The War
by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer
(Author’s note: some of these particulars may have changed by the time that you read this as information is coming out all the time, and may happen after publication.)
Okay, so there’s a war going on now, and it is in full swing. This is not a war of bullets and soldiers, tanks and missiles. This is a war for dollars and devotions. This is one of those wars that divides people along the lines of Ford or Chevrolet, Coke or Pepsi, Mac or PC. This is a war where Sony may have just been handed the winning move if they can capitalize on the fact that to a degree, Microsoft may have just pulled the pin on their grenade and thrown us the pin.
Let’s start with one point — I am not a fan boy. I am writing this in a Sony friendly magazine, but the fact is that I am not writing this from the soapbox of the usual fanboy who simply screams that something “sucks” without reason. I am writing this as someone who observed some of the battling that has gone on, not just through the eyes of screaming fans, but through the eyes of a consumer interested in the events as they unfolded.
To start, let’s see what the initial offering was. Now, I’m not going to go too far into heavy technical specifications, because most people want to see the basics.
In the battle over the next generation gaming console, Sony won the first skirmish with the first presentation of their product, the PS4 and all its attributes at E3.
Sony offers a system that is intended as a gaming platform, then an entertainment platform, whereas many Microsoft references indicate that gaming is more of a secondary thought with the Xbox One, which is more akin to an entertainment systems that plays games too. But it is in the initial offering that Sony made its first big gain.
These are the banners of a console war.
First, the price point. PS4 is $400.00, Xbox One is $500.00. Now, this is only $100.00, but to many people that is a great deal of money. In an age of high gas prices and living expenses, the luxury of a game system choice could fall along the lines of what is affordable, and Sony wins that round, since for roughly the same money as the Xbox One, one can buy the basic PS4 system and PlayStation Plus. An XBox One buyer still has to get an Xbox Live account after the unit purchase.
Here’s one of the small details that was planted as a seed in the PS3 vs. XBox 360 war.
Microsoft could not use Blu-ray players in the Xbox — that would have been a bow to the competing console and its creators, Sony. The people at Microsoft had to use other disk formats so as to not appear to concede to the technology that Sony created. The Xbox One is going to have Blu-ray. Maybe it’s a small victory, but in its own way, it is relevant.
Both consoles will have cloud storage.
Mandatory game installs? Sony, no. Xbox One, yes.
This may not seem a big deal, but I know plenty of people who have more games than they could ever play. And for those who buy the minimum system for the PS4, this will be a big thing in time. Game installs are only getting bigger, as shown by the growth of game save files from the PS1 to now. If a person has a large number of games, it is a comfort to know that one can simply throw in a disk and play, as opposed to having to install and remove the game later, if space becomes a premium. Yes, an installed game runs faster and smoother. But the option to install should be up to the user.
Internet required to play: Sony, no. Xbox One, yes.
How necessary should this be?
For many people that are reading this, this seems like maybe an item that is not so important, since we that are interested in a Home magazine are already online. Here’s the rub: I was offline for fifteen days back in October, and though I could not log onto Home and any games like Journey, I was able to play and enjoy games knowing that I could play in single player offline mode until my Internet returned. If one owns the Xbox One and the Internet is disrupted, then one can’t play at all. The console becomes a big black box on top of the TV.
Here are the three biggest issues that outraged the Xbox One fans and gave swagger to Sony fans as they saw stock in their systems rise with the declarations from Xbox fans that they were migrating to the PS4:
24 hour authentification
Xbox One has it, Sony does not.
The sources I read up on regarding Xbox One and 24-hour logons, say things ranging from as drastic to “it’s done, buy a new one” to merely having to log on again. Taking the least drastic of these possibilities, it is still inconvenient to have to log on every 24 hours from a console, cell phone or computer. And then if you miss, you have to log on again. As opposed to the PS4, which is always how you left it, logged on or not , however you want it to be.
The Xbox One is always on, PS4 is not.
