NEWS: XBOX 360 Downloadable Content Sets New Standards of Crap

GEEK: XBOX 360 Downloadable Content Sets New Standards of Crap

XBOX Live is working hard to destroy the meaning of money, according to 1up.com. On one hand, you can download the greatest game of all time, Geometry Wars, for about six bucks. On the other hand, you could spend that money to download a picture of the Charlotte Hornets logo or get a "theme."

These themes are nothing other than constant reminders of how you make poor decisions. Microsoft wants me to spend nonrefundable, real money for the ability to change my system menu colors? I think it'd be easier to convince me to buy a sick baby's diaper. Of course, that's the kind of thing you can't know about yourself until you're actually confronted with it.

Now they're taking it to a new level. Oblivion, the huge new RPG, has just released its first downloadable content. For $2.50, you can download a new outfit for your horse. It doesn't make it fly, or even turn it into a majestic unicorn... it's only an outfit. Fans of horse fashion might say that it's very easy for gamers NOT to pay for this stupid thing, and they're right. It's just insulting that they thought anyone would.

especially since you could probably get it for free on the pc..hell, the one for free on the PC probably would make your horse into a flying unicorn with ninja throwing stars and fire breath.

Tycho of PA fame had this to say, and I really agree with him:

Half the people in my office bought that Goddamn horse.

Nope, it costs money either way, actually.

https://obliviondownloads.com/StoreCatalog_ProductList.aspx?SubCategoryId=1

There's one born every minute, and that's a low estimate.

Trust me, people will buy into it. Just like the whole buying ringtones thing.

just wait until microsoft gets into pharmaceuticals

I failed to read anywhere in the article that the price tag for the horse armor and other such nonsense is actually a brainchild of Bethesda Software, as they are charging PC users the same thing for the exact same mods.

Microsoft actually had little to do with the Oblivion nickle and diming other than probably saying "great idea!" to Bethesda.

you're also ignoring the fact that there are free themes available, and you can customize some elements of the user environment; i had manko as my 360 background for a couple of months (until i had mixed and possibly offendable company over). now it's a nin wall paper. i think the marketplace is just that: a market place. it's somewhere for companies to screw up or succeed based on the merit of what they offer and how much they charge for it. microsoft is only making something like 35 cents on this particular piece of content per download, so really, blame bethesda. what i will blame microsoft for is fostering accessory consumerism, and fucked if it isn't working. there have been three seperate occasions where i was seconds away from buying additional faceplates for the fucking thing, and i already have a second one that i got from zero hour. and these are essentially useless save for their aesthetic value. that's not only good business for them, it's been fucking genius.

I'm not talking about the market created by the creators, but the market created by consumers for their own creations. There will always be free content available, it may not be sanctioned by the company and it may be full of bugs, but the most popular content will be the free stuff and the stuff that makes the game more easy/enriching.

If people are dumb enough to pay for that shit they deserve to have their money taken.

Yep - FreakPirate has it right. Only one change - people dumb enough to pay for that deserve the privelege of giving *ME* their money.

so this was the revolutionary new "marketplace" they were talking about?

microtransactions are fucking evil, and unfortunately, they'll be a huge part of both sony and nintendo's upcoming plans as well. and i'm willing to bet that sony will push them harder than anyone else.

i don't plan on EVER buying any of this shit, even if it's something cool like new maps for online games. i even have 1700 points sitting in my XBL account right now from a card someone bought me, but i refuse to spend even one of them on something incredibly lame like a theme or gamer picture.

Given that I had to hack the fucking game to get it to run on my slightly behind the ball PC I don't think Bethesda is going to be getting any more money from me for a while.

no, that would be the aforementioned geometry wars, as well as online distribution of games like the source-based sin episodes, as well as game demos. not to mention that other publishers have released a lot of free additional content for their games (i think ridge racer 6 has something like an additional 20 cars freely downloadable through the marketplace). online content distribution is the future of gaming. it won't be the standard for 6 or 7 years, but it is definitely where it's going.

Ok, Now that I’m over my 15 seconds of being pissed a them for charging for something which was free last time around, I’ve got hope. I mean, I won’t pay 2 bucks for horse armor. But I’d pay 12.99 for a dozen new, professional quality, quests of a reasonable length.

They are also hawking a downloadable sound track of the games. Which is kinda dumb, seeing as all the music is right there in the install folder as mp3’s.

I guess I'm a moron, I plan on getting a Penny Arcade theme for my 360 eventually.

Downloading the X3 trailor was pretty sweet, though.

They have that online for free.

Shit. I was hoping, for the sake of XBox 360 owners, that the much-vaunted "hooks" for the XBOX 360 included full-fledged mods. I suppose we'll still see, since there's time for that sort of thing, but this doesn't bode well. On the PC version you can download content that fundamentally changes the game for free.

As I said before, I'm sure plenty of third parties will be offering the flying unicorn variation by the end of the month...

I hadn't noticed the soundtrack thing...that truly is foolish, especially since 90 percent of oblivion gamers are probably geeky enough to know that sort of thing.

If you can download new quests for 12.99 as opposed to paying for the packaged expansion varieties for 30 bucks, that's a step in the right direction!

I'm glad others find having to purchase themes are retarded. Putting it in the realm of digital downloading, I could buy 2 full songs from iTunes for the same as a theme. It's just dumb.

Not really. Each of the expansions for Morrowind added way more game content than all the microdownloads in development for Oblivion combined.

I don't think the concept is bad, I just think the value isn't there yet. I'm much happier with, say, the premium modules for NWN. Those are entire official campaigns, if short ones, and I think I paid all of 8 dollars for three of them. Yes, there are fan modules for free, but very few of them measure up to the professional work. (excluding the godawful original campaign.)

just to be a basketball nerd here - Charlotte is home to the Bobcats now. the Hornets are in New Orleans. Or - Oklahoma City, i guess. kind of. i understand, it's confusing.

Why would you get a horse skin, when the pc version has all kinds of cool mods? (One of my coworkers was showing me some of them today.) They have mods like a spell that makes everyone you use it on go insane and start to rampage, and a mode that makes stealth more realistic.

The marketplace is pretty cool. Free demos and trailers, including demos of all the Live arcade games. The themes and gamer pics are a scam for those foolish enough to spend the dough on them though.

Wow, that's how much I paid for it on the 360, too.