News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[dagamer]

It's not a 1 hour demo but a 1 hour time limited session where you can play the entire game. The twitter denials by MS execs could refer to people branding it as a 'demo', which it's not.

Otherwise, you'd have to wonder - MS are on the one hand trying to reduce the value of used games (I know this was one of their priorities for the ecosystem of the new box) but on the other hand they are making it far easier for people to freeload?

Think about it, if 10 people can share their entire game libraries with each other so easily, that's a lot more people playing a game without paying for it than you would see with lending or second hand sales.

Eg. I can see all the games my friends have and instantly play them, rather than having to remember to get it off them etc. Plus people can easily see if their friends have a game they want before they buy it themselves.

And rather than waiting for other friends to finish playing your friend's game so you can borrow it, a group of friends can all play the same game during the same time period, albeit asynchronously.

So I think it's pretty unlikely that MS would serve up this kind of 'all you can eat' game sharing buffet for gamers.

That's why I believe Microsoft didn't explain this very clearly, because it was totally in flux. I'm also of the opinion that they weren't going to really try to eliminate all sharing, but get rid of the $54.99 used game sitting on Gamestops shelves one week after release. Besides, 10 people really just seems way too outlandish if that's how it really was going to work.

I'd expect a new system to be a buddy system. You get to share full games with 1 friend who has been on your list for 30 days. Sure, sharing already usually happens anyway with disc based games, but it would prevent massive sharing with a bunch of people while still enticing you to buy digitally. Plus, for multiplayer games, it really wouldn't matter since you probably wouldn't be able to play at the same time.

Anyway, I just want more rights for digital copies since I have no plans on buying physical discs in the future.

 

[(((interference)))]

Still doesn't fly.

Great reply....

That's why I believe Microsoft didn't explain this very clearly, because it was totally in flux. I'm also of the opinion that they weren't going to really try to eliminate all sharing, but get rid of the $54.99 used game sitting on Gamestops shelves one week after release. Besides, 10 people really just seems way too outlandish if that's how it really was going to work.

I'd expect a new system to be a buddy system. You get to share full games with 1 friend who has been on your list for 30 days. Sure, sharing already usually happens anyway with disc based games, but it would prevent massive sharing with a bunch of people while still enticing you to buy digitally. Plus, for multiplayer games, it really wouldn't matter since you probably wouldn't be able to play at the same time.

Anyway, I just want more rights for digital copies since I have no plans on buying physical discs in the future.

Yeah, the buddy system where you can share each game with just one of the 10 'family members' you have makes more sense.

Also, the Verge article states that the 1 hour time limit thing was being discussed, it hadn't been implemented yet:

sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans have revealed to The Verge that the company was discussing the idea of limiting each Family Sharing session to one hour and that game progress would be saved so you could play through the hourly caps or purchase the full game to continue uninterrupted. The engineer notes that Microsoft was contemplating limiting the number of times Family Sharing could be accessed per game until it was purchased.

So it could well be that game sharing was something MS came up with relatively recently, (it certainly seems so, since my sources weren't aware of it until MS revealed it and it wasn't in the Durango roadmap or listed as a feature in the dev docs vgleaks have etc) and they didn't properly explain it because they were still nailing down the specifics.

 

[dagamer]

Is Microsoft really as disorganized as all this shit seems? The Xbox division has been the one place at Microsoft that was consumer facing where they had all of their ducks in a row. It's as if once you get to the top of console mountain over all of your competitors, you instantly fall into an idiotic stupor. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and now Microsoft have now fallen into it. That 3rd console curse really is true.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Great reply....

Thanks. If I thought anything more was needed I would have added it.

Hey lets take an online system featuring a whack of multiplayer games and put in a demo system where you can't play with your friends... It's pure genius... Or not.

 

[(((interference)))]

Is Microsoft really as disorganized as all this shit seems? The Xbox division has been the one place at Microsoft that was consumer facing where they had all of their ducks in a row. It's as if once you get to the top of console mountain over all of your competitors, you instantly fall into an idiotic stupor. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and now Microsoft have now fallen into it. That 3rd console curse really is true.

