special deals, sales, etc.) Maybe at $150 it could have been a much better deal if you're willing to give up all of your rights as a conscious consumer because you're too lazy to embrace the PC Master Race™. SAD times ahead, indeed! Oh, MS also introduced a $15/mo game pass which allows you "unlimited" access to a library of 100 games plus Xbox Live Gold included as part of the service. Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™ |
| Duck Penis |
Posted on 19-04-17, 13:45
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Stirrer of Shit
Post: #214 of 717 Since: 01-26-19 Last post: 1763 days Last view: 1761 days |
The legacy versions with disk drives won't be very useful if no new games are released for them, or if a software update disables it for security/piracy reasons. Buying and downloading games is just an intermediate step anyway, soon you'll only be able to subscribe to an unlimited plan. As for the Internet, no problem. They'll just ask the major US ISPs to bump up the speed. Because it can download at off-peak hours without having to leave the carrier's net, they should be able to get far higher speeds than normal, and without counting against data caps. With good technology, you should be able to "stream" the game data to play the first few hours. Remember that games historically have been optimized to fit on a X GB disk, if they're incentivized to be small instead then they could just start compressing stuff harder and then decompress it to disk. The end user wouldn't notice anything but slightly longer first-run load screens, and would have the impression of being able to play any game he or she wanted to at any given time. The customers would of course welcome it - "no more dealing with CDs and DVDs that might get lost or damaged, just you and your infinite games". No more having to buy games for little Timmy, because gracious Microsoft already took care of the matter and gave him them all for free. Also think of the developers' opportunities to be able to dynamically patch the game whenever they feel like it, and to do profile-guided optimization or A/B testing with near-constant feedback. Game balance could be dynamically adjusted to maximize engagement, the only important metric. People who play more could get better "RNG" as well. Lots of interesting things you could do with that sort of data really, just look at YouTube and how they make sure everyone gets interesting recommendations. Clearly, it's a win-win situation for everyone involved. There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination. You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something like this. |
| BearOso |
Posted on 19-04-17, 17:49 (revision 1)
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 Post: #78 of 175 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 1450 days Last view: 1450 days |
Both companies need to move on to their next consoles (with direct compatibility). This generation was stuck where the consoles were just underpowered enough, and the Pro models were also underpowered relative to advertised. We need to move onto the PS5/Next Xbox, which will have decent AMD CPUs and GPUs no longer based on inferior architectures. Backward compatibility should be mandatory, such that a PS4 or Xbox one game simply IS a PS4/Whatever game, and the new generation simply takes advantage of the increased performance. And tomman: PS5 confirmed to have a disc drive (for now). |
| Nicholas Steel |
Posted on 19-04-17, 19:12 (revision 2)
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Post: #183 of 426
Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 499 days Last view: 14 days |
PS5 is also said to have: Some variation of the AMD ZEN 2 CPU architecture GPU that supports Ray Tracing Backwards compatibility with PS4 (no clue how extensive the support will be) An SSD storage device Expect it in 2020. AMD Ryzen 3700X | MSI Gamer Geforce 1070Ti 8GB | 16GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM | ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) Motherboard | Windows 10 x64 |
| Near |
Posted on 19-04-20, 16:11
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Burned-out Genius Developer
Post: #38 of 51 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 1419 days Last view: 1342 days |
Anyone want to place bets on the next Xbox console name? I'm going with Xbox zero,7 (European-style point) |
| tomman |
Posted on 19-04-20, 16:15
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Dinosaur
Post: #263 of 1315 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 58 days Last view: 18 hours |
Xbox Too Or, since there is noone left at MS that can count properly, Xbox 10. Licensed Pirate® since 2006, 100% Buttcoin™-free, enemy of All Things JavaScript™ |
| BearOso |
Posted on 19-04-20, 19:46 (revision 1)
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Post: #81 of 175 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 1450 days Last view: 1450 days |
Posted by tomman Or “Xbox To.” Slogan: “Their it is, you’re new Xbox.” Now that I think of it, "Xbox Tú" would actually be creative. |
| CaptainJistuce |
Posted on 19-04-20, 22:19
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Custom title here
Post: #410 of 1164 Since: 10-30-18 Last post: 63 days Last view: 9 hours |
XBox Again XBox Alpha XBox Omega XBox One Turbo --- In UTF-16, where available. --- |
