Microsoft revealed their next system, and some staffers talked about their thoughts on it.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/roundtable/34295
Regardless of what the masthead on this site reads, almost every staff member at Nintendo World Report still pays attention to Microsoft and Sony. As such, we all chatted about what we thought of Microsoft's Xbox One reveal. You are more than welcome to share your thoughts below as well. We didn't include the semantic discussion of how Call of Duty and Mario games are all the same to certain people. Be thankful for that. Or the discussion over how Alex thinks that the master race of console owners doesn't include an Xbox 360. I don't know; it got weird.
Enjoy the slightly edited and reorganized raw e-mail discussion of how we feel about the Xbox One!
Justin Baker, Staff Writer: Looks like Microsoft has certainly learned from Sony's mistake: they're not only showing us the actual system, they're gutting it on the big screen. All the new hardware looks pretty slick, but it all boils down to how complicated they make Xbox Live. While all this new cloud stuff is great my worry is that it's going to play out in an overly complicated way. That's why I love Nintendo, they may not have as many features but they keep it simple. Also, watching 15 minutes of sports games is reminding me why I wasn't too excited for the new system to begin with.
Dave Mellert, Contributing Editor: The Xbox scheme for numbering systems is dumb.
Carmine Red, Contributing Editor: I'm reminded again that EA isn't bringing their sports games to the Wii U. I'm not a sports gamer, but the more I think about it, the more I think about the Dreamcast and its fate. Is Nintendo being conclusively blocked out of an entire segment of the market here in a way unparalleled to anything they've faced before? The focus on EA sports at MS's presentation certainly has me wondering how to re-align my understanding of MS in this market, and what that means for Nintendo.
I'm also seeing that Microsoft will be leveraging a stable of internal studios and "second party" partners. This will be their weapon against Sony: exclusive self-funded offerings and the marketing power to boot, far greater than what Nintendo offered at the height of their first+second party empire. This is MS, and they've got money to burn, and it shows.
Andy Goergen, Reviews Editor: Wow. Microsoft put on a full hour to demonstrate why I don't care about Xbox anymore. A bunch of TV features I'll never use (with Kinect!) followed by an exclusive Call of Duty trailer.
So when does Pikmin 3 come out again?
Neal Ronaghan, Director: I'm pretty sure I'll wind up with all three systems eventually, but right now, I'd peg my PS4 purchase for sometime in 2014, and my Xbox One purchase at "a much later date when I get it for a killer sale and it has games I want."
It's weird, because the way I use my Xbox 360 now (mostly as a Netflix/Hulu/HBO Go/DVD player), a lot of the early stuff spoke to me. It's (assumedly) stronger than Nintendo TVii and probably will be pretty nifty. What still kills me are my total disinterest with most of the game features that they showed.
I'm not buying a $500 (or whatever the price of it is) system to watch Netflix with a new hat. I'd drop $60-ish (like I did) to get a Kinect to use the voice commands for Netflix, but I don't see many people getting an Xbox One to use it for DVDs and Netflix. They have one of the million other devices to use for that.
What keeps coming back to me is that Sony learned from Nintendo's Wii U issues (with the exception of not showing the game console). Their reveal reflected that. Microsoft's reveal seems to be brazenly trying to one-up Nintendo's concepts. SmartGlass seems to be a direct reaction to the GamePad. Their TV/cable integration seems to be their version of Nintendo TVii. EA's unprecedented partnership with Nintendo failed, so hey, why not try that, too? While they will likely best Nintendo at some of those, I don't know why they don't try to more directly compete with Sony, especially since Sony's presentation was three months ago and they could have easily reacted to it. This seemed to be Microsoft stubbornly sticking to its guns, and much like the Wii U crashed and burned, I portend that the One (will that seriously be the shorthand for it? We already have a system called the Xbox. ****, I've even referred to it as the Xbox 1 before!) will 100% go through the same Wii U trials and tribulations. The PS4 might be similarly doomed, but Sony seems to acknowledge the challenge more.
And man oh man, the name Xbox One might be stupider than Wii U. And Wii U is colossally confusing. I hope Microsoft's marketing is up to snuff, or else they'll be confusing consumers for the next several years, especially since the 360 will likely continue to sell well for the rest of the year and carry into, at a minimum, 2014.
Alex Culafi, Contributing Editor: I don't think Ive ever seen such a promising presentation collapse so quickly. It started with some tech that is potentially jaw dropping and some concerns that it may even usurp PS4, and then it ended with a German Shepherd in mo-cap and a commercial for the NFL. I'll likely get a PS4 at launch because its Gaikai stuff and games seem way cooler to me than the One. I sure am interested in seeing what these other crazy exclusives they claim to have are, though.
