The Official Xbox One Thread

[thecapsaicinkid]

the titles ARE available digitally already if they so choose

Let me grab some crayons and a flipchart and explain again.

We both agree that digital is the future so; with the previous policy on the One I could gain all the benefits of digital with competitive retail pricing and with (some) ability to sell/trade/share those games. With the new policy, I pay whatever MS is charging with zero pricing competition and I can't sell or trade my digital games in any capacity. Make sense?

But yes, my console has to check online for a valid license and not the disk itself but apparently this is evil DRM and the other sort is perfectly-ok DRM. If you don't trust Microsoft with your digital licenses then that's your prerogative. My tin-foil hat isn't on quite so tight.

p.s I'm a Linux/Android using, open-source software developing hippy who's pre-ordered a PS4.

 

[Arkaign]

Huh? How would the change affect pricing? They could determine pricing both ways, only somewhat more restricted with the previous setup with them determining used prices internally.

As stated, there's nothing preventing them from allowing trade/sell/sharing of digitally distributed titles. They could simply have a 'digital' mode that enables the 24hr check, and use the previous infrastructure as it was.

I personally don't think that they would have given much of anything for 'used' digital titles at all. This isn't a dig at MS, this is just the truth about how corporations want to deal with digital licensing. They already look at used games as equal to piracy. Anything that would enable players to get games outside of their idealized pricing structure would be significantly frowned upon, and only given paper-thin lip service.

 

[Tweak155]

People whining they 'lost' something from the drm change apparently fail to realize MS can still implement these rules for dd. They're choosing not to. Whine at them... Fighting for what you should be able to do with your own property is not a negative.

 

[blurredvision]

Back to the system, yes, post-180, preorders look strong, and we should have a great launch now, I expect there to be other good surprises before the ship date as well.

The "surprises" is what I'm basically waiting on before I decide which system to get at launch. I'm not spending the money on both but have "day one" pre-orders on each, so for me it's waiting to see the confirmed launch day/window titles, what they look like, and what the finalized OS will look like.

I much preferred the 360 OS (each iteration, anyway) to the XMB of the PS3. I still don't care of the XMB at all, it's too simple and too "menu-y" for me.

 

[exdeath]

People whining they 'lost' something from the drm change apparently fail to realize MS can still implement these rules for dd. They're choosing not to. Whine at them... Fighting for what you should be able to do with your own property is not a negative.

Yup. Its Microsoft being a sore loser and taking the ball home with them. Remove the bad parts? Fine! But we'll show you, we'll take the good parts too! Hrmph take that!

 

[KaOTiK]

One big thing I want to see on the software side is automatic updating, which I think Microsoft has talked about. To be clear, I'm not just talking about updating the operating system, but I really want it to update installed software. I don't want to start Netflix or any installed games to see a prompt that I need to install an update. That's one thing that (most?) people like about Steam... it keeps your installed games up-to-date as long as you tell it to.

I know with PS+ currently on the PS3 it will automatically download game updates for games that are digital (at least PSN games). IIRC during the Feb conference Sony even said they have a chip dedicated to this in the PS4 now or something.

 

[smithkt]

We won't know now because it's not there anymore. But did you actually believe they would let you share a full game ? I believe more in it having been a timed play followed by maybe some annoying prompt to check the rest out from the market. Had they been more honest about the real way it worked we could have known. But I have a feeling there was something like this in there that they didn't want to publicly state.

Given that sharing the full game simply means only one person playing at a time, yes I believe it is possible. For single player games it would be no different than it is now. You finish playing and then hand your disk off to someone else and they play. For muliplayer games, sharing would have been far less effective. One person playing at a time does not allow groups to play together. This would have let you "lend" the game to a friend to convince them to play, but they still would have had to buy their own copy to play WITH you.

I've seen some people with the belief that 10 people would be able to share the same game simultaneously. I never took that away from anything I read. That would be insanity.

It doesn't pass the logic test that a corporation bent on huge DRM and who equates used games as piracy would allow unhindered sharing of titles with 10 people at a time. This would decimate sales far more than used games ever would, in particular single-player games without a lot of replay value could be passed around easily.

If one buys that at face value without examining the overall agenda at work (this goes for Sony as well of course), then I can't really help you.

