No, dipshits = people saying 'that's a stupid amount to spend' or 'that's retarded'. The dipshit part is in the assumption that you(in a general sense, not specific) know what the better value(which is perceived, and thus may not fall inside your scale of value) is, and then being insulting about someone's choices. Not about disagreeing. It's in the way it's said, not the core of what is being said.

I also find the response to my insulting phrasing amusing, considering the insulting ways that some *coughyoucough* of the decryers stated THEIR opinions.

On Topic: Xbox/Microsoft are now claiming that you can turn off the Xbox One and the Kinect completely, but that it's 'default setting' is to put the Kinect/Xbox in a low-power sleep mode-esqe state so it can listen for 'specific phrases'.

Still, they're saying they have different privacy settings for different preferences/concerns.

Which gives them back a tiny, miniscule drop of respect. Compared to the vast ocean they lost with the initial reveal and anti-consumer philosophies.

 

Hence the "try" part, I imagine. You can easily build an elite machine for less than $2,000

 

Can "the cloud" control entities in a game world? Sure, but now we're talking about making all off-line games single player MMOs in terms of coding scope. How many developers have the time/money to create such a thing? Secondly, the resources required to manage trees, grass, fire, animals, et cetera are trivial. What isn't trivial, is rendering it all. The 360 could handle ten times the number of opponents in your average game (upwards to well over a thousand times, I imagine, who knows what the upper limit would be), if they were all sprites.

And yeah, I'm not saying you couldn't find a way to spend $4k, but... you'd literally have worthless stats. You can rig ten video cards if you want and cool them with Dysprosium titanate reactor cooling rods or something, but unless you're bitcoin farming, all that power is just going to sit there.

 

The core problem is, even if they say that they are not interested into spying on its customers and even if that's true for the involved MS gaming division people, you can't trust it with the CISPA act looming at the horizon.

CISPA has already passed House but was blocked in the Senate. You can see what's on the agenda of the system and they want full backdoor access to every internet service/communication in the US without any legal repercussions for them and their enablers from the US businesses.

To avoid legal trouble for their past action and allow the same shit in the future.

Under this situation why should anybody trust any US companies promises for privacy if they are forced to work with the NSA when ever the NSA calls. The NSA captures, auto-translates, analyses and records all audio communication in the US(not to speak of their taps into foreign country/sea cable hubs). They are now in Skype too since MS took them over in 2011. Skype is also a major element of the XBone strategy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/skype-accused-of-helping-government-spy-on-people-2012-7

Why should the NSA ignore the chance to use the XBone infrastructure to listen what people talk about in their homes?

 

I wonder if privacy will even be a consideration in the coming years. It seems that privacy or anything that isn't "social" is becoming increasingly rare and even frowned upon. Just look at the reactions people get if they say they don't have a Facebook page.

 

...but I don't have one. Never have had any social networking site page either, for that matter. Never really had negative reactions, too.

Of course, I understand your point, even if it saddens me.

 

I've had a Facebook since 2007, but it was only because one of my friends back then foresaw it eclipsing Myspace and persuaded me to get one. I probably wouldn't have one even now if it weren't for that. I maintain it more as a token gesture than out of any real interest.

But the instances where I've seen someone say they don't have a Facebook have earned them incredulous looks at best, and being seriously questioned whether they have a disorder at worst (though the one that said that was a particularly nasty person). Apparently not having a Facebook can even affect your employment according to some articles I've seen. Not just posting pictures on there where you're drunk and doing something stupid that your employer can see; not having one at all also apparently sends up red flags. Because not being connected to the hive-mind and not caring about some cunt from your high school's teen pregnancy means you're a sociopath. Though admittedly I can't cite personal experience with that, I don't know how common that really is, if at all.

 

Which is why I'm a fierce advocate against the idea that constantly improving graphics are a necessity in every game.

I would pay full price for and play the living hell out of some sort of Action-Adventure Exploration Final Fantasy game that used 32 bit sprites for graphics, worked like an open world Terraria (not limited to just sidescrolling), you can acquire the services of tagalong followers that fight in your 'party,' and there could be 500+ enemies on the screen at a time.

We've got the processing power now to make games using N64 and Playstation-tier graphics that are absolutely assblasting ridiculous. We just don't, because a lot of what we could be doing is tied up in making things as pretty as possible, because if we don't, there's a vocal minority segment of the gaming population that will absolutely lose their shit for no fucking reason.

