[Megathread] Xbox One Discussion

[Faroth]

I've had more time to reflect on Xbox One and the future of gaming in general. I've come to the conclusion that opponents of Microsoft's original policies are retrogressive, hypocritical or moronic. And Microsoft's flip-flop was cowardly and shameful. I'm objective and unbiased in the sense that I've never personally bought a console. Let's go through some of the arguments.

Tip: Never start a debate by saying "If you don't agree with what I'm about to say, you're a moron or a hypocrit." It doesn't set the tone for a thoughtful discussion.

1. “DRM!!”
Firstly, complaints that the 24 hour internet check-in amounts to a restrictive form of DRM is utter nonsense. Most people have access to internet. You don't even need good internet to perform such a check-in, it could be done on a 56K modem connection. But the main point is that by this sort of reasoning everything is DRM. Requiring a disc in the drive is DRM. This particularly annoying form of DRM was used in PC gaming decades ago and has since been done away with. Yet it's somehow acceptable that this archaic, ancient DRM mechanism survives into the next generation of consoles? Xbox One would have got rid of this, but now it's back.

Name another form of game that isn't played with online multi-player that requires you to prove every 24 hours that you are playing the game. It isn't present on 2600, NES, SNES, GameCube, N64, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, Sega Saturn, Genesis, Dreamcast, XBox, XBox 360, Neverwinter Nights, or the vaulted and touted savior of gaming Steam either.

But wait, there are digital download titles on PS3 and XBox 360. Neither of these require online check in every 24 hours, do they? So why did XBox One require this unnecessary addition?

Indeed, WoW is DRM. You can't play WoW offline. DRM! Twitter is DRM. You can't tweet without access to the internet. DRM! Oh, but some people have argued that WoW is a MMO, as if that semantic argument relieves WoW of being DRM. Being online is intrinsic to WoW and Twitter, whereas it is not necessary for Xbox One to have a 24 hour check-in, so the argument goes, therefore, the online requirement of WoW and Twitter is not DRM. But this is completely wrong. The online requirement for WoW is just as much of a free choice by Blizzard as the 24 hours check-in is by Microsoft. Blizzard didn't have to make WoW an online game. They could have put in an offline mode, making the game more like Skyrim. It's also not necessary that Twitter requires the internet. It could have used the cell phone system, like SMS. By this sort of flaky logic, WoW and Twitter are DRM, just like Xbox One, and therefore should be boycotted, and internet rage should be directed by internet users on Blizzard and Twitter for requiring an internet connection to use their service. The second part of the argument is also wrong--Xbox One does necessarily require a 24 hour check-in. It is necessary. Without it, it would be possible to have your friend login with his account on your Xbox One, then download all his games on your console so that you have access to them forever. It would also be possible to resell a physical game, but still play the game by staying offline so the console does not know that you've sold the game.

This entire argument is so flawed, it's hard to decide where to begin.

WoW is indeed an MMORPG. Massive Multiplayer ONLINE Roleplaying Game. To argue that it could have been made like Skyrim is saying Blizzard could have designed a completely different game for a completely different genre and using that to support the unnecessary 24 hour check in. Using twitter as a comparison...doesn't even make sense. I can't even understand how you're saying Twitter is evidence of supporting DRM. You're just stretching to try and make some sort of desperate case to support the 24 hour check in which was not necessary.

Why is it not necessary? The same reason your PC games don't require you to prove you own them on a daily basis. A one time activation code and one time online registration of the game would then allow the XBox One to be played offline anywhere you want to take it. This activation code could likewise have tied the game to your account to allow you to access it at a friend's on their XBox One. The disc itself could still be resold, but without an activation code it wouldn't be worth much and for a small fee, a new activation code could have been purchased DIRECT from the developer. Guess what that would do? 100% of the activation code sale would be going to the developer's pocket rather than Microsoft taking their piece of the pie and dishing out what they felt the developer deserved. Digital downloads could be available with a lower price point, encouraging their adoption over discs since there is 0 production and distribution cost associated with them.

2. “DRM for PC is OK, DRM for Xbox One is Not”
Those who argue that DRM for PC gaming and Steam is OK, but that it's not OK for Xbox One, are valueless hypocrites. These failed arguments are made, for example, in this imbecilic rant from The Escapist and this screed of fallacious arguments from Eurogamer. The argument essentially boils down to DRM is OK on Steam because Steam has sales, but it's not OK on Xbox One, because Xbox Live doesn't have sales.

