XO after E3. Did Xbox One redeem itself?

[Coreldan]

Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends.

How Games Licensing Works on Xbox One

 

[Mystictrust]

I think all MS needs to do is drop the DRM BS and switch it back to requiring the disk to be inserted to be able to play. Just as a key, not to run off of.

The problem with that is that new features they have such as your ten family members playing any shared game in your library and no disc required are kind of nice little extras. But the 24 hour restriction blows. So how about a logical way to address both issues?:

• 
  When a disc is in the console, the system will NOT need to phone home every 24 hours. DRM is unlocked for that game. They have proven with the Xbox 360 that they can identify the disc and then stop it from spinning, and they can have the same hardware/software checks as on the 360 to ensure the game disc itself is legit. Since there can only be one disc for each game, this also solves the problem of lending games to friends, or even rentals via GameFly.

And what about games without discs? The system should operate for that in a similar fashion to the way it operates NOW on the 360 for arcade and games on demand. Games on the console they are initially installed to can be played by anyone on that console without signing in (this they have confirmed) BUT there should also be no 24 hour checks for these games. These games can't be transferred in any way, and the system they have in place right now for it is perfect.... including transferring content licenses to another console if the first one needs repairs or it gets sold for a newer console refresh design. If one of your 10 family members is accessing this game from another console... well, they have to be online anyway so 24 hour checks wouldn't make sense anyway. But, for redundancy, sure they can do 24 hour checks on remote consoles to ensure the games are only being accessed by one of the 10 family members.

I completely understand one of the reasons for why selling games is so dang complicated - how do they ensure you've wiped the game from your system? Using my above example, you could install to your machine, then sell it, then the person you sold it to will not be able to ever use the game without a disc - and as long as your system checks in every 24 hours, you could continue to play the game you sold. So that wouldn't work. [BIf they have a system in place for playing without the disc, it's a thorny issue.[/B] What if every single game comes with a one-time use CD-key, and if you want to sell the game, there's a process you could go through on your console to generate another one-time use CD-key for your potential buyer? This process would wipe the game from your hard drive, and remove your rights, so that the next person could install and play without CD if they wanted to.

But even if they did work out a system, Microsoft would have to completely DROP this whole idea of giving devs residuals on used games if they want to eliminate the uproar on the used game selling process.

Me personally, if they implemented the example I pointed out above with eliminating 24 hour checks for discs in the system, I would be happy. The CD key issue would be tricky, but it's just an example of something they could do as an alternative.

 

[DavidinCT]

Essentially they said you can. If I remember right, there were slides that said 'play used games, sell used games, buy used games'. Something like that. Implying that Sony will impose no restrictions. Your last question could be the kicker here. THEY don't support or impose any sort of DRM. Whether they leave it up to pubs and devs to decide for themselves.... That seems unclear as of now.

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See, I saw the whole Xbox E3 thing but did not see the Sony PS4 one(just what I read here and engadget/Weave). I'm going to try to find a stream of it to see what I missed.

Everyone could be hyping up the PS4 because of what they said but, if all the devs have their way, there wont be any used games. This still falls in my guidlines, Digital downloads is one thing but, physical media is a whole different thing.

The problem with that is that new features they have such as your ten family members playing any shared game in your library and no disc required are kind of nice little extras. But the 24 hour restriction blows. So how about a logical way to address both issues?:

• When a disc is in the console, the system will NOT need to phone home every 24 hours. DRM is unlocked for that game. They have proven with the Xbox 360 that they can identify the disc and then stop it from spinning, and they can have the same hardware/software checks as on the 360 to ensure the game disc itself is legit. Since there can only be one disc for each game, this also solves the problem of lending games to friends, or even rentals via GameFly.

.

They should make it, Physical disk rules. I wonder how they are going to do this, will each disc have a serial number of some type ?

