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.
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.
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.
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.
My guess is that it started with the simple idea of "we want to move to digital so we can phase out retail and get more out of each sale like steam does" (pressure from shareholders and increases in development costs).
Then they probably went through every worst case scenario possible, like a group of friends sharing a single licence of skyrim and just leaving their consoles offline, and made rules around them.
It probably didn't really click with them and they thought this was a great idea up until the point they got absolutely grilled at E3.
The thing is with steam, they don't really care about people sharing steam accounts and being offline, it's only a violation of the TOS but they have no checks for it since it's not a rampant problem. I think if they sold games for a decent price and trusted their customers they wouldn't need any invasive DRM schemes.
I think you're bang on. It really is just as simple as them wanting to do everything digitally ala Steam and then they walked through every possible scenario in which a person can cheat/game the system and built their checks, restrictions, requirements, etc. around those.
And in doing that, they created something truly quite terrible and very difficult to explain to the average person. I followed a lot of the Xbone coverage and have to admit I'm still confused as to how exactly their systems/checks, etc. would work. Based on what I did understand though, it sounded horrible.
> Then they probably went through every worst case scenario possible
It's such a bad idea to develop a product like this. Developers who focus on anti-piracy measures miss the point: focusing on a frictionless way for consumers to acquire your product (and keep it up-to-date), while ignoring all those who pirate it will lead to more money in the long run.
Most anti-piracy measures introduce friction for genuine consumers who want to give you money. It's a poor trade-off.
The success of Valve and Steam distribution show this is absolutely true. As far as I'm concerned its all that needs to be said on the piracy debate. The proof is in the profits.
Valve are a private company but certainly worth billions and $500-800m annual revenue. Gabe claims, per employee, they are more profitable than Google and Apple. See the forbes article for more analysis [1]. Note its from 2011 and Gabe has said elsewhere that Valve had a huge 2012, approx 50% revenue growth.
Here's another short article with Gabe commenting on their entry into the Russian market. [2]
GoG is also a private company, but well established and popular with netizens. I'd be very interested to see their financial figures.
Very simple. Keep the 24 hour restrictions as-is, but allow transition to an offline mode after notifying the mothership. This disallows all the family sharing features. Games installed using a physical disk would require the disk to be present, downloaded games are unaffected (since you can't sell them without connecting to xbox live.) This takes care of the submarine scenario. When you're back online, check for the disk again before allowing disk-less play. Make sure the offline transition can be done through smartglass, and you handle the hurricane/somebody-cut-the-fiber scenario as well.
Games were meant to be installable on multiple consoles, so if they wanted reselling or giving away a game to completely disassociate the license from the seller's/giver's account, every console with that game would need to be kept online to verify this. So if there were an offline mode that disabled license-transfer features, it would have to apply as long as even one console were in this mode. This means that it would be possible for someone to put themselves into a state where they'd be permanently prevented from reselling or giving games because they don't have physical access to some console that's been put in offline mode.
There are of course further workarounds/mitigations for this problem, such as putting a (100 days?) time limit on offline mode, but they make the system even more complicated.
> This means that it would be possible for someone to put themselves into a state where they'd be permanently prevented from reselling or giving games because they don't have physical access to some console that's been put in offline mode.
This isn't really too big of a problem. Just require users to phone in and request a license transfer if they lose a console. Limit the number of times that a customer can "lose" their console without an investigation.
+1 I guess this is a very good solution. It merges the best of two worlds. However, with the mixing of digital and physical world, I wonder how many fraudsters will sell their games digitally and then try to sell the disk on ebay? Or vice versa.
hmm, I wasn't aware you could sell your physical disks on the xbox store... that just seems like a recipe for disaster. It seems like such a corner case, though, that I think they could get away with only allowing downloaded games to be resold online. Physical disks would have to be resold through Gamestop or similar, which would actually act as an incentive to purchase the digital version!
> I understand that, theoretically you could sell your game and then keep playing it on a switched off console.
They don't seem to understand that the inconvenience of doing this will prevent the vast majority of people from doing it. If the option to disconnect from WiFi is behind even one layer of menus, most people will find it too annoying to switch on/off in order cheat the system.
If they simply ignored all those people who want to cheat them — let it happen — and make it super easy for people to play and share within their system, I think they would find that they earn more money.
