Although it seems like ages ago now, Monday was a big, big day. Five major companies decided to hold important press conferences on the same day (four in LA before E3 began and Apple at WWDC in San Francisco). Ars hosted five liveblogs so that our readers could stay up to date in real time. It was fun to go back through the comments and see how readers reacted as each company made its announcements. Let's start with the first news we heard on Monday: the details of Microsoft's brand new Xbox One.
Show your hand
Microsoft got the day started with its presentation. When the release data and pricing were announced, Nate Anderson gave us the raw details in Xbox One costs $499—and is available this November. It surprised us that Microsoft announced the pricing details at this event—the announcement could have been made closer to the holiday season without raising any eyebrows. Microsoft also decided to kill off its "Microsoft Points" system and replace it with a real-money system.
At this point, Ars staff and the commenters alike knew that this was Sony's game to win or lose, but none of us had the slightest clue how it would turn out. "It's now virtually certain that the PS4 will also come in at $499 (the rumored price for the PS4)," rtechie wrote. "The games [Microsoft] announced were pretty good but a little sparse on how many would be launch titles. Assuming that most of them are, Xbox One is likely to have a very good launch. Assuming retailers aren't scared off. If you were GameStop, would you carry the Xbox One knowing you'll only make $5 off the sale and that it kills used games?"
rtechie continued. "MS Points were a security feature to protect your credit card. By making the only thing you could buy with your credit card on XBL "points" this was supposed to prevent a hacked account from being used for other purposes and largely worked. The problem was that users found translating prices to points confusing, and the same thing could be accomplished just by having a real dollar account that you can't take money out of (that's how it works on PSN and Steam)."
PlaceHolder also made some early predictions, "I think probably Sony will match that pricing within 20 percent... no point starting a price war before product is even available for purchase. I think $500 is too much though for a rehashed PC... I think the price will end up at $300 by the following Xmas." As we know now, rtechie was wrong and PlaceHolder was really close with respect to the PS4 launch pricing. However, who knows how many price cuts the Xbox will go through before the next holiday season?
"Sony could 'do us a solid' here if they come in at $399," Biggiesized stated prophetically.
Most of our readers seemed unhappy with the Xbox's $499 price. "So glad I'm in the process of building my gaming PC." Transmitte wrote. "It'll cost about twice as much, but will be a hell of a lot better. And no Kinect." But "most" doesn't include everyone. Some, including realwarder, thought that the pricing sounded realistic. "Come on... cheapest 360 with Kinect and 250GB drive is a $350 bundle. Standard pricing is around $400. And that is for old technology. For $500 you're getting at least twice the spec of everything, not to mention cutting edge. Anyone who thought it was going to be cheaper than $400 is delusional. And a new console has a small premium, so $499 was expected. They'll sell bucket loads at this price and in a year maybe it'll sell for $400." Guess we'll find out soon enough whether a $499 price tag is enough to sell bucket loads.
And the PlayStation 4 makes a bold move
Roughly nine hours later on another side of LA, Sony told its audience that the PlayStation 4 would only cost $399 and would not have any online check-in restrictions. (Kyle Orland kept us up to speed with PlayStation 4 will be available for $399 this holiday season.) As the Xbox One's only significant competing console this year, the announcement set off lots of applause from the audience at the event. However, Ars readers were a little more cautious. More than one person (well, OK, two people) was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." tigas wrote. "I'm sure Activision will find a way to screw us over even with a PS4." Ironicending elaborated. "Loved the announcement. Call me suspicious, call me seasoned, call me paranoid, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is all too good to be true. How much will AAA titles cost to maintain this model? Then again with all that indie support and PS+ value I'm not sure I care. Transistor!"