Once again, personal attacks are not supportive to rational discussion. I could respond to your entire thread saying you're an idiot MS fan boy who has his head too far up his ass to see anything that's going without reading your posts. Would that make you prone to listen to anything I say? Stirring negative emotion is counter intuitive to an open discussion, assuming you genuinely want one.

If you're against Xbox One for DRM, yet subscribe to this argument, you're a sellout. You're selling out your anti-DRM values for cheaper games. No one has been able to articulate why digital games, such as those on Steam, should have DRM, whereas physical games, like discs, should not have DRM.

Honestly, there is a camp who would argue that once you purchase something, it is yours, including digital games. People overlook it because digital downloads with Steam are often cheap, but this is a question of technology not meeting the law, or rather the law not catching up with technology.

I buy a book. The book is mine. It is mine to read, to lend to friends, to donate to a library, to donate to a hospital, to sell to a used book store.
I buy a chair. The chair is mine. It is mine to sit in, to let friends sit in, to give to a friend or family member, to donate to charity, to sell to a used furniture store.
I buy a car. The car is mine. It is mine to drive. I can even let friends borrow the car. I can donate the car to charity or sell the car to a used car lot.
I buy a DVD. The DVD is mine. It is mine to watch. I can let friends come over and watch it with me. I can loan it to a friend, donate it to charity, or sell it to others.
I buy a video game. The video game is mine to play. I cannot do anything else with it.

Why are video games an exception to the concept of personal property? And if the game is stored on a drive that requires access and permission from Microsoft's servers to play, do I even own the game once installed on my system? Why is my purchase not my property with video games, and should it be?

Personally, I think it should be. I think when I buy something, even a digital download, it should be mine to do with as I please. I do feel that an MMO is different as I can indeed sell the game, the discs, etc. However, the characters associated on the account are not mine. I am paying for access to those and agree to that up front before I start playing the game. Likewise, Microsoft has every right to implement all of the DRM they were going to implement and, like the MMO, it is up to the consumer to choose if they want to agree to that contractual arrangement. Many believe the pre-orders were showing that they were not agreeing to the arrangement.

Likewise, people have apparently chosen that a lower price without the retained value of being able to sell the item is worth the sacrifice of that right of property. Accepting Steam is not hypocritical, it's an agreement that a lower price for the purchase at the sacrifice of standard ownership is acceptable to them. Personally, I don't buy digital downloads. I prefer the physical product and the possession of the item being a standard rule of ownership. It's even more rational when the digital download is the same cost as the physical purchase.

Then we turn to the question of why games are cheaper on Steam. The most common argument is that there is competition on PC because of platforms like Steam, Origin, Greenman Gaming, and GOG (which sells mostly old games that no one cares about anymore), whereas there's no competition on consoles. Xbox Live is the only way to get digital games on Xbox. But this is completely wrong for at least three reasons.

Firstly, publishers, not Microsoft, set prices. They set the price on Steam, Origin, Amazon, Xbox Live, PSN, etc. And publishers do not have a monopoly. Publishers compete with each other. So it makes no sense to say that Microsoft has a monopoly on Xbox Live and that's why prices are high. Microsoft doesn't set prices on Xbox Live. When Microsoft announced the price of first-party Xbox One games, why do you think they didn’t announce the price of third-party Xbox One games too? Because they have nothing to do with those prices.

If you think the retailer and Microsoft has no involvement in setting prices, you should rethink that position. The portion of the sale that goes to the distributor is a definite, unquestionable, factor in the price. If a developer could sell you a game directly as a digital download with 100% of the sale going to their pocket, then they'd set the price where they felt appropriate. That's not what happens. Naughty Dog doesn't say "Our game will cost $60" and that's the price. There are negotiations involved with the distributors, such as Microsoft, that affect the price.

Secondly, why doesn't this argument imply that game prices are high on all platforms? Prices on Xbox Live are high because that's the only place you can buy digital games for Xbox. Then prices on Steam should be high because that's the only place you can buy digital games for Steam. Prices on the Blizzard store should be high because that's the only place you can buy digital games for Battle.net. Share prices of UK companies should be high because the only place you can buy them is at the London Stock Exchange. The argument simply makes no sense.

Steam is competing for your attention and your dollar with the consoles and other PC game sales. So they aren't the only place you can get the game. There is competition there.

