Since the earliest days of home consoles there have always been system wars and debates over the merits of which gaming platform is superior to all others. Most of the time this has revolved around simple preferences for one set of exclusive games versus another, and as advances in internet technology have evolved the debate has evolved alongside it to include service platforms and multiplayer infrastructures.
But a curious thing has happened in regards to the forthcoming generation which will see Sony's Playstation 4 engage in direct competition with Microsoft's Xbox One. The battle this time around isn't as much about exclusive vs. exclusive, or Playstation Network vs. Xbox Live or even technical specs like GDDR3 RAM vs. GDDR5 RAM. No, this time around due to completely opposing philosophies in the design of the operating systems we have a war between one company saying that we get to own the discs we pay $60 for and do with them as we please once the first sale has been made, and another saying that they control our access to the games we pay money for.
While one of the platforms will continue on with game sales and operation in the manner we have always been accustomed to, the other will enforce a new paradigm for physical copies in that their permission is needed to play the titles, that we have limited options for trading, selling and sharing games and that essentially all discs are nothing but unlock keys for digital copies, ensuring that we don't own anything. With such a vast difference in these platforms the lines have been quickly drawn for the gaming audience and many are choosing sides based not on what games were impressive at E3 or the various reveal events, but based on where they as a consumer are willing to give and where they will put their foot down in regards to their views on ownership rights. Needless to say the conversation has been quite heated with Microsoft and their Xbone console receiving a less than warm reception as details of their DRM and online connectivity requirements surface.
It's within this controversy regarding the next-generation systems that I read an article posted at VG24/7 by Brenna Hillier titled "Console Wars: you're going to buy an Xbox One" (link here) which about made me want to smash my head against a wall before I decided I'd openly rebut the article here. So without further ado, I'll begin here:
"Platform agnosticism" is an odd choice of words. Agnostic is a word most associated with debates over beliefs and knowledge claims in regards to Gods and Godesses, and while some may mistakenly think agnostic is halfway between the theist and the atheist, a fence-sitter shrugging their shoulders, the truth is that gnosticism and agnosticism apply to claims of knowledge and not belief. One can be a believer but still claim to not know for certain, thus being an agnostic believer. Agnosticism doesn't mean sitting perpetually in zen-like emptiness of bias and subjective opinion, forever on a fence of perfect objectivity. Agnosticism is simply claiming a lack of knowledge of the topic at hand."I’m no Xbot, kids; I was a rabid Sony fangirl before I saw the light of platform agnosticism (otherwise known as tax deductible hardware purchases). It took me years to pick up an Xbox 360 and I barely use it, since I don’t like the control pad (small hands, see) or have time for many multiplayer shooters. But I know I’m going to get an Xbox One eventually, and truly I think if you are the kind of person who invests in more than one console, you probably will too."
So in regards to platform preferences, the agnostic wouldn't be the undecided person or the person who wants to be extra careful to hide any appearance of subjectivity and bias, it's the person who has no knowledge of the details about the differences between PS4 and the Xbone. A person with no knowledge of the differences in $60 ownership of game discs or $60 in permanent rental ecosystems is not who Hillier is addressing here, and I maintain that for any person who takes a good and hard look at the facts in regards to these platforms there really is no actual middle ground. Maybe, just maybe, if you get your systems and games for free as part of the industry you can have a perpetual position of shrugging your shoulders and ignoring the debate, but for those of us who have to pay for these things and deal with the long-term consequences I cannot fathom anyone still being completely objectively neutral. The details of both platforms' positions is crystal clear, we know exactly where Microsoft and Sony stand.
I seriously hope so few people are so wowed by a couple of videogames that they're willing to tell the entire games industry, which has spent years scapegoating it's own customers for it's self-inflicted financial woes and perfecting pitiful schemes to loot it's own fanbase's wallets, that we will gladly piss away our ability to use the things we purchase in a manner of our choosing over some shiny CGI promises of yet another installment in the Halo or Forza franchises. You give this industry an inch of rope and it doesn't take a mile, it takes a lap around the fucking planet, and then blames you when the rope costs too damn much."Sure, the Xbox One online stuff is inconvenient but just look at these games"
Oh boy, here we go with trying to compare the closed monopolistic ecosystem of Xbox with the open and competition-filled realm of the PC gaming industry. Are you fucking kidding me?"But “quite annoying” could also easily be applied to PC gaming. Many of the restrictions Microsoft is introducing have been common in PC gaming for years, where the idea of trading used games is only just cropping up as a possibility again."
I already addressed this pitiful argument before (link here), but just for the sake of further argument let's pretend there's a valid comparison between Xbone and Steam. Who do you trust more between Valve and Microsoft to take care of customers? Last time Microsoft ran a DRM-laden download service, called MSN Music, they decided to close it and completely fucked over all the customers who had paid for content by shutting off all downloads and offering no DRM-removal options for the things people had saved. They basically rode off into the sunset with a fatter wallet and not a single fuck given about the customers whom they had done a disservice to.
Microsoft can't be trusted at all in this regard, but let's say Valve turns just as evil to compare the situations on even ground. At least on PC I can back my games up and crack the DRM, but under Big Brother Orwellian Microsoft's check-ins I'd have no way of doing that for Xbone software at all. After all, their 24 hour parole check-in is designed to prevent exactly those types of things from ever happening.
