12 ms·

Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies

121 points by coloneltcb 13y ago

bluehex 13y ago
I had a feeling this would happen. It was either that or just let the competition walk away with a huge percentage of their customers without a fight. Seems like the obvious decision.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  I was actually not expecting a complete reversal, just a loosening of restrictions (something like 2 week check-ins, like Steam does). Both of the new machines (Xbox One, PS4) still allow third party publisher DRM (such as EA's 'Project Five Dollar') though, and if the console market moves towards digital distribution the way the PC market has, the used games point might be moot.
chrisrhoden 13y ago
It's not clear to me what the change will be, or how it will be an actual win for consumers. The region locking being dropped would definitely be a win for the minority of potential customers outside of the privileged regions, but the fact is that the DRM scheme that they proposed, while never explained very well, was probably better than leaving how one-time-use-codes should work to manufacturers (EA Online Passes spring to mind)
- uptown 13y ago
  How is it not clear? You can play games without checking-in every 24 hours, and if you want to share or sell a game, you transfer the physical media you purchased. Downloaded games cannot be shared.
  - chrisrhoden 13y ago
    The official comment from microsoft had not been made when I made my comment. Overall, this is a clear step backwards so that Sony has to change their bullet-points, which were disingenuous to begin with. This makes me sad.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    Yes but checking-in every 24 hours is not something you actually "do". It's something that happens transparently in the background. The vase majority of consumers wouldn't notice the automated check-in that was present in their previous design.
    - contextfree 13y ago
      Right, and the new DRM scheme that's replacing the "checkins" - having to change discs to play a new game - is something you actually have to physically do, and it's something that's required entirely to satisfy DRM policies at this point. It also locks you out of playing your game in a bunch of scenarios (lost, stolen, damaged, or just don't happen to have it with you) that I think for many people are more common than a 24-hour internet outage would be, and again, it's entirely the artificial DRM restrictions that are locking you out as there's no real technical reason not to let you install the game and never need the disc again.
tjdetwiler 13y ago
I always thought they should have applied all the new DRM features to digital downloads only. In that context, sharing and selling does look consumer friendly and if they make it convenient consumers will move away from physical media.
- missing_cipher 13y ago
  Plus with the "Family group" feature, it would have made even more sense.
- Cyril-Boh 13y ago
  I wish they coined another term for this rather then digital downloads. How can a download not be digital?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    Provided you had an analog communication channel and storage medium you could have analog downloads -- it would be similar to recording per-digital TV on a VCR. But, yeah, "digital download" is mostly pointless noise.
    - Sharlin 13y ago
      They used to broadcast software via FM radio in the 80s :) One could record the transmitted "noise" with their tape drive, and, apparently, more often than not the recorded program would actually work.
nthitz 13y ago
Here's a statement from MS http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update (may need a refresh or two to load) looks like they are removing the feature of being able to play a game without the disc in the tray, which pretty much was the root of all these drm issues IMO
- wmf 13y ago
  There's a tradeoff between discless play and used games; allowing both leads to massive piracy (in somebody's mind). It looks like MS has gone from one extreme to the other.
  - ameen 13y ago
    Used games IMHO are a menace. How many software companies give away transferable licenses? (apart from Open-source licenses) It isn't fair to the publisher/developer. I'd rather have seen a price change to facilitate more ownership rather than used games sales. EA's implementation sounded a bit practical to solve the used games market.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      Before the days of Steam; most PC games were transferable.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      Why should games be different to books or DVDs or CDs? Why is it fine for me to sell a book second hand, but not to sell a game second hand?
      - zokier 13y ago
        Why should downloadable games be different from physical media games? Both are the essentially the same bits and bytes. Why does it matter whether the bits in question are delivered via sneakernet or internet? Enabling resale of digital goods has very high risk of crashing the market, as they almost by definition do not degrade in use. Historically the second hand markets have been limited by local availability, but internet removes such barriers for digital goods and that makes the situation very different for games compared to conventional items such as books.
resu 13y ago
Up next, Kinect...
- nivla 13y ago
  Actually I am excited about the new Kinect for personal hacks. According to MS, you will be able to turn off the Kinect, if not, its nothing some tape can't fix.
  - camus 13y ago
    I want an xbox1 cheaper therefore without a a toy i will never use. If you want to "hack" a kinect,then buy one separatly. Or at least MS should give the choice to buy a console without one ,at a lesser price.
