Well what is your standard for "losing" or even "winning" for that matter? Is there even recognized, objective criteria established by the community for determining winners and/or losers, because I've been a gamer for over 30 years and the "console wars" I've witnessed have largely ever been nothing but dick-waiving contests and ways for gamers to try and justify their purchases, all fueled by arbitrary, subjective talking points and hefty portion of moving goalposts.
Even often brought up metrics, like console sales, have little to no importance from a gamer perspective, in determining which console is the "winner" or more importantly, which console offers the features/services/games players want.
"Smart delivery might be another MS scheme to remove you from completely owning the FULL game!"
- but you literally are getting the full game, plus a free upgrade...are you sure you understand how smart delivery is going to work? If someone buy a game for Xbox One, they will receive a free graphical upgrade of the game for Xbox Series X. This system eliminates the need to buy multiple versions of games across generations. Nothing is locked, nothing is held back - it's 100% the full game. The performance/visual changes are a file you download and they are applied automatically, depending on what system you are playing it on.
However, Smart Delivery is offered to developers as an optional addition to Xbox Series X titles, meaning it is up to the dev and not a guaranteed feature. That being said, Microsoft has already pledged support for the upcoming first party titles spanning Xbox One and Xbox Series X, including Halo Infinite and Gears 5, and moving forward, I suspect their future games will follow suit. It has also been stated that this feature will work for both digital and physical purchased games.
"Riiiiight...because logging onto some server created by some dude, and not monitored by MS, is a perfectly safe and not at all risky thing to do,"
- A lot of smaller/indie games/projects were/are using "some dude's" servers. Much of the gaming community is/was built from this practice, so what's your point? Also, much of the potential risk you mention, comes from playing MP on PC. This is a console project.
"and my name dropping GoG, the DRM free gaming website, in no way incentivizes people to look into safer alternative methods that are more convenient than most, including playing from your phone which practically everyone has."
- and again, I resort back to my initial reply: "um...cool, sure, that's all good and all, for people who play on PC, which a good chunk of consoles gamers do not."
In your attempt to have a pragmatic approach to the issue, you are missing a keypoint that plays a huge role - personal preference. It doesn't matter what points you bring up and/or how objective or valid they are, there is always going to be a a huge swath of people that choose something because they just like it better, regardless of the reasons.
Based on the demeanor and tone your replies, one could even argue that you are exhibiting such behavior in favor of PC, as any truly rational person would see merit in playing or even owning both mediums. There are more factors in play in terms of why someone would own one vs the other or both, than just
"But you didn't stop to actually think about what I said, did ya?"
- the problem seems to be that you appear to think that your conclusion on the matter carries more worth than it actually does. What you propose is a situation scenario, as it only applies to certain individuals - xbox gamers that actually want to play on PC and also give up xbox, due to discoving I guess what you would call a redundancy that comes from playing/owning both.
I've been playing PC for ~25 years. I also play on xbox. I get equal use out both. In your eyes, apparently people like myself are either an anomaly or stupid, but I can live with that.
- I never said they were...I only said they weren't closed systems like consoles are, which is true. Don't read into more than what I actually type.
"Operating systems do act like generations to a degree since not all old games will work on newer operating systems"
- "to a degree..." when speaking of old games no working on newer OS's, we are typically dealing with games that are at least a decade old, often times older than that, so yes, "to a degree..."
"Suggesting PCs are completely irrelevant to this discussion demonstrates a degree of ignorance, or snobbishness."
- No, it doesn't, not pertaining to the actual context of the discussion. The discussion is about the smart delivery system - how a game for one console will not only work on the new iteration of that console, but also be upgraded the new version designed for that console (assuming devs implement the relevant updates)
A smart delivery system for PC games makes no sense, since PC games are essentially always able to be the best they can be. If you buy a PC game, you have the best version of that game from the start - they are called graphics settings... there is no need to have a system where you get a new version of the game for free for your new, more powerful PC, because you already have it...
This is why it is irrelevant to bring PC into the discussion, because a system like smart delivery is exclusively a system for the console market, as it has no use or purpose with how PC games work.
And the issues you bring up with with old games not working on newer operating systems, is an issue with backwards compatibility, not smart delivery.
@just1mohr: "corporate fluff?" Hardly... Bringing PC into the discussion, as it is a completely different medium, is irrelevant. Consoles are not PC's. PC's are not closed systems like consoles, and thus they work differently. Someone buying an original Xbox One copy of a game and getting the Series X version for free, is awesome.
PC's do not have generations (again, because they operate differently...) so again, bringing them up is pointless. It would be like buying a nintendo game, that also works on super nintendo, but with the added graphics/features the SNES version offers, when playing on SNES.
And your car and food have smart delivery? How so? If you buy the base-line model of your car, you get the extra's for free? When you buy chuck steak from the store, do you also get a filet mignon at no cost?
This guy is using the shift from cartridge-based gaming to discs - to completely different mediums - to justify how the next-gen console are (in his eyes) not that big of a deal in terms of the shift from last gen. Going from the 16-bit era to CD's was all about the increased visual fidelity and the extra storage space discs allowed developers to work with and for decades, all the talk was just about graphics, graphics graphics. It was time when we went from 2D to 3D. From sprite-based characters, to 3D rendered models.
Today, we go from 3D, to better-rendered 3D. From X amount of polygons, to Y amount of polygons, where much of the change comes from rendering/post process effects, so of course the jump isn't going to as dramatic and yet sometimes, it still is. A focus on graphics will always be a thing, but as technology improves, where the focus lies will change.
We are at the point now where there are other aspects that people are focused on, like decreasing load times and cloud gaming. Improving aspects of multiplayer gaming, which didn't even exist when Playstation came on the market. Xbox has the Smart Delivery feature, which essentially gives you games for free. Consoles are not simply "insert game, play game" machines anymore. They offer a lot more than what they did in the days of the original PlayStation, so there is a lot more to focus on what to improve/add for a next-gen console.
H0RSE's comments