If so, this is the way it should work, at least in my eyes...
1. Install to your system, use with out the disk. If the disk is used on another system (accept on your family list), it disables it from your system till you put the game disc back in.
2. No 24 hour checks, if you are online, play the game off your drive(because it can check), IF you are off line, you need the disc to play the game.
3. Make GameStop and other large used game sellers pay a small fee for each used game sold, they aready rip people off on used games, they should take a small $2-5 hit on their sales (under 30 days after release, $5, under 45 days, $4, etc).
4. Digital sales should stay the exact way they are now, accept family use (same subnet/network), Once you buy a digital game you own it, it's not transferable in anyway.

I think this model would make everyone happy. You can sell your game to someone you dont know or even on ebay, you just lose your rights as soon as someone puts in their drive. When this market changes, where there is not discs in every store, then this drm thing will work as MS wants it to but, as of now it cant work as it's doing more damage than it is helping....and MS is digging a big hole that they need to find a way out to make gamers happy.

After all, gamers are the people who will by the system (at least most of them) and they are the people you want to make happy here..

 

[nufan947]

See, I saw the whole Xbox E3 thing but did not see the Sony PS4 one(just what I read here and engadget/Weave). I'm going to try to find a stream of it to see what I missed.

Everyone could be hyping up the PS4 because of what they said but, if all the devs have their way, there wont be any used games. This still falls in my guidlines, Digital downloads is one thing but, physical media is a whole different thing.

I agree. It could get hairy for everyone, but I sure hope it doesn't. It's a difficult situation because I understand where devs are coming from and 'losing money' on used game sales, but do I think Activision needs more money than the ridiculous amounts they already receive in profits to make ANOTHER g--damn Call of Duty game? Hell no. Do I think Supergiant Games deserves more money to make more incredible games like Bastion? Hell yes, but the indies, who are the devs that actually need the money in the first place, are already charging well below the new norm for game prices and so I think are much more likely to have people paying the price for a new game. It's certainly a philosophical problem, and not one with an easy answer, but that's my stance.

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[Mystictrust]

It's more that the rules and restrictions are ridiculous to try and remember and wrap your head around. Microsoft is really not doing anything to make it easy to play used games - you can only sell it once? You can't loan it to someone? You can have ten people play from your shared library but only one person at a time? And then they say things like 'anyone can play any game on your console even if you aren't logged in' as if that's some big favor we should be stoked about. Um. That sounds like basic common sense to me.

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So... the restriction that only one of your ten family members can play your game at a time is some groundbreaking revolution in restriction that sucks for gamers? I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing how that is any different than it should be... I mean, should 10 people be able to share and play the same game at the same time? I will eat my words if they actually allow that because that would be AWESOME but I don't see that happening. It MAKES SENSE that the game can only be played by one person at a time - particularly if they are sharing the game for free with family/friends. You can't even do that NOW. You can only be logged in to the same gamertag on one 360 at a time right now, and I'm sure that's to combat playing the same game at the same time. Unless I am completely misunderstanding you, that just seems like throwing in extra stuff to make Xbox One look even worse. Trust me, Microsoft doesn't need any extra help on making themselves look bad and restrictive... playing a game one person at a time is how it has always been.

I think them specifying 'anyone can play any game on your console even if you aren't logged in' was more so to let people know that is how it will work. People were already worried about having to have their gamertag signed in all the time, even at home, so that their family or friends could play their game. This is just confirmation that it will work as it currently does... that all games will work on the system they are initially installed to. Do you really think if they said nothing that people would just say, "Well, they definitely will let my family/friends play on my console without me having to sign in - that's just common sense"? No, it's a new console with a brand new way of doing things - they needed to at least confirm that

 

[nufan947]

^ I agree that I think it's pretty cool that someone can play your library from anywhere. I actually wasn't trying to make it seem like a point against the XB1 - I was just listing it as one of the rules that, when combined with all the other rules about sharing and playing used games, becomes kind of a headache to remember.

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[Coreldan]

I'm still itching to know what defines a family.. is it something like shared payment model that is required? Cos the idea of gathering up all my Xbox playing friends into the family and have a huge library to share with each other sounds quite good. But I guess there will be some catch to avoid this kind of stuff other than only one being able to play it at one time.

