XBox One, PS4, DRM, and You

[Averagejoe]

Ironically, doing an online check once every 24 hours is vastly better than doing a check every 3 minutes, which was the case before.

So in some sense, gamers should be happy that MS relaxed the requirement quite a bit.

I would be really happy if they dropped this completely,as it is now i am not getting an xbox one,is sony does the same i would also skip it.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

No is not.

That is like Toyota wanting me to buy a used car through them mandatory,and i can only loan my car to a friend that i know for more than 30 days and he can't give it back.

WOOT!!!! Car analogy for the win!

Because cars, that require constant maintenance and upkeep and fuel to keep them running are EXACTLY like video games that are distributed digitally so every copy is identical and use doesn't degrade their efficiency at all! Yeah! HELL YEAH!

Car analogy! BOOO YAAH!

...seriously?

 

[Averagejoe]

Yep. When Hurricane Issac was in my backyard, Internet dropped first. Power was restored while Internet was still dead for 2 weeks.

I get them to,not only that i love going with friend camping and we take my TV and consoles this are by the river houses there is no internet,not even phone signal,how would we play..

It is just sad.

 

[Cjail]

@Averagejoe

No I took that percentage form this article.

You take Diablo 3 and Sim City as example of how bad always online verification can be but MS only ask you to go online every 24 hours.
That is something all of us do regularly.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

No that 73% number is so made up is not even funny,let me guess you are using xbox live 46 million users right.?.

Doesn't matter, and I don't know where the 73% number came from.

I can tell you that the only number that MS is interested in is the 78% of households in NA that have broadband access number.

That number actually falls as you go outside of NA (funny, I thought NA was actually behind the curve in terms of access, but it turns out not to be the case. Many other countries have faster and better access but in terms of penetration, NA is actually in the top. And yes, I know that NA isn't a country, blah blah blah).

And it's already been made very clear that if you don't have broadband access, MS doesn't want you as a customer and the One won't work for you. So if you fall into that category, I'm sorry... but I don't know how you're posting to Beyond3D.

 

[Averagejoe]

WOOT!!!! Car analogy for the win!

Because cars, that require constant maintenance and upkeep and fuel to keep them running are EXACTLY like video games that are distributed digitally so every copy is identical and use doesn't degrade their efficiency at all! Yeah! HELL YEAH!

Car analogy! BOOO YAAH!

...seriously?

I can pic 30 different analogies and non have to do with the object in question,but with the RIGHT you have as a consumer to sell something you legally own,can you imagine Chrysler saying we want a cut of used cars because it eating into our new car sales.?

Yeah i am sure the US will allow that right.? But because it is games to hell with gamers.

You missed my point by endless miles regardless of the analogy i use,the point is you have the right to sell something you legally own.

 

[Xbat]

this second hand thing is absolute bullshit. If I buy a game it becomes mine and if I want too sell it its my choice. If a shop then decides to pay rent for a premises and pay salesmen to make my life easier selling it they derserve compensation, the developer doesn't deserve anything because its not there game anymore its mine.

This nonsense of losing money because they dont know how to budget is there problem not mine.
Bobby kotick got a 60 million dollar bonus last year, ooh that use game market really hurt his bank account.

 

[Averagejoe]

Doesn't matter, and I don't know where the 73% number came from.

I can tell you that the only number that MS is interested in is the 78% of households in NA that have broadband access number.

That number actually falls as you go outside of NA (funny, I thought NA was actually behind the curve in terms of access, but it turns out not to be the case. Many other countries have faster and better access but in terms of penetration, NA is actually in the top. And yes, I know that NA isn't a country, blah blah blah).

And it's already been made very clear that if you don't have broadband access, MS doesn't want you as a customer and the One won't work for you. So if you fall into that category, I'm sorry... but I don't know how you're posting to Beyond3D.

Them they dig their own grave,the fact that they target the 78% of people who have internet in their house doesn't mean they will buy it,specially the xbox which is a product that is not even that successful to begin with,yeah it sold better than the PS3 in US,but not to the point where they can do business in US alone and forget about the rest of the world.

They are in fact limiting the user base and thinking about just 1 country.

Is not that i don't have online,but online connection fail,natural disasters do happen were i live and i am up to 2 months without internet,yet power get restore in weeks,you can't take your xbox one any where there is no connection,by 24 hours it will be useless.

This was done not to force people into the great features,this one done because MS and publishers want to kill piracy and control how people sell games,this has not justification what so ever...

There is nothing you can say that will justify something like this or any one.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I can pic 30 different analogies and non have to do with the object in question,but with the RIGHT you have as a consumer to sell something you legally own,can you imagine Chrysler saying we want a cut of used cars because it eating into our new car sales.?

Yeah i am sure the US will allow that right.? But because it is games to hell with gamers.

You missed my point by endless miles regardless of the analogy i use,the point is you have the right to sell something you legally own.

Then go ahead and use a different analogy. After I ridiculed you for using a car analogy and demonstrated why it was ridiculous you came back and offered YET ANOTHER car analogy.

Do I really have to explain further why the analogy isn't comparative? I've already done so. Do I need to link to you all the thousands of Youtube videos that show why not only car analogies but CD, Movie and used book sales analogies also aren't comparative to video games?

Give me a break.

 

[Jwm]

Lots of those consoles can be online, but the owners might have good reasons for them being offline. Some cases near me are the haircut places for kids, none of those consoles are online (10+ per store) but there is wifi. Parents buying the console and choosing to never have them online, or they did not want to pay extra for the dongle or hassle of wiring the house.