    - jameshart 13y ago
      Microsoft's betting on a new input device, and for it to work it has to be ubiquitous. This is the same reason why, when Apple shipped the first Macintoshes, they came with a mouse in the box. I'm sure there were people posting on cix in 1984 right after the superbowl, "I want a mac cheaper therefore without a toy I will never use. If you want to 'hack' a mouse,then buy one separately. Or at least Apple should give the choice to buy a computer without one ,at a lesser price."
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    You'd probably need more than tape to render the microphone theoretically useless.
DomBlack 13y ago
I'm actually annoyed with these changes; they have reverted back to the Xbox 360 way of doings things; * Disk must be in the drive to play * Share games by lending the disk. The previous scheme, while it would not be befinical to some due to the 24 hour requirement, did allow for some exciting new ideas (which we've got used to with Steam); * Access my games anywhere without needing a disk * Share the game with my family who live away from me
- wmf 13y ago
  Wasn't the family sharing stuff only on the same console?
  - DomBlack 13y ago
    No it was multiple consoles from my understanding of it, you just had to link the Xbox Live accounts into one "family"
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Don't buy discs! MS said that digital purchases will have same priority as retail discs. Why do you want a disc anyways, except for resale or slow connection? Everything I get for the 360 is via download, and I don't have to worry about discs. Still have to worry about license transfers, which is gonna be the same under any system where the publisher controls the terms.
  - jviddy 13y ago
    My biggest issue with digital downloads is the cost. My experience with Xbox live is that digital releases are launched at a price and stay there, apart from limited time promotions, for a long. I can go on to Amazon or into HMV and get major releases from a couple of months ago for half the RRP, normally significantly cheaper than download. Plus i can give the disc to one of my friends when i'm done.
SurfScore 13y ago
I don't get the negative response to this. They made a mistake (admittedly being too greedy), and now they're correcting it. People didn't like the DRM, SO THEY TOOK IT OUT! Get over holding a grudge; the Xbox has a lot of very good exclusives and has always been a solid console. It just goes to show you that you can never make the internet happy.
- sharkweek 13y ago
  I'm no expert here and I especially don't really have a preference between the two consoles as I haven't gamed much the past few years -- but it seems a lot of fanboy personalities love feverishly being "right" This is just an opportunity to say "HA, we won! They changed their course of action because of US!!! SUCK IT MICROSOFT" We all know PC gamers are the master race though anyways, so any subsequent arguing is moot /s
- baddox 13y ago
  I don't quite understand why you attribute the mistake to "being too greedy," especially since this decision is a response to public outrage and thus will likely make Microsoft more money/profit. One could just as easily attribute Microsoft's desire to satisfy angry customers to "greed."
  - SurfScore 13y ago
    I was referring to the original DRM decision as being too greedy when they made it (before the backlash). Companies institute DRM to decrease piracy, which increases their bottom line. The effectiveness of DRM is a totally different subject, but in this situation they chose their bottom line (DRM) over the desires of their customers, taking a gamble that the losses in sales from pissed off people would be less than the gains from decreased piracy.
    - cdash 13y ago
      You state this, and then wonder why people think its a big deal and don't just forgive them? So people got pissed enough and Microsoft got scared enough to change their mind but that doesn't change the fact that they actively wanted to screw over their customers because they wanted more money and they thought that you would just submit to it and be hyped by all their buzzwords. They haven't changed at all and things like this will happen in the future until they do.
ameen 13y ago
If this is true, there isn't going to be the announced "Family Share plan" or the "Disc-less" operation. Also, the fact that a few consoles might not be connected to the Internet means, MS can't really do cloud processing as it claimed (since it would lead to variable experiences of the same game). I see this as a step-backward than a step ahead. Sure there will always be a vocal minority, but rather than provide them an alternative, they've just gimped an online console.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  if cloud processing is an essential feature of the game then it would make sense to require an internet connection to run that game. Same as how nobody complains you can't play WOW offline. What I think people objected to was a requirement across the entire console.
- eric5544 13y ago
  The requirement was only that the console had to be connected to the internet once every 24 hours so I don't think that impacts their cloud efforts one way or another. Not being able to play games without the disc in the tray is a major downside of the new policy though. Of course at least for me that means I will buy all Xbox One games digital going forward.
- princess3000 13y ago
