[CheapyD]

Wombat takes on the great headset debate and wonders if Kinect works. Shipwreck will probably buy an Ouya and a Shield.  Cheapy has an stressful Yoga session.
 

 

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Show Linkage/Notes:

Intro/Outro: Watch Out For This/Major Lazer - Welcome Back Kotter Closing Credits
 
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I guess you can listen to Wombat's other podcast, Uninformed Opinions.

[Neo]

I am bummed about the headset not being in the box, but not because I have a problem paying a little extra for what is promised to finally be a high audio quality mic, but because even LESS people will be on the mic in multiplayer games.

 

I used to love how in every match of Halo 2 every one had a mic.  It's been a ghost town for years  now.

 

I'd like to be considered for the Borderlands 2 DLC code as well.  Thank you.

[LiquidSnape]

I heard that Microsoft may be allowing 360 users to migrate their mics over, at least first party ones. Has any more news been revealed on that? I am getting the PS4 and am not that impressed with the iphone mic that they are providing, I am hoping my universal Rocketfish headset is compatible with it.Or I may just buy that gta V pulse headset which I know is compatible

[MSUHitman]

No 360 peripherals work on XB1, period. That was directly from MS themselves.

[Tyrok]

Any reason why the last two podcasts aren't showing up on Xbox Music/Windows Phone?

[shipwreck]

I heard that Microsoft may be allowing 360 users to migrate their mics over, at least first party ones. Has any more news been revealed on that? I am getting the PS4 and am not that impressed with the iphone mic that they are providing, I am hoping my universal Rocketfish headset is compatible with it.Or I may just buy that gta V pulse headset which I know is compatible

 

I think you may have been thinking of this via Joystiq via Game Informer:

 

"Microsoft goes on to say that it "plans to develop solutions in the near future to allow consumers to connect many brands of wired gaming headsets to the Wireless Controller for gaming and chat audio," though it does not say what form those solutions may take."

[VenomousMaximus]

Cheapy, wouldn't be surprised if the Last of Us starts to get tedious for you. I'm pretty far in the game and when I get to *another* fight or *another * room full of clickers I just want to drop the controller and walk away. The story is great but the in-between parts aren't really doing it for me.
 

[AriesDog]

Any reason why the last two podcasts aren't showing up on Xbox Music/Windows Phone?

Using a Windows Phone myself. Got the last two episode just fine.

[shipwreck]

Also, I totally want a Hotline Miami code if yall are giving them away.

 

I knew nobody understood Wombat's contest rules. We're giving away two different things this episode and Hotline Miami isn't one of them.

[WalkinPneumonia]

I have to agree with Wombat on this whole headphone thing.  I will eventually pick up a X1, but I think I will only use it for exclusives.  (I would like to be entered into the contest.)

[Dolyn]

We are a gaming couple in our 30s. We have two TVs side by side with Xbox 360s attached to both. They are usually on at the same time.  Kids in the background won’t be the problem for us; it will be the other Xbox One in the room.

 

Currently, he’ll play something that he doesn’t have to hear while we watch/listen to Netflix, HBOgo etc. thru the Xbox on the other TV; or we both will be playing the same game, like Borderlands 2, so only one TV really needs to have the sound up; or we both will be playing games we need to hear and either someone is wearing a headset or they are both at a volume we can hear, which is most of the time.

 

We both have pre-ordered the Xbox One but are VERY interested on how BOTH Kinects will work sitting 5 feet away from each other. My Kinect now picks up his TV if I have it plugged in (the 5 hours a year it is used), and I am concerned there might be an issue. Even when one TV is muted, is his Kinect going to pick up my TV?  I doubt we’ll be able to even use the Kinect commands without it doing the same thing to the other TV.  

 

Is Microsoft plotting against our relationship and going to make us game in separate rooms?!?!  Who gets the living room? I was here first.

 

First-world problems hitting couples hard in Indiana.

[4thHorseman]

I heard that Microsoft may be allowing 360 users to migrate their mics over, at least first party ones. Has any more news been revealed on that? I am getting the PS4 and am not that impressed with the iphone mic that they are providing, I am hoping my universal Rocketfish headset is compatible with it.Or I may just buy that gta V pulse headset which I know is compatible

 

There's been a rumor going around since May about a possible adapter to allow 360 headsets to work. But no concrete solution to it.

