Microsoft says the Xbox One won’t need an always-online internet connection. But if you want to play it, the thing must be able to check in with the home office once a day. Playing used or borrowed games also sounds like a real bitch. Only one thing that can save gamers from this: our old enemy, Fox News.
Say what? Look, follow me here. Regardless of your political affiliation, I know all of us here hate Fox News, who constantly bait their nursing-home viewership with images of video games as government-subsidised homicide simulators that will force you to fuck gay aliens. But those superpatriot bumpkins are now our best friends in this time of crisis.
Why? Because of the troops.
As has been pointed out, here and elsewhere, video game consoles are often brought along by American servicemembers on deployment, and while “hardship” is a very much reality — which gets realer the closer you get to action — they’re not all out there without a TV and a power strip. Internet access [WARNING: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE] seems to be a limited thing even in a [WARNING: I AM TRYING TO SOUND LIKE WHAT I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE] secure forward operating base which has enough of a normal life going on that troops sending email and Skyping with loved ones is a common experience. Basically, Internet sounds like it’s mostly available in common areas, and it probably has something to do with security. Or porn.
Whatever the case, the Xbox One needs to be playable offline, for longer than 24 hours, if not forever, if a soldier’s gonna be able to play it. And based on the remarks from Microsoft representatives, that doesn’t sound like it will be possible. So my question is, then, Why does Xbox One hate America?
Yeah, it’s a dishonest question. That’s why it’s a question Fox News needs to ask.
Seriously, we gamers need to be as cutthroat as possible if we’re going to get Microsoft — and any other game or console maker — to back off this idea. And if that means cloaking ourselves in the flag, so be it. Once Fox News contorts this edge case scenario into flag-burning contempt for our brave men and women, Microsoft will assuredly capitulate.
For a dozen years, the one argumentative trump card is the troops. Since 9/11, the side that is capable of defining the sacrifices of the American military and the reasons for which it is sacrificing is the side that wins. None do that better than Fox News. And the troops out there defending our freedom to complain all day long will not be able to enjoy the thing that is making us so unhappy.
That’s not the country for which my grandfathers fought. (Really. They didn’t have video games back then.) So, put down that impotent Change.Org Internet petition. Cease thy fulminations upon NeoGAF and r/games. Friends, neckbeards, countrymen, lend me your emails!
Here, I’ve whipped up an astroturf letter for you to write to Fox News, in a vernacular they understand:
Dear Fox News channel,
Did you know the new “Xbox One” game console was announced yesterday? There was some things about it you may not know. Like, the military can’t play the new Xbox One. Because when the Xbox One plays games it always has to be connected to the Internet. So what happens is when this console comes out is that troops who take a console with them to Iraq won’t be able to play it unless they have internet where they are. On ships or behind enemy lines. Also, the game won’t let you play used games. Alot of our troops take discs with them and share them around, but Xbox One won’t let you do that without paying a “fee”
I think this is wrong and, if I may say so as a taxpayer it is Un-American. Our troops defend our rights and the least they deserve is to play some “Xbox One” at the end of a hard day. I would like you to talk about that on your next show.
Hey if you use this please keep my name anonymous.
[make up a name]
Look, I know we have a lot of European readers here, you don’t have to love America. You just have to hate Microsoft. Britons, I know our military might and superpower status is especially painful to those who lost an empire, but we saved your asses in the big dubya-dubya-eye-eye, so it’s time to do your part for that special relationship. We’ll get around to region-locking later. And Canada, goddammit, just do it, OK? OK? Thanks. Why do we always have to tell you twice?
Where do these emails go? I’m glad you asked. How about these addresses. We need to spread them out to hit all constituencies:
Fox & Friends: (Morning bullshit to scare homeschooling mums) friends@foxnews.com
America Live: (Unemployed men perving on Megyn Kelly): kelly@foxnews.com
The O’Reilly Factor: (LEGO-hair stepford wives and FW:FW:FW:RE:FW: birthers): oreilly@foxnews.com
Hannity (Obese Civil War reenactors and freelance Constitutional scholars): hannity@foxnews.com
There you go. Do it now. Support American troops!
Comments
59 responses to “Only Fox News Can Save Us From The Tyranny Of Xbox One”
Wait, wait, wait,
we’re (well, not me) but you, are using the troops as an excuse to obtain a video game system that will be more preferable to you?
This has nothing to do with helping them out, they’ll do fine with a PS4 or a Gaming Laptop, this is about using them for your own needs, this is greed.
worst article Kotaku has ever posted, ever.