  I'm not super technical but I've always been skeptical of "cloud processing," especially after the Sim City debacle. Are there any scenarios where actually processing information on a server instead of on the user's home Xbox make sense, aside from things like WoW and Diablo III where you need to do the calculations on the server to make the multiplayer aspect fair?
  - gamble 13y ago
    I can't see many developers putting the time to offload calculations when they'd have to make the game work seamlessly with varying levels of latency or the servers becoming unavailable. Just look at how difficult it has been for games to utilize a handful of CPU cores. Microsoft's claims about the cloud remind me of ten years ago, when the .net label was being applied to everything they made and all software was somehow going to be delivered as web services. Plus I doubt MS is offering cloud server time to developers for free. Every service they provide to devs comes at a cost.
jiggy2011 13y ago
This isn't surprising at all, Microsoft is just giving gamers what they are asking for to head off the bad PR. In the meantime they will start pushing game sales for the xbox in the direction of digital downloads.
smackfu 13y ago
Now you can see why it is so tempting for companies to reach out to their competitors and say "so... we want to make this change, you want to make the same change and we both win?"
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- thisisdallas 13y ago
  You hit the nail on the head. This is nothing more than innovation being held back by the masses. Allowing customers to share their ENTIRE game library with up to 10 people is extremely generous but all people could see was the 24 hour online check. It's sad how even ignorance can spread so easily through a mob mentality.
  - agscala 13y ago
    You must admit, 24 hour online check was pretty bad. Also they said that they're removing region restriction on games, which is another thing that people (including myself) were complaining about.
    - thisisdallas 13y ago
      I don't think that the 24 hour online check is/was necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion, it would push technology forward and bring the console industry up to par with the pc gaming industry. On the other hand, I absolutely agree with you about the region restrictions!
- bornhuetter 13y ago
  No, they looked at a problem and found an utterly despicable way of "solving" it. There is absolutely no technical reason why the terms had to be so anti-consumer. As long as the system has to phone home every time a game is bought or traded, that it enough to keep piracy at the same level it is now. It wasn't design by committee, it was design by greed. EDIT: Parent has deleted. Originally read: "This is too bad. These engineers/marketers imagined a world where you don't have to deal with the crappy experience that lost, scratched discs provide, but bent over backwards because a few loudmouths can't imagine a digital future. Sometimes even the customers don't know what they want. These engineers identified a true problem and took a pretty good stab at solving it while juggling a huge number of stakeholders, but marketing's awful communication about this vision for the future puts so much of that work to waste. This is design by the biggest committee."
nivla 13y ago
During this whole fiasco, I was trying to put myself into their shoes on what they were trying to achieve. On the outside, it looks like a great idea. The ability to share games with family. No longer you need to carry discs to your friends house. You can lend them games to strangers on the Internet without worry about losing it. You can have an organized catalog on the cloud, and never have to get up to pop the disc in. Sell the disc game to X over the internet and cut out the middle man (Gamestop). etc... However the whole, connect 24 hours to verify the ownership of the game is a big turn off. I understand that, theoretically you could sell your game and then keep playing it on a switched off console. So if it were you, how would you go by achieving all the pros and none of the cons without enforcing DRM? Not supporting DRM but genuinely curious.
- superuser2 13y ago
  Deactivate on the first console before allowing sale?
  - nivla 13y ago
    But how does that work when you are trading in the physical disc at Gamestop and you still have the game stored on your console that is disconnected from the internet? Or if you were to sell it virtully, pop in the physical disc onto your first or second console that has been disconnected from the internet before the sale.
    - MichaelGG 13y ago
      Uh, yeah, just require to deactivate the disc before sale. That's reasonable and doesn't have the intrusive feel. This isn't hard. Edit: I see, if the DVDs are identical then that's not possible. But plenty of software comes with a serial anyways. Just make the serial transferable, problem solved.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        That would have the problem of not allowing you to sell your games if your console was broken or stolen.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
>On the downside, there will be no digital "family" sharing as was previously announced, and disc-based games will require the disc to be in the tray to be played. Nooooooooooooooooo. Please still allow me to opt in for digital downloads so I can finally stick the console somewhere where I don't have to see it, hear it or suffer it's heat wrath.
- lizardking 13y ago
  I want this as well, but I'm not exactly sure how that will jive with the mandatory kinect. My 360, along with all of my other components are in the basement.
- bskap 13y ago
  I believe they are planning to have day-1 digital downloads. This backtrack does mean that, at least for day 1, the family sharing and used-digital-game features won't be available but you can still get all the games without discs.
