Dropped DRM: Why I cancelled my order and so should you.

[Keith Wallace]

While MS communication was very poor, the "reversal" is not the end. MS can now slowly roll these features out, since the equipment was built to support, as the public's willingness to adopt the new paradigm increases.

Exactly this. What I think has happened is that Microsoft had their Xbox team made the disc system beforehand as a backup, just in case there was this backlash against the new system. I'm guessing that they'll now TRY to work out a hybrid system, but they reverted to the disc-based system until that can be arranged.

 

[Keith Wallace]

In all honesty, no person should tell other people what to get and what not to get.

That's how your technologically-incompetent aunt ends up buying a laptop, taking it back, buying another, being unable to take it back, buying a third laptop, and putting the second on eBay.

 

[DavidinCT]

Actually, MS clarified it multiple times. People didn't want to hear it. They were concerned with overly dramatic headlines. How many times have they said start screen, and people are still complaining about a start button. They can't advertise intelligence. They made a major announcement before E3,and people still didn't want to hear it.

No they didn't. Microsoft should of had EVERYTHING lined up and told everything at the orginal press statement of the X1 for everyone to make a educated choice. They didn't, they touched on "some" of the things you can do and hit hard on "things you cant do" with a TON of questions. From this point the press blew up with it and the outrage over the internet blew up.

As a consumer, it is not my job to have to go through 25 web sites to assemble information on how the system will work. This should of been laid out 100% with every detail at the show and a press statement right away. Not little tidbits on ever other site, or from an agressive press guy. I, as someone who loves video games and follow the sites, I had to look over a bunch of blogs just to get a solid idea before finding out if it's right or wrong.

We all knew DRM was coming and even on the 360, it is there (Digital downloads). Microsoft in one breath tried to move a system that has ALWAYS been mostly based on phsycal media and turn it to a 100% digital model with out "sugarcoating" it. Then they say there is 24 hour checks or you cant play ANY games you have, even phsical discs, this blew up the internet. It's human nature to be defensive, and when your taking away some rights, people are going to fight it, no mater what the advantages are on it.

This was a PR nightmare for Microsoft and instead of working with people, they took the cry baby route with it, you dont like parts of it, we are taking it all away. They could of made some pulbic suggestions on the internet, give a few options and let people vote on it over 2-3 weeks as it's a software change, not hardware.

Love it or hate it, did anyone acutally think no one would say anything about them making a phsical disc almost worthless for private resale or your system needing to connect to the internet every 24 hours or your cant play a game ? Did they actually think about people who have a problem with internet connections ? People who have NO access to internet at their home ? How about our about people on a sub ? (sorry had to add that last one)

Microsoft should of gone with the softer route with this, allow physical discs to be treated like now and push the advantage of having a digital download (features, sharing, etc) with discounts every month towards full retail games. Once people saw the advanage of having a digital copy, more and more people would want to move that way with buying games, something that would happen over the next few years, not overnight.

If they could redo it, I would stay, kill the 24 hour checks (not really needed if you have digtial downloads), keep Phsycal Media like it is now, and treat digtial downloads as the old DRM model, promote the hell out of it, it will be huge over the next few years. Microsoft would be where they want and people who liked the DRM model could get those features if they buy their games over xbox live.

By just pulling everything away, they just made another PR mess.


PS. For the subject on hand, I didn't pre-order it and not sure if I will. I know for a fact *if* I wait it out, there will be a bunch of promos (get a free game or 2, or discount toward games) right before release. If I am going to pre-order, I will wait till then. Every large item, system or game that has had big hype over the last few years, I have been able to walk into a few stores and just pick one up.

 

[easyrun99]

I agree to an extent. MS should have anticipated the response to the DRM, pseudo-always-on model they were presenting. Plenty of reports had leaked these possibilities and the response was lackluster at best.

With that said, I didn't order either console until MS reversal, and then ordered the One. It was not that I had an issue with their new model/services. I simply don't have a "great" DSL service and only one provider. As a result, I was concerned about my ability to really take advantage. Now, hopefully, our high-speed services will improve over time as MS rolls out these features.

 

[AngryNil]

It's okay to try and fail...

The whole reason why Microsoft unveiled the XB1 with all the DRM and policies is because that was its vision of the future of the "gaming console". Microsoft definitely wanted to try. Thank the awful entitled gamers and bloggers who decided to absolutely obliterate the XB1, in most cases for reasons that were really just pure FUD.

