Good post, dude. Very fair points. I was also thinking having the disk in the drive would be a good backup, but the more i think about it, I don't know if that would work with the way MS is wanting to go.
The XBox One is basically a Steam Box. Sure they have physical disks, but I think it's more of a way to get the digital copy on the machine without having to download a massive file. If I buy a disk, or download it from online, the XBox One treats it the same way.
Sony, and I'm just speculating until we get more details, is staying with the same old method of requiring the disk to be in the drive in order to play. Which is fine, wouldn't bother me. If you download it online, you wouldn't need a disk which makes sense because they don't have any of the cool sharing features that the XB1 has so they don't need online checks.
Now, XB1 lets me toss away the disk after I install but has online checks. If it let me use the disk as a failsafe without internet, I could easily just install the game on an online machine and turn around and sell it to somebody with an offline machine and we could both play which is technically in violation of the software license.
But what happens if that user then goes online and the game tries to register? Does it break your ability to play the game, or does the original license holder have to give permission to transfer the license, or is the user just SOL? It could get messy.
So the online check is there for DRM, no doubt, but it's also there to help facilitate some of the features like sharing games with your family, or actually selling your license back. It also means that there is potential to sell my online only downloads, where in the past once I buy them, I'm stuck with them for life.
Make no mistake, it is a very different world especially since I've been popping physical disks/carts into games since the Atari 2600. Microsoft might not "win" this round, but it's the direction everything is going. I have no doubt they will still be very profitable reguardless of how many consoles they sell.
Hard core or even mid line gamers who are adults or have a good job seem to forget about this. As someone who did custom home theater installs for years in homes, I saw this a lot more than you think. Xbox 360s and PS3s with no internet connections in kids rooms is very common. The parents dont want the kids to have internet access in their rooms, only a computer in a kitchen or main room so they can be montored. A lot of parents feel that way with all the bad press of things happening on the internet these days, I can fully understand. A lot of parents still feel a video game console is a toy to entertain their kids (a modern babysitter).
This is a big point in sales for these consoles, kids under 15 who have systems in their rooms with no internet connections. It's more common than you think.
Microsoft just blacklisted these people. Yea, the Xbox One pre-orders are selling out to the hard core gamers or people well off but, the main sales come later, when everyone picks up the system. With these systems blacklisted and parents who buy a big junk of these systems will have to think about it, or it will end up with a very high return rate because of this factor.
This is a lot bigger amount of sales than you think. This will make a large impact on sales in the long run. I am not talking about when it's released but, over the next year or 2 after release, yea it will be a big deal and sales will show it.
As I sit here and complain about this, because it could effect me at 1 or 2 times a year (that time when Internet is down and I WANT to play a game at that time), I still think it's an issue. Microsoft needs to be 100% clear and honest about the details on this. They have not been, this is what is causing an outrage on the internet.
All they would have to change is when a Physical disk is inside the machine, no internet is needed to use that game (as long as cloud is not needed for a single player game), it would solve this issue, it would make most people happy here and would not blacklist these possable sales.