(Though personally I am not bothered by a 24 hour check-in. Since all my devices are always connected, I doubt I would notice this in practice.)
I believe it would be pretty simple. Keep the family sharing plan and the 24 hour check but only for digital purchases. If you have a disk based game than you wouldn't be able to share it but you also wouldn't be required to have the console connected every 24 hours.
Guess this is their only choice right now. Have a divide between digital and physical copies. People who buy digitally gets better rewards (subjective) than people who buy the physical disk.
The lend game thing was limited to once per game, ever to friends of 30 days or more.
Its like saying "you know that potential infinite thing, we are now definitely saying you can only have one."
It reminds me of the difference between free refills and no free refills, the actual amount of extra drinks you get probably is not high, but some soda heads will be pissed if they dont get free refills.
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.
Having serial numbers on CD is not above current technology, and I'd wager that the number of people willing to never connect their system to the internet due to the fact they're pirating a bunch of games is statistically insignificant.
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.
Not necessarily, there's already a web component to Xbox Live at xbox.com that you can login to from any browser and you can even do things on it (today) like reset all your Xbox 360 digital content licenses (I think this is limited to once per year) for exactly this sort of situation where your console died and you had to buy a new one.
So, log in to xbox.com, see list of your active licenses, click 'deactive' link on the games you want to forfeit your current digital license for. No console required.
If your console allows you to play disc purchased games without the disc in the console, then being able to "deactivate" the disc on the web before reselling it would allow you to continue to play your game on your un-networked console.
You can't have disc-less disc games that allow trading and don't require some form of "always on". You have to give up one of those; this time around it seems they are giving up "disc-less disc".
The only way to do that would be to limit used game sales to specific retailers that have the ability to check if a disc has been deactivated before accepting it. You know, that thing that people got really annoyed at because they want to just hand the disc to another person and be done with it.
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."
Anti-consumer? The fact that you could share a game (either on a disc or a digital download) with your family members or the fact that you didn't need to deal with optical media?
This could've been a brilliant console had MS addressed the media a bit more cautiously. Pity that major players still aren't ready for an Online console, while upstarts like Ouya and others will be defining newer experiences that are more suited to the new digital paradigm.
As far as I understand it, other people can log into your console to play the game, or you can log into someone elses console. You cannot lend games to anyone to use on another console without giving them access to your account.
They also places very clear restrictions on selling used games.
There is no reason why these require additional payments or phone home every day. Phone home on activation or trade would have sufficed, and I would have cheered it all the way.
The original plan let you designate 10 accounts that could play any of your games (although only one account plus the main could play a game at once- no buying one copy of Halo and then having all 11 of you get online at once).
The check-in is required in order to remove old games from your account, not to add new games. It's to make sure you still have the license to the game that you're playing. That's far more generous than Valve's "no you can't sell used games ever"
If your friends can play your games at any time, it means that the game is not tied to a disc, it is tied to your account. That makes it more like Steam. How does one sell a used Steam game? The answer (for all current digital services) is that you don't- there is no used market for any game that requires Steam or Origin or any other digital service.
Microsoft wanted to change that. But in order to implement something resembling used games, you have to remove access to the game when someone sells their copy. And the only way to do that is to have the console verify licenses. The easy way to implement that is with a license check every time you start the game. Microsoft tried to be nicer than that by only checking once every 24-hours so you didn't always have to be online.
The once per day is to ensure you still have legitimate access to the game.
The point of restricting used games is that all games are treated as digital downloads, whether they are delivered over the internet or through a disc install.
>There is absolutely no technical reason why the terms had to be so anti-consumer
Yeah, actually, there are plenty.
Step 1: Buy XBONE game.
Step 2: Load it on your console.
Step 3: Loan it to hundreds of friends and they load it on their console.
And now hundreds of people are playing one copy of the game with no way of preventing them from doing so. It would make the "piracy" scene on day one, the worst of any console experience ever, ever.
So how are you going to prevent that without requiring online connections?
You can still play the game without uploading so each game represents 2 copy's. Require an activation code to "load" the game which you can get automatically online or with a phone call. Require someone to unload the game which spits about a 6 digit code before you can upload it again. Make a fast online check to see if anyone registered the game via a partial code on the outside of the box for the used game market.