But walking into what seemed to be failure is not necessarily an option. If the Xbox One is a Wii U, Microsoft would lose its major "cool" consumer success over the past decade, and really, a strong brand that could tie together gaming and bolster all its products.

 

[nasellok]

They should make it something that you can opt into - if you like the idea of always on (my devices are always connected, so it would make absolutely no difference to me), then opt into DRM policy.......if you dont like the idea, then physical media and disc based game for you.......this should be their compromise to appease the whining babies out there swearing off of MS for Sony........I say have fun with your PS4, and that horrible interface that comes with it.

 

[mister2d]

Re: NEW DRM: Why I cancelled my order and so should you.

What facts do you base your judgment on. I do work for the DOD, I graduated from a reputable engineering school (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), and when you see the company you saw potential in making knee-jerk decisions maybe it is time to sell. Do you want to see my cancelation receipt. I just believe that the ignorant are controlling the intelligent. This was the case here.

Ok, I'm late replying back... Didn't know the thread got reopened.

You say MS made a knee-jerk decision to go back on their plans. I don't think it was knee-jerk. They were reacting to customer feedback.

What I thought was unrealistic is someone who owned stock in MSFT (you), and wanted to sell it based off this piece of news. MSFT's share price has made significant increase since Jan 2012. Any true investor in MSFT would do themselves a disservice if they sold off a piece of news that hasn't panned out yet.

 

[vertigoOne]

Re: NEW DRM: Why I cancelled my order and so should you.

Ok, I'm late replying back... Didn't know the thread got reopened.

You say MS made a knee-jerk decision to go back on their plans. I don't think it was knee-jerk. They were reacting to customer feedback.

What I thought was unrealistic is someone who owned stock in MSFT (you), and wanted to sell it based off this piece of news. MSFT's share price has made significant increase since Jan 2012. Any true investor in MSFT would do themselves a disservice if they sold off a piece of news that hasn't panned out yet.

It is actually funny, I keep an eye on MSFT stock and yesterday when it was plunging I was concerned...but then I saw some news that the whole market was doing the same thing. Poor timing...but yeah, I bought stock back around January at around 24 per share and it has been bouncing between 34 and 35 for about a month now.

 

[Savin Nay Wangtal]

Thing is, this all happened already, which is why the change occurred. Microsoft changed the game management policies without thinking about how the group could be inconvenienced (such as military members and those in rural areas). People spoke with their wallets (sorry, we don't all have pocketbooks, hah), and that's part of why there were big preorder differences being reported.

Microsoft realized that not only were those who wouldn't be able to rely on their Internet going to pass on the console, but there were many who would pass simply on principal of inconvenience to those who were being forcibly removed from the Xbox One experience with that online requirement. Those two groups likely outweigh those such as yourself, who will avoid the console because it doesn't offer MORE than the PlayStation, in terms of game management, but rather policies on-par with what Sony has in-place.

Those such as yourself are free to speak with your pocketbooks (something I ALWAYS encourage those who are not satisfied to do--I did it for about 5.5 years with EA), but I think the issue here is that the group who will do so on your side of the aisle is smaller than the pro-disc opposition.

MS was trying to replicate Blizzard's model with Diablo3. That worked kinda OK, mainly because the it's Blizzard, and it has people's good faith. And even then, the game did went through a whole lotta PR problem.

The thing is that most people in the US will be able to play the XBone just fine. But those outside of the US are pretty much screwed, as any "cloud" functionality would be severely slow. To put it simply, least latency I could get connected to a server in the US is 250ms, at about 3 in the morning. Any other time, and I am looking at 500ms latency. Now, if MS would plonk a Server farm in Singapore and China, then yeah, life would be better. But would they? I don't think so.

And the worse thing is definitely that MS figured they'd just call gamers a buncha trash, insult us over and over, and then expect to get away with it. No, not this time.

 

[Keith Wallace]

The whole reason why Microsoft unveiled the XB1 with all the DRM and policies is because that was its vision of the future of the "gaming console". Microsoft definitely wanted to try. Thank the awful entitled gamers and bloggers who decided to absolutely obliterate the XB1, in most cases for reasons that were really just pure FUD.

People REALLY need to use a dictionary before they type things. Do you get what "entitled," means? How does wanting to play games offline make you "entitled?" No one's asking for free stuff or saying that they DESERVE a different console. They're saying that the console does not function in a way that they want, so they are not buying that product. That's called ECONOMICS. People weren't going to buy what they didn't want, so Microsoft changed what they were selling to get more customers. That's not the result of entitled complainers, that's the result of disapproving consumers.