I'm guessing after the Orth affair and the surrounding negativity over their DRM scheme, they might have thought they needed to throw in some sweeteners like game sharing.

Thanks. If I thought anything more was needed I would have added it.

Hey lets take an online system featuring a whack of multiplayer games and put in a demo system where you can't play with your friends... It's pure genius... Or not.

But it's not a demo system, it's just timed sessions for shared games, and yes sales of multiplayergames like COD, Halo, BF etc wouldn't be impacted by game sharing but a lot of single player games and lower profile titles that people are interested in, but unsure about purchasing would be affected (since they could just play their friends copy).

 

[AlphaWolf]

But it's not a demo system, it's just timed sessions for shared games, and yes sales of multiplayergames like COD, Halo, BF etc wouldn't be impacted by game sharing but a lot of single player games and lower profile titles that people are interested in, but unsure about purchasing would be affected (since they could just play their friends copy).

If the time limit is an hour (or less), it's essentially a demo. Not a traditional game demo perhaps, but it's still just a demo. If it's a story driven game most people aren't going to want to try it from the middle (assuming there's even a way you could get there), if it's a multiplayer game you'd want to play with friends, but only 10 people on your friends list can try it., one at a time, for an hour. Sorry, but it makes no sense.

It's possible there was talk of some time limited game sharing thing, but I don't think what they were talking about with the friends list was it, because it's completely stupid to download (and from MS's perspective-> upload) a 20-50GB game, to play it for an hour when they are still going to wind up making smaller demos for people to try anyway because you can't be certain the account sharing will be pervasive.

 

[(((interference)))]

If the time limit is an hour (or less), it's essentially a demo. Not a traditional game demo perhaps, but it's still just a demo. If it's a story driven game most people aren't going to want to try it from the middle (assuming there's even a way you could get there), if it's a multiplayer game you'd want to play with friends, but only 10 people on your friends list can try it., one at a time, for an hour. Sorry, but it makes no sense.
.

I agree that something like that would be a demo - and completely inane for MS to implement.

But I don't think that's the correct interpretation - we're talking about a restriction where you can only play 1 hour (say per 24 hours) of a shared game at a time, but can play the entire game with no restrictions other than the 1 hour time limit (per whatever time period). So you can finish a 10 hour game in 10 days etc.

That sounds quite plausible to me, the sharing feature is useful enough to be of value while the restrictions are just annoying enough that people see value in purchasing the game for themselves (if they like it and want to play it more frequently).

 

[Tap In]

What if the one hour was just he 1 hour license check used for family members playing away from home. ...mistaken for this 1 hour limit. It was not a demo as that would be ridiculous especially in light of how they did describe how it worked.

 

[zupallinere]

I'm guessing after the Orth affair and the surrounding negativity over their DRM scheme, they might have thought they needed to throw in some sweeteners like game sharing.

It is probably something like that. I don't know when they came up with it but I doubt they had it nailed down and it could all be subject to change in any case. You needed a lot of faith to buy what MS was selling. Great for the fans who would assume the most optimistic interpretation of statements by MS but I mean really when the statement about restrictions and benefits nobody knew exactly what it meant. There was a reason they didn't since MS was cagey about their statements regarding family share, even different execs said different things regarding it. They probably had 3 or 4 versions and might have been telling publishers one thing, devs another, customers another hoping to get some traction with one of them. MS could say what they wanted but they can't guarantee it.

I hope somebody gets fired so they can write a tell all on the subject ( no I don't really want anyone to get fired just to satisfy my curiosity but if someone does hit the bricks because of this ...)

 

[BRiT]

What if the one hour was just he 1 hour license check used for family members playing away from home. ...mistaken for this 1 hour limit. It was not a demo as that would be ridiculous especially in light of how they did describe how it worked.

I believe this is where the trouble and false rumors started from, someone's misinterpretation of the 1 hour license check.