You’ve obviously never visited a website that used sarcasm have you?
Calm down. Nobody is saying that you should actually believe this garbage; but just let Fox spread the word around.
It’s as facetious as it is flamebait/clickbait. Well done, sir. You are the target audience.
Saved our asses in WW2…..? And Rambo won Vietnam for you too.
One of the best articles i’ve read in a long time
I think the war on piracy outweighs America’s oppression of native countries
Great work Kotaku you have earmarked a whole new low today
yup.
I don’t support war, I don’t support M$, and I don’t support this BS.
I have faith that my enemies’ enemies will break M$ license control.
Owen Good, what a douche.
If you didn’t warn us, you mightve as well be working for fox news. Cheers, that is a very good example of a possible scenario. Though how much money does Microsoft make from the military/troops.
also considering the tvbox is mainly for tv and fox news is on tv, I duno I’m just saying. Does fox news pick sides or do they just complain against everything?
It’ll be banned from secure bases anyway because Kinect is mandatory, always-on and the data’s communicated back to base. Let alone the fact that it can recognise faces and geolocate based on Wi-fi points. That’ll mean its presence will be flagged as a security breach right off the bat.
Yeap. Exactly. But won’t be a big loss to ms. The military/troops probably don’t buy that many anyway.
Send the X-Boxes to the Taliban
XBONE IS UNAMERICAN
Hehe X Bone
thats exactly what i saw too
we are such children 🙂
wat?
Am i the only one that doesnt really care if a console has to be online atleast once a day?
I always have my console connected to the internet, and if my internet goes out for more than 24 hours, ill go outside or watch TV/ movie.
My life doesnt revolve around my console……
Well there are some people, such as me, that do not have a very stable internet connection and do not have enough money to buy games when they come out
Xbox One doenst need a stable connection. Just needs to be connected once in every 24 hours. If your internet isnt connected atleast once every 24 hours then you may need to switch ISP’s.
Also, i didnt say anything about used games…..?
Switch ISP’s or switch consoles? This is a major benefit of buying the PS4 rather than the Xbox One. Why should I switch ISP’s because Microsoft decided that it wanted its silly console to phone home daily?
If I work flat out during the week, and I want to enjoy my weekend playing games all day, but my internet happens to be down, why would I buy an Xbox One?
I think he meant that if someones internet connection is so terrible that it regularly is unable to connect for periods in excess of 24 hours… then it might be time to change ISPs. (Obviously for some country folk this may be easier said than done).
I’m tired of this rationale. Ever had your phone line go down and have to wait a week for Telstra to get off their arse to fix it? Enjoy your brick under the TV during that period. Hell, XBL has been known to go offline from time to time, and if your modem dies on the afternoon before Good Friday or the like, enjoy your gameless public holiday until you can replace it.
It’s bullshit, pure and simple. Most of us have reasonable to excellent net connections, but that shouldn’t preclude us from being able to game without these restrictions that serve no purpose to us.
Ever heard of a smartphone? It has to dial home once every 24 hours. Set up a WAP with your phone, connect, bam everything works again.
Sure, there are workarounds. But it doesn’t stop it from being a Bloody Stupid Thing in the first place.
If like you say though you’ll go into some kind of gaming withdrawals, it’s not that hard to fix.
I’ve just moved and spent the last 3 weeks with no internet connection. Thankfully Steam has some sense and provides an Offline mode.
I also have a stable internet connection, so realistically the whole thing shouldn’t impact on me too much, however even I know that there can be unforeseen problems even with a stable connection. What if something goes down or breaks, either on my side of things or for my ISP? It’s been known to happen. Should that happen, I wouldn’t be able to play single player games on a console I bought specifically to play games on. It seems unfair for there to be a restriction that prevents a person from using something the way it was intended when they have paid so much money for it.
It’s also very unfair to those without a reliable internet connection because MS are essentially ignoring them and treating them like they either don’t exist or don’t matter. Should those people be ignored and forgotten simply because they don’t or currently can’t have a proper connection? Even when they’re willing to pay good money for the console?
And lastly, without going on a tangent (any more than I already have, at least) there’s the whole DRM thing. This may not be entirely a way to control what is played on the console, but it could eventually become an always on requirement as another form of DRM, which annoys me because it treats those who bought legitimate copies of games as though we’re criminals.
