271–280 of 371 posts
US-based HN readers will know the experience of going to Best buy or Microcenter and having them offer you a warranty plan on your new controller. The official Xbox controller is the one thing I've ever bought that it's worth getting the warranty on. Anyone thinking that M$ plans to sell one controller per Xbox, is overestimating the reliability of those controllers.
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> If a controller has a disadvantage to KBM, they should learn to use KBM Can you see how Microsoft, maker of the xbox, might not share your opinion?
But Microsoft also makes Microsoft Mouse and Microsoft Keyboard!
US-based HN readers will know the experience of going to Best buy or Microcenter and having them offer you a warranty plan on your new controller. The official Xbox controller is the one thing I've ever bought that it's worth getting the warranty on. Anyone thinking that M$ plans to sell one controller per Xbox, is overestimating the reliability of those controllers.
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> you have more control over quality and experience > I'm reading somewhere else it's to stop cheat enabled controllers No, it's always been about revenue. I never understand why people take company's word and run with it. Are they actually fooled? Of course, the company won't be blunt and say to the consumer: honestly, we force you to buy from us because it make us more money. This is really weird "solution". They l…
Maybe people don’t like playing video games with cheaters and they do like that their items’ value will plummet to near-zero if they’re stolen. Maybe these are more relevant to most consumers than abstract complaints on Hackernews about “freedom.” Have you considered that?
It seems like the parent is complaining about people taking business' explanations at face value when there's a likely different motive, not "freedom".
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“Using unauthorised accessories compromises your gaming experience. For this reason, the unauthorised accessory will be blocked from use on 11/12/2023,” read the pop-up on the console. It then advised the player to return the product to the store or talk to the manufacturer. It seems the proper wording is displayed along the code, though, just the article elaborates later. If you think the existence of such code itse…
Interesting how they render the date, there will be players in the UK who will see that and think they can use their controllers until the 11th of December. I don't know why they didn't just use "12th of November, 2023"
we shouldn't stand for these blatant cash grabs, this also means you can't use better third party controllers unless they pay the microsoft toll
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No. The exact opposite. I'm sick of modern software telling me "something went wrong, try again later". Unless every possible error scenario gets its own descriptive error, that error code is a necessity. And nobody is going to accept a dev adding error messages to every possible error, because localisation to 180+ languages will cost a fortune. Your choice is between "something went wrong" and "something went wrong…
>Unless every possible error scenario gets its own descriptive error I mean that's not out of the question, I force that in every codebase I use. The only one I find that difficult in is Kotlin, because it's a trash language that doesn't properly compose throwables.
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macro controllers and AI controller inputs are a thing and are actually rampant in certain games. Just look on youtube for some of the Street Fighter 6 cheat videos that have popped up in the last few weeks. Also if you play games like Apex, Valorant, etc, there are macro controllers that will not only perform movement tricks for you but will do things like correct aim for automatic fire drift/spread or even (on PC)…
I just don't get it. I genuinely don't get it. If you're cheating, you're not winning; the software or hardware is. What is the point? What do people get from this?
Also writing cheat software is a lot of fun. Great engineering problems.
This is a money grab with the polish of a pro-gamer cheat-cleanup. Why do I say that? Microsoft can fix most of the 'cheats' that a software controller can implement in software. Auto-fire is trivial to detect, as is a KBM setup where it doesn't belong. Out of the ordinary joystick characteristics/speed/hysteresis/range would make it obvious to them which controllers are aftermarket if they cared to disallow them aft…
I guarantee you that the total profit generated from selling XBOX controllers is immaterial to Microsoft. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of hardware business models will tell you that this has nothing to do with selling more controllers.
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The day Valve falls, for whatever reason (greed, incompetence, some impossible to predict market shift/tech innovation... Gabe doesn't have decades and decades left as CEO after all) - the open world of PC gaming as we know it will probably fall, to be devoured by the Microsoft/Epic/Ubisoft/etc of the world. Compared to most other tech/gaming companies, it's shocking how non predatory and customer friendly they are.…
I think Valve gets way too much credit. They haven't abused their market position as much as they could have but they did normalize always-online DRM schemes. CS2 skin trading is also a hive of illegal/underage gambling and scams. If you want to valorize a digital games retailers, I would suggest GOG is a better candidate.
Always online DRM schemes were inevitable and even with Steam its ultimately the developer's choice. There's plenty of Steam games where you can just run the .exe from the folder without even having Steam running. And let's never go back to the bad-old-days of needing to download the latest patch from the developer's website.
> CS2 skin trading is also a hive of illegal/underage gambling and scams.
This is not ideal, but back in the day it was RuneScape scams, etc. I'm not sure whether it's actually better to have kids who've been wholly sheltered from gambling until they're 21 then be suddenly allowed to gamble. Ideally, we wouldn't have gambling for adults either tbh, but maybe there's something to the idea of needing to develop in a world where you're exposed to that kinda thing and are more immune to it when older? Or maybe its the other way around. Also kinda rings hollow if we're marketing trading-card games to kids, which are also definitely gambling.