Microsoft backtracks on DRM and used games

[Graven Pshya]

What about the seamless switching between games?! Now we have to put in the disc! I really wanted the Xbox One to bring gaming into the future.

 

[Marty Larsson]

Personally i think Microsoft had to make the change, fair enough some people disagree with Xbox One having to track back to the normal features that gamers wanted....Microsofts pockets will be even fatter now that they will have all the people who used xbox 360 were jumping ship to the PS4 a lot of my friends that were actually going to change to Playstation have now reverted back to wanting XB1 a lot of memes etc have been going viral on twitter n Facebook ps4 v xb1 and all the rules they had which put people of in their droves of the xb1 but that has now changed and so has their minds. Microsoft now will be laughing all the way to the bank becus XB1 will sell the way they wanted it to $$$$$$$$$

P.s if they could drop the features that were implemented at the start surely they can gradually add the cooler features in future XB1 updates?

 

[michfan]

Ugh, if Microsoft was better at 'telling' the story and PRing their vision they might have avoided the huge backlash and not have had to reverse their vision...

But, they failed at that and now we lose some really cool things.

100% this, well stated. MS ushered in this controversial new DRM system with a press release the weekend before E3. They were not able to advance a vision that might justify these restrictions at their E3 presentation. Then they added salt to the wound by saying Xbox 360 was for those that the DRM didn't work for. It is MS' fault, and only MS' fault, that they had to reverse course on this. Their failure will be a case study for years to come of how not to sell innovation.

 

[Bicpug]

Disc games will require the disc to play; if MS have any sense they'll only need the physical disk to verify ownership each time you run it then it will run the hdd version.

 

[sinime]

Disc games will require the disc to play; if MS have any sense they'll only need the physical disk to verify ownership each time you run it then it will run the hdd version.

I'm sure it will, just like the PoS4... BD can get too slow for games.

 

[NaNoo123]

Well well well.....
Now its time for people to explain the benefits now that its too late.
http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-one-just-got-way-worse-and-its-our-fault-514411905
Not sure if they wrote an article before about benefits or not to be fair.
Also game prices was held like ps4 but, due to more control etc, prices may have dropped quicker after couple months on sale.

I didn't like the 24 hr check in (felt was possible ways to go offline), but felt ms really mishandled everything by not getting a clear understandable message out.
Wonder how things would've panned out if they could've released year early.

Its amazing how people are now saying they wont buy because they even tried to go this route, cant please some people i guess.
Only thing people can hope for now is that in the future they make digital and physical behave differently to get all the positives that was going to happen.

People ask why is it one or the other, give offline facilities etc. Well the OS/infrastructure wasn't designed to differentiate between disk and digital. So just had to drop it. Maybe in the near future....

 

[Rodrigo Nunes]

Can we still share games with our Family ? and play from our friends house with our account?

Those things were really good.

But I'm Happy now too.

 

[Musicman247]

They have five months to make the check-in and new features optional. It's what they should have done in the first place. Make it optional, then make it attractive and people will flock to it.

And no, Rodrigo. They have decided to make it EXACTLY like this Gen. Frak the haters.

 

[vertigoOne]

They have five months to make the check-in and new features optional. It's what they should have done in the first place. Make it optional, then make it attractive and people will flock to it.

And no, Rodrigo. They have decided to make it EXACTLY like this Gen. Frak the haters.

This is what I will hope for. In fact, why wouldn't downloading a game vs buying a physical disc be the opt-in for the digital centric features? Does not make sense at all to completely backtrack rather than simply make physical discs behave as per usual. Even have an option per account that controls behavior of "installing" the game so that if anyone decided to take advantage of those features down the road they would have the option of transferring the license to digital. As if Microsoft didn't already have enough people irate at them, they go and do something like this to alienate the people that did share their vision.

 

[NaNoo123]

5 months sounds like a long time, but i bet their pressed to even get done the stuff they had to do before this change.

Do agree they should've found a better way first time. That's the trouble when you have good ideas and the bean counters says yea, it all adds up loosing the people who can't get online or don't like it. And not taking into account the emotions.
They knew from last year it would be a massive sell, and just ignored it. Didn't even get their message ready or anything

 

[coip]

To be fair, Microsoft hasn't said if the family share system was gone or not. Microsoft could still allow family share but maybe only for downloaded titles and maybe five friends instead of ten.