 

[MacDaMachine]

I'm still itching to know what defines a family.. is it something like shared payment model that is required? Cos the idea of gathering up all my Xbox playing friends into the family and have a huge library to share with each other sounds quite good. But I guess there will be some catch to avoid this kind of stuff other than only one being able to play it at one time.

Everyone on your console more than likely.

 

[martinmc78]

Essentially they said you can. If I remember right, there were slides that said 'play used games, sell used games, buy used games'. Something like that. Implying that Sony will impose no restrictions. Your last question could be the kicker here. THEY don't support or impose any sort of DRM. Whether they leave it up to pubs and devs to decide for themselves.... That seems unclear as of now.

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Its not unclear at all if you think about it - Game devs will definitely add DRM to stop piracy. Its typical Sony saying one thing to get a positive reaction while leaving out the underhand kicker that's bound to come along. You think any of the top 5 publishers wont ship any of its games to PS4 without some form of DRM even if its just a single use code for online play like they have on battlefield 3 now. Yes you can sell it but when the next person buys it they have to pay EA for another code before they go online.

The public will cry "But Sony you said no DRM, you lied, I'm suing." and Sony will reply "The DRM hasn't come from us, cant sue, not our problem"

People are going on like they will be able to swap, trade and sell with no restrictions. In the real world that's just not going to happen.

 

[ncxcstud]

You only need one gold account on your system to let everyone take advantage of xbl gold without having the gold account signed in. So, those of you with kids with their own accounts (or a significant other, or those with roommates) don't need to have separate good accounts for each person.

Your daughter wants to play online? Go ahead dear, you can play on your own account.

Want to show off titanfall to your friend, but don't want them messing with your account? Go ahead. They can play online on their own now.

You can't do that on Xbox right now. And it doesn't look like you'll have that freedom on ps4 now that you need ps+ to play online.

 

[ncxcstud]

Everyone on your console more than likely.

If i remember, they mentioned sharing with family like your cousin... That implies it is over the cloud and not restricted to those on the same network.

 

[nufan947]

You only need one gold account on your system to let everyone take advantage of xbl gold without having the gold account signed in.

Was this explicitly stated by Microsoft? I didn't see this anywhere. I'd like to see a link cause this would be pretty cool.

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[Erickson187]

Will they allow multiple to play online at the same time? This would be something that would be helpful for those with multiple boxes who boost some of the tedious achievements.

 

[Coreldan]

Everyone on your console more than likely.

It was said that it's not restricted to your console only. Everyone can play everything on your local console, but the family members (max 10) can also play anything in your library even on a foreign console.

Was this explicitly stated by Microsoft? I didn't see this anywhere. I'd like to see a link cause this would be pretty cool.

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http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/22/4354646/xbox-live-gold-memberships-apply-to-both-xbox-one-and-360 Not sure where to find the original source, but this has been pretty common knowledge for a while.

 

[ncxcstud]

Was this explicitly stated by Microsoft? I didn't see this anywhere. I'd like to see a link cause this would be pretty cool.

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I'm pretty sure it was mentioned in the press conference yesterday.

 

[Mystictrust]

I'm still itching to know what defines a family.. is it something like shared payment model that is required? Cos the idea of gathering up all my Xbox playing friends into the family and have a huge library to share with each other sounds quite good. But I guess there will be some catch to avoid this kind of stuff other than only one being able to play it at one time.

