Microsoft has a problem. I talked about this before. They seem to have a heck of a time controlling their messaging when it comes to their next-gen console.
The most repeated questions for gamers concerning the just revealed Xbox One have been fairly consistent. Can you play used games on the new console? Does the console require internet connectivity to function? Neither of these requirements were touched on in the livestreamed Xbox Reveal Event that ended this morning, so various members of the media asked the Microsoft representatives. Surprisingly, it seems the answers varied depending on who or when you asked.
Wired was told by Microsoft in a pre-event visit that the console would require a fee to play used games, but that the console would not require an online connection to play singleplayer games.
Microsoft vice president Phil Harrision confirmed to Kotaku that the console would require a fee to transfer a game license from one player to another, but he clarified that the Xbox One would need to connect to Microsoft’s servers at least once per day.
Kotaku: If I’m playing a single player game, do I have to be online at least once per hour or something like that? Or can I go weeks and weeks?
Harrison: I believe it’s 24 hours.
Kotaku: I’d have to connect online once every day.
Harrison: Correct.
A Microsoft representative emailed Polygon to refute Phil Harrison’s statements.
“While Phil discussed many potential scenarios around games on Xbox One, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail. There have been reports of a specific time period – those were discussions of potential scenarios, but we have not confirmed any details today, nor will we be.”
Finally, Phil Harrison talked to Eurogamer to try to reclarify what he meant. This time, Harrison said that the used game issue isn’t settled and the Xbox One does not require the internet to function… Sort of.
“Some bits of the system will work offline,” he said. “I think the key point to make is that Xbox One requires an internet connection, but it does not need to be connected all the time. We think that most of the biggest games on Xbox One and most of the games and experiences and services you want to use will be internet-connected.”
Microsoft’s own Q&A site is oddly unclear about the whole thing.
I don’t get paid to consult for Microsoft, but I’ll give them a freebie. They should probably get together and agree on basic responses to questions that will get asked. Questions that gamers have been asking for weeks. That would probably improve the stories they get out of the media when they launch a new console.
One of the most insidious formulas for a horror movie is to let you hang out for a while with people you get to know and like, and to then do terrible things to them. Wolf Creek and Black Water, for instance, are examples of horror movies in which nothing horrific happens for a long time and the movie is all the better for it.
The latest crop of bad horror movies — many of them found footage — gets this all wrong by forcing you to sit for a long time with unlikable characters played by bad actors. By the time anything horrible happens, you couldn’t care less. In Aftershock, mostly forgettable bad things happen to an unlikable bunch of snotty Chileans with a couple of foreigners sprinkled into the mix, including Eli Roth, who perfected bad things happening to bad characters to bad effect in his wretched Hostel series.
Roth didn’t direct Aftershock, but you’d never know considering what artless trash it is. It consists of a half hour of three dude hitting on chicks in nightclubs. Kill me now. Eventually, a low budget earthquake happens, a funicular crashes but they didn’t have the budget to show it, local hires playing escaped prisoners tastefully rape one of the actresses and burn Roth alive with CG fire, the heroine and a surprise bad guy flop around contentiously in a poorly lit cave, and then a really chintzy CG tsunami shows up for the final shot. Aftershock is ultimately like one of those cheaply made “bad weather” Sci Fi Channel movies, but with an R-rating made pointless by the fact that the director was clearly influenced by either Roth’s Hostel movies or the sorts of crass 70s exploitation horror that Dimension Films would never let him shoot.
Aftershock is available for video on demand. Not that you should care.
Now that the post-show glow has faded, we know a lot more about Microsoft’s new Xbox One console. We still don’t know the price or the exact launch date, but we can talk about which pre-show rumors turned out to be true and which were complete crap.
Let’s check off the rumors after the jump! Continue reading →
The Microsoft Xbox Reveal Event just ended and the new console is going to be called XBOX One. No laughing! It’s got a new Kinect sensor, a redesigned controller, and a revamp of Xbox Live. Stop laughing! It’s got a lot of TV features. I’d say 45 minutes of the presentation was various people telling the audience how awesome watching TV will be on the XBOX One. Seriously, you have to stop laughing.
For all you tech heads, the next-gen console has 8GB of RAM and 5 bajillion thingamajigs inside it, so you can go from gaming to a TV show (and vice versa) a lot quicker. Go from a movie to live TV to a game in seconds! You can control your console using universal gestures, like swooping your hands to get to the home screen. Your laughter is really distracting, by the way.
Steven Spielberg is apparently producing a Halo TV show. XBOX One and the NFL are partnering up for some kind of new transmedia way to watch football games. Okay, look. I’m not going to continue if you’re just going to laugh like a loon the whole time.
Is it always online? What’s the price? Are there any good games coming? Good questions that had no answers in the presentation.
Microsoft officially unveiled the Xbox One with a release date of “later this year” and a price of “uh, what?”. Nick has a more detailed breakdown above, but for my money, the only standout was a few glimpses of Infinity Ward’s upcoming Call of Duty: Ghost, in which you get a cool SEAL Team dog. Move over, Dead to Rights! You can watch the presentation at xbox.com, but I don’t necessarily recommend it unless you’re in the market for a voice-activated cable box.
(Thanks to Teiman for the awesome picture!)
