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What are the reasons for why Microsoft wanted to lock down consoles to only run signed code? As a games console manufacturer, what are the business reasons for

What are the reasons for why Microsoft wanted to lock down consoles to only run signed code? As a games console manufacturer, what are the business reasons for doing so? Thanks

treyd 2y ago
They sell the consoles at a loss, so if you could port your own games to the consoles instead of buying the games that they could take a royalty from then they lose money. It doesn't have to be an effective circumvention to trigger the DMCA making it illegal.
Lammy 2y ago
A games console provided a platform where they could more effectively argue that “their” works “““needed””” to be protected so they could farm us (people who want to run their own code on hardware they purchased) for digital-jail technologies which would never otherwise have reason to exist. Then those technologies can metastasize fully-formed over to general-purpose computing in a way that's harder to argue against. They learned with Clipper and Palladium that trying to develop jail tech on PC would be vehemently opposed.
- lyu07282 2y ago
  The opposition was pointless though, like everything has TPM/IME/etc. nowadays so we lost that war awhile ago. I don't see how consoles helped them win that war though.
  - RGamma 2y ago
    When everything is locked down for good I'll go back to physical books. Vaporware games and media are not worth preserving anyway. And the games and media I do have free from prison can entertain me for a very long time. Another possible (even worse) future could be cloudification of everything. Enjoy your thin client. Of course software is bigger than entertainment which might represent a problem. We're increasingly societally locked into this digital shit.
nemothekid 2y ago
Limiting piracy is the ongoing reason, but there is also the historical reason of the Video game crash of 1983 which led to Nintendo's Seal of Quality. Essentially as the platform owner, you want to ensure games sold for the platform "just work", and if you have a bunch of third parties running bad software, consumers would lose faith in the platform altogether.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- NotPractical 2y ago
  Microsoft actually reversed course on this. You can make a one-time purchase to access "developer mode" and then run whatever you want. It's been suggested that this is the reason there's been less interest in hacking the Xbox. Ironically it also means you have more computational freedom on the Xbox than on the iPhone/iPad.
  - girvo 2y ago
    > then run whatever you want Not quite. You (were? I don't know if this is changed) limited in how much of the hardware you could access: it wasn't 100% access. Enough for most homebrew, emulators and so on, but it wasn't carte blanche "replacement for a dev-kit" access.
    - Narishma 2y ago
      I don't think it much different from the official games, which also don't have full access to the console.
      - klausa 2y ago
        The "not-behind-the-paywall-and-NDA" GDK version is severely more limited than the invite-only GDKX. IIRC the homebrew you can run is mostly UWP stuff? But if you want to launch a _game_, built for an Xbox, it requires to be in the program.
brokenmachine 2y ago
They are rent seekers.
- hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
  I’m not sure that’s a fair perspective, they built a proprietary product that’s intended to be a loss leader, the opposite of that is a desktop which costs substantially more.
  - brokenmachine 2y ago
    It would only cost more upfront, definitely not over the life of the console. Rent seekers don't do anything for your benefit. The definition of false economy. The only difference between their "Proprietary product" and a PC is DRM.
throwaway48476 2y ago
They sell the console at a loss but make 30% on every game sold. The business model is variant of "dumping" but antitrust isn't enforced anymore.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  If it were possible to go the wrong way on the expanding brain meme, this would be it. Nobody is buying consoles for the hardware. 99% of the product is software. The accounting that you are using, a popular one, is so opppositely-informative that people who make consoles - and smartphones for that matter - clearly do not make decisions with it. It is 200% wrong to characterize it as dumping. Nothing is being dumped. Here’s a simple idea for you: show me the vibrant market for Xbox 360 2005 era computer hardware. There isn’t any right? What about Xbox One 2013 era? And yet we still play games that were developed earlier than 2013, like League of Legends. The product is software. Nobody loses anything by being unable to run Linux on 2013 hardware today, and nobody loses anything by being unable to run Linux on the Xbox One in 2013 because, if they wanted cheap computers then, they had plenty to choose from!
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Both the hardware and software are products. No one selling open platform PCs can compete with negative margin console sales, which is anticompetive. If antitrust prevented dumping consoles would be more expensive and consumers would buy PCs instead. In both software and hardware the open PC platform is far more competitive which drives value for consumers.
    - doctorpangloss 2y ago
      > No one selling open platform PCs can compete with negative margin console sales This makes zero sense. Both have existed simultaneously forever, and hundreds of millions of people eagerly buy both for the same households. I cannot understand your point of view here, other than invoking a word "dumping" and "anticompetive" that you are using 200% wrong. Consoles and open platform PCs do not compete with each other. > In both software and hardware the open PC platform is far more competitive which drives value for consumers. The market for high budget single player games exists solely because of DRM protected consoles. So this category of product, that people eagerly have paid for for decades, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, would cease to exist if you required console makers to allow people to bypass DRM. Ask 20 people in the game industry and 19 would agree. I understand the core and spirit of what you are saying, but it is reflecting your aspirations for a world that doesn't exist. Markets aren't art exhibits!
ashleyn 2y ago
business reasons, the console is sold as a loss leader and the real money is made in licensing the games. also serves as brand protection i.e. preventing poor quality third party games from tarnishing the reputation of the console.