Sometime early this year, Microsoft shuttered the "Xbox Live Gold Family Pack". To add family members, they had to be on your same console when you added them, but they could go anywhere after that. I signed up with my then-girlfriend who I was living with, and two other friends in another state. They each gave me their live ID and password (one of them changed their pass for me, just so they could change it back later and I wouldn't know it). I recovered both of their gamertags on my console, and added everybody to the family pack. They then recovered their gamertags to their own consoles, I deleted from my console, and we all had Xbox Live Gold for two years at an incredible price (since we all had some Gold time remaining on our individual accounts when we signed up for the family pack, it ended up costing us EACH about $15 total to bump the group up to 24 months of Gold. Everyone basically shared what they already had, and since I was the "lead" family member, my gold time dropped the price to practically nothing)

You want to know the catch? It will probably be the same (note that these are all assumptions based on the family pack. I have no knowledge of how it may actually work): Every family member, aside from the "lead", will operate as if they are on a child account. They can apply points cards (or "real currency" cards I guess now) but won't be able to buy stuff with their credit/debit cards on their account. Some might have issues with downloading certain M rated DLC or movies, and the lead family member will have to ensure that the correct permissions are set. When the XBL terms and conditions are changed, the family members are not able to "accept" the new terms without the lead family member signing in to accept for them. For my friends, I recovered their gamertags to my console (you don't need passwords to recover gamertags of family members once they are in your pack) and accepted for them. One of them didn't even know I accepted the terms for him, since he hadn't signed in before I recovered and accepted for him.

It was still a bit of a hassle, and ultimately both the friends decided to leave the family pack when the two years were up - one wanted to pay for points with a card again, the other was tired of needing my permission for some things (wasn't often, but sometimes DLC is age-restricted).

If Microsoft works that out, it coiuld be great. With the family pack, you could set your family members with "adult" permissions, but it didn't seem to fully do the trick

 

[martinmc78]

Just getting off the whole DRM and game sharing issue - I just wanted to share one of my highlights from the presentation that I had to watch 3 times to make sure I got what I was seeing.

On the smartglass section - She (sorry cant remember name) had Ryse info on the surface and looking at her progress and comparing it to a friend. She then went from smartglass straight to her last save point in the game on the xbox seamlessly while smartglass continued tracking progress - then when the invite for KI came in she switched game with a voice command right into a match using the matchmaking features. No saving time in Ryse to slow things down and no load up time for KI - it was an almost instant switch

Sorry but that blew my mind. Not even having a game on at the time looking at progress on a tablet while waiting for a KI match then going from tablet to game then straight to another game.

Does no one realise the awesome sauce that's all over this? How can anyone possibly want a PS4 after that little 3 minute demo.

I can be watching tv (nothing interesting) while looking at my stats on Battlefield 4 on my surface set matchmaking going then use my surface to check out progress on spark instantly start playing on spark (to the annoyance of my girlfriend who was finding tv interesting) do a little bit of game construction then bam straight into massive multiplayer carnage on Battlefield.

Now compare that to PS4 - YOU CANNOT!!!

 

[nufan947]

Just getting off the whole DRM and game sharing issue - I just wanted to share one of my highlights from the presentation that I had to watch 3 times to make sure I got what I was seeing.

I will admit, that sounds pretty fantastic. I wonder how deep the PS4 integration with Vita goes. Those types of things may very well be possible - and the idea that you can play a game on the Vita and the PS4 is handling the processing power, now THAT is also fantastic.

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[Coreldan]

Indeed, even if the Live TV things wont all completely work for me here in Finland, I'm happy with just the TV coming as passthru, I will see messages etc while watching TV or game invites etc and no need to change inputs with remotes or cables. I guess for some it aint much and rather just do it manually, but I value that kinda stuff (and what martin said) quite highly if buying a new device. That's the reason why I love Windows 8 for example, just the OS-wide notifications etc are great.

I will admit, that sounds pretty fantastic. I wonder how deep the PS4 integration with Vita goes. Those types of things may very well be possible - and the idea that you can play a game on the Vita and the PS4 is handling the processing power, now THAT is also fantastic.

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I don't know anyone but one online friend from US who even owns a Vita..

 

[martinmc78]

I will admit, that sounds pretty fantastic. I wonder how deep the PS4 integration with Vita goes. Those types of things may very well be possible - and the idea that you can play a game on the Vita and the PS4 is handling the processing power, now THAT is also fantastic.

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I agree the Vita integration is pretty good - and they definitely need to do something with it to revive sales they are harder to spot in the wild than a windows phone