If Sony announced all PS4 games would be $50, you'd see that competition drive down the XB1 game price, but no necessarily Steam right off. If Sony and MS announced their digital downloads would be $40 on release day for every game, you would likely see some ripple affect towards Steam and how they'd react.

Thirdly, the premise that prices are high on Xbox Live because that's the only place to get Xbox games is simply not true. You can buy Xbox games on Amazon, at Gamestop, on Ebay, and various other outlets. So there is competition between sellers of Xbox games. The same is true of PS games. But then why hasn't this competition driven down the prices of console games to the levels of PC games. Due to being distracted by the faulty premise to their arguments, no one has convincingly answered this fundamental question. Why is it that console games cannot be as cheap as PC games?

You know Best Buy recently introduced a price match policy that includes Amazon since Amazon sales were usually priced lower, right? It's a matter of cost saving by quantity. If Amazon orders 10,000 copies of a game, they get a larger price break than Best Buy ordering 1,000 copies of a game. They can then discount the retail price, as they often do, and still make a profit per unit sale.

The conundrum is why are prices high on XBox Live and PSN when the retail, physical, game is the same but has a disc, case, and possibly extras in it? There is no physical production required for digital nor is there a distribution fee with shipping product. So why are digital still priced equal to physical?

If Microsoft really wanted to move gamers towards their view of the future, they would have brought the XB1 to market with a simple presentation:
Physical discs will work exactly as they always have. Disc must be in the drive, you can loan and sell as you always have.
Digital downloads, however, will now be priced cheaper than the physical and will have 24 hour check in, cloud storage, accessible through your account anywhere, allow friends to play, family sharing, etc.

It gives players the option of either one, but the incentive of a cheaper game is there with digital and, if it proves popular, paves the way for this "non ownership of product" future that Microsoft was looking for.

3. The Retrogressive and Primitive Console Market
The console market is overpriced compared to the PC market. But that's not all, it lags basically on every dimension. In fact, one could be forgiven for mistaking today's console market for the PC market a decade ago.

Batman Arkham City GoTY Edition is $20 on PS3 and $30 on PC digital download on Amazon as of this post.

Whereas PC games can no longer be resold, it is still possible to resell console games. The result of Microsoft’s recent u-turn to put no restriction on resale is to prop up the current inefficient status quo. A status quo where a sizable proportion of the money that gamers spend goes to leeches like Gamestop and EB, businesses that are unnecessary and add little to no value to the product, instead of going to developers. These are businesses that deserve nothing.

Analysts for years have written how the used game market helps support the new game market. Gamers who would never touch a game at $60 won't buy it, but if they bought it used for $30, may be spurred to buy the sequel upon release. Again, EB and GameStop are just examples people like to use as the "evil corporations" but this goes back to my earlier point.

Why are video games different in that your purchase is not your property? Reiterating the point; if I sell my Honda Civic on Craigslist, Honda gets nothing for that. Why should we accept that digital ownership should not be our property? It's similar to the debate right now, why is an e-mail not protected the same as printing that e-mail and sending it as a letter?

Honestly, everything about this debate comes down to the ownership of property. When does buying something not make it your property. When do we start to accept a more broad view that buying something still does not make it ours, or should laws catch up with technology and support that digital ownership is still the owner's property to do with as they wish?

-No discs: Kill the disc. They are no longer necessary. Go with 100% digital distribution. Despite the drama, this will not be a problem, millions of people seem to be fine with downloading games on Steam currently or playing online games on PC. This includes predownloads. End this unneeded cost.

The death of discs may be the death of my interest in gaming. Digital distribution still has the questionable gray area that what you buy you indeed DO NOT OWN. With it tied to servers, games can be easily yanked from you because you never owned them in the first place. Until the law catches up to technology, I'm not comfortable with my entire library being ethereal rather than being my own collection.

-No resale: Like PC, no more reselling used games. As PC has shown and as the previously cited paper finds, this will lower the amount consumers are willing to pay for games, as they can no longer make money back by resale, which will lead to lower prices through competition between publishers.

Why no resale?
Again, answering the question of why video games are not my property when everything else is.

-Game sharing limited to machine and spawn versions: Microsoft’s original sharing plan that allowed up to 10 people to access your game library was flawed since it partly undoes the effect of the resale restrictions that would have led to lower prices.