 

[Phil]

So what was the plan? That the online-24-hour verification would have enabled sharing games among 10 family members without any limiation or only for an hour?

One sounds like a nice feature, the other pretty worthless.

But this again, to me, shows the apparent lack of transparent communication that Microsoft should have used to market their product. If they had done so (instead of step by step contradictory statements), perhaps the market (the press) as a whole would have reacted differently to imposed restrictions...

 

[Nesh]

Not sure if this article was posted
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-21-the-most-popular-arguments-in-favour-of-xbox-one-drm

 

[dagamer]

Not sure if this article was posted
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-21-the-most-popular-arguments-in-favour-of-xbox-one-drm

I think there are some flaws in that article.

 

[steveOrino]

Great for the fans who would assume the most optimistic interpretation of statements by MS but I mean really when the statement about restrictions and benefits nobody knew exactly what it meant.

Exactly, the message was allover the place because the underlying clauses were long, vague and complex. Its was one, "Yes, but" after another and so much grey area in-between that people drew their own conclusions to fill the gaps.

 

[zupallinere]

Exactly, the message was allover the place because the underlying clauses were long, vague and complex. Its was one, "Yes, but" after another and so much grey area in-between that people drew their own conclusions to fill the gaps.

I watched veteran gamers read the rules for family share and they still didn't figure it out. There was a reason for that language. Why didn't MS take questions about it during E3 ? I saw an interview with Major Nelson about this issue and others and he was annoyed and got frustrated having to answer questions he didn't want to answer. Look he is a human being and all but Major Nelson is the BEST that MS has when it comes to PR. Everyone else seemed enthusiastically confused about it.

Besides being able to install your disk on the hard drive the family share plan was the only positive. Wanting to install discs on to your hard drive is nice but most consumers don't care. Family share would be something to care about but they pushed it out assuming people would flock to it. Just like they are pushing out Kinect and Always on Clould PR jazz. At least the Kinect is something of a known quantity, everyting else is PR with a dash of the aspirational. Aspirational is good, some of the things being pushed right now can have very good outcomes but they are suppositions and MS was asking people to give up something based on MS's best guess.

 

[bkilian]

One of my friends still in the XBox org stated unequivocally that there was no timeout on sharing. It was a single player at a time only, and you "check out" a game, and while you have it checked out, no one else can access it. The checkin and checkout system worked on a one hour granularity.

 

[XpiderMX]

One of my friends still in the XBox org stated unequivocally that there was no timeout on sharing. It was a single player at a time only, and you "check out" a game, and while you have it checked out, no one else can access it. The checkin and checkout system worked on a one hour granularity.

A single player AND original owner or only a single player counting the owner?

 

[Jwm]

One of my friends still in the XBox org stated unequivocally that there was no timeout on sharing. It was a single player at a time only, and you "check out" a game, and while you have it checked out, no one else can access it. The checkin and checkout system worked on a one hour granularity.

Could that one hour deal be confusing those spreading the rumors, as they are taking it to mean up to an hour?

 

[zupallinere]

One of my friends still in the XBox org stated unequivocally that there was no timeout on sharing. It was a single player at a time only, and you "check out" a game, and while you have it checked out, no one else can access it. The checkin and checkout system worked on a one hour granularity.

Did your friend say that this was the ONLY way it was going to be or was it one of some number of alternatives ?

When was the decision made and of course what meetings did he go to or didn't go to ;-)\

Even with one hour granularity I bet there would be simple share systems that could use different time zones to time share games. The ease of which would depend on how much info on a player could be exposed ( what games/timezone gamer tag etc. ) with their permission of course.

 

[Tap In]

One of my friends still in the XBox org stated unequivocally that there was no timeout on sharing. It was a single player at a time only, and you "check out" a game, and while you have it checked out, no one else can access it. The checkin and checkout system worked on a one hour granularity.

finally we can put that nonsense to rest

thank you.. people (cboat and his flock) just trying to make MS and Xbox look bad as usual... ridiculous