jleehey 13y ago
I honestly don't see why they can't do it both ways. For people who buy game discs, let them share and play offline, but for those who choose to buy the DRM-enabled digital download version of the game, let them install it to the hard drive and play without a disc across consoles. It's all down to user preference anyway, why does it have to be one way or the other?
vinkelhake 13y ago
For the people here that didn't really read the statement: "you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release" If you have a decent Internet connection and don't want to use discs, you have that choice.
sivam 13y ago
They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be very apt. On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and posts pointing out the facts(forget about posts taking the opposing view or opinion) were downvoted into oblivion by the angry mob. And then there was the bad timing on the NSA leaks, which didn't help at all. Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets with cameras and mics which could be watching and listening and Apple/Google were part of the leak, but it was Microsoft that was singled out for proposing a device that could turn on itself, and had numerous safeguards to configure privacy if you wanted to. All this doesn't excuse the fact that Microsoft utterly and totally failed in communicating their message in a proper manner in E3 and handed Sony an easy victory on a silver platter. I guess it was easy to roll this back because it was not Microsoft but publishers and game developers that were going to reap the benefits of diskless gaming because Gamestop etc. skim off the value of older games and leave publishers with not much value. Once the public failed to see the advantages and blamed Microsoft for a power grab that was not going to really benefit them all that much, it was game over.
- drivingmenuts 13y ago
  A friend posited the theory that all of this was a calculated move on Microsoft's part. First, they throw up the idea of some draconian DRM, which they then later retract. The first move gets them tons of publicity and tongue-wagging, the second move starts to make that positive publicity. They're banking on gamers being so addicted, they won't really care that they've been played for idiot chumps. If the market for the new XBox was 12-year old children, they wouldn't even have bothered. But, since they're really marketing to adults 20-35 or so, they have to look like good guys to the people they're talking out of their money. This was calculated. Reddit and everyone else got played. Hard and dry.
  - clavalle 13y ago
    That would be a valid theory if they didn't have a very similar competing product released at about the same time. A competitor that captured the lion's share of positive publicity by merely maintaining the status quo. As it stands, I will be surprised if XBox One captures 25% of the latest gen console market when it is all said and done.
MichaelGG 13y ago
Microsoft was releasing a new console, with unimpressive hardware, focused on TV and family over games, at a higher price point. Announcing a crazy DRM plan was a fantastic PR move. If people liked it, they can just go ahead with it. If they didn't, they end up burning lots of press time talking about something on their terms, instead of focusing on what Sony wants you to think about the actual hardware No PS4 or XB1 units have been shipped. Except now, Sony has less time to make the real arguments against the XB, and already people can just accuse others of "complaining about everything on the Internet". MS wins points by "making a major change in response to consumers". More than if they had taken this position from the beginning. A bit risky, but it'll pay off fantastically for MS.
- theseanstewart 13y ago
  Sony has a price advantage still, which is why the 360 "won" the last generation's console war.
knodi 13y ago
This is a shame, I was really looking forwards to disc-less play and family sharing. How cool would it have been if all my friends made a family group and with that we can all play each others games. But no people love gamestop.
- LaurelCrowned 13y ago
  Pretty sure they would be limiting that to one IP address. There would be restrictions.
  - bskap 13y ago
    There was no IP limitation, as I understand it. Everyone on your console could always play all of your games. And you could designate 10 people that had access to your library from anywhere.
    - knodi 13y ago
      Only limit to family group was 10 members, no other limits.
_pmf_ 13y ago
Amazing what a bunch of angry basement dwellers on the internet can achieve.
jviddy 13y ago
Another sad day where the indignant vocal minority have spoiled it all for the rest of us. I don't think there was anything in the early schema that would have impacted the way I use the system (apart for multi day internet or server outages) but plenty of benefits Game sharing was a huge positive step, even though I felt that most publishers would ignore or disable (like game sharing on the DS). Not having to swap physical disks would have made life much easier and increased my playing time. I'm fairly lazy when I've settled down for an evening in front of the TV. A usual XBox session involves playing what ever game is in the drive till i get bored (anything from 15 minutes up) switching to something downloaded so i don;t need to get up (normally trials). Getting bored again and flipping to TV or a movie. The ability to choose from my whole library with leaving my seat would have been a revelation. Also, my two year old has lost my Forza disk, which really sold this idea.