I think this is a fallacious argument because Microsoft pointedly NEVER detailed how this sharing system work. Rumor is it was a glorified demo and nothing more. Microsoft denies that, but without releasing it, they can say whatever they want. Logic doesn't suggest that they were trying to "support developers" by preventing used games only to allow distribution of 1 purchase to 10 people. That's 9 sales that, even without used games, developers wouldn't see a penny from.

So I honestly don't believe the sharing plan was anything like defenders imagine it was.

The right balance is to allow sharing games to the extent that it is quite likely that other people would not have bought the game anyway.

Congratulations, you just defended the prime concept of used game sales.

Player A buys used game; developer doesn't see money.
Player A doesn't buy the game at all; developer doesn't see money.
Player A borrows game through shared program; developer doesn't see money.

So it should be possible to share games with anyone playing on your console or computer, even if they are signed in their account, since families under the same roof tend to only buy one copy of a game. This would mean that each account would be associated to a console or computer on which other people can play their game library, but you can still play your own games on any console or computer. Sharing accounts should be absolutely discouraged, as it may increase the incidence of account compromises. Moreover, it should be possible to spawn the game, allowing you to play full multiplayer with party members who do not own the game, possibly with some restrictions like up to 50 hours of total game time. This is different from demos, which is usually a restricted subset of the game. With an online account system, traditional demos could be widely and easily made available to everyone.

So it's not sharing, it's just playing on someone else's system and 50 hours is again back to essentially giving the game away to someone else, assuming they come back to your house for 50 hours to share the game. Essentially the exact same system we have now with more complicated implementation.

-More expansions, less DLC: There should be less DLC and more expansions. This is what we see in the PC market. It’s unfortunate that there is still so much DLC on PC, but the problem is much worse on consoles, where developers also use them as part of a desperate attempt to extend the life of games and to reduce resale. DLC are a massive ripoff. Preorder bonuses are completely ridiculous in both ripping people off and wasting developer resources on making content that is arbitrarily restricted by the physical store you preorder at, for absolutely no justifiable reason. Also, while not caused by used games, microtransactions have ruined the MMO genre and many other games, allowing those with more money to buy much greater conveniences and even power increases.

I can't say I really agree on DLC being a massive ripoff. They are 95% bonuses that aren't necessary and are just an extra something if you want it. Rarely is DLC compelling enough to extend the life of the game. The only DLC that I think has heavily strengthened the game's original purchase was the extensive Rockband library. Those pre-order bonuses, btw, are another agreement that is negotiated between distributors and the publisher. My favorite pre-order bonus, however, is when Amazon gives you $10 credit towards another purchase. I think more distribution outlets should consider that.

-No region locking: Region locking is an anti-consumer practice done to charge different prices to different regions based on how much people in various countries are willing to pay. For example, things are more expensive in Australia than the US because disposable income and the median wage is higher in Australia than the US. The only positive thing to come out of the Microsoft backlash is to kill region locking for Xbox One.

Completely agree.

5. Transitioning to a Better Future for Gaming
This is the glorious future that consoles could have had. PC gaming currently is almost there. But now it’s been derailed by mad idiots on the internet, Microsoft’s spinelessness, and Sony’s utter lack of imagination and vision. PC gaming has paved the way forward, and yet the solution of the mob of Microsoft haters is to ignore this fact. And then to rage at Microsoft so that console prices can remain forever overpriced, physical stores like Gamestop and EB can continue to be parasites on the industry, the console market can remain stuck in the past, and the horribly inefficient status quo can be maintained. They have no solution and no vision, just illogical rants and fallacious arguments.

Your vision of the future is apparently not so glorious that the masses agree with you. You can, of course, claim that you're a visionary and the rest of the idiots are too blind to see it, but clearly there's some disagreement that this future of non-posession is agreed upon by the majority.

No, Sony is not the messiah. They’re an unscrupulous, opportunistic and incompetent corporation. In 2011, Sony was hacked, resulting in the personal details of 70 million user’s being compromised and PSN being down for almost a month. Embarrassingly, the intrusion was pulled off by an SQL injection attack, arguably the most elementary and simplistic hack in the book. Between 2005 and 2007, Sony secretly installed rootkits on their customer’s computers. Intended as DRM, this rootkit was exceedingly hard to remove and created gaping security vulnerabilities. After this had been exposed, Sony released a program which they claimed would remove the rootkit, but it didn’t remove it, it installed additional malware, collected personal information and created even more security vulnerabilities. So contrary to attempts to paint Sony as anti-DRM heroes, they were responsible for the most pernicious, evil, outrageous, deceptive, insidious, invasive and illegal form of DRM ever known. And we can add “defender of the terrible console market status quo” to the list of Sony’s infamous achievements.