Sometimes it's correct to by cynical, and just on a dollars and cents outlook, sharing games with 10 people with different XBL accounts without some sort of hourly limitation would never have flown with publishers. They'd even have hard data in real time to show them how much money they think they're losing. "Look, people have logged 750k hours this week in family shared titles, and that has only led to XX purchases of those titles for the people in the sharing plan, this is losing $ for us".

Too good to be true = too good to be true. Every single time.

Look, it's obvious from your posts that you have your mind made up and nothing I or anyone says is going to change that. Still, your belief does not equate to fact either. The message from every REAL Microsoft employee has been the same. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, for the time being, we won't get the chance to find out.

I can't tell from from your posts if you are one of the people who seem to believe that they were going to allow 10 simultaneous users to play together. If this is what you understood, then I agree it would be insanity. However, none of the official statements I read ever suggested that. One at a time is the way I understood it to work.

You are welcome to be as cynical as you want. You are welcome to have any opinion you want. Passing those opinions off as fact, backed by some anonymous blog purporting to be an MS employee doesn't fly.

 

[KaOTiK]

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I just want to know how you can do that with everything we have seen and heard in the last couple of months. I mean, wow.

 

[Nintendesert]

I just want to know how you can do that with everything we have seen and heard in the last couple of months. I mean, wow.

 

[ImpulsE69]

LMAO the...absolutely blind-ness of some of the posts in the thread. Sigh. It's not a stretch to say that some of the things people put up with for their "convenience" and instant gratification are the same reasons our country and government are going to crap. Get some backbone.

And, since someone is trying to call me out about the blog about the family plan in another thread, is there an update to that? Any word as to if anyone from MS tried to debunk it? Otherwise, until then, just assuming it's true.

 

[KaOTiK]

LMAO the...absolutely blind-ness of some of the posts in the thread. Sigh. It's not a stretch to say that some of the things people put up with for their "convenience" and instant gratification are the same reasons our country and government are going to crap. Get some backbone.

And, since someone is trying to call me out about the blog about the family plan in another thread, is there an update to that? Any word as to if anyone from MS tried to debunk it? Otherwise, until then, just assuming it's true.

They had 2 people on twitter say it was false.

It is possible they are telling the truth, but they have no reason to admit it was a glorified demo now basically since they took it away and it would just make them look worse.

Frankly I believe it was true since the guy (CBOAT) that leaked a ton of MS info and was right on the vast majority of it said it was the demo crap that was leaked.

But we will never truly know for sure. It is in MS's best interest to say it was how people thought it was going to be whether that is true or not.

 

[smithkt]

I just want to know how you can do that with everything we have seen and heard in the last couple of months. I mean, wow.

Because I am not a paranoid, tin foil hat wearing, nut job. Benefit of the doubt simply means I will accept their word until it is proven otherwise. I'd rather accept the word of the identified MS employees rather than the word of some anonymous blog.

It has nothing to do with being "blind", "lacking backbone" or any of the other nonsense being tossed around. It's very simple. I always do my homework before making a purchase. I never had any intention of buying either console on launch and would have confirmed everything before making any purchase of either console. We are MONTHS away. A lot can and probably will still change.

And yes, Impulse, two people at Microsoft tweeted categorically denying what that anonymous blog said. I think the links are further back in this thread.

EDIT: This is the post. http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35170671&postcount=2948

 

[thecapsaicinkid]

LMAO the...absolutely blind-ness of some of the posts in the thread. Sigh. It's not a stretch to say that some of the things people put up with for their "convenience"

So Mr digital rights freedom fighter, which DRM free platforms are you currently enjoying?

 

[blurredvision]

Fucking christ people, stop it already. I officially HATE this god damn thread. Why do video games, of all things, bring out the idiot in everybody?

 

[BoberFett]

Given that sharing the full game simply means only one person playing at a time, yes I believe it is possible. For single player games it would be no different than it is now. You finish playing and then hand your disk off to someone else and they play. For muliplayer games, sharing would have been far less effective. One person playing at a time does not allow groups to play together. This would have let you "lend" the game to a friend to convince them to play, but they still would have had to buy their own copy to play WITH you.

One person playing at a time. You mean exactly like used game sales that we have now.