I would be curious to know what percentage of slim consoles are offline only, as that is a much easier console to get online over the old model?

If they would just allow a disc in tray mode the darn thing could stay offline and just play non-cloud games. This would probably be a good solution for many that choose to not go online (but can). Thoose that can't go online, it sucks, and it irks me that they won't be able to enjoy newer games to be honest. I have always said a games console should be an easy device to pick up and play games with, while this new media games device is not so easy.

 

[Reiko]

Lots of those consoles can be online, but the owners might have good reasons for them being offline. Some cases near me are the haircut places for kids, none of those consoles are online (10+ per store) but there is wifi. Parents buying the console and choosing to never have them online, or they did not want to pay extra for the dongle or hassle of wiring the house.

I would be curious to know what percentage of slim consoles are offline only, as that is a much easier console to get online over the old model?

If they would just allow a disc in tray mode the darn thing could stay offline and just play non-cloud games. This would probably be a good solution for many that choose to not go online (but can). Thoose that can't go online, it sucks, and it irks me that they won't be able to enjoy newer games to be honest. I have always said a games console should be an easy device to pick up and play games with, while this new media games device is not so easy.

Disc in tray is a good solution.

Going without discs, the 24hour and 1 hour restriction makes more sense. IMO

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Them they dig their own grave,the fact that they target the 78% of people who have internet in their house doesn't mean they will buy it,specially the xbox which is a product that is not even that successful to begin with,yeah it sold better than the PS3 in US,but not to the point where they can do business in US alone and forget about the rest of the world.

Not successful? The Xbox isn't a successful product line for MS? Okay, we can clearly see that you are an unbiased and informed contributor. Thanks for that.

As far as the US and forgetting the rest of the world, first.. Whose to say they can't be profitable if they DID take that course? It seems to me that it's very likely they could be. Second, I only gave the numbers I have easy access to. MS themselves had said that they are spending bucket after bucket of money working with content providers outside of NA in order to establish relationships and gain buy-in.

This was done not to force people into the great features,this one done because MS and publishers want to kill piracy and control how people sell games,this has not justification what so ever...

There is nothing you can say that will justify something like this or any one.

Wait. Is it MS or is it publishers? Now you say it's both? How is MS profiting from all of this? They are getting bitch slapped with all this negative PR for something that they've already said they will NOT PROFIT from.

And of course it has a justification. Developers and Publishers get ZERO dollars from used game sales, or from rentals. That means one copy of the game can be played by thousands of people and they only get paid once. And that singular copy doesn't degrade or get any worse from the first play through until the 300,000 play through. So all those people get the same experience but the publisher and developer only got paid once.

This is getting into the "ethics of used games" thread which is found elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that.

Ridiculous.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

this second hand thing is absolute bullshit. If I buy a game it becomes mine and if I want too sell it its my choice.

Not if you accept the EULA. And you accept it if you play the game.

Bobby kotick got a 60 million dollar bonus last year, ooh that use game market really hurt his bank account.

There are thousands of devs who's livelihood is hurt.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

If they would just allow a disc in tray mode the darn thing could stay offline and just play non-cloud games.

This seems like an entirely reasonable compromise. Perhaps part of the reason for moving to an online authentication solution is wanting to ditch ever more convoluted disc protection schemes.

 

[Reiko]

This seems like an entirely reasonable compromise. Perhaps part of the reason for moving to an online authentication solution is wanting to ditch ever more convoluted disc protection schemes.

It makes the most amount of sense.

If Xbox One was a DD only console you should be at the mercy of DRM regardless.

At least with the disc in tray option (bearing in mind that genuine Xbox One's discs have a unique signature that can be recognized to prevent piracy) we can have 100% control of our playtime.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

If they would just allow a disc in tray mode the darn thing could stay offline and just play non-cloud games. This would probably be a good solution for many that choose to not go online (but can). Thoose that can't go online, it sucks, and it irks me that they won't be able to enjoy newer games to be honest. I have always said a games console should be an easy device to pick up and play games with, while this new media games device is not so easy.

Yeah, I thought that was going to be the reality when the first rumors of "always connected" came about, and I've said as much previously.

To MS's perspective though, that creates a problem. First, games won't be able to use the cloud by default. As we all talk about Kinect or EyeToy or Wiimote, or whatever peripheral you want to talk about, if it isn't there for every console by default then it won't be used. MS wants games to be built with their cloud service in mind in order to provide larger worlds, static worlds, real time updates, etc.

Second, MS is going to lose money on each console they sell and they have determined that they can't make enough money to counter those losses on game sales alone. So they need to make sure that everybody who purchases a console is part of their ecosystem. Meaning they can try to up-sell you on music or TV or movies or other games, or at the very least sell advertising to their partners so you buy another product.

That's why there's an on-line requirement. It makes great business sense for MS. If it offends you as a consumer you have the right to not purchase their product. This all seems very clear and obvious to me.

 

[Cranky]

I don't understand this logic. If the business model is that bad then why dump the burden on the consumer instead of changing the business model? Its fucking backwards.

This is 100% for the publisher, Period. Its what they always wanted. Hell, movie/music industry would kill for this kind of absolute control over distribution.

If you really think this is going to help developers then I would highly recommend you watch Jason Rubin's speech at 2004 D.I.C.E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhmYENdFZc8

Publishers could care less who shits out that new CoD, Madden or whatever blockbuster title.

Price hikes, piracy, used game sales, entitlement and whatever