The DRM on Steam merits higher leniency of thought because it's got workarounds and they sell games oftentimes at prices comparable to consumable items, not the premium prices seen on consoles. We already know that next-gen console games are beginning once again at the $60 price point, and given Microsoft's online pricing record on XBL it;s highly suspect we'll see anything at all resembling the massive blowout sales seen on Steam, Good Old Games, Amazon or Greenman Gaming. Perhaps Microsoft can surprise us, and I'd be the first to eat crow if they did. But until I see some evidence of them taking initiatives like this before the Xbone launches I find no reason to believe they will once their new ecosystem is up and running. Microsoft hasn't showcased a reason for people to quiet their strong opinions on the subject, and what they have said and shown to us is worthy of the backlash they're suffering through."If you were there, if you dipped into the oily vitriol that greeted Steam’s debut, did you ever expect things to turn out like this? Maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe we should all be die-hard anti-DRM advocates. Maybe DRM really is purely anti-consumer in all its forms. I’m in two minds on that issue, and I’m not interested in debating it here. What I am interested in is whether the same thing is going to happen to the Xbox One. Will this storm blow over, as so many have before it?"
If you think the people inside the industry who want used games to die out completely or be a shell of what they are now are outliers, and not just carefully hiding their opinions to avoid the hornet's nest that Microsoft has smacked wide open, then I have a bridge to sell you."Apart from a few vocal outliers, nobody inside the industry really seems to want used games to go away."
Microsoft is perpetually behind in anything relating to the digital future. Sure Xbox Live got a head start on making online console gaming more streamlined, but it was merely implanting features seen in PC gaming into the console space. Beating conservative Japanese companies like Nintendo and Sony to the punch in this regard is not that impressive a feat."it’s entirely possible that Microsoft is actually ahead of the trend in chasing a digital future – as it was when it focused on online multiplayer, coming into this last generation well ahead of Sony."
If you want a glimpse of who is really setting the tends in digital futures, take a step away from consoles and look at the tech sector as a whole. Microsoft only wishes it were on the ball like Apple and Google. Microsoft's business under the reign of Steve Ballmer has displayed nothing but failure after failure in trying to compete against those two companies. Given the pitiful revenue intake and corporate status of their entertainment division which houses Xbox, I highly doubt the Xbox brand will stick around if it ends up selling at the rates the WiiU is currently selling at, or the rates the PS3 did circa spring 2007.
And here it is folks, the coup de grâce! If you are one of the core gaming audience who Microsoft is wanting to sell a $500 gaming device to (and at $500 the core is pretty much the only audience) then you are part of a vocal minority who likes to complain and you don't matter! Don't you just love how this narrative keeps popping up in games journalism and from industry types? It's so easy to dismiss everything with the wave of a hand, claim that the views of those who are critical don't represent and important group and then go forth with proclamations that the critics are all a bunch of sheep who will piss their money away against their own self-interests because of Halo 5 or Titanfall."No matter how strongly we rail against the Xbox One, how much we all focus on the negatives instead of embracing the positives, the Xbox One will sell and it will be successful. After all, it’s got Halo. It’s got Titanfall. It’s got all your Xbox Live friends. And it’s got your Gamerscore. Eventually, it will have you."
Don't make any mistakes, I admit there's a good number of fools who support the absolute worst cash-grabs the AAA Gaemz Industree™ comes up with, and there will be people who buy and support this DRM-infested shitstain of a console. But to claim that those who are planning on avoiding financing the fleecing of an entire userbase will relent because of shiny mechs and Master Chief is straight out of the condescension playbook currently being used by arrogant Microsoft executives, and once employed by a Sony exec named Ken Kutaragi who found himself out of a job when the Playstation brand went from 85%+ console marketshare to sub-33% in the space of one single console transition.
Is it possible that the Xbone will be a hit? Well yes, there's always a possibility of anything, but the probability seems to decrease day after day as each bit of news hits. As mainstream outlets like Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BBC and NBC criticize Microsoft's plans, as pre-order numbers and launch allotments skew more and more in Sony's favor and as news of Xbone needing an entire year to even hit some regions comes to light, the probability of this console succeeding like the 360 did continues to shrink. This is especially noteworthy with so much of the negativity centered in the US and UK markets, the only ones where the Xbox brand ever had any real traction to start with.
But in spite of all of that, the narrative is being built that says the gamers are just whiners; simplistic and primitive troglodytes in this new digital era who hate change. The fence-sitters who cringe at any negativity, no matter how justified, will call for people to wait and see while more and more of the entities who run the AAA Gaemz Industree™ continue to manage themselves into bankruptcy and then try to shift blame to the customers rather than shitty planning and management skills.
Let me make this clear: If harsh criticism of Microsoft upsets you or makes you uncomfortable, place the blame on them and not the critics. It's not the critics who decided to try and ram anti-consumer initiatives down the market's throat by brute force. It's not the critics who decided that the reveal event for a games device should have almost no footage of any actual games being played, but plenty of The Price is Right. It's not the critics who decided an implied rape joke against a female player during the Killer Instinct demonstration was a funny bit of griefing. It's not the critics who are implementing systems that will screw over small businesses, smaller publishers and long-term game collectors and preservationists just to appease bloated corporate entities that can't sustain themselves through making better products at more efficient costs.
Those of us casting negativity at Microsoft right now do so because Microsoft decided that this was the device to display to the world and the means of displaying it. Now that they've played their hand the whole world is responding in the marketplace of ideas and Microsoft is deservedly getting thrashed. As Jim Sterling put it, Microsoft didn't decide to wage a war on Sony and Nintendo, they decided to wage a war on consumers. Well, the consumers are fighting back, and as far as I'm concerned the fence-sitters trying to maintain the image of perfect enlightened and detatched objectivity while criticizing the positions of those who have chosen to participate in the discussion unfiltered and uncensored have no intellectual ground to stand on. By all means defend whatever merits you think the Xbone has. Buy one come launch if you desire to. Go forth and debate with those who differ with your stance until your fingers go numb, but don't try and act like you're above the fray just because some people say something mean to a soulless profit-driven corporation. Microsoft brought all of this heat onto itself, and it's too late to call a time-out.
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