They wanted to eliminate used games, what makes you think they'd want to give people that exact ability, but now they have to maintain expensive 24/7 infrastructure to do it rather than just requiring a disc in the drive.

Anyone who believes they would have allowed full library sharing, even one person at a time, is extremely naive.

 

[purbeast0]

Fucking christ people, stop it already. I officially HATE this god damn thread. Why do video games, of all things, bring out the idiot in everybody?

be happy you didn't really start coming till later in it. it's amazing how there were like 3-4 people on these boards excited about the xbox1 before the DRM 180, but this thread had like 2x the amount of posts than the ps4 one because 95% of the posts were people letting everyone know how awful the xbox1 is.

 

[railven]

One person playing at a time. You mean exactly like used game sales that we have now.

They wanted to eliminate used games, what makes you think they'd want to give people that exact ability, but now they have to maintain expensive 24/7 infrastructure to do it rather than just requiring a disc in the drive.

Anyone who believes they would have allowed full library sharing, even one person at a time, is extremely naive.

Someone said it best in my other forums:

I buy Game_A. Play it to completion. Share it with 9 other people, one at a time, they play it to completion. I gift the game to a friend (not one of the original 9) and he now has it. Shares with with 9 completely different people.

That's one game purchase of Game_A, and a total of 20 people played it to completion.

I find it hard to believe the publishers would be okay with this.

Because of the nature of a digital system, you can essentially create pools in forums. And organize game sharing. On my usual forum alone we discussed how if that was the system implemented, we'd each buy one game and share it. Essentially all of us playing the whole launch catalog and only each buying one game.

 

[smithkt]

One person playing at a time. You mean exactly like used game sales that we have now.

They wanted to eliminate used games, what makes you think they'd want to give people that exact ability, but now they have to maintain expensive 24/7 infrastructure to do it rather than just requiring a disc in the drive.

Anyone who believes they would have allowed full library sharing, even one person at a time, is extremely naive.

Yes, that is exactly what I said. Just like it is now.

Maybe I am being naive, but I'm not going to stand here and shout from the rooftops that it's not possible and MS is nothing but a huge pack of liars. As for the infrastructure, they already maintain a 24/7 infrastructure to support their Live service, user accounts, cloud saves, etc. Why is this additional feature of key checking suddenly going to be so difficult and expensive to maintain? Let's try to keep things in perspective, shall we?

For what it's worth, A used game could also changes hands may more times than this sharing ability was likely to facilitate, so while it seems strange they would allow it, perhaps they saw it as a way to at least have some control over the process and be able to track usage more closely. That kind of information may have been worth the expense to them.

I'll readily admit that I have no real idea what the used market is like. The few times I actually looked for a used game was limited to Gamestop and their ilk. The prices were never such a steal. I usually just wound up paying the little extra to have a brand new disk and manual. It was worth it to me. I am definitely not the intended audience for the used game market.

 

[BoberFett]

Yes, that is exactly what I said. Just like it is now.

Maybe I am being naive, but I'm not going to stand here and shout from the rooftops that it's not possible and MS is nothing but a huge pack of liars. As for the infrastructure, they already maintain a 24/7 infrastructure to support their Live service, user accounts, cloud saves, etc. Why is this additional feature of key checking suddenly going to be so difficult and expensive to maintain? Let's try to keep things in perspective, shall we?

For what it's worth, A used game could also changes hands may more times than this sharing ability was likely to facilitate, so while it seems strange they would allow it, perhaps they saw it as a way to at least have some control over the process and be able to track usage more closely. That kind of information may have been worth the expense to them.

I'll readily admit that I have no real idea what the used market is like. The few times I actually looked for a used game was limited to Gamestop and their ilk. The prices were never such a steal. I usually just wound up paying the little extra to have a brand new disk and manual. It was worth it to me. I am definitely not the intended audience for the used game market.

There's no way a used game changes hand 9 times. I would be willing to bet most used games see 3 to 4 unique users. The trade-in value falls quickly, and at some point it simply isn't worth selling for the $0.50 you get at Gamestop.

 

[smithkt]

There's no way a used game changes hand 9 times. I would be willing to bet most used games see 3 to 4 unique users. The trade-in value falls quickly, and at some point it simply isn't worth selling for the $0.50 you get at Gamestop.