And likewise Microsoft is not the messiah either. They've had their share of blunders over the years as well.
And XB1 using Windows 8 makes me kinda meh on its own.

You've successfully delayed the inevitable.

Hopefully, again, the laws can catch up before the inevitable happens. I don't look forward to an age where after paying $60, my game still belongs to Sony or Microsoft to do with as THEY please.

[Deleted]

No, people can't just play any PC games for free. Where on Steam can I get a free copy of Bioshock Infinite? This isn't like piracy. This is building a system that would allow games to be pirated officially into console. If we're going to do that, why charge for games at all? Let's just make it all free.

How is it not like piracy?
Friend comes and gives me CD that doesn't require serial key or for the CD to be in the drive, without transferring full ownership, technically piracy.
Friend comes and gives me USB with game files on them, piracy.
Friend lets me download things with his account and I cheat the system, piracy.

[frogger237]

What I don't understand is how they thought adding drm and letting 11 people play one copy of a game(apparently only 2 ppl at a time) was going to result in less pirating and more profits. 30-50% of the games I have bought for 360 was to play with friends who had that game and not because I liked the game. Ive never pirated anything but with this family share thing I know I sure as hell wouldn't buy half the games I normally would have if I can get them for free. And I'm sure those people who apparently do pirate would have found a way around the 2 people at a time thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft changed their stance because of game developer pressure more than player pressure.

[Dasffion]

What I don't understand is how they thought adding drm and letting 11 people play one copy of a game(apparently only 2 ppl at a time) was going to result in less pirating and more profits. 30-50% of the games I have bought for 360 was to play with friends who had that game and not because I liked the game. Ive never pirated anything but with this family share thing I know I sure as hell wouldn't buy half the games I normally would have if I can get them for free. And I'm sure those people who apparently do pirate would have found a way around the 2 people at a time thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft changed their stance because of game developer pressure more than player pressure.

It's not confirmed that I know of but supposedly the sharing your games with 10 friends was only going to let them play the games as a demo for an hour. As I said, unconfirmed rumor but it doesn't really make sense to say we're going to try and reduce game prices by not allowing used game sales but here, give 10 people your games for free.

[Edge-]

It's not confirmed that I know of but supposedly the sharing your games with 10 friends was only going to let them play the games as a demo for an hour. As I said, unconfirmed rumor but it doesn't really make sense to say we're going to try and reduce game prices by not allowing used game sales but here, give 10 people your games for free.

I'll see if I can dig it up, but a Microsoft employee responded to that via Twitter that the game sharing was full games, not just a demo.

[Ridethelight]

It's not confirmed that I know of but supposedly the sharing your games with 10 friends was only going to let them play the games as a demo for an hour. As I said, unconfirmed rumor but it doesn't really make sense to say we're going to try and reduce game prices by not allowing used game sales but here, give 10 people your games for free.

Aaron Greenberg and Marc Whitten already said this wasn't true about the demo thing, but it is up to you if you believe them.
You can read everything here : http://kotaku.com/rumor-about-xbox-o...-fla-534484570

[Dasffion]

Aaron Greenberg and Marc Whitten already said this wasn't true about the demo thing, but it is up to you if you believe them.
You can read everything here : http://kotaku.com/rumor-about-xbox-o...-fla-534484570

Of course easy to deny it now that it's not going to happen. Not saying that the rumors were true to begin with but still...

It still leaves the question though, how does allowing you to share games with 10 other people live with their idea that used games kill the market and by getting rid of them we can lower the price of games. The sharing that they were proposing would be even more detrimental than a used games market. At least with used games someone has to buy game from the developer as a new product at some point so if you and those 10 people all had the same game that's still 11 sales for the developer. With the family share thing only one person has to buy it and 11 people get it but it can be as little as 1 sale for the developer.

This is why the rumor was easy to believe, because the reality (if it was indeed) doesn't make a lot of sense.

[draykorinee]

Everyone else is being told they are wrong because they are wrong. Most pieces of writing are designed to argue the writer's case, that's why writer's write, so I don't know what you were expecting. This isn't the news section of The New York Times.