Don't let the disk play online content while "loaded" on a separate XBOX. Allow someone to declare an Xbox as broken, lost, or stolen.
Or register the game to your account and then be able to share it immediately, wirelessly across the country with 10 "family" members and being able to resell the digital copy.
But noooooo, codes and short codes and registration verification sounds way better. >_<
I guess this is so frustrating for me because I worked on a licensing system and had to deal with the hundreds of little places it could be attacked in ways that aren't obvious if you haven't worked in the problem space before.
That's probably because you were trying to come up with a system this is more restrictive than the traditional physical media system (where you could share or sell a single physical item), but with concessions.
There is a very simple and obvious solution - internet connection required on activation or deactivation (for trade). I have not read a single good argument against this system anywhere.
I dont think you understood what i said. The codes are transparent if someone is connected to the Internet. The reason I added them is to add functionality. Also, I would suggest a pure digital copy shuld probably have more permissive digital lending features as a selling point, but there is no reason not to add them for a "loaded" game.
Just put a code into the game case that allows for discless play, and require an online connection to install the game to the hd and unlock it for discless play. Not rocket science.
>Just put a code into the game case that allows for discless play, and require an online connection to install the game to the hd and unlock it for discless play. Not rocket science
It is rocket science apparently
Person A does what you said and goes on a cruise ship playing the game before giving the disc to Person B.
Person B takes his disc, installs the game with an online connection. The server has no way of telling that Person A is still playing the game on his cruise.
Person B finishes installing, goes to a camping trip before giving the disc to Person C....
Person C installs the game, unplugs the network from the Xbox and gives the disc to Person D...
Person A installs the game. Then goes on a cruise ship, playing the installed game, giving the disc to Person B.
Person B takes the disc and can't install it because the code that came with the game has already been used. If he or she wants to play it without the disc then they need to buy a new code.
Person B plays the game as much as they want then lends the game to Person C. Person B can no longer play the game because they don't have the disc, but Person C can play the game as much as they want.
Except that publishers won't agree to such a deal, meaning that any console implementing such a policy would lose third-party support resulting in significantly decreased sales units, and ultimately billion dollar loses for the console manufacturer.
>If he or she wants to play it without the disc then they need to buy a new code.
From who? A used game code? Or a new one? How is that any different from the rules announced at E3 with no used games?
>Person B plays the game as much as they want then lends the game to Person C. Person B can no longer play the game because they don't have the disc, but Person C can play the game as much as they want.
So the disc is required to play? Like in the new rules?
Disc is required for disc-required play. Code is required for discless play.
They'd buy the code from the people that made the game, of course. If you want to install the game to the console and play it without a disc present then it's trivial to process that through a workflow that requires some sort of purchase.
You can have the best of both worlds if you like.
If it makes it any simpler just think of it as downloaded vs. disc-based games. You can pay to download the game to your console or you can play the game off of a disc. For convenience you could include a free download code in each new game, or even just provide a discount.
And? Some people will take advantage of it, most won't because it's too much of a hassle.
Look at netflix back when it was just a disc-based service. Just get as many DVDs delivered as possible, rip them to your HD and then pop them back in the mail. Some people did that.
Most didn't.
Also, the Xbox One HD is only 500 GB, you can't install quite so many games (delivered on blu-ray) before it gets full.
The difference is that ripping a DVD continues to be a pain in the ass for most people, while "ripping" the game disk will presumably be something the XBox makes seamless.
But the games for the Xbox One MUST be serializable, how else would it know the difference between a install of a disc on one console and another?
Put in disc. Installs to hdd, checks in with MS. Take out disc.
Something stops you just putting that disc in to a mates Xbox One. So obviously they do have something similar to Sony's patent. Or every disc has a unique serial written to the small inner sector of the disc?
Oh, cool. That's very interesting. I curse it because it seems even more insidious and because I can't believe the next gen of consoles is even shipping with an internal optical drive... but I digress. Thanks for the link!
No. That's not true. That's true as of today with the new change. Before, that's absolutely not.
This just goes to prove that most of the ignorant internet rage was from people that didn't bother understanding just how much MS was really giving us with the previous setup.
You can't "phone home" with optical media, it's not serializable.