121 points by coloneltcb 13y ago

I had a feeling this would happen. It was either that or just let the competition walk away with a huge percentage of their customers without a fight. Seems like the obvious decision.

cobrausn 13y ago
I was actually not expecting a complete reversal, just a loosening of restrictions (something like 2 week check-ins, like Steam does). Both of the new machines (Xbox One, PS4) still allow third party publisher DRM (such as EA's 'Project Five Dollar') though, and if the console market moves towards digital distribution the way the PC market has, the used games point might be moot.

chrisrhoden 13y ago

It's not clear to me what the change will be, or how it will be an actual win for consumers. The region locking being dropped would definitely be a win for the minority of potential customers outside of the privileged regions, but the fact is that the DRM scheme that they proposed, while never explained very well, was probably better than leaving how one-time-use-codes should work to manufacturers (EA Online Passes spring to mind)

uptown 13y ago
How is it not clear? You can play games without checking-in every 24 hours, and if you want to share or sell a game, you transfer the physical media you purchased. Downloaded games cannot be shared.
- chrisrhoden 13y ago
  The official comment from microsoft had not been made when I made my comment. Overall, this is a clear step backwards so that Sony has to change their bullet-points, which were disingenuous to begin with. This makes me sad.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  Yes but checking-in every 24 hours is not something you actually "do". It's something that happens transparently in the background. The vase majority of consumers wouldn't notice the automated check-in that was present in their previous design.
  - contextfree 13y ago
    Right, and the new DRM scheme that's replacing the "checkins" - having to change discs to play a new game - is something you actually have to physically do, and it's something that's required entirely to satisfy DRM policies at this point. It also locks you out of playing your game in a bunch of scenarios (lost, stolen, damaged, or just don't happen to have it with you) that I think for many people are more common than a 24-hour internet outage would be, and again, it's entirely the artificial DRM restrictions that are locking you out as there's no real technical reason not to let you install the game and never need the disc again.

tjdetwiler 13y ago

I always thought they should have applied all the new DRM features to digital downloads only. In that context, sharing and selling does look consumer friendly and if they make it convenient consumers will move away from physical media.

missing_cipher 13y ago
Plus with the "Family group" feature, it would have made even more sense.
Cyril-Boh 13y ago
I wish they coined another term for this rather then digital downloads. How can a download not be digital?
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Provided you had an analog communication channel and storage medium you could have analog downloads -- it would be similar to recording per-digital TV on a VCR. But, yeah, "digital download" is mostly pointless noise.
  - Sharlin 13y ago
    They used to broadcast software via FM radio in the 80s :) One could record the transmitted "noise" with their tape drive, and, apparently, more often than not the recorded program would actually work.

nthitz 13y ago

Here's a statement from MS http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update (may need a refresh or two to load) looks like they are removing the feature of being able to play a game without the disc in the tray, which pretty much was the root of all these drm issues IMO

wmf 13y ago
There's a tradeoff between discless play and used games; allowing both leads to massive piracy (in somebody's mind). It looks like MS has gone from one extreme to the other.
- ameen 13y ago
  Used games IMHO are a menace. How many software companies give away transferable licenses? (apart from Open-source licenses) It isn't fair to the publisher/developer. I'd rather have seen a price change to facilitate more ownership rather than used games sales. EA's implementation sounded a bit practical to solve the used games market.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    Before the days of Steam; most PC games were transferable.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Why should games be different to books or DVDs or CDs? Why is it fine for me to sell a book second hand, but not to sell a game second hand?
    - zokier 13y ago
      Why should downloadable games be different from physical media games? Both are the essentially the same bits and bytes. Why does it matter whether the bits in question are delivered via sneakernet or internet? Enabling resale of digital goods has very high risk of crashing the market, as they almost by definition do not degrade in use. Historically the second hand markets have been limited by local availability, but internet removes such barriers for digital goods and that makes the situation very different for games compared to conventional items such as books.

resu 13y ago

Up next, Kinect...

nivla 13y ago
Actually I am excited about the new Kinect for personal hacks. According to MS, you will be able to turn off the Kinect, if not, its nothing some tape can't fix.
- camus 13y ago
  I want an xbox1 cheaper therefore without a a toy i will never use. If you want to "hack" a kinect,then buy one separatly. Or at least MS should give the choice to buy a console without one ,at a lesser price.
  - jameshart 13y ago
    Microsoft's betting on a new input device, and for it to work it has to be ubiquitous. This is the same reason why, when Apple shipped the first Macintoshes, they came with a mouse in the box. I'm sure there were people posting on cix in 1984 right after the superbowl, "I want a mac cheaper therefore without a toy I will never use. If you want to 'hack' a mouse,then buy one separately. Or at least Apple should give the choice to buy a computer without one ,at a lesser price."
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  You'd probably need more than tape to render the microphone theoretically useless.

