Mr. GOH!

It's interesting to see enthusiastic Steam users decry the Xbone for similar restrictions to those placed on Steam games, myself included. I think it comes down to the fact that we trust Valve, but we don't trust Microsoft.

Digital on day of physical release is cool. No disc required is nice. I guess keeping the status quo of allowing anyone playing on your console to play your games isn't bad, but it does not bode well that this is one of their leading bullet points. "You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time." So you and one other person can play from the library at the same time, though you can give ten people access. If two other members want to play different games on different consoles at the same time, well, sucks to be them. Publishers are in control of used games. EA gets a huge-ass boner for this feature. You can give games away once to someone you've known for a month to limit any grey market in "gift" games. Well, the restrictions on Apple's products are even tighter, and they're rich, so this is fine. Or so MS must think. Their loss when this shitstorm strikes again a bit after launch when folks find out that they're just buying glorified apps for their Xbox that they can't sell, trade, etc. without jumping through hoops.

C'mon, son. That was a weak-ass game.

The Red Wedding was suitably brutal. I thought they brought it to the small screen wonderfully.

It seems like I've been seeing you play a lot on Steam. Was that all a single game? How long is a game on average? Longer than Civ? I've heard great things about the game and I'm curious but that learning curve seems so daunting. A lot of that is not actual playtime; I routinely open it up to the dialog box asking which mods I want to load and then get busy with something else and it just sits there all day long, especially if I plan to play a few minutes before work and leave it on when I leave. That said, I've been playing it a whole lot. And I've played maybe four or five serious games, among maybe a dozen or so games that went nowhere after an hour or two. A single game can last much longer than Civ, Or shorter; there's a hard ending date, but a flexible start date, so if you start in the 1300's, as opposed to the the 1000's, the game will end much more quickly. Many players also set goals (unite Britannia, survive the Mongol invasions, and so on), and the game 'ends' when the goal is met or becomes impossible to meet. Those sorts of games don't last as long as the grand campaign from 867-1453. It's also a real time with pause game, so you can speed up or slow down the speed and make it last longer.

My favorite reaction to the Red Wedding: "So THAT'S why Tywin spent the entire season writing letters!"

I imagine that any Kickstarter not explicit about seeking publisher involvement would only get involved with publishers to port and publish the Kickstartered game on console, That is, they'd use the publisher as purely a distribution aid. That's fine, and it wouldn't involve the publisher having veto power over a game's development. Otherwise, I imagine that publishers aren't too keen on sinking money into games which have already been bought and paid for by fans; the publisher wouldn't see any money from sales to backers.

As a consumer, I'd rather game companies come to gamers to pitch their games, to be answerable only to us for the quality of their games because we funded their development, rather than being beholden to publishers who only look at a projected future profit. Publishers don't innovate; they push out safe game after safe game. Kickstarter is an excellent vehicle to get funding for games that big publishers won't fund.

Fuck yes. FFT + XCOM + motherfucking CRUSADER KINGS = throwing a hundy at Double Fine.

There would still be pressure to drop prices as time goes by in order to capture more of the market. I just do not think MS or Sony would be as willing to drop prices to do so because they don't want consumers to expect games to cost under $20, even years after release.

To be fair, when folks complain that corporations are greedy, they usually mean that corporations are sociopathic; they seek profit in the near-term no matter the negative effects on other people.

Here's Total Biscuit's rebuttal. The biggest flaw in his argument is the danger that MS or Sony, were they to do away with the used market, would try to retain the monopoly on digital retail of their respective console's games. They would likely not lower prices as quickly or steadily as PC game digital retailers because there's no real competition.

The extra ports are surplus, sure. But as long as the board doesn't have any real problems, who cares? If anything, they'd allow you to use your computer if your video card ever dies.

Huh. They way it's worked with me is that she uses an iPad or laptop to watch while I use the screen to play, if we're having together screen time and I wanna play 360 or PS3. Generally, though, unless we're doing the same thing (watching the same screen), we're both too absorbed for whether we're sitting next to each other or in separate, but adjacent, rooms. Neither of us really channel surf disinterestedly; we're either WATCHING the show or not. I'm sure this is different for every couple.

Remote play, as it currently works, means nothing to me. I live alone right now, but when I move in with my girlfriend we'll have two TVs and countless other entertainment screens. I'm surprised at the number of adults who have a single TV and want to stream games to their handheld devices. Now, if the stream were reliable outside of a local network, I'd be mighty interested. Too bad that's not gonna happen any time soon.

Crusader Kings 2. Started as the Duke of Firenze in 1066, ended up as Holy Roman Emperor in 1453 with over 100k score. Just in time for the Old Gods to drop.

The internet infrastructure in the USA just isn't there to support mass-market streaming video games. Cloud computing is good for crunching data for things like simulations or brute-force hacking. Not sure the Xbone is really gonna need it for either of those.

My impression is that this will be like a less-zany Borderlands, without the focus on ridiculously fun bizarro weapons,and with a stronger MMO-like multiplayer component. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'd be surprised if only one next-gen console has used games restrictions. Seems like it's more about servicing the third-party publishers, and if they're cool with Sony not restricting used, why would MS go through all the time and money to make their platform less desirable? Then again, MS may be greedy idiots.

My suggestion is to go with an nVidia card. You'll occasionally have issues with games developed closely with AMD (Tomb Raider comes to mind), but overall, I've had better experiences with nVidia.