I'm saying that's the way it should work. Give the user a disc and an activation code. Activation code becomes tied to the account until traded. Problem solved.
> Activation code becomes tied to the account until traded.
So, like: I should be able to just directly say "Give my Halo 5 license to bornhuetter" and then my disc stops working because my console doesn't have a license and yours can then download the digital copy or put the disc in and have it "unlocked" with the license.
I think that could work, still would require an online connection for any NEW games though, which I think MS is trying to avoid rather specifically (the blowback from overseas guys playing consoles, etc)
Let's say you install the game on two consoles. You put console 1 offline, then go online with console 2 and de-activate the license (by reselling, giving, etc. the game). How does console 1 know that the license has been de-activated?
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.
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.
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!
There's no reason that you can't avoid discs. Xbox One will still have the on-demand downloads, just like today, although it seems it'll be for every game.
The rage was over adding "cloud DRM" to purchased discs.
MS most likely had this planned out from the beginning. It's a great way to do PR. Announce something silly, get people talking about your product and not the competition. And when they do, it's on the thing you've decided.
Then, flip it back, destroying the one thing people were praising the competition for. Get bonus points for "listening to the community" and being "flexible".
Now, MS has dominated the press for a while, and removed the "one" big problem with Xbox.
Where is the discussion of how terrible it is that your Xbox that you paid for, running software you buy, on a monthly subscription, is shoving ads all over the UI?
The fact that they change the location of ads so you don't get accustomed to ignoring one part of the screen.
If someone brings that up now, people can respond "it's always something! MS made a big change and went against publishers, but you just want to complain".
Just like when VS 2012 launched with the shitty 1-bit icons and arbitrary casing everywhere. People complaining about "THE MENU YELLS" focused the conversation on that one thing. Then for RTM? "OK we listened and all caps are optional, can we stop complaining now?"
It's a possibly risky, but great way to control the conversation.
Honestly, a PC with Steam, and XBox 360 controller, and an HDMI cable is all I really need. I've moved to doing that pretty exclusively and it works wonderfully. Bonus, I don't have to re-purchase games to play them on my laptop or in my office.
Where is the Steam Box? I would pay Valve $800 if it guarantees 1080p@60 games for several years. Both the XBox One and PS4 likely do not have enough power to do that for most games.
Most people didn't realize that MS was pushing the envelope with their purported "Cloud processing tech", which was supposed to be based on Remote processing of a few threads (A.I., Physics, etc) and even had a new programming paradigm for it (based on prioritized threads that could be processed either locally or remotely)
As someone who has done game development (no longer though), I can tell you absolutely nobody is going to do AI or Physics through Microsoft's cloud infrastructure. Absolutely nobody. Never was, and never will. It doesn't make sense.
BS. It's possible to deal with the issues you mentioned and not screw your customers over. Even if it's not, it's still perfectly valid to be vocal about it.
Digital futures are fine. But I don't think a company like MS fully understands what it takes to provide a digital future that is an adequate replacement for physical media based games.
Valve has most or all of it figured out. Digital delivery. Easy downloads. Lower prices. Embracing indie games. Discounts on bulk purchases. And so forth.
Steam games have a lot of the same limitations that the xbox one would have had but you don't see nearly as many people complaining about that. And that's because of all of the things listed above.
There are tons of console games that I and many of my friends have grown to love which started off as borrowed games. And that's, I think, how it should be, the same as books. I don't think Steam is the perfect answer for all of time but the fact that you can acquire games at effectively used prices or lower (sometimes $15 or even $5 for a AAA title or even as little as one or two dollars for an indie game) significantly blunt the problems of reduced lending opportunities.
P.S. For clarity I'm saying that being allowed to lend and borrow games is a huge benefit to game makers because it is a very potent way of increasing the fan base. How many people borrowed someone else's copy of Harry Potter and then went on to buy hardback copies of subsequent books as they came out and watched the movies and so forth? The same phenomenon works just as potently with games. There are several people I know who are fans of the Mass Effect series who might not have been if they couldn't have borrowed the game that first time.