They said "Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold", which to me means that the family share plan is out. This infuriates me. I'm angry at the ignorant consumers who didn't realize how much better Microsoft's strategy was, angry at the media for exacerbating the hysteria and confusion, angry at Sony for holding back the industry and forcing Microsoft to do so too, angry at Microsoft for not explaining the benefits properly and now for reneging on the coolest features of their original strategy: this is a major step backwards.

 

[coip]

I wish they gave people the option to choose if they wanted the 24 hr check in or not. For example if I am hooked up to the internet. Check my download to see that I have it so I can play without discs. But if I don't have internet and I used a disc to install make me use the disc. I wonder how difficult that would of been. This change they made almost kills the fast game switching. But luckily for me I am going to try to buy most of my games digitally so I don't lose that feature. I am also disappointed they got rid of the 10 family game share. Oh well I guess. I am glad Microsoft listened to some feedback.

I was thinking similarly. Why not give the option. You buy the game and the second you put it into your console it asks you if you want it to be installed on the hard drive or kept on the disc. If you choose the former, you can have all the benefits of the previous strategy; if you choose the latter, you can have your crappy offline-only experience that you and your ignorant friends think you wanted.

 

[EvilFiek]

In the end, this is Microsoft's and Sony's fault. Microsoft, because they failed to tell their story properly. They should've gone out and explained the benefits of the DRM measures instead of leaving them as a side-note hidden on one of their web sites. I guess if Microsoft had dedicated a 10 minute slot or so at the E3 press conference to explain the benefits of family share, I am confident the public reaction would've been much different.
And Sony's fault for basically holding the video game industry single-handedly back. Can't really blame them for their opportunism, but at the same time it shows how afraid they were of competing with Microsoft on equal footing.
Well, now we got a Xbox 360-2. Thankfully, the 360 has been a fantastic console.

 

[ncxcstud]

This is what I will hope for. In fact, why wouldn't downloading a game vs buying a physical disc be the opt-in for the digital centric features? Does not make sense at all to completely backtrack rather than simply make physical discs behave as per usual. Even have an option per account that controls behavior of "installing" the game so that if anyone decided to take advantage of those features down the road they would have the option of transferring the license to digital. As if Microsoft didn't already have enough people irate at them, they go and do something like this to alienate the people that did share their vision.

Mostly, because as we've already seen people don't use their brains fully at times.

Can you imagine the outcry if there were two sets of games and people bought the physical one expecting it to do the same thing as the digital version? People will 'run out' and go get a game from Gamestop and think, "man I can't wait to share this game with my friends online!" Then, when they get home and get it setup they try to share it and are faced with a

"We're sorry, this game isn't available to share because it is a physical copy of the game. Please purchase and download the digital version to use this feature."

People would go ape if they saw that. Even though it'd be there OWN FAULT that they didn't read the fine print, they'd still whine and complain...

 

[Keith Wallace]

Loss of family share sucks. Ignorance wins.

The only ignorance that won here is the ignorance of Microsoft. They elected to be lazy and play the all-or-nothing game. They could have made a workable hybrid system that could have allowed both the online and disc-based check-ins work together. Instead, they decided that they are not interested in pleasing the entire community, so they listened to the more-vocal group (those against the online check-in).

As had been suggested before (by myself and others) they could have made disc-based check-ins a backup option. The worst-case scenario there would have been having ONE more person (the one offline using the disc) playing the game simultaneously. They could have even settled on only making the primary licensee (in the sharing group) able to use the disc for offline play. There were better options that this, but Microsoft almost seems to want to start fighting among its user base by claiming that the sharing had to die with the allowance of offline play, hoping to blame those who want to play offline for it, rather than the fact that Microsoft didn't want to put forth the effort of creating that hybrid system.

I'm glad the offline play is allowed infdefinitely, don't get me wrong. There were just better ways of handling it, and they elected against them.