Your logic is coming from a person who does not have a shoddy internet connection. Stop thinking about it from your persepctive and go to say a rural area or overseas. Internet is not something that comes easy for these people. The infrastructure in some places is absolutely horrid. Even getting a connection once every 24 hours might be a pain in the neck. Your life might not revolve around a console but other people’s might prefer to use their time off playing their console.
I find that a lot of the people who don’t mind this feature are people who will have your logic. My internet doesn’t go down, in the off chance it does, I’ll do something else. When you start to take things for granted, that’s when you lose sight of how hard it is for OTHER PEOPLE.
…Author really thinks America saved England in WWII. Americans are as brainwashed as the DPKR.
They kind of did have a massive impact in the european theater…
The real sin here, is still to this day nobody really gives two shits about the impact RUSSIA had.
America dealt with the Japanese, they didnt have a big part in winning the War in Europe.
Russia saved the Brits.
As soon as Germany tried conquering Russia, they started a war with Russia then Russia moved onto Berlin.
Americans can be as dellusional as they want, and think they are this all great country that saved the world but history tells a different story. The world doesnt evolve around America.
America saved Australia from total Domination by japan.
But the War in Europe was won because Russia decided revenge was the best option and counter attacked Germany.
Hitler killed himself because the Russian Army had surrounded Berlin and a large part of the German Army was fighting Briton and other european countries elsewhere.
Partial credit for recognising the noble russian effort but loss of points for denying the facts about the American involvement.
I never denied Americas Involvement.
You need to go bak and re-read my comment.
America fought off the japs, they were involved with the D-Day beach landings. They helped quite a bit in the Normandy Theater of war.
But america didnt win the war for us like Americans say.
Russia ended the war in Europe, America had absolutely no part in the advancement on Berlin, america can go get stuffed if they think they saved europe.
They didn’t save Europe, but they very well help England a hell of a lot, you can be assured of that. Without them, England would’ve been in a very different position now.
Quite probably not. Hitler abandoned Operation Sea Lion (invasion of the UK) in favor of Operation Barbarossa (invasion of Russia). While it isn’t clear that they would have gone back to the plans and launched a cross-channel invasion, British sea-power was still superior and it would have been a long time before Germany could invade England.
Europe would certainly be in a different position since the US had a large part in D-Day and subsequent fighting in Europe, particularly France, but I don’t think England would have been too different.
Looks like someone needs to read a little more into their historical facts before spouting them out. You are correct, xranius, Hitler did choose to focus more primarily on Op Barbarossa than Sea Lion. but what else was happening at this moment in the war? Come on, open that history book you just used to look up the names of the operations and figure out America’s position. It’s obsurd to negatve the US’s involvment in Hitler’s decision. Hence, without the US, England probably would be a lot different like weresmurf said. Good job on pointing out facts that support your thesis but negating the reality behind your facts. 2 points!
there’s this other reading of history, that the japanese had no intention of invading australia, but the yanquis drew them down by sheltering in darwin harbour.
as for the european ‘theater’, it is well described that the brits could have wrapped it up sooner, but chose to prolong the destruction and loss of life on both sides in order to maneouver for a preferable peacetime position (particularly, to weaken the russians).
Well, the casualties and operational intensity in the entire theater of Western Europe would have been good in comparison to one engagement on the Eastern Front, so there goes that. I am not saying, it was trivial or insignificant, but really the Eastern Front was so ferocious and large-scale (cities of millions of people just leveled, single combat engagements involving thousands of tanks etc) , it was effectively its own war.
The Russian operation was phenomenal in scale of losses and brutality. The losses for America and England aren’t worth pissing over or rewriting history over either when people start debating it on forums as invariably happens. It was all a tragedy. Without Americas help, the war would’ve turned out *very* differently, that is without doubt. Without Englands help, the same result is a fact. Without AUSTRALIAS help, the same is true in the pacific to a smaller degree. What is true, is that America played a gigantic role in two theaters of war and was a valuable ally to us when we needed it and despite peoples xenophobia that *fact* should never be pissed on. People should never forget that, or you risk disrespecting soldiers who died defending our freedom.
The US only entered WW2 after they were attacked by Japan – about two years after the start of the war. Until that happened, they were perfectly content to let the rest of the world bleed.
Western Europe was a stalemate and the Eastern Europe front crumbled once the Russian war machine got into full swing. At this point, America jumped in to beat Russia to Berlin and paint themselves as heroes.
Maybe I’m guilty of generalising the American effort a bit, but that’s my understanding in a nutshell.