 

[martinmc78]

MS was trying to replicate Blizzard's model with Diablo3. That worked kinda OK, mainly because the it's Blizzard, and it has people's good faith. And even then, the game did went through a whole lotta PR problem.

The thing is that most people in the US will be able to play the XBone just fine. But those outside of the US are pretty much screwed, as any "cloud" functionality would be severely slow. To put it simply, least latency I could get connected to a server in the US is 250ms, at about 3 in the morning. Any other time, and I am looking at 500ms latency. Now, if MS would plonk a Server farm in Singapore and China, then yeah, life would be better. But would they? I don't think so.

And the worse thing is definitely that MS figured they'd just call gamers a buncha trash, insult us over and over, and then expect to get away with it. No, not this time.

That network of servers is global - there isn't going to be a big warehouse somewhere holding all of those 300,000 servers that would be ridiculous. You really think the rest of the world logs into xbox live now and everything goes through the US?

 

[Keith Wallace]

MS was trying to replicate Blizzard's model with Diablo3. That worked kinda OK, mainly because the it's Blizzard, and it has people's good faith. And even then, the game did went through a whole lotta PR problem.

The thing is that most people in the US will be able to play the XBone just fine. But those outside of the US are pretty much screwed, as any "cloud" functionality would be severely slow. To put it simply, least latency I could get connected to a server in the US is 250ms, at about 3 in the morning. Any other time, and I am looking at 500ms latency. Now, if MS would plonk a Server farm in Singapore and China, then yeah, life would be better. But would they? I don't think so.

And the worse thing is definitely that MS figured they'd just call gamers a buncha trash, insult us over and over, and then expect to get away with it. No, not this time.

1. Diablo III was a disaster on multiple fronts. Between the server issues and the general hatred of the Real-Money Auction House, there are/were a lot of upset players. Blizzard's been losing that "good faith," for some time, as witnessed by the frequent drops in subscriptions to WoW.

2. I don't think that Microsoft is keeping all 300,000 servers in the U.S. I might be wrong, but I'd imagine that they would have them in other parts of the world, to prevent excessive lag. I'm not sure on that, but I would think that having some servers around the globe would be smart.

 

[NaNoo123]

People still seem to be mixing up drm with the cloud computing, that has not changed at all. Titanfall, forza and any other games in the future that was going to use the 'cloud' to some extent will still do.

Some games net access will be mandatory, bit like mmo's do, some will take advantage if you have net, some will not require net at all.

300k servers is world wide not just usa

 

[HeyCori]

I mentioned this in another thread so I'll be brief. What makes the XO unique in comparison to WP8 and W8 is infrastructure. The risk is minimized because the necessary components were established years ago. Smartphones antennas can support 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE and even CMDA. There's few parts of the world where a smartphone can't get at least some sort of data connection. Furthermore, mobile APUs are incredibly advanced and widely available. The same with capacity touchscreens. All Microsoft has to do is create the OS, market the OS and bring more apps to the platform. The rest is basically done for them. It's the same for Windows 8. The hardware already exists and Windows isn't dependent on being "always on."

But the infrastructure to maintain an always-on video game console just isn't there. Rural areas of America can't get decent broadband. Smartphone tethering isn't widespread and, in many cases, not financially viable. ISPs purposely overcharge for terrible download speeds. Does anyone really want to pay Comcast $40 bones a month for a measly 3Mbps connection? If you live in an area where you can only get Comcast, then yes, that's exactly what you're paying. In the time it takes you to download a 20GB next gen game on a 3Mbps connection you can go to the store, buy the game, get home, install the game and probably be playing before the download finishes. And several countries don't have reliable internet either. Heck, the system couldn't even make a worldwide launch.

I bet the internet community played a large part in Microsoft's decision to reverse the DRM. However, I think there's a legitimate technical hurdle that Microsoft could not overcome which would have cost them millions in sales. I'm disappointed that we won't get a more "Steam-like" console because I believe in supporting the devs (and I believe in cheap digital downloads, lol). But it's probably better if Microsoft waits another 8-10 years until the world is truly ready for a DD only console. Unfortunately, without real competition in the broadband market, 8-10 years still might not be enough.

With that said vovakyan, canceling your pre-order only moves Microsoft's plans back even further. If you're not supporting DD then neither can Microsoft. As long as GameStop holds all the cards then Microsoft/developers will keep pumping out discs. I think this thread has some good information as to why used games are actually stagnating the market.

