Christmas Morning Horror Stories

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VideoGameCritic
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Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby VideoGameCritic » December 28th, 2016, 8:47 pm

I'm already heard a few stories from friends and colleagues about how disappointed their kids were when they couldn't play their consoles on Christmas morning due to installations, updates, accounts, etc. (Xbox One begin the main culprit of course)

This new online-centric generation of consoles leave much to be desired. It's time to stop making excuses for the game industry and start to push back. Physical games should start right out of the box and a new console should not requires hours of updates.

The state of the industry is pretty horrendous right now, yet the media seems to be willing to look the other way. You rarely see anything rated below average, when by definition about HALF the games should be!

Is the media even allowed to criticize the gaming industry anymore, or are they all subsidiaries of the game companies?? It's really hard to tell!

It seems like this site is the only one where you the straight scoop. But I feel like I'm living in a Bizarro world. I speak up about things that are wrong, and people just tell me I'm "out of touch" and "resistant to change/progress".

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Voor
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby Voor » December 28th, 2016, 11:53 pm

I agree with your opinion about this topic, but it kind of comes off as "beating a dead horse" because you talk about it so much on here. Seems like every month there's a new thread complaining about updates, installations, etc.

It's annoying to everybody, but less so to the younger generations because they don't know any better. Lol.

It matters to me because I'm purposely using the internet less these days and I like the charm of older technology. Plus, with a job and family, my gaming time needs to be "turn on and go".

Still the world wants everything to be online, all the time. You don't have to join in, but you have to be OK with missing out on some new things.

Sut
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby Sut » December 29th, 2016, 2:58 am

My brother in law got Infinite Warfare for Xmas. Now the kicker is he hasn't been on his PS4 for a couple of months so had to download the system updates.
He's more into the online play so of course he had to download the patch which is a massive 32Gb. Unfortunately for my brother in law he hasn't got that great of an internet connection so eta was 14 hours.
He didn't get to play the game until Boxing Day and had to leave the game updating whilst he went out Christmas night.

Now he could have saved himself SOME of the trouble by leaving his PS4 in rest mode and letting it download patches and updates itself overnight. That would have circumvented the system updates, but there wouldn't have been anything he could do about the game patch.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby BlasteroidAli » December 29th, 2016, 5:49 am

Gamestick has gone out of business and now there is no way for anyone to play new games as they have closed the store front. So already that means the critics view that in the future we might be trading hard drives has come to pass. Though in the shape of an android console.

I have a 1 but agree with everything that you say. Really I wish it was different but find myself veering off console gaming. I am back to playing my 360 more than I play my 1 as it is completely immediate and I do not have to faff around for 2 hours... or more...

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Retro STrife
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby Retro STrife » December 29th, 2016, 9:07 am

I'm totally with you. BUT first, as I've said before, I should note that you were against online gaming and downloadable titles long before it was justified. For example, the Xbox 360 had a great online platform and the Xbox Live marketplace had great downloadable titles, but you eschewed those features completely. Which I disagreed with.

Now, though, I'm with you. I just joined the current generation last week, finally buying a PS4. I had my brother over to play NBA 2K17. Fortunately, thanks to your warning, I knew to expect long setups and installs. Yes, long gone are the days of racing home to play your new game/system and experiencing the instant gratification. [In fact, you know it's bad when we decided to kill time during installs by playing PHILIPS CD-I instead!!! :lol: Which, P.S., you should check out my write-up on Girls' Club in the "Now Playing" section, because it's a game you should definitely review.] But to me, the worst feature is the overuse of online abilities. I am an overly private person when it comes to online features... I am against using any cloud-based options on my cell phone or computer, my Facebook is locked up tight and I consider who to individually block from each post, etc.... so to me it is disconcerting that the PS4 wants to act like part-game console and part-social media account.

I haven't had much experience with it yet, but so far I'm with you. Is it because the game companies have finally crossed the line? Or, now that I'm in my 30s, am I just getting "too old" for these features? (i.e., since you have a few years on me, maybe I'm now at the same place that you were when the 360 came out). Are 18 year olds appreciating these same things that we complain about? I hope it's the first option, but I'm not sure.

And I'm with you about the gaming media refusing to criticize the industry.... but that's nothing new. It's been that way for at least a decade now. And it was always there to some degree.. just getting worse as time goes on. It's called "the self-preservation instinct" and, fortunately for us, you don't have to worry about that here, which allows you to be more critical.