A bit of openess to the fact that maybe, just maybe you might be wrong on some points, and maybe people disagree for reasons other than sell outs, misguided or hypocrits, you cant discuss with people who take the stance you do, its why I never bother arguing with evangelicals, it'll get me no where, so why debate with someone so narrowminded as you.
Anyway other people have torn in to your post, so clearly someone thought it worthy of reading.

I can't understand this whole we wont to stop pirates and used games they eat in to developers profits, so we're going to stop them but make it just as easy to trade games for free :S

[Deleted]

Sorry if this is old or already posted this thread is so large. Athene love or hate him made some excellent points regarding the new 180 decision made by MS on their restrictions. For people not wanting to watch the video I agree with Athene it wasn't a victory for gamers to make them revert the restrictions. They were forced to do this by a lot of factors and if it was due to gamers outcry it would of happened a lot sooner. Heres the vid.



Dont believe MS for a second they would of rammed all kinds of restrictions if their fans would of let them.

[Ridethelight]

Sorry if this is old or already posted this thread is so large. Athene love or hate him made some excellent points regarding the new 180 decision made by MS on their restrictions. For people not wanting to watch the video I agree with Athene it wasn't a victory for gamers to make them revert the restrictions. They were forced to do this by a lot of factors and if it was due to gamers outcry it would of happened a lot sooner. Heres the vid.



Dont believe MS for a second they would of rammed all kinds of restrictions if their fans would of let them.

Is it so hard for people to understand that they are a company. What is the main goal of a company, make money. They never forced you to buy their product nor like it and still people would go mad about it and feel betrayed. They saw the pre-orders and I bet they saw the massive negativity around the xbox one and reversed some of their decisions.

They changed it based on what the customer did. In the end every company will screw you over if that means they can/will get more money out of you.

[Edge-]

They were forced to do this by a lot of factors and if it was due to gamers outcry it would of happened a lot sooner.

2 factors.

1. Overwhelming amounts of negative press from gaming outlets, mainstream news outlets, and from talk shows (Jimmy Fallon taking a few pot shots at it during the PS4 display)

2. Low pre-orders. By every metric that we had available, the PS4 was crushing the Xbox One in terms of pre-orders. Hell, on Gamestop alone the PS4 controller was outselling the Xbox one for a while.

Oddly enough, both of these factors are directly tied to gamer outcry. Gaming journalists are all gamers themselves, and they also frequently function as a reflection of popular sentiment (see: D3 scoring super high despite server problems, SimCity scoring low because of server problems. D3 was massively popular with fans, SimCity was much maligned). And as for the pre-order bit, the product evangelist/early adopter group drives a lot of the early excitement for new products. If you can't get these people on your side, it's hard to get off to a strong start. Seeing as these people are some of the most hardcore of gamers, they were also generally against the DRM features on the Xbox One.

So in a roundabout, it actually was because of gamer outcry.

[Ridethelight]

Yes it was the XboxOne is apart of it "even tho it did lose" so it was necessary to post it because to me it still shows people are still pissed about the XboxOne and Microsoft.

Yet what do we gain from the video? Still you only fell the need to post it in this forum, like I said why not in the PS4 thread?
Also that poll was already announced before they changed the whole drm shit and blablabla. I don't think anyone even cares who "won", people will just buy their console who they think will fit the best with their playstyle.

[Zechs-cenarius]

Im just waiting for them to launch the XboxOne and turn around and stick all those features back into the system like a year after launch lol.

[Deleted]

And before the, "OH! BUT PIRATES/HACKERS WILL CRACK THAT!!!!!" They'll crack whatever Microsoft or Sony puts on to restrict them in the first place. Screwing over honest consumers because of issues with hackers/piracy is never acceptable.

Don't be so quick to predict that, the PS3 was damn near uncrackable for the first couple years till someone figured out a weak link in the random number algorithm that was used to encrypt the higher access levels of the OS kernels. Clearly they will not be making this mistake again. (they fixed it shortly after with a new firmware version as well which has not to this date been cracked) Yes the XBox360 was cracked fairly fast and was pirated pretty much its entire lifespan but clearly they learned something too?

It's impossible to predict if they will make another mistake that will compromise the new systems but equally impossible to say for sure that they will.