 

Wombat, I would disagree about Microsoft's conference. They had some pretty solid games to show and the pacing worked pretty well. They did exactly what they said they would do by coming out and showing games. And Ship is right, it's the bad parts of conferences that make them memorable. I don't think I'll ever forget Mr. Caffeine, but couldn't tell you anything else about that conference (other than that weird laser tag game IIRC).

[detectiveconan16]

CheapyD, you've gotta apologize to your instructor tomorrow. I don't know what the traditional apology gift over there is, but that could work too. That was pretty douche, even if the woman and her son were being pretty disruptive, it still doesn't mean you gotta explode like that.

[Thomas96]

I think that the headset not being included with the Xbone or Xbox 180 isn't going to have a significant negative impact.  The xbox live community is so used to having a headset that I don't think they would allow themselves to play the game without a headset.  I think the biggest issue is that previous headsets won't work and will need an adapter.  Regardless of the obstacles, xbox live users will do whatever to ensure that they have a headset as it's probably just expected that you actually have an headset.  Also, the fact that MS thinks that the Kinect will take the place of the headset says a lot about how confident they are in regards to how well the kinects mic will perform.  

 

If the Kinect can filter out bad words, that would be pure AWESOME!  I've been called a ****** (and other bad words, or combination thereof you can imagine) wayyy too many times.  I know, I know.... that's the internet! 

[Jrittmayer]

I think that even with all this flak, there are still enough hardcore Xbox fans, and casual fans who don't know about any of this stuff to buy plenty of X1's come this fall.

 

We haven't had a Tokyo American Club story in a while, thanks for that!

 

(Also in for contest)

[zebwinz]

It sounds like chat audio is going to be much better on the Xbox One using "digital wide-band" audio (whatever that means). That probably increases the cost of the headset (most likely in the adapter) which basically priced it out of inclusion in the box.

 

I had a nice Twitter conversation with Wombat trying to get to the bottom of why he is so livid about the headset not being included. Basically (and I'm paraphrasing), Wombat doesn't want his wife to hear teenagers yell stupid stuff out of his TV speakers. I understand that but I guess I game differently. I don't play any online multiplayer games while my family is awake or home. In a multiplayer game, you can't pause when your kid needs a glass of milk or your wife wants to tell you about her day. Those games require a level of involvement that just doesn't jive with having family around.

 

Also, as a long time listener and fan, it seems that Wombat doesn't really play competitive online multiplayer games, and instead plays mostly co-operative games like Mass Effect 3's online mode. If you're hearing racial slurs and hate speech in a co-op game, then something is really wrong there and it goes far beyond the inclusion of a headset.

I don't remember this happening when the last generation launched but it seems like nowadays people want to know every tiny detail about products that haven't even started the manufacturing process yet (sure chips are being made, but the boxes are not being assembled yet). Basically, nothing is really finalized yet but no one seems to accept the answer "We're not talking about that yet - we'll reveal more at a later date".

[easper]

Sadly, I think Shipwreck is right. Microsoft won't include a headset because they are doubling down on Kinect. If they included both it would look like they weren't confident in the new Kinect (and they've been making some WILD claims about the new Kinect). Same reason original Wii didn't come with Pro or Classic Controllers. The problem, as Wombat points out, is that by making Kinect the one peripheral everyone has, it may well split the user base when it comes to voice chat. Yes, the Kinect has a mic (the PS3 didn't even have that), but it's not ideal.

 

Oh, and put me in for Tiny Tina's Assault. Perfect excuse to fire up Borderlands 2 again.

[guardian_owl]

First, "I almost made it without exploding on everybody, but i did explode" is my new favorite out of context CAGcast quote.

 

Exactly, the PS3 was $600. Sony in their overconfidence they tried to cram an expensive extra feature (blu-ray) down the customer's throat and expected them to grit and pay. But unlike the the PS3, it is not immediately clear and understandable how the added cost of the camera benefits John Q consumer. "Machine plays Hi-Def movie disc" is easy, I buy this and I don't have to buy a dedicated Blu-ray player. I look at the xbox-one $500 price tag and see "you want me to pay $100 more than the PS4.in order to get this extra, possibly useless camera," a camera which was revealed today to feature a propriety plug so that you can't plug it into your PC without some theoretical, future unlicensed adapter. if one DID like Kinect 2, and WANTED Kincect 2, they will have to buy a second one to use for their PC.