And can we be certain a shared game is going to change hands nine time as well? How many people are going to be willing to wait until 9 other people have finished playing a game before they do? I don't think any of us no the answer to this. And again, this would only work with a single player game as well. Any game with multiplayer capability was going to be seriously useless just at is is today. (with the obvious exception of playing on the same console)

My point is, WE DON'T KNOW, what this feature was going to be. We only have the words of the MS employees and the contradictory speculation of various internet forum users. I for one was willing to wait to see how it would all play out.

 

[mizzou]

There's no way a used game changes hand 9 times. I would be willing to bet most used games see 3 to 4 unique users. The trade-in value falls quickly, and at some point it simply isn't worth selling for the $0.50 you get at Gamestop.

I sold a bag of old games, many for $.50, to gamestop, it was nice just to get rid of them and free some drawer space

i was too lazy to sell them on craigslist

 

[Aikouka]

Eh, I'm one of the people that would rather have the all-digital approach back. Let me toss a few points out there:

• When Microsoft first announced their original intent, they didn't really convey it well or at all. The picture was very muddy. This not only allows for rumors to spread, but also to look incredibly disorganized.
• Microsoft did a very poor job at conveying the benefits and added features that an all-digital system would provide. They probably should've considered a little humility (e.g. "We know this system may not work well with everyone...") to help calm down some of the fervent people prior to talking about said benefits.
• I talked about this earlier, but Microsoft has a really bad habit of coming to the game late without features that similar entities have. They did it with Windows Phone 7, and they were prepared to do it again with the X1's system.

Personally, I liked the sharing system that Microsoft had outlined as most of my family lives around 700+ miles from me. I'm also the one that tends to buy a ridiculous amount of games compared to them or your average gamer, so I would literally become their GameFly. It doesn't really benefit me much, but I don't mind being able to potentially show people a fantastic game that they may not have been willing to drop $60 on without getting to try it. Before they announced that, I just didn't really care. I did pre-order the console (mostly for Killer Instinct).


Frankly, I think people were making too big of a deal over it with their slippery-slope arguments and belly aching about freedom this and freedom that. Yeesh... if you didn't know any better, you might have thought you accidentally clicked on Politics and News instead of Console Gaming!

 

[sze5003]

I would never believe that 10 people would be playing one game at the same time. No clue who thought or said that here. All they needed to do was fully disclose the whole family sharing issue. They have an faq on the site but that didn't give us the answers we were l looking for.

Actually even if you were able to share one full game, at a time I believe you would loose sales anyway. 3-4 people play the game, you gift it and that new person also beats the full game and shares with their friends one at a time. Just didn't seem like a company would be willing to let this happen for free at the expense of one 60 dollar game, especially when they implemented the whole drm features anyway.

Oh well, they can still allow sharing later through a software update and make it a choice, that would be nice for those who wanted this.

 

[BladeVenom]

The message from every REAL Microsoft employee has been the same. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, for the time being, we won't get the chance to find out.

They are paid to lie, to tow the company line.

Look, it's obvious from your posts that you have your mind made up and nothing I or anyone says is going to change that. Still, your belief does not equate to fact either.

Have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot9SYHVdXTk

You are going to believe these guys? Ask Adam Orth what happens to MS employees who tell the truth with their real name.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

 

[smithkt]

They are paid to lie, to tow the company line.

Look, it's obvious from your posts that you have your mind made up and nothing I or anyone says is going to change that. Still, your belief does not equate to fact either.

Have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot9SYHVdXTk

You are going to believe these guys? Ask Adam Orth what happens to MS employees who tell the truth with their real name.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Sigh. So what. When these interviews were conducted, he gave the answers that were correct as of that moment. Big deal. The company decided to make a change. Somehow that makes him a liar? Orth is the guy who "resigned" after getting into a flame war and insulting some towns around the country. He was largely criticized by this same community for being a general jerk. This is the guy you are now holding up as a martyr? Seriously?

This is hopeless. You win. Happy?

How about we discuss something that actually matters now. Has anyone seen or heard anything more detailed about how the Xbox One is going to work with TV? What I've heard is no DVR capability, but will it actually be able to tune live TV? Any chance it might actually be able to connect to something like an HD Homerun Prime from Silicon Dust? That would be interesting.