You’re not generalising a bit, you’re generalising the whole war, but each to their own. You’re also rewriting history a hell of a lot there. They didn’t ‘let the world bleed’ at all. At that point WW2 was a European conflict that hadn’t escalated to the US. The USA hardly ‘jumped in at the last minute’ as you’re possibly implying with the xenophobic attitude, the war ended in 1945 and they jumped in December 1941, the war started September 1939 but full blown maneuvers took a little while beyond that. There were four more years after that of blood, dead bodies and annihilation enough to sate the bloodiest of all warlords. The fact is, the USA did help save England for the fact that England had nowhere near the manpower to deflect Germany on its own, Russia was on the eastern front, without the USA England would have had a damn hard time fighting them off. The USA also helped save Australia and keep us free from the Japanese. Wether you like the yanks beligerent, arrogant attitudes at times (personally I could take it or leave it at the best of times) give credit where credit is due and stop trying to rewrite history.
fairy nuff, I wouldn’t argue that at one point in history the usa was a welcome ally.
I would argue against characterisation of opposition to the current usa global military empire as “xenophobia”. I have american family, friends and colleagues. I work for american companies. I know you don’t have to be anti-american to be opposed to usa militarism.
Living with Darwin, I understand and agree that we should appreciate our history, including our shared military history. But this should not be allowed to dictate our future.
Spot on. Was a good article till he started sprouting MERICA EVERYONE OWES US ! Crap.
I say suffer in ya jocks yanks.
Yeah, I am not sure the author is 100% serious here – see tone of rest of article. Although I am pretty sure, most Americans believe just that.
‘Fox news’ and ‘save us’ in the same sentence? Now I’ve seen everything!
I sent an email. Not because the console internet thing affects me personally, but the fact that it could affect other people. I’m lucky I got internet 24×7 though a lot of people do not 🙁
That’s usin’ the ol’ noodle.
Why does Xbox One hate America?
Why does Xbox One hate FREEDOM?
If u look at Kinect 2.0, Why does Xbox One hate Privacy?
Also the name is unpatriotic…it should be called the FreedomBox. Next…airdrop thousands over North Korea.
they should have done that with the other xbox 1, those things would have left some sizable holes in the landscape
Why do they get handouts?
THAT’S UNAMERICAN
Thats the beauty of it! The handouts go to communist Koreans (ie unAmericans used to free services), Americans can feel good about bringing the gifts of liberty to the world, so see: win-win! … and heck, chuck a parachute onto Dennis Rodman and have him hop into Pyongyang to hand over one including a basketball game to Kim Jong Un himself!
Not sure how he expects to win against the grandson of the man who invented basketball and won a game on his own against the Harlem Globetrotters 176-2.
Kim will be generous and have him play against a school basketball team. They only tied the last time they played the Globetrotters.
Look, follow me here. Regardless of your political affiliation, I know all of us here hate Fox News
Don’t tell me what i know and what i think, ‘Obrien’
Spoken like a true left wing nut, ‘i believe in free speech as long as i agree with it’.
‘Unbookmark kotaku’
hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha
Are you actually serious?
You’re a funny guy.
This article is so American, only an American could come with it.
I’m impressed.
I must say, I didn’t come with it.
right idea, wrong message. we should be using the Xbox One online “feature” as a reason to bring the troops home! if they’re home with stable internet then they can play their Xbox Ones!
won’t someone think of the troops! bring them home so they can play Call of duty 23!
THE XBONE HATES FREEDOM!! DOWN WITH THE COMMY X-BONE
Save us Fox news, you’re our only hope! Seriously though, this logic may actually work….So it’s agreed then, xbox hates America.
Kotaku – you have officially jumped the shark.
So aussies should hit aca and today tonight lol
Never have I seen an article go over so many people’s heads simultaneously.
Seriously.
WHOOOOOOOOOSH
Wow. This is a long thread. I’m usually over on the Giz and Lifehacker where one or two comments make a big thread.
Seriously though.. I played ME1 really straight, not hetro, but straight. Eyes on the prize, no distractions, lets get those f##kers.
A friend asked me “So.. Who did you hook up with?”
I was like “Dude? What? You can hook up with people?”.
He was like “Dude? Are you gay or what?”
and I was like “Dude? You can be gay?”
He said “No.”
When ME2 came out. I said to myself “Ok man-whore. Let’s go.”
I played that one like an 18-year old at a nightclub and got me some alien poon-tang.
One of the best gaming experiences.. ever!
Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?
All I have to say is “Xbox, play PS4”
Problem solved!