The feature that the Xbox One touted as a real plus is the “Star Trek” style of being able to turn the Xbox One on with a voice command. This requires the Xbox One accessory, the Kinect camera, to always be on and at the ready, even in a low power mode. The issue is that the eye on the Kinect is on too, and this disturbs a lot of people. With the vast amounts of concerns regarding internet security, spying and recent issues with the NSA , and Microsoft’s involvement with the Prism surveillance program, and the lay person’s lack of knowledge about what is really contained in the “Patriot Act”, we are in a time when our privacy is threatened and at a premium. The thought that a game system is always on and the camera can perhaps be used as a tool for other than gaming reasons worries many. Xbox One should have made it so that the system could be shut off and activated with more control given to the user. For far too many people, this has the odor of George Orwell’s 1984 antagonist and iconic, evil entity, “Big Brother” .
Reselling and giving or swapping games
This is how easy it has to be!
However, the issue that stirred the most venom-filled hatred was the simple fact that once a person bought a game on Xbox One, they couldn’t easily do anything with it aside from game. Microsoft had ensured that the game was locked to the system. Any owner wanting to let a friend borrow the game or sell it to resale stores like GameStop, was barred from doing so. There was a way to buy the rights to a used game, and in some reports that price could have been as much as the sticker price, new. To let a friend borrow the game was also going to require the users involved to pay a sum to Microsoft. To many people this was an unnecessary dip into the pockets of people who had already paid the full sticker price, or their friends. In my opinion, Microsoft has spent so much time being a software company that is looking out for copyright infringement (which is a legitimate problem) that it overlooked one element in the gaming console experience: the end user.
This restriction also meant that if a person who owns an Xbox One title wants to show it to their friends, they could not simply pack up the game and go play at the friend’s home on their console. When one wanted to play at a friend’s house, they had to truck their whole system over and set that up, or pay for what reports claimed was a limited time licence.
Sony saw that the way things are now, is the way that things should be in the next generation. If a friend wants to borrow a game, just hand it over, as seen in a popular Sony video post. Another factor is this: avid gamers — and many of my friends are just that — go through games at a voracious rate, finishing one and playing the next on a regular basis. For many, finishing a game and selling it is part of moving the gaming traffic through, and part of an economy that help them buy new and used games. Let’s face it — some games are bad. This vexes all systems, and sometimes a trip to GameStop is a good way to see which games are good or bad by the price you pay for a used title. There are $5.00 games, and there are $60.00 games, so at least the resale market allows those with less money to buy a game cheaper than full price, even if it’s used. Used games are also, from the consumer’s perspective, a great way to get gamers involved with franchises, just like borrowing a game is.
Imagine that I borrow a God of War game, and really like the experience. I may be apt to buy the others in the series , either used or new, as new games can offer perks of codes for DLC. But if I am restricted from even borrowing a game like God of War, and forced to buy the rights to play it on my system, it becomes a financial concern and the game may be passed over for something else.
Shhh, listen to the sound of backing up, “aboop, boop, boop”
After the mud hit the fan for Microsoft, and the heaving backlash had Xbox fans standing in line at the PS4 counter, Microsoft made the announcement that it was backing off of the radical and drastic measures required to play the Xbox One. The damage was done, though, and it seems that Microsoft had already done serious damage to the relationship with its fans. The concessions that Xbox One made were all the elements that were in place with the PS4 at E3’s presentation. The Microsoft back step essentially told the gaming world and the world at large that Microsoft was bowing to Sony, and saw that Sony’s model was the right one to begin with.
So what is the model?
Listen to the fans. They will make or break you. They are the ones with the money in their hands. It is a wise move to do what is possible to make the profit larger, but at what cost? Microsoft made its moves to better accommodate the developers and protect their properties, but at the cost of alienating fans. Microsoft implemented almost random policies like the daily check in, again much to the distaste of the fans. They had the wisdom to back off from policies that they mistakenly thought were the right way to go, but the concessions may have been too little, too late. Sony has put together a system that is far more powerful even in its numbers. A brief look at the memory numbers tells the story:
- Xbox One: 8 GB of 2133 Mhz, 256 bit memory at 68.3 GB/s
- PS4: 8 GB of 5500 MHz, 256 bit memory at 176 GB/s
Sony it seemed already had the trophies.
