Well, rumors are still flying regarding Microsoft’s latest offering to the ongoing Console Wars, but if some of details are true, then the newest addition to the XBOX lineup may be kneecapped before it even begins.
According to some recent rumours, Microsoft’s console will require a persistent internet connection to operate at all, becoming inactive if the internet connection is dropped for more than three minutes. Needless to say, I imagine gamers are going to be none-too-pleased about this requirement. The idea that this several hundred dollar hardware investment will become a glowing, LED covered paperweight if our internet drops out is bordering on offensive.
But a problem such as this requires a full array of trouncing examination, so lets take a deep breath, close our eyes, and see just how far the rabbit hole goes…
On the most basic level, the notion that a consumer may be denied access to their sixty dollar games on their five hundred dollar console simply due to a spotty internet connection strikes me as rather absurd at best, and downright antagonistic at worst. What this seems to indicate is that Microsoft is hopping on board the ‘Games as a Service’ philosophy that companies such as EA love to espouse. The idea that the company is not selling you the content, but rather selling you access to the content, which is dependent on them being able to provide such access.
But quite frankly, no. I reject any such claims that games are a ‘service’.
We all know that any multiplayer content is dependent on our own internet and the servers of the game itself. We know that our ability to play such a game is at the whim of the fickle connection gods, and we simply take that on board. However, this absolutely doesn’t meant that our single player content should be tied to the same point of failure. It stands to reason that since all the content we need exists on the disk itself, there really should be no barriers between us and making use of that content.. I see no justification for a company forcing an online requirement into a game that doesn’t actually need it.
Oh…and contrived online features like those you see in the SimCity fiasco does not count as ‘needing it’.
Even from a ‘by-the-numbers’ standpoint, this decision seems to run in the face of good sense and reason. To put it plainly, internet infrastructure in North America is an absolute joke. There are still many regions that are reliant on dial-up, and even those with high-speed connections are often forced into restrictive download limits that would hobble their ability to take advantage of online features. Very little in North America is conducive to a console that is so reliant on an internet connection. And North America doesn’t even have it the worst…
From a very high level, I’m struggling to see how Microsoft plans on justifying the existence of an ‘Always-Online’ requirement in the first place. Like all good PR departments, they will surely try and claim that it’s all in the players best interest. Surely there will be some features, like background firmware updates, that Microsoft will wave around to distract you from the main issue at hand, but they all seem weak and transparent when up against the restrictiveness of an Always-On console. And the console shutting down if your internet drops for three minutes? I’d like to see how you claim that’s in my best interest, Microsoft.
No matter how you slice it, the amount of people inconvenienced by this requirement are going to vastly outnumber the number of people that benefit from it. It’s a rather perplexing business decision, when you really look at it.
This is why I begin to wonder if the rumors haven’t been at least somewhat exaggerated as to the restrictiveness of the requirement. While I’m by no means new to the idea that companies can make stupid, stupid decisions(recent events have made it impossible to ignore), one thing you can rely on a company to do is try and maximize their profits. And from Microsoft’s perspective, I don’t see how cutting out a sizable chunk of the market and alienating another chunk can possibly do that.
Until the official launch on May 21st, all we can do is wait, and hope that the internet got it wrong. It’s not like that has ever happened before.