Still, more than a few commenters embraced the news with less cynicism. "Go Sony," wrote joshua knight. "This level of contrast in approach between two large competitors doesn't seem to happen too often these days. I am very interested to watch how it all plays out but Sony has mine for now." caywen added:
As someone who was really banking on the Xbox One to succeed and was really intrigued by the Kinect possibilities, I have to say: Microsoft just got their collective asses handed to it. They spent way too much time trying to explain away 24 hour checks, game trade ins, etc. Sony spent very little time on that with a simple message.
And it's $100 less.
Someone at Microsoft needs serious firing. There's some dude (maybe Ballmer himself) who was like, "we need to price it premium and wrap restrictions around everything." That person got his way, and now look.
I'm now firmly in the PS4 camp. I really, really wanted Xbox One to be great. The only way for Microsoft to get me back is this: Hold a press conference in a couple of days, admit they misjudged the market, and cede to competitive pressures. Drop the price to $399 and get rid of *all* the DRM restrictions.
Basically, if Sony has won me, a MSFT stockholder, over, then things are really, really bad.
And axia777 dispensed with words entirely, opting to post this gif instead:
iOS looks different now
While the gamers where having it out over the big consoles, Apple held its WWDC keynote in San Francisco. The company announced a refresh to the Mac Pro line and an overhaul of iOS 7's design. Casey Johnston kept us up to speed on the latter in Apple announces flatter, sleeker iOS 7, describing the first mobile operating system designed by Apple SVP of Industrial Design Jony Ive and Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi.
The reaction from the commenters was decidedly mixed: a significant number seemed to love some parts of it and hate some parts of it. Others, like muckz, didn't consider the aesthetic of the OS at all. "Finally, with the new control center, I can ditch jailbreaking. Cannot stand going into Settings each time I want to adjust brightness or turn Wi-Fi on/off." Mike Strobel was decidedly in the "hate" camp though. "I have but one explanation for the horrible hues and stops in all those gradients: Jony Ive is color blind. We just never knew it because all his stuff was black, white, and silver."
Others liked the new look but were concerned that it might not be practical. PervertRyan explained:
As a WP8 user, I like the much cleaner look and especially the typography. But I'm not yet sure how I feel about the new icons.
And the transparency and perspective shifting looks really cool, but I have to wonder about the processing power needed. I mean, yeah mobile GPUs are plenty fast to render such effects (although I have to wonder about the iPhone 4, mine already feels slow on iOS 5), but I'm more concerned about how this will keep the GPU busier than it needs to be. Maybe I'm wrong, but when iOS 6 renders the home screen the GPU can just go to sleep until something happens, but now it has to constantly re-render the homescreen because the perspective will shift slightly from subtle movements you make while you hold the device even if you don't do anything. And it sounds like it always keeps the sensors active too, but that might be the case normally too.
And with transparency, you simply have to render more, cache less, and have to apply that blur pixel shader.
I'm sure it's not a huge penalty, but Microsoft removed Aero glass from Windows 8 and one reason I believe was that a flat look is less taxing on the battery.
Others saw echoes of other operating system designs in iOS 7. lux113 wrote, "Some are saying Android... All I thought when I saw the icons was metro—solid colors, very slim numbers, and letters. Apple has been leaning towards the slim numbers in certain apps but now it appears to be across the board. The solid colors though are a clearly obvious move away from everything their icons always were known for... and there was another company which made such a move recently that I'm aware of—Windows—right down to the Windows logo." Oleph agreed on some points. "I hate the basic looking icons, especially Safari. It's so clearly taking design hints from both Android and WP. And yet, in the usual Apple way, they've refined things and made it something more. I think in use all these design elements will work for the better. In static screenshots, you don't get the whole picture."
But bbonish came in as a voice of reason. "Copied, inspired by... who cares? It's not that it looks more like Android/Windows, it's not like Apple has to ignore design trends. I think the main thing is it looks well thought out and consistent. That's always the hardest thing about tech devices and where Apple over the past few years seemed to wander a bit. At first glance it looks like they really simplified the graphics not just for the sake of making new design elements, but to make things easier to use."
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