 

[Keith Wallace]

But the infrastructure to maintain an always-on video game console just isn't there. Rural areas of America can't get decent broadband. Smartphone tethering isn't widespread and, in many cases, not financially viable. ISPs purposely overcharge for terrible download speeds. Does anyone really want to pay Comcast $40 bones a month for a measly 3Mbps connection? If you live in an area where you can only get Comcast, then yes, that's exactly what you're paying. In the time it takes you to download a 20GB next gen game on a 3Mbps connection you can go to the store, buy the game, get home, install the game and probably be playing before the download finishes. And several countries don't have reliable internet either. Heck, the system couldn't even make a worldwide launch.

I bet the internet community played a large part in Microsoft's decision to reverse the DRM. However, I think there's a legitimate technical hurdle that Microsoft could not overcome which would have cost them millions in sales. I'm disappointed that we won't get a more "Steam-like" console because I believe in supporting the devs (and I believe in cheap digital downloads, lol). But it's probably better if Microsoft waits another 8-10 years until the world is truly ready for a DD only console. Unfortunately, without real competition in the broadband market, 8-10 years still might not be enough.

I have a 3Mbps DSL connection. You can BEAT a disc-based game in the time it would take to finish a 20GB install. 20 GB = 21,474,836,480 bytes. That is 171,798,691,840 bits. I get 3 Mbps, or 3,145,728 bits per-second. That install would therefore take 54,613.3 seconds. That's 910.2 minutes. That's 15.17 hours. I can literally beat the entirety of a game fast than that. In some cases, I could beat TWO games faster than that.

That's where pushing digital downloads fails right now. Granted, I could switch to $60/month cable Internet and get either 15 Mbps or 25 Mbps (I can't recall), but that's another $40 or so, and that's every month. However, there is just too great a pool of people who cannot afford high-speed broadband to serve an all-digital gaming service, if games are truly in that 20GB area. Once you start getting into that 15-25 Mbps range, you're getting near a reasonable 2-3 hours to wait for a download, and that's what we'll need to get the majority of people near for DL speeds before we can try forcing people onto an all-digital platform. I mean, imagine when we near the end of the generation, and games maybe look like they're approaching the Blu-Ray (dual-layer) limit of 50 GB? On a 3 Mbps connection, that's almost 38 hours to wait.

 

[vovakyan]

Cori and everyone else,

I want to clarify a few things. I think MSFT has potential and this was a step back. Like I have said before, I am a MSFT guy. The people that originally preordered the console liked the DRM policy, now that has been changed. If they do not cancel then MSFT won't get the message. If things are launched the way they are, why would they want to change?

As for cloud computing, MSFT said they would still support it. I bet they will, but will developers, if they know that people aren't going to be online? And if people argue that most people are online anyways then we took a step back.

Major changes in innovation do not come with the infrastructure first, but the technology. Did we build the highway system or the vehicle first? Did we build electrical infrastructure or the light bulb? Did we put in a sewage system before we had flushing toilets? The point is innovation leads infrastructure. If we don't let that innovation happen then no one will capitalize on the infrastructure. That's how we have made so much progress in so little time, and also why we might me plateauing. When all of those technological advancement were made it took time for the infrastructure to catch up. There are still places where there are no paved roads should we all use horse and buggy?

 

[Elephant2000]

Microsoft's chief of interactive entertainment, Don Mattrick admits the xbox one was a "flop" - YouTube

 

[theeboredone]

It is a bit surprising that MS wasn't prepared for the backlash. There were so many rumors leading up to their X1 reveal about the DRM stuff. Most notably the Adam Orth "Deal With It" tweet. With all those rumors, seeing the reaction, and then seeing the reaction at the X1 reveal...you figure they would've gotten it together and released information in a rightful manner.

 

[vovakyan]

Yup its the 1980's all over again.

 

[Keith Wallace]

It is a bit surprising that MS wasn't prepared for the backlash. There were so many rumors leading up to their X1 reveal about the DRM stuff. Most notably the Adam Orth "Deal With It" tweet. With all those rumors, seeing the reaction, and then seeing the reaction at the X1 reveal...you figure they would've gotten it together and released information in a rightful manner.

I'm pretty sure that they WERE prepared, and that's why they were able to revert to the old system so quickly. I really think that they had the old system created as a backup to this new one, just in case people didn't like the new DRM policies.