 

It will be very interesting to see how they prevent player chat coming through your TV speakers from hijacking the voice commands on your Kinect. If all of that voice chat is disabled during multiplayer (and that's all many Xbox players do), then all that quick switching stuff will be useless to them.

 

I agree with Wombat, if they didn't want to take the time to explain the family sharing or DRM in the conference, they should have had a handout or released a press release afterword, point by point laying out how it all works. If they didn't have all that worked out before they originally announced it in May (or as Cheapy kept hilariously saying over and over for some reason, "March"), then they certainly should of had the majority of that worked out by E3. Instead as the shit storm began to intensify they canceled their Q&A events set for after the conference to continue to dodge the questions. Their DRM scheme was a core, integrated feature of their console, something like that should be fully explained by the time Pre-orders officially go live.

 

You can't blame gamers for calling it X-bone, blame Microsoft for being dumbasses and calling it Xbox-One. There is already an Xbox 1, the original Xbox, so you can't call it an "Xbox1" without starting an Abbott and Costello routine. If the PS4 was called something stupid to acronym like the "Playstation Console," people would be be making fun of it too, and rightfully so.

 

Spartacus is not just breasts and violence, though there is a lot of that (and penises too!), it also has some really good storytelling, great performances, and excellent fight choreography. The pilot is not very good though, things start to all click by episode 4 or 5. The order it should be watched in is Blood and Sand, Gods of the Arena, Vengeance, and War of the Damned. Gods of Arena was a prequel mini-series produced between Blood and Sand and Vengeance when the lead actor playing Spartacus looked like he was going to recover from a serious illness, but the bookends of Gods of the Arena have major spoilers for Blood and Sand so it shouldn't be watched first. The series is done so you can binge watch it all the way through if you want. War of the Damned is being released in early September.

 

I would like a Fist Puncher Code.

[stingray2772]

My wife and I have been sharing Animal Crossing... after hearing your words on a previous CAGcast I told her many times, if you are going to be the mayor then you are going to play the game and continue playing. Thanks for the warning. I too do not want to have to play as my wife to unlock items. If I'm going to play the game, I am going to play my game.

[Condor80]

If both of these systems have bluetooth, then I don't see what the big deal is with the not included headset.  I'm sure everyone has a bluetooth headset by now.

 

PS Whore had me lol'ing.  I'm going to start using that.

[ZombieJeebus]

Wombat someone on bombcast also started Animal Crossing w/o being the mayor.  The situation was different but everyone said he should start over- being the mayor is pretty integral to the game.

 

Please consider me for the xbox Borderlands DLC.  Thanks.

[blueArcana]

It's always a fun cast when Wombat gets up in arms about something

 

I would like to be entered in the contest (contests?)

[stingray2772]

btw, if the code is still available for the xbox borderlands dlc, I wouldn't mind getting in the running

[ArrrCee]

As for the online gaming headset debacle, I think Cheapy is under stating the stupidity of the Xbox Live user base. I don't want to hear the morons on there over a headset, much less over my tv speakers.

 

However, I agree with Cheapy that people are being ridiculous saying they won't get an Xbox based on the fact that the console isn't coming with a headset.

 

The things that people say on the internet are asinine. People going back and forth, arguing about the new consoles and saying they're not going to buy this or that -- All the while not having all of the facts yet! I really hope that the big 3 aren't using the internet to gauge peoples interest in these things because it would seem to me that no one likes anything being released at all. It's really disheartening to see all this strange negativity.

[mikeyzerog]

I really enjoyed the show.

 

I don't think lack of communication on the XB1 is going to be an issue, as people will have their Kinects on by default. Unfortunately, I do think there's going to be a lot of unwelcome background noise, particularly people pumping their music while playing games. Hopefully it'll be easy to mute people.

 

I enjoyed the Tokyo American Club story -- I want to live in Tokyo and be a member.

[KillerRamen]

The issue I have with the Xbox One microphone situation isn't that it doesn't come with one, it's how they're going out implementing their new headsets and what it says about their overall philosophy. They are the only ones that I know of to come up with a proprietary headphone jack. That's just asinine and it's not even something that Apple has dared to try.

