Did Sony just win the next console war?

[McPhee]

All of the digital stuff is gone from Xbox One now. It's back to working like the Xbox 360 - retail and DD licenses are separate, no managed trade-ins, no instant gifting, no 'family' sharing feature. You buy your disks from the shop, trade them like you used to, play online, offline, however you want. Games on Demand cannot be traded, shared or gifted (for now).

Overwhelming feedback from the gaming community caused them to drop the idea of 'going digital', all of the benefits and problems that went along with it.

Parents will buy their kids the cheaper console come holiday season so I think Sony might have won this assuming Microsoft keeps the price as high as it is!

I'm guessing you aren't a parent? If little James wants an Xbox One and you buy him a PS4, you're going to suffer. Likewise the other way around.

[Pob255]

Major about face
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.

In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions.

I think a big one there is removal of regional restrictions, which is major because of the way xbox live is setup it was only actually supported in 21 countries and was missing some rather major markets.

This really is turning into a giant mess for ms they pushed hard in the direction of online, which I'll admit makes sense in the current market, but now they collapse to public pressure , which they seemed to be totally unprepared for (How did they not see that there would be some backlash at always online?) and so have now gone in totally the opposite direction.

The term, "pissup, brewery, organisational difficulties" comes to mind.

[Spreadie]

I'm guessing you aren't a parent? If little James wants an Xbox One and you buy him a PS4, you're going to suffer. Likewise the other way around.

...or if little James already has a whole bunch of Xbox games? Why would you swap formats to save £80 on a console that will be with you for the next five years or more?

[kalniel]

...or if little James already has a whole bunch of Xbox games? Why would you swap formats to save £80 on a console that will be with you for the next five years or more?

If he's already got the Xbox games then he's already got the console to play them on so it doesn't matter which he goes for next time around.

[Spreadie]

If he's already got the Xbox games then he's already got the console to play them on so it doesn't matter which he goes for next time around.

I think it's a valid argument - how many consoles would you want to keep under the TV?

Microsoft's pricing is undoubtedly going to put many people off, but I'll wager there will be plenty who will be considering their back catalog and the wisdom of keeping two consoles on the go; especially when selling the 360 will go some way to offset the price imbalance.

[Pob255]

Remember xbox one is not backwards compatible with the xbox360, your 360 games will not work on it.
Again like the playstation they are changing cpu architecture from PowerPC to x86

[Spreadie]

Remember xbox one is not backwards compatible with the xbox360, your 360 games will not work on it.

How the hell did I miss that?

Anybody seen my coat?

[Andy3536]

It's good that Xbox have come to their senses. It means a much closer battle. Competition can only be good.
Although the price might mean Sony do a little better at the start, i imagine the real battle will begine at the first round of price cuts on the 2 the following year.
Price of games is still a little frightning though.

[vfdb]

I have got to say i've had and played on the xbox 360 for the last 6 years but i think I will switch to the ps4 this gen just because it is more powerful and quite a bit cheaper. Even though i think that the xbox controller is far superior I hope that they release an adaptor that will allow me to use an xbox one controller with the ps4