DomBlack 13y ago

I'm actually annoyed with these changes; they have reverted back to the Xbox 360 way of doings things; * Disk must be in the drive to play * Share games by lending the disk. The previous scheme, while it would not be befinical to some due to the 24 hour requirement, did allow for some exciting new ideas (which we've got used to with Steam); * Access my games anywhere without needing a disk * Share the game with my family who live away from me

wmf 13y ago
Wasn't the family sharing stuff only on the same console?
- DomBlack 13y ago
  No it was multiple consoles from my understanding of it, you just had to link the Xbox Live accounts into one "family"
MichaelGG 13y ago
Don't buy discs! MS said that digital purchases will have same priority as retail discs. Why do you want a disc anyways, except for resale or slow connection? Everything I get for the 360 is via download, and I don't have to worry about discs. Still have to worry about license transfers, which is gonna be the same under any system where the publisher controls the terms.
- jviddy 13y ago
  My biggest issue with digital downloads is the cost. My experience with Xbox live is that digital releases are launched at a price and stay there, apart from limited time promotions, for a long. I can go on to Amazon or into HMV and get major releases from a couple of months ago for half the RRP, normally significantly cheaper than download. Plus i can give the disc to one of my friends when i'm done.

SurfScore 13y ago

I don't get the negative response to this. They made a mistake (admittedly being too greedy), and now they're correcting it. People didn't like the DRM, SO THEY TOOK IT OUT! Get over holding a grudge; the Xbox has a lot of very good exclusives and has always been a solid console. It just goes to show you that you can never make the internet happy.

sharkweek 13y ago
I'm no expert here and I especially don't really have a preference between the two consoles as I haven't gamed much the past few years -- but it seems a lot of fanboy personalities love feverishly being "right" This is just an opportunity to say "HA, we won! They changed their course of action because of US!!! SUCK IT MICROSOFT" We all know PC gamers are the master race though anyways, so any subsequent arguing is moot /s
baddox 13y ago
I don't quite understand why you attribute the mistake to "being too greedy," especially since this decision is a response to public outrage and thus will likely make Microsoft more money/profit. One could just as easily attribute Microsoft's desire to satisfy angry customers to "greed."
- SurfScore 13y ago
  I was referring to the original DRM decision as being too greedy when they made it (before the backlash). Companies institute DRM to decrease piracy, which increases their bottom line. The effectiveness of DRM is a totally different subject, but in this situation they chose their bottom line (DRM) over the desires of their customers, taking a gamble that the losses in sales from pissed off people would be less than the gains from decreased piracy.
  - cdash 13y ago
    You state this, and then wonder why people think its a big deal and don't just forgive them? So people got pissed enough and Microsoft got scared enough to change their mind but that doesn't change the fact that they actively wanted to screw over their customers because they wanted more money and they thought that you would just submit to it and be hyped by all their buzzwords. They haven't changed at all and things like this will happen in the future until they do.

ameen 13y ago

If this is true, there isn't going to be the announced "Family Share plan" or the "Disc-less" operation. Also, the fact that a few consoles might not be connected to the Internet means, MS can't really do cloud processing as it claimed (since it would lead to variable experiences of the same game). I see this as a step-backward than a step ahead. Sure there will always be a vocal minority, but rather than provide them an alternative, they've just gimped an online console.