 

Their argument that it is for some advanced multi-directional headset is just incorrect. This kind of thing can and has been done with usb headsets on PC and there is no reason why it couldn't be done on the Xbox One. Not only that, but the Xbox One is based on Windows 8 and the operating system for which the system is based on supports such a scheme.

 

I know Microsoft has since softened their tone on the headsets by offering up a promise that they will be offering an adapter to make people's older headsets work, but that wasn't always the case and they only changed their position after people hammered them on their ridiculousness. Their view was that the only way you could use a headset on the Xbox One is if it was compatible with their proprietary headset jack. All usb, 2.55mm and bluetooth headsets would not work and you either had to use the Kinect 2 or buy one of the licensed Xbox One headsets. 

 

It seems like they will allow for 2.55mm headsets with some sort of adapter, but it will probably end up being better to just buy their proprietary headset since they're not going to be just giving these adapters away and they will probably be very difficult to find when the console launches. They still have not said if they will now allow usb or bluetooth headsets. 

 

To me it seems like Sony learned from all of their mistakes that they made in this regard and that Microsoft found new and interesting ways to screw this up. Sony didn't include an official headset with the PS3 and they didn't really have an official one for quite a long time. In fact, they didn't make one on their own until 2 years after the launch of the Playstation 3. They did release Warhawk a year prior, but the headset it included was just a normal Jabra over the ear headset. (I pretty much just threw it away since I hated it) In the end, their headsets were not well implemented and they didn't offer an easy way to have an over head headset without having to connect it to the console. 

 

To me it just shows an additional layer of bs that they're continuing over with the Xbox One. With the Xbox 360, they were charging $100 for a proprietary 20GB HDD and $100 for a proprietary usb Wifi adapter at launch and today they charge $130 for a proprietary 320GB HDD. My PS3 currently has a 1TB HDD, which cost me less than $100.

 

I'm also not really a fan of being told that I have to buy something like the Kinect. I have a Kinect and it works fine for Dance Games, but it sucks for pretty much everything else. I got Madden 13 just to try out the Kinect features and they are completely broken. I could get them to work sometimes, but for the most part they just didn't work. I don't want to spend an extra $100 for a new Xbox One Kinect especially when it only has two launch games (Kinect Sports Rivals and Just Dance 2014) that really don't do anything new and I really don't care about. I'd rather spend that money on another game and not some camera that I think is going to get in the way.

 

With the Xbox One, it seems like Microsoft has decided what people want and you don't really have a choice. With Playstation 4, it seems like Sony listened to the complaints about the Playstation 3 and gives me as a gamer more options and implemented them in the Playstation 4. 

[trip1eX]

I'm guessing MS removed the ability of controller to digitize sound coming from headset  in order to cut expenses perhaps due to inclusion of Kinect and already $100 higher pricepoint.  Thus the special port, no cheapo headset and the need for an adapter for current headsets.  If they are using a chip that produces higher quality samples of your voice then it will cost more and thus more of a reason to offload that capability (and expense) to the headset or to an adapter for old headsets.

[FriskyTanuki]

You don't need to be angry to be critical about things, Cheapy.

 

I see that Cheapy's already started his campaign for the 2013 Douchebag of the Year Award, though we still don't know the results of last year's awards. I'm surprised that Wombat hasn't complained about that yet since it's almost the second half of the year at this point.

 

The headset issue is really a non-factor for me, as I've maybe used headsets on the PS3 and Xbox 360 maybe about 2-3 times each. I guess I don't play the sort of MP games that need a ton of communication to know how to play/work together.

 

A lot of people still play Warhawk, Wombat. It's a great MP game that doesn't require you to communicate with anybody to do well. It might even be my favorite multiplayer game of this generation.

 

I'm surprised to see Shipwreck and Cheapy treat the PS3 like they used to treat the Wii and want them to be ported to more powerful systems.

[zebwinz]

If both of these systems have bluetooth, then I don't see what the big deal is with the not included headset.  I'm sure everyone has a bluetooth headset by now.

 

 

I don't think the Xbox One has bluetooth. It's not in any spec sheets or on the product page.