So what does all this mean? Sony has a performance advantage, and though these numbers may make my and other people’s heads hurt, it means that the PS4 is just better geared to be a straight out gaming machine — and in the end, that is what we want. A gaming system from a company that understands what a gaming system is. Sony makes fun things, and is better geared for entertainment. They give us TV’s and camcorders, game systems and Blu-ray players. Microsoft is a world leader in software and computer applications. They do that well, but as a corporate entity, they thought too much about themselves before the consumer. Their attention was on the software engineers and developers, not on the people who were going to pay big money for titles and use word of mouth to spread the word about how good or bad a game or console would be.
I may sound like a fanboy just going off, but as a consumer who will spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new gaming console, I want to know that it goes to the console that will be fair to me with its policies and acts in a manner that shows I was part of the equation. It seems that in the console war, Sony got the memo, and the fans had to scream it to Microsoft before they moved to do what may save them from total obliteration. Microsoft will gain some fans back and make a recovery, somewhat, but this war started with Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot and now will be hobbled with the memory that they had to do what was right for the consumer, as Sony did in the first place.
(Sorry Nintendo couldn’t join in on the fun, they just didn’t come to the battle.)
July 4th, 2013 by FEMAELSTROM | 4 comments
FEMAELSTROM came to Home in June 2011 and never wanted to leave, even at weekly maintenance when he usually gets booted. The sand box environment appeals to the explorer in him and often is out and about as he ‘geeks’ out dressed like some sort of sci-fi character, while he people watches in popular public spaces. An artist and writer, FEMAELSTROM loves making friends and meeting people. He loves sci-fi and decorating Home estates and loves to respond “here” when people ask “where are you from?” in public places.
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I’d hardly call this a fanboy or even biased article. It gives the facts, and you give your personal points of decision based on those. Simple. If I can use the vehicle metaphor here, Sony are selling a car, and MS are selling a plane. With the car, you can just jump in (yeah I said it) and go. Wherever you want, stop when you want, park near where your goin’, and get gas at any station you happen across…
MS’s plane however, needs a permit first, it needs a check in before its launched anywhere, every time. And while you may fly high while it works properly, you need permission to stop where you want, every time. You need special fuel from special places, etc. In short, the whole thing is just a bothersome mess of red tape that frustrates the user -- us.
Although MS will get some hard-core fans back, as you said, the damage is done. And you’re right, Im far too paranoid to let any camera/mic just lay around my house and listen/watch me! I’m sorry but, MS actively ASKED to be part of PRISM, that speaks volumes to me. Maybe if they sold tinfoil hats with the system. Or sell it exclusively in Russia: “In Russia, TV watches YOU!”
Great summary Strom. Though as you said Microsoft has backed off all of the points that hurt them, I think that many saw them for what they were as a company with this blunder. They didn’t care about their “fanboys” at all, and many have flocked to and will stay with PS4 because of it. The guy at my local GameStop showed me sheets of preordered PS4’s compared to one or two pages for Xbox. He was amazed at how many Xbox fanboys had jumped ship. It is a trend that will grow as the consoles launch and gain momentum I think. Sony has won the war.
Great read as always.
I think the PS-4 won this round, just like the X-box 360 won the last. If you look at it, it’s the same thing in reverse. Last time around the PS-3 was more money and complicated and the X-box 360 got the easy win, it’s only now that the PS-3 has caught up.
I feel Sony got a bit to full of themselves and even though they had good intentions of making the ultimate console it could,they missed the mark at first. Again this is just what Microsoft has done with the X-Box One, they got to full of themselves and wanted this do-all box at way to much money.
It seems to me whoever keeps the gamers in mind wins the war!
The ps4 won the same way the Xbox 360 won originally talking about exclusive dlc, price ( which is only different because the ps eye is not bundled with console but the kinetic is) and who is onboard developing games for us. Mentioning a little more quietly that to play online you need to pay. Theres going to be no death of Xbox the same way there was no death of the PS3. I’m more concerned over the PlayStation network, Sony don’t seem to be able to keep that stable enough currently, which Microsoft are saying we can keep a decent network because you have to log on regularly with our console. As I’m pretty sure that would be massive fail if you had to log on and couldn’t