For the first time in my life a Sony E3 event is my priority

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Thursday, May 23, 2013, 21:17 (3988 days ago) @ Avateur

It's always been Nintendo and Microsoft. I have barely even watched the Sony press conferences beyond maybe 20 minutes tops and the Sony game trailers after the fact.

Last year was the first year where I didn't even care about E3 at all. It was weird. I didn't even watch any of the press conferences. Now I'm ready to book that day just for Sony and Bungie. Doesn't mean I'm gonna get a PS4 or 3 or anything like that, but they definitely have my attention and a chance at my business. How's everyone else feeling about June 10? :D

Same here. Destiny has put Sony and the PS4 on my radar. That, and my reaction to the information about the Xbone so far.

That said, if Bungie were to announce a Mac version that'd be my first choice right now. Not sure if I'd consider the Windows route, but who knows, the more we know about the upcoming consoles, the better that might look.

No backwards compatibility? Well, great, so when my 360s finally fail, there goes my game collection.
Internet connection requirement? Even the "once every 24 hours" thing bugs me, and I'm sure it would eventually cause me a problem.

What we know so far about how games will work does not excite me, as it provides far more advantage to MS and publishers than it does to the end-user. So far, it seems all I get out of the deal is that I can play installed games without the disc. Big whoop. In order to get that, I must:

Install the game
Link it to an account
Maintain my console's online presence

I cannot:

Buy a used game from a friend and play it for a mutually agreed-upon price
Lend a game to a friend
Borrow a game from a friend

Those restrictions might be acceptable if the ecosystem had a way for me to sell my game license, online, through an open market, and to use that credit to buy games from others. If what MS wants to do is disintermediate GameStop to give themselves a cut of the action while increasing convenience for end-users, then I say fine: have at it. Heck, that would probably encourage me to buy and sell games used, which I currently don't do. Only one of the 360 games I bought was used.

However, it looks like they are not going to do that. They won't risk alienating their traditional retail channels, so if you can even buy and sell used games, it'll probably be through existing retail channels, and MS will just slap their cut on top by charging the buyer of used games an activation fee.

If the activation fee is 100% of the cost of a new game, that will likely depress that market (which won't bother MS one damn bit). Used game prices will fall because of the additional fee. On top of that, I assume now that MS would assume responsibility for scratched media purchased through approved 3rd party retail clients? If what MS is really selling is a game license, and not game media, why should anyone have to shell out more cash to replace damaged or defective media?

Or is the whole "we're not selling, we're granting a license" thing only relevant when it helps the platform holders?

Blech. I may have to backpedal on some of my defense of consoles. I'd thought people proclaiming the death of consoles were being a bit hasty, but perhaps they aren't.

Originally I had thought that Bungie was just showing some initial preference for Sony in order to cement the relationship. I thought we'd hear more about the versions of Destiny for MS platforms later on-- including exclusive content.

I may have been wrong about that. Bungie is again going to show more of their game off at E3, in conjunction with Sony. There's still no mention of equivalent exclusive content for MS platforms, and even through we now know Destiny will be on the Xbone, there's been no announcement for PC/Mac. I had thought the former was holding up the latter, but it looks like I may have been wrong about that, too.

Also I thought the callout for Activision on the new trailer was goddamn hilarious. "The company that brought you Call of Duty"? Really, guys?

I have a better idea. Just call yourself "Those Guys Who Are Not Electronic Arts".