Connecting it to Nintendo, I think Wii U is in trouble far more severe than I think I gave it credit for. That EA presentation made it clear that Nintendo isn't being ignored -- they're technologically being left behind. I wouldn't be surprised if even 3 years down the line, people start saying "Well, I guess Wii U is technically an 8th generation console". Do games matter above all? Of course, and my love for Nintendo games is why I started writing here. But the anger and frustration I carried in Nintendo at first is slowly but surely turning into actual fear. I doubt this could "Dreamcast" them by the time Wii U gains its sea legs (and it's still easily in the realm of possibility), but thinking the Wii U is going to pull a 3DS at this point might be a bit...delusional.
Carmine: Neal, you also have to remember that there are suggestions that MS will take a page from the smartphone subsidization by carriers. The Xbox one will likely cost $500 unsubsidized, but only $300 with a two-year contract with Xbox Live.
This could be interesting and put immense price pressure on Nintendo to bring down the Wii U sticker price. That would take some real creativity on Nintendo's part that I would be real interested in seeing.
Neal: Those subsidized deals are more expensive, though you're right in that people who couldn't afford $500 up front will be inclined to do them. After all, I'll gladly pay you for a burger tomorrow that I can eat today and etc.
Carmine: Yeah. It's worth keeping in mind that the 360 was outsold in Europe by the PS3. I could be surprised, but when MS thinks mass market, they're probably thinking US and UK. I think what we're also seeing here is the dominance off western-based (US?) developers.
That's another point of difference. Just look at the Japan-centric inroads that Iwata has made for Nintendo, first getting Capcom to bring MH to Nintendo away from Sony platforms, and then maybe even starting up a similar relationship/alliance with Sega based off the most recent Nintendo Direct.
Guillaume Veillette, Radio Free Nintendo Host: I have no doubt that with the sports offerings and the limited Call of Duty exclusivity deal, Microsoft has ensured that the Xbox one will be a hit with the casual mainstream crowd just like the Xbox 360 was. How can Nintendo counter that? I don't know that it can. I can't think of anything that Nintendo can show to get a piece of that market, and I think Microsoft will walk away with North America this gen, easily.
Microsoft hasn't shown a single thing that would cater to my tastes, however. I don't know how big the market I'm a part of is, but Microsoft has just basically ensured my loyalty to Nintendo and, perhaps, Sony.
Neal: Question: Why would anyone who has an Xbox 360 and plays Call of Duty and sports games move to Xbox One this year? I don't see any sort of compelling reason.
Justin: Answer: Because they said the word cloud a bunch, and then talked about really big numbers.
Seriously though, I think they're banking on people wanting to buy a new console the same way a lot of new people buy phones: the new one is out, thus it has to be better. People just seem to accept iterative technology these days.
Jon Lindemann, Radio Free Nintendo Host: Microsoft is super-serving their core North American market. Who can blame them?
The best sports console? Locked up.
A partnership with the ESPN and the NFL for embedded Fantasy Football? Done.
Next-gen Call of Duty game with DLC exclusivity locked up yet again? Check.
Nobody that writes for this site may give a crap about any of these things, but there are tens of millions of people in North America for which those three things are RIGHT up their alley. And guess what? They probably don't understand why you like "those Mario games" either.
Neal: I get it. I just don't get why folks will go to Xbox One this year as opposed to staying with their 360s. The sports stuff (especially the NFL stuff) is cool, but $500 (or whatever it is) cool?
Tom Malina, European Correspondent: To paraphrase what many (including myself) have been saying on Twitter, I am no closer to knowing why I should be interested in the Xbox One. The shift to making the Xbox a multimedia hub has hit apex with this new system, and as always, I do not care, because I already own more than enough electronic devices that can watch TV, play films/music, browse the web etc, etc. I completely understand why others would appreciate these features, but personally I would have no use for them.
As for games... well, what do I have to go on? The promise of 15 exclusives, including 8 new IPs, is great to hear, of course - it's a shame they decided that it wasn't the venue to show any of those right now.
Some alarming points about the system came to light outside of the reveal event. I'm seeing several reports that the system will utilise some sort of online pass-style system when installing its software, effectively blocking used games unless you are willing to pay an additional fee. That is an enormous issue for me, and I doubt I'm the only one. Plus, no backwards compatibility with 360 games? If I were to buy an Xbox One, there would be at least a handful of 360 exclusives I'd want to catch up with, but it turns out this would not be possible.
Zack Kaplan, Staff Writer: So Xbox One, originally I wasn't interested and now I am even less so. It lets you use Kinect to do stuff, which they showed multiple times, in a row. So I guess that is cool. It has a TV guide, I guess that's nice, I mean my TV already lets me look at what is on and I have TVii which I never use. You can also do many things at once, though I can do that with the GamePad. But the exclusives wow oh wait...
Carmine: This reminds me of a scene from "As Good As It Gets"
Woman: "How do you write people who buy consoles at launch so well?"
Jack Nicholson: "I think of a man. And then I remove all reason and accountability."
...OK, so maybe the movie didn't exactly feature those exact same lines....
And I proudly bought my Wii U at launch, by the way.
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