Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen. I stand before you today in the face of tyranny and injustice to found a new party to defend the life and liberty of the gaming community: The G-Party.
No. Just…no.
We noble constituents of the Gaming Party stand upon the precipice of a mountain overlooking an undulating sea of bullshit. That bullshit was “revealed” yesterday in the form of this:
Do not be seduced. That is a Trojan…condom on a reaming spree.
That my friends is the Xbox One. We are told it is an “entertainment” console that will “revolutionize” the living room experience. It will play videos while Skyping your grandmother in the middle of a game while walking your dog and updating your fantasy league roster while you order a pizza. This system will have a relationship with you. It wants to be with you. It will touch you in ways no other console ever has before. I warn you now my people: Do NOT be seduced by the supposed gifts the Xbox Sandusky is offering. Here are the top three reasons why.
1. No Backwards Compatibility
Remember all those games you were convinced to pay 60 bucks for each? All that great downloadable content we were nickel and dimed into purchasing that inflated those games into 80, 90 and hundred dollar games?
Yesterday Xbox One said, “Fuck that and your dreams of ever playing them again.”
Equally impressive and useless.
So now you sit there with a new paperweights in your living room that you need to offload asap to some Gamestop around the corner before snow starts falling on the cedars this autumn. Is backwards compatibility REALLY that expensive? I mean, if I can find an emulator for an 8-bit NES then how difficult is it to create software/hardware emulation for newer games? Oh yeah it isn’t
BECAUSE WE GET SAME DAMN GAMES RESOLD TO US THROUGH XBOX MARKETPLACE ALL THE DAMN TIME!!!
Oh yes, your library WILL return my G-Party constituents. SOME of them. For an additional 20+ bucks a pop! Buying this console sends them the message that this bullshit is ok to do to us as consumers. I most assuredly, vehemently, and resolutely say no to this. A stand needs to be taken and now is the perfect time for us as consumers to do so.
2. No Rental/Individual Resell Of Games
Apparently the gatekeepers of the industry think we are fucking idiots. No really. Name one thing you paid more than 50 dollars for that you weren’t able to try out first. Go ahead, I’ll wait. This point is somewhat debatable as Microsoft has given the promise of some hazy “resellers component” to their already cryptic marketplace. There I’m quite sure your digital games will be assigned some mystery valuation with a certain allotted amount of Microsoft points given and taken from your account with the purchase and resell of your digital content. THEY control it. THEY own the process. I’d be fine with this Microsoft could be trusted to just be a clear and fair mediator and not take something out the middle but come on people, fucking BITCOINS are less cryptic than Microsoft Points. Seriously. Now Im supposed to just go buy games based on the review of some website and hope they didn’t take too much money under the table in exchange for some page crashing full page pop up add? Cause game developers are totally honest about how good their games are going to be. Right.
I call bullshit.
Well…back to buying games based off of box art and hype!
3. It Makes You A Slave To Cable And Its Shitty Plans And Programming
I’ve been flirting with this idea of getting rid of cable for a while and I think it’s time. Cable has been struggling since consumers have discovered how to time-shift their programming to accommodate their lives. The archaic business model of paying for channels was on its way out -wait! What’s that?
Oh its fucking Xbox One.
Now in order to get the full functionality of the device you HAVE to be perpetually connected to the bullshit umbilical cord that is cable programming. Oh you thought you had a life? No. Sit your ambitiously mobile ass right back on your fucking couch and Skype a friend while you watch another episode of Real Housewives of Atlanta bitch! Linear programming needs to go and I shouldn’t have to pay for cable “packages” anymore. I can count the shows I watch religiously on one fucking hand and most are on HBO.
Honestly, if HBO became a standalone service I’d shit rainbows that very day. The Xbox One has obviously made a pact with the devils of Comcast, Time Warner, and the rest of their ilk because the Xbox One relies on this linear entertainment model for full functionality. What’s the end result? Shitty programming. There’s no significant incentive for a bundled channel to improve it’s lineup. You’re gonna watch it anyway and if you don’t it doesn’t fucking matter. They still get their dollars and the provider continues to reap the benefits of the “service” of providing you that same shitty channel.
Now is the time to take a stand. When this thing is launched this holiday season slap any child you see begging for it. Let this shit go the way of the Wii U and the NeoGeo of old. Prove to the industry once again that we are the G-Party and just because something is new, shiny, and “liquid black,” it does not mean we will fucking buy it. Technology should conform to us and our needs. We should not have to conform to it.
The Pentagon Position 
1) PS4 isn’t backwards compatible, other than a bullish “One day we’ll let you subscribe to the PS3 library via cloud.”
2) Every game on Xbox lets you download the demo, so you can try before you buy, and Xbox gamers have been doing this since 360 launched. Yup, even shitty arcade titles too.
3) Can’t disagree with you on this. Why do I want TV with my video games? Video games killed TV for me.
1. I’m not saying one system is better than another. I think it’s a bad standard all the way around. When backwards compatibility was removed initially we were told it was too difficult to run that kind of emulation then lo and behold both Sony and Microsoft found a way to give us what we asked for…for an additional price.
2. Demos don’t always show how key things like, multiplayer, narrative, and even longevity of a game are going to be. It’s the equivalent of going out with a someone once or twice then asking them to marry you. Now i’m stuck with this shitty game for life and now I can’t even get a divorce without taking a significant loss.
I like everything except for the Wii U in the last comment. The Wii U, I feel is the last bastion of hope for video games. Yeah, u still have to be online.. but come on, everyone is online with at least something in their house and always will, unless they are going the completely cellular mobile way to the internet, which we eventually happen. And even then, u can turn your phone into a hotspot.
Plus, there were some decisions made on the WII U that still keep the console focused on improving gaming, like touch screen, in game gaming boards and posting, motion controls. Kinect, I am sorry, is not the way of the future and is a gimmick to say the least, and at worst, it is a home snooping device, complete with facial recognition and the ability to tell how many people are in a room who can watch a Netflix movie with out paying an extra subscription… All based off of its audio recognition ability.
The future is here, and its like 1984… decrepit and tyrannical.
Melbourne, I will tell you like I told everyone over the Diablo 3 always online debacle, less people are “always online” in the world than you think. There are still plenty of places where someone can afford and will want a next gen console where they don’t have reliable internet (I point out that they can afford it simply because people like to assume I mean in the jungle or something in a 3rd world country as it better fits their stance). I have internet, so it isn’t a personal issue for me now, but in the Navy, I was often put in places (like when I was deployed on the ship) where I could play a game, but definitely didn’t have internet access. As for the Wii U, I think it is just as much a gimmick as the original wii and the kinect/ move.
I also want to point out, I agree with the article completely. At some point, we need to actually stop buying though. People talk about it all the time to “teach” developers, but talk is cheap, they don’t care what we say, they will only care if we actually go through with it.
Agreed Steven. Considering economies are going through difficulty around the world it shouldn’t be that hard to abstain from this cycle and force them back to the drawing board. We haven’t heard pricing yet but I’m quite certain it’s going to cost and arm and a leg when it comes out.
Well you could always just play 360 games on a 360 and play the ‘one’ games on the ‘one’
“Anxiety” is what the XboxONE makers gonna love most, cause anxiety will make us/you buy one, the question is: Can u control yourself?
My bank account will do all the controlling I need. Let’s see how much the Xbox Media Center 2013 is gonna cost…