With art the best salesman is the thing itself. That's how radio works. That's how museums work. And libraries. How do you convince someone they like Manet or Picasso or The Fiery Furnaces or Gershwin or Raymond Chandler or HP Lovecraft or Katamari Damacy or The Last of Us? There is no possible way to adequately describe such works in words alone. The only possible way to determine if one likes such things is to experience it first hand. And that is why "piracy", even in its most extreme forms, is never going to be as much of a threat to makers as some people believe. "Consuming" art makes fans, and fans with money will spend their money to acquire art by artists they enjoy, whether it's games, concerts, movies, albums, and so forth.
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
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
Some people viewed a series of actions and statements from Microsoft as showing contempt. Simply changing a business model to one more acceptable to consumers does not remove people's emotional reactions and suspicions about motives. Time (assuming no other mis-steps in the immediate future) can cure a lot of this, but, as you may have noticed, an awful lot of people's personal identity gets caught up in their consumer electronics purchases.
Microsoft messed up so badly that many people themselves as being on the xBox side of the "holy wars" that swirl around
consoles "converted" to Sony.
A brand is a powerful tool. It might not be logical, but people do build emotional connections with brands. As with any power tool, you want to be careful and avoid cutting off your arm.
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
They didn't really "take out the DRM", they just replaced one form of DRM (not being able to play if your internet has been disconnected for 24 hours) with another (not being able to play without the disc in the drive). It's pick your poison, and different people have different preferences.
People like myself preferred the system they designed because you didn't need to use the disk and could play a game you owned on any system that you logged in to, just like steam.
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.
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?
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.
It makes sense for multiplayer games to not be hosted on arbitrary client boxes, but on some kind of neutral, low-latency "cloud" device (I know you said other than this, but I thought this was the biggest selling point for it in the first place).
It also makes sense for "complex" calculations. It's how stuff like Google search and Google maps works - you send the query, big machines chomp on the query and spit out a result, and your netbook doesn't have to go into overdrive trying to figure anything out. Basically anything that can take 100ms or so to complete could be moved off of the appliance and onto Microsoft servers. Why? Well, why not? Make some more room for rendering, I guess.
It'd be a slight step ahead for anyone with a persistant, reliable connection, but a drop-off-a-cliff for anyone else (a large part of the world). And that isn't even counting the implications for used games. I don't think they were ever going to be serious about that share plan either; there'd be too many abuses.
Edit: and also, as mentioned, reliable cloud processing was never in the cards since they were only ever going to require check-in once per 24 hour period.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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?
Here's a statement from MS 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
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.
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.
Right, and this is the market rejecting these terms.
The current standard terms of consumption for console games includes the ability to give your copy to someone else. There is neither a legal nor social contract that these games be paid for per-consumption.
What we saw is Microsoft trying to change that. The market has responded clearly and unambiguously.
So no one (short of the pirates) has violated any terms, legal or social.
It's the market threatening to reject these terms. That's different from actual rejection.
What we have is a vocal minority responding clearly and unambiguously. The size of such a group, minority or otherwise, will not ever be known, since Microsoft has not sold anything to anyone yet.
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.
It would be relatively trivial from a technical perspective to allow virtual game licenses to be gifted from one XBOX ID to another, or even transferred to a serial key which could then be sold/traded by individuals or third party retailers like GameStop.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
I like this theory a bit but I don't think the part about getting positive publicity works out. They don't really look good here and, though I haven't read Reddit's response yet, I don't think they're going to look good to hardly anyone. At least not the 20-35 year olds who were aware of the snafu.
I think I cleaner interpretation is that they were aware that the push might fail but figured going back on the setup as they've done wouldn't set them back too far. And the move, even if it failed, would set them up for basically the same change in the future of the consoles life. Remember they changed the Xbox dashboard a lot. They can still add the planned sharing features to download only games. At first only to developer opt-in games then just the MS published games will have the additional features. After that other publishers will need to have their games use the extra features for licensed download games.
So everyone saying they ought to have done both may be right but maybe it wasn't ideal and they reached a bit too far. So they've fallen back and are retooling. I just wish they'd let me take off adverts on the damned main dashboard! I never buy anything and they know it.
Re. used game sales, it surprises me to see everyone repeating the idea that game stores "skim" value from publishers. The license has been paid for, the original owner will lose his ability to play the game; there is no value being created and no reason at all for the publisher to participate in that transaction. Do you think car makers should be entitled to a fee every time you sell your used car?
>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.
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.
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.