 

[_Emi_]

In the end, this is Microsoft's and Sony's fault. Microsoft, because they failed to tell their story properly. They should've gone out and explained the benefits of the DRM measures instead of leaving them as a side-note hidden on one of their web sites. I guess if Microsoft had dedicated a 10 minute slot or so at the E3 press conference to explain the benefits of family share, I am confident the public reaction would've been much different.
And Sony's fault for basically holding the video game industry single-handedly back. Can't really blame them for their opportunism, but at the same time it shows how afraid they were of competing with Microsoft on equal footing.
Well, now we got a Xbox 360-2. Thankfully, the 360 has been a fantastic console.

but what... story? honestly i dont know what people like you expected them to say, but i always understood the purpose of this DRM 24 hours check. only because people covered their eyes and ears it doesnt mean Microsoft told you could share games with 10 persons, play anywhere, dont worry about discs and resell and give it to someone and use used games.
maybe its that other humans are too dumb to understand all those interviews with Xbox guys and news from Xbox site? because I always understood how Microsoft vision was and what they were trying to achieve.
anyway, most people always complained, still today people say "now Microsoft allows resell and play used games" like if that wasn't the case before. so again, only because some people covered their eyes and ears to some stuff, it doesn't mean Microsoft didn't say it.

 

[mrpuny]

Mostly, because as we've already seen people don't use their brains fully at times.

Can you imagine the outcry if there were two sets of games and people bought the physical one expecting it to do the same thing as the digital version? People will 'run out' and go get a game from Gamestop and think, "man I can't wait to share this game with my friends online!" Then, when they get home and get it setup they try to share it and are faced with a

"We're sorry, this game isn't available to share because it is a physical copy of the game. Please purchase and download the digital version to use this feature."

People would go ape if they saw that. Even though it'd be there OWN FAULT that they didn't read the fine print, they'd still whine and complain...

Yeah, but on the Xbox 360 (and now going forward on the Xbox One), digital downloads already work differently than discs with a different licensing scheme (playable on the original console by anyone, and any other console by the original purchaser, can't be resold, etc.) And there are some precedents on PCs as well, such as on the Mac where applications purchased on the OS X app store follow different licensing than retail software purchased from other channels.

Since MS never clarified the family sharing details, I wonder if they just never fully thought out all the issues and then when trying to put together the complete story had an "Oh ****!" moment. Or maybe they felt that requiring online checkins for shared games would be a problem with the public resistance to that and just took it out and made it like the current system.

 

[EvilFiek]

but what... story? honestly i dont know what people like you expected them to say, but i always understood the purpose of this DRM 24 hours check. only because people covered their eyes and ears it doesnt mean Microsoft told you could share games with 10 persons, play anywhere, dont worry about discs and resell and give it to someone and use used games.
maybe its that other humans are too dumb to understand all those interviews with Xbox guys and news from Xbox site? because I always understood how Microsoft vision was and what they were trying to achieve.
anyway, most people always complained, still today people say "now Microsoft allows resell and play used games" like if that wasn't the case before. so again, only because some people covered their eyes and ears to some stuff, it doesn't mean Microsoft didn't say it.

The problem is that Microsoft didn't make the benefits clear to everyone. Family share was only ever mentioned on their website and it has been so often misrepresented in articles in newspapers and even on gaming websites that your average customer basically has no chance to know what it really is. Microsoft didn't really take control of their PR past reveal because the Xbox One quickly became "always online" and "no used games" in the public perception, even though both of those things clearly weren't the case. But once the public starts believing one thing, it's too late to change their mind. Basically, if Microsoft would've handled the PR better post X1 reveal, we might be still awaiting the digital future...

 

[Ordeith]

Petition
http://www.change.org/petitions/xbox-one-give-us-back-the-original-xbox-one#share

 

[MerlotC]

No share "at launch" means still hope for Family Share in the future.....see quote below:

"One of the things we were very excited about was 'wherever we go my games are always with me,' the VP of Xbox Live told Kotaku. "Now, of course, your physical games won’t show up that way. The content you bought digitally will. But you’ll have to bring your discs with you to have your games with you. Similarly, the sharing library [is something] we won't be able to deliver at launch."