Obviously they will want to prevent piracy one way or another, authenticating a game online is the best way to do this which is what MS initially wanted to do, since they can't get away with this they have to put in other measures (like requiring the disc in the drive for authentication checks and not allowing sharing/reselling of digital)

Sure they could have kept the 24h checkins for digital only and still allowed the share/resell but i think the whole checkin mechanic just got to much negative press to justify them keeping it even if it only meant for digital.

As for the highly abuseable (as far as how they announced the feature) friend and family program falls into the same boat as digital really, without requiring online there would be no feasible way to properly authenticate the games.

[Jtbrig7390]

As for the highly abuseable (as far as how they announced the feature) friend and family program falls into the same boat as digital really, without requiring online there would be no feasible way to properly authenticate the games.

Like I said they could have gave us the best of both worlds.

If you want friend/family sharing you must buy your game digital and must be online to play said game and to be able to allow people to share it you must ok each person who try's to.

If you want hard copys of games that is fine as well as long as you accept that you can't use family/friend sharing.


It is not hard for Microsoft to still make all the things they wanted to do work its just that they got pissed the game was not being play'ed there way so they took there ball and went home. Gamer's want choice just like everyone else doing everything else when you start taking choice's away people get pissed as you clearly seen.

[Edge-]

As for the highly abuseable (as far as how they announced the feature) friend and family program falls into the same boat as digital really, without requiring online there would be no feasible way to properly authenticate the games.

And I'm fine with that. Features like that requiring a constant online connection is fine, because you still have access to all locally stored games attached to your account when it's offline.

I don't think you'll find many (if any) people who would be against requiring an internet connection to use that optional feature.

[Deleted]

Like I said they could have gave us the best of both worlds.

If you want friend/family sharing you must buy your game digital and must be online to play said game and to be able to allow people to share it you must ok each person who try's to.

If you want hard copys of games that is fine as well as long as you accept that you can't use family/friend sharing.


It is not hard for Microsoft to still make all the things they wanted to do work its just that they got pissed the game was not being play'ed there way so they took there ball and went home. Gamer's want choice just like everyone else doing everything else when you start taking choice's away people get pissed as you clearly seen.

Indeed, but as you said there is just so much negative vibe surrounding the whole online DRM at this point that they most likely just cut out the bad apple altogether to try and restore some interest in the system. (Which seems to have worked looking at pre-order numbers)

Had they left part of the online DRM even if was for digital only it would not have had the same effect of clearly sending the message across.

[Collegeguy]

Is it so hard for people to understand that they are a company. What is the main goal of a company, make money. They never forced you to buy their product nor like it and still people would go mad about it and feel betrayed. They saw the pre-orders and I bet they saw the massive negativity around the xbox one and reversed some of their decisions.

They changed it based on what the customer did. In the end every company will screw you over if that means they can/will get more money out of you.

This is such bad logic. Not every company is Enron. Not every company will go outside ethical standards and get the famous customer choice poo award.

Profits has always meant being good to customers. Profits =/= screwing over your customers. If you can find that in one executive strategy textbook, then I will eat my hat.

[mvaliz]

Is it so hard for people to understand that they are a company. What is the main goal of a company, make money.-snip-

...make money.... through providing excellent, reliant and reputable service for their customers.

Pretty much what you wrote there is not just M$'s problem, but most of America's corporate mentality today from what I've seen here.

It's like all the companies here totally dropped the "Serving" part and just focused on the "making money" part, forgetting that there's this bit in between called "Making the customer happy by providing excellent service".

M$ initially dropped that in favor of just making the publishers happy at THE EXPENSE of their customer base. They've had it all bass-ackwards, and I'm still not convinced they know otherwise right now.

[ranku]

Is it so hard for people to understand that they are a company. What is the main goal of a company, make money. They never forced you to buy their product nor like it and still people would go mad about it and feel betrayed. They saw the pre-orders and I bet they saw the massive negativity around the xbox one and reversed some of their decisions.

They changed it based on what the customer did. In the end every company will screw you over if that means they can/will get more money out of you.

see the problem here is that, yes they exist to make money. but that does not give them the right to pull out anti consumer practices in the first place. as for "no one is forcing you to buy it" well, that's a horrible, horrible, argument. just because you are "not forced" to do something doesn't mean that the ones TRYING TO GET YOU TO are doing the right thing. of course people get mad and feel betrayed with them, and rightfully so. they do this because they see that microsoft had just gone through a thinly veiled attempt at declaring war on the consumer but then turned and ran once their shareholders started complaining about their preorder sales.