jiggy2011 13y ago
if cloud processing is an essential feature of the game then it would make sense to require an internet connection to run that game. Same as how nobody complains you can't play WOW offline. What I think people objected to was a requirement across the entire console.
eric5544 13y ago
The requirement was only that the console had to be connected to the internet once every 24 hours so I don't think that impacts their cloud efforts one way or another. Not being able to play games without the disc in the tray is a major downside of the new policy though. Of course at least for me that means I will buy all Xbox One games digital going forward.
princess3000 13y ago
I'm not super technical but I've always been skeptical of "cloud processing," especially after the Sim City debacle. Are there any scenarios where actually processing information on a server instead of on the user's home Xbox make sense, aside from things like WoW and Diablo III where you need to do the calculations on the server to make the multiplayer aspect fair?
- gamble 13y ago
  I can't see many developers putting the time to offload calculations when they'd have to make the game work seamlessly with varying levels of latency or the servers becoming unavailable. Just look at how difficult it has been for games to utilize a handful of CPU cores. Microsoft's claims about the cloud remind me of ten years ago, when the .net label was being applied to everything they made and all software was somehow going to be delivered as web services. Plus I doubt MS is offering cloud server time to developers for free. Every service they provide to devs comes at a cost.

jiggy2011 13y ago

This isn't surprising at all, Microsoft is just giving gamers what they are asking for to head off the bad PR. In the meantime they will start pushing game sales for the xbox in the direction of digital downloads.

smackfu 13y ago

Now you can see why it is so tempting for companies to reach out to their competitors and say "so... we want to make this change, you want to make the same change and we both win?"

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

thisisdallas 13y ago
You hit the nail on the head. This is nothing more than innovation being held back by the masses. Allowing customers to share their ENTIRE game library with up to 10 people is extremely generous but all people could see was the 24 hour online check. It's sad how even ignorance can spread so easily through a mob mentality.
- agscala 13y ago
  You must admit, 24 hour online check was pretty bad. Also they said that they're removing region restriction on games, which is another thing that people (including myself) were complaining about.
  - thisisdallas 13y ago
    I don't think that the 24 hour online check is/was necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion, it would push technology forward and bring the console industry up to par with the pc gaming industry. On the other hand, I absolutely agree with you about the region restrictions!
bornhuetter 13y ago
No, they looked at a problem and found an utterly despicable way of "solving" it. There is absolutely no technical reason why the terms had to be so anti-consumer. As long as the system has to phone home every time a game is bought or traded, that it enough to keep piracy at the same level it is now. It wasn't design by committee, it was design by greed. EDIT: Parent has deleted. Originally read: "This is too bad. These engineers/marketers imagined a world where you don't have to deal with the crappy experience that lost, scratched discs provide, but bent over backwards because a few loudmouths can't imagine a digital future. Sometimes even the customers don't know what they want. These engineers identified a true problem and took a pretty good stab at solving it while juggling a huge number of stakeholders, but marketing's awful communication about this vision for the future puts so much of that work to waste. This is design by the biggest committee."

nivla 13y ago

During this whole fiasco, I was trying to put myself into their shoes on what they were trying to achieve. On the outside, it looks like a great idea. The ability to share games with family. No longer you need to carry discs to your friends house. You can lend them games to strangers on the Internet without worry about losing it. You can have an organized catalog on the cloud, and never have to get up to pop the disc in. Sell the disc game to X over the internet and cut out the middle man (Gamestop). etc... However the whole, connect 24 hours to verify the ownership of the game is a big turn off. I understand that, theoretically you could sell your game and then keep playing it on a switched off console. So if it were you, how would you go by achieving all the pros and none of the cons without enforcing DRM? Not supporting DRM but genuinely curious.

superuser2 13y ago
Deactivate on the first console before allowing sale?
- nivla 13y ago
  But how does that work when you are trading in the physical disc at Gamestop and you still have the game stored on your console that is disconnected from the internet? Or if you were to sell it virtully, pop in the physical disc onto your first or second console that has been disconnected from the internet before the sale.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    Uh, yeah, just require to deactivate the disc before sale. That's reasonable and doesn't have the intrusive feel. This isn't hard. Edit: I see, if the DVDs are identical then that's not possible. But plenty of software comes with a serial anyways. Just make the serial transferable, problem solved.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      That would have the problem of not allowing you to sell your games if your console was broken or stolen.

drivebyacct2 13y ago

>On the downside, there will be no digital "family" sharing as was previously announced, and disc-based games will require the disc to be in the tray to be played. Nooooooooooooooooo. Please still allow me to opt in for digital downloads so I can finally stick the console somewhere where I don't have to see it, hear it or suffer it's heat wrath.

lizardking 13y ago
I want this as well, but I'm not exactly sure how that will jive with the mandatory kinect. My 360, along with all of my other components are in the basement.
bskap 13y ago
I believe they are planning to have day-1 digital downloads. This backtrack does mean that, at least for day 1, the family sharing and used-digital-game features won't be available but you can still get all the games without discs.