 

Something like that? Other than the retro graphic this game should have everything you describe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXcuZV77UJY

 

I don't know how true it is either, but I don't have a facebook for one very good reason. Hell, I joined linkedin just a while back and all of my contacts found out, one of my friends was like, "Hey, you looking for a job?" I was blown out of my mind they would contact everyone on my gmail contact list.

It only validated my reason to stay off facebook. That shit is just too free floating. You only need to say one wrong thing and it's immortalized forever, maybe without you even knowing. Urgh.

 

Yes, well, don't post stupid things.

 

What else is Facebook for, if not for posting inane, stupid shit that most of your 'friends' couldn't give less of a fuck about?

I mean, it's Facebook.

 

At this point, I highly doubt I'll be buying a console.

I have an Xbox, I like my Xbox. But damn, I have never had a company so blatantly tell me "we don't want you as a customer." I didn't even bother to hook my 360 up the internet, because I don't use it that way. I don't need a media center, hell, my unnetworked 360 is the only thing connected to my tv already. I'm one of those freaks who is totally disinterested in social media. I never used messenger or my space, I don't have facebook. I don't think I've ever paid $60 for a game, I generally do buy used, old, or on sale.

Forget deciding if I want a new console or not...Xbox has decided it doesn't want me. Which...okay? Console gaming has its upsides, but I have a pretty decent PC rig. Couple of years old now, but my GTX 460 still runs everything I've thrown at it, and I've got a swanky 22'' screen that's about as big as my tv anyway. I could get a new card and upgrade my ram for a fraction of what a console would cost. Tinkering with a PC can honestly be a pain in the ass...but at least I can chose what I think is worth paying for.

I've never really considered myself a "pc elitist" before, but it may be on the horizon. Funny how the "elitist" market is the only one that seems to want my business...

 

I Just need to point out how completely unnecessarily overboard that computer is. You do not need two Titans, two titans is one titan too many, no titans isn't enough titans, one titan is just enough.

Seriously though, it can run just about any game out there right now on max with plenty of power to spare, you don't need two unless you want to play two games at the same time on two monitors.... tempted to try that now.

 

Xbone.

Also, have some comics. There are five of them (so far, since it's Xbone Week, they're shooting for 7). link

 

Technically, it takes 2 Titans to get 60 fps out of Crysis 3 playing on a 2560x1440 monitor on the Very High setting, so it's not entirely unnecessary. But yeah, I'm well aware that it's overkill for the average player - I did say I was trying to make something completely outrageous, after all.

 

When the Xbox came out I split my loyalties between it and my PS2. I committed to the 360 instead of the PS3, and I'm still pretty happy with that decision. But this reveal...ugh... An over-engineered system full of shit I don't want and will never use, with hardware slightly worse than its competitor, controversy over DRM, the creepy kinect (Tired of hearing all the Hal/Skynet shit)

The whole thing is a clusterfuck.

Microsoft decided to bypass the console war and wage a war for your living room, never quite realizing that they were the only ones fighting.

If they had waited a few months, dumped two 780's in SLI into a cardboard box, and slapped an Xbox sticker on it, I would have thrown my wallet at the TV during the reveal.

I don't need three operating systems to play games.

I'm reserving final judgement on whether I'll eventually end up buying one until E3, but at this point I've pretty much already committed to completely transitioning over to PC as my primary platform.

I've been meaning to get into broadcasting/streaming games for a while now, but I've never had the cash to make a full on PC investment. Until now. New job, good money. And the last 6 years have sucked, so I'm going with my midlife crisis splurge a little early.

 

What happened with the XBone was not an engineering gamble they lost by accident. They just didn't care about what Sony could deliver. Gaming is just a subset to their "great vision". MS's perceived enemies are Google and Apple. And they just use their gaming brand as their weapon to fight this misguided war. A lot people which build the whole XBox experience in the first place left MS the last few years.

I'm not sure if you've watched the full introduction stream of the XBone. When I saw the people they used to introduce that product, including 40 year old yuppie and >50 year old mom manager type, it was clear to me that the gaming scene can't have been their target. It's TV, Lifestyle and Family. It felt like R.Nixon introducing the bands at Woodstock.

 

General reception to the new console has been very lukewarm, if not outright critical.

I get the feeling that a lot of people are just going to keep buying/playing 360's, instead of the new Ones.

In other words, Microsoft has done goofed, badly.

I was browsing quite a few of the Wiki links for E3'13, and a lot of the games being showcased are going to be available for both the 360 and One.