What are the reasons for why Microsoft wanted to lock down consoles to only run signed code? As a games console manufacturer, what are the business reasons for doing so? Thanks

treyd 2y ago

They sell the consoles at a loss, so if you could port your own games to the consoles instead of buying the games that they could take a royalty from then they lose money. It doesn't have to be an effective circumvention to trigger the DMCA making it illegal.

Lammy 2y ago

A games console provided a platform where they could more effectively argue that “their” works “““needed””” to be protected so they could farm us (people who want to run their own code on hardware they purchased) for digital-jail technologies which would never otherwise have reason to exist. Then those technologies can metastasize fully-formed over to general-purpose computing in a way that's harder to argue against. They learned with Clipper and Palladium that trying to develop jail tech on PC would be vehemently opposed.

lyu07282 2y ago
The opposition was pointless though, like everything has TPM/IME/etc. nowadays so we lost that war awhile ago. I don't see how consoles helped them win that war though.
- RGamma 2y ago
  When everything is locked down for good I'll go back to physical books. Vaporware games and media are not worth preserving anyway. And the games and media I do have free from prison can entertain me for a very long time. Another possible (even worse) future could be cloudification of everything. Enjoy your thin client. Of course software is bigger than entertainment which might represent a problem. We're increasingly societally locked into this digital shit.

nemothekid 2y ago

Limiting piracy is the ongoing reason, but there is also the historical reason of the Video game crash of 1983 which led to Nintendo's Seal of Quality. Essentially as the platform owner, you want to ensure games sold for the platform "just work", and if you have a bunch of third parties running bad software, consumers would lose faith in the platform altogether.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
NotPractical 2y ago
Microsoft actually reversed course on this. You can make a one-time purchase to access "developer mode" and then run whatever you want. It's been suggested that this is the reason there's been less interest in hacking the Xbox. Ironically it also means you have more computational freedom on the Xbox than on the iPhone/iPad.
- girvo 2y ago
  > then run whatever you want Not quite. You (were? I don't know if this is changed) limited in how much of the hardware you could access: it wasn't 100% access. Enough for most homebrew, emulators and so on, but it wasn't carte blanche "replacement for a dev-kit" access.
  - Narishma 2y ago
    I don't think it much different from the official games, which also don't have full access to the console.
    - klausa 2y ago
      The "not-behind-the-paywall-and-NDA" GDK version is severely more limited than the invite-only GDKX. IIRC the homebrew you can run is mostly UWP stuff? But if you want to launch a _game_, built for an Xbox, it requires to be in the program.

brokenmachine 2y ago

They are rent seekers.

hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
I’m not sure that’s a fair perspective, they built a proprietary product that’s intended to be a loss leader, the opposite of that is a desktop which costs substantially more.
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  It would only cost more upfront, definitely not over the life of the console. Rent seekers don't do anything for your benefit. The definition of false economy. The only difference between their "Proprietary product" and a PC is DRM.

throwaway48476 2y ago

They sell the console at a loss but make 30% on every game sold. The business model is variant of "dumping" but antitrust isn't enforced anymore.

doctorpangloss 2y ago
If it were possible to go the wrong way on the expanding brain meme, this would be it. Nobody is buying consoles for the hardware. 99% of the product is software. The accounting that you are using, a popular one, is so opppositely-informative that people who make consoles - and smartphones for that matter - clearly do not make decisions with it. It is 200% wrong to characterize it as dumping. Nothing is being dumped. Here’s a simple idea for you: show me the vibrant market for Xbox 360 2005 era computer hardware. There isn’t any right? What about Xbox One 2013 era? And yet we still play games that were developed earlier than 2013, like League of Legends. The product is software. Nobody loses anything by being unable to run Linux on 2013 hardware today, and nobody loses anything by being unable to run Linux on the Xbox One in 2013 because, if they wanted cheap computers then, they had plenty to choose from!
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Both the hardware and software are products. No one selling open platform PCs can compete with negative margin console sales, which is anticompetive. If antitrust prevented dumping consoles would be more expensive and consumers would buy PCs instead. In both software and hardware the open PC platform is far more competitive which drives value for consumers.
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    > No one selling open platform PCs can compete with negative margin console sales This makes zero sense. Both have existed simultaneously forever, and hundreds of millions of people eagerly buy both for the same households. I cannot understand your point of view here, other than invoking a word "dumping" and "anticompetive" that you are using 200% wrong. Consoles and open platform PCs do not compete with each other. > In both software and hardware the open PC platform is far more competitive which drives value for consumers. The market for high budget single player games exists solely because of DRM protected consoles. So this category of product, that people eagerly have paid for for decades, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, would cease to exist if you required console makers to allow people to bypass DRM. Ask 20 people in the game industry and 19 would agree. I understand the core and spirit of what you are saying, but it is reflecting your aspirations for a world that doesn't exist. Markets aren't art exhibits!

ashleyn 2y ago

business reasons, the console is sold as a loss leader and the real money is made in licensing the games. also serves as brand protection i.e. preventing poor quality third party games from tarnishing the reputation of the console.