jleehey 13y ago

I honestly don't see why they can't do it both ways. For people who buy game discs, let them share and play offline, but for those who choose to buy the DRM-enabled digital download version of the game, let them install it to the hard drive and play without a disc across consoles. It's all down to user preference anyway, why does it have to be one way or the other?

vinkelhake 13y ago

For the people here that didn't really read the statement: "you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release" If you have a decent Internet connection and don't want to use discs, you have that choice.

sivam 13y ago

They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be very apt. On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and posts pointing out the facts(forget about posts taking the opposing view or opinion) were downvoted into oblivion by the angry mob. And then there was the bad timing on the NSA leaks, which didn't help at all. Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets with cameras and mics which could be watching and listening and Apple/Google were part of the leak, but it was Microsoft that was singled out for proposing a device that could turn on itself, and had numerous safeguards to configure privacy if you wanted to. All this doesn't excuse the fact that Microsoft utterly and totally failed in communicating their message in a proper manner in E3 and handed Sony an easy victory on a silver platter. I guess it was easy to roll this back because it was not Microsoft but publishers and game developers that were going to reap the benefits of diskless gaming because Gamestop etc. skim off the value of older games and leave publishers with not much value. Once the public failed to see the advantages and blamed Microsoft for a power grab that was not going to really benefit them all that much, it was game over.

drivingmenuts 13y ago
A friend posited the theory that all of this was a calculated move on Microsoft's part. First, they throw up the idea of some draconian DRM, which they then later retract. The first move gets them tons of publicity and tongue-wagging, the second move starts to make that positive publicity. They're banking on gamers being so addicted, they won't really care that they've been played for idiot chumps. If the market for the new XBox was 12-year old children, they wouldn't even have bothered. But, since they're really marketing to adults 20-35 or so, they have to look like good guys to the people they're talking out of their money. This was calculated. Reddit and everyone else got played. Hard and dry.
- clavalle 13y ago
  That would be a valid theory if they didn't have a very similar competing product released at about the same time. A competitor that captured the lion's share of positive publicity by merely maintaining the status quo. As it stands, I will be surprised if XBox One captures 25% of the latest gen console market when it is all said and done.

MichaelGG 13y ago

Microsoft was releasing a new console, with unimpressive hardware, focused on TV and family over games, at a higher price point. Announcing a crazy DRM plan was a fantastic PR move. If people liked it, they can just go ahead with it. If they didn't, they end up burning lots of press time talking about something on their terms, instead of focusing on what Sony wants you to think about the actual hardware No PS4 or XB1 units have been shipped. Except now, Sony has less time to make the real arguments against the XB, and already people can just accuse others of "complaining about everything on the Internet". MS wins points by "making a major change in response to consumers". More than if they had taken this position from the beginning. A bit risky, but it'll pay off fantastically for MS.

theseanstewart 13y ago
Sony has a price advantage still, which is why the 360 "won" the last generation's console war.

knodi 13y ago

This is a shame, I was really looking forwards to disc-less play and family sharing. How cool would it have been if all my friends made a family group and with that we can all play each others games. But no people love gamestop.

LaurelCrowned 13y ago
Pretty sure they would be limiting that to one IP address. There would be restrictions.
- bskap 13y ago
  There was no IP limitation, as I understand it. Everyone on your console could always play all of your games. And you could designate 10 people that had access to your library from anywhere.
  - knodi 13y ago
    Only limit to family group was 10 members, no other limits.

_pmf_ 13y ago

Amazing what a bunch of angry basement dwellers on the internet can achieve.

jviddy 13y ago

Another sad day where the indignant vocal minority have spoiled it all for the rest of us. I don't think there was anything in the early schema that would have impacted the way I use the system (apart for multi day internet or server outages) but plenty of benefits Game sharing was a huge positive step, even though I felt that most publishers would ignore or disable (like game sharing on the DS). Not having to swap physical disks would have made life much easier and increased my playing time. I'm fairly lazy when I've settled down for an evening in front of the TV. A usual XBox session involves playing what ever game is in the drive till i get bored (anything from 15 minutes up) switching to something downloaded so i don;t need to get up (normally trials). Getting bored again and flipping to TV or a movie. The ability to choose from my whole library with leaving my seat would have been a revelation. Also, my two year old has lost my Forza disk, which really sold this idea.