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scotland
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby scotland » December 29th, 2016, 10:20 am

Can you imagine other appliances that did this? Can't open the refrigerator until it updates. Have to have an online account to share your temperature setting with your friends to change your thermostat. Television show won't start until it runs a season 6 patch (oh look, Glenn really died at the dumpster now).

That we essentially have just 2 players - Sony and Microsoft - means there is nowhere to turn to. When one does play against the other, like Sony did the "this is how to share a game on the PS4" video at E3, it helped, along with lots of people shouting online, to shame and scare MS to back down. Where they both agree, and where people keep calling live issues 'dead horses', there is nowhere to turn .... except ... don't adopt.

We have seen the marketplace even more monopolistic with MS Windows. For years, people would point to Apple and say it was a better experience, but to no avail. What happened? People did things like stick with XP long after MS wanted everyone to update.

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velcrozombie
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby velcrozombie » December 29th, 2016, 11:12 am

I didn't buy the Xbox One myself - I only have the WiiU from the current generation, although I do intend to buy a PS4 one day - but my cousin received one for Christmas. Problem: my cousin doesn't have a dedicated Internet connection. I ended up having his system over at my house for 3 days in order to install the needed updates to the systems and games - Gears of War 4 by itself took a day and a half on my less-than-stellar rural Internet. The thing that shocked me the most was the need to update the controllers - admittedly a quick and painless update, but still. For comparison's sake, my same cousin owned a 360 for the previous 8 years and never needed to connect to the Internet a single time. I'm not going to lie - like Voor, I find the need to post every time you have a technical issue with a current-gen system tiresome and counterintuitive (in the sense that it makes me less willing to read more posts about these issues) - but now I get it.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby Retro STrife » December 29th, 2016, 1:02 pm

Honestly, I've been experiencing the opposite horror stories this Christmas!!-- people who can't handle the old systems. I finally starting getting back into selling my duplicate gaming stuff on ebay, and posted a bunch of stuff the past few months. Everything has gone well...EXCEPT when it comes to the NES. I sold a few NES systems (including 2 as Christmas gifts) and each has been a headache, including one return so far.

It's like the new NES Classic Edition has inspired a bunch of old people and soccer moms to relive the NES glory days...but they have no clue what they're doing. And they forget that the toaster NES is probably the most unreliable console in history and can be a pain to get working at times (even with a new 72-pin connector, by the way). Spoiled by modern electronics, they expect the system to work perfectly every time. One woman complained that I ruined her kids Christmas morning because the NES wouldn't display on her TV...when really she just doesn't know how to hook up an NES to her HDTV...or the fact that she should use a CRT TV is she can. So it's not just the new technology annoying me this year...

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby BlasteroidAli » December 29th, 2016, 2:35 pm

To Scotland.
That Ubicomp model of having chips invade the home is going to create problems. I think that one of the things these days is the way people want to hack into things as they are all online. There is a thing called a doorbot. Basically a camera and a messaging system in the shape of a door bell. You press it and the user answers the door via their phone and can say to someone hi I am in the shower wait for me etc. That is not the big thing. As it is online (the storage for the camera in is the cloud and accessible for a fee) the problem is the firmware can be hacked so they have to update it. So your analogy of the fridge might be more of a problem that you thought. In the future someone might be able to turn off your internet ready fridge! Well lets hope not as these ideas are all daft.
Also there is this thing called the ambient orb. This thing glows to tell you if the temp is not right for you outside or if the stock market is going down. The most useless thing I have heard about in years. You just look out the window. Just imagine the wife saying your orb is glowing and you go, hmmm wonder what that means I need to get the manual out to find out.

Though I have a one and agree with all the sentiments about the updates that are really getting tiresome.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Christmas Morning Horror Stories

Postby VideoGameCritic » December 29th, 2016, 7:04 pm

For those complaining about my sentiments, please remember "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". If we can get the word out maybe these companies will think twice about proceeding down their current path. Who knows, maybe someone who works at these companies actually looks at this site every now and then.

It's kind of like Comcast scandals. If they rip a customer off or provide bad service it can be really hard for that person to get it resolved. But if the incident leaks onto the Internet and gets the company some bad press, they suddenly take action.

We need to use our internet voices if we want to see change. Otherwise in five years we won't own any games and we'll be charged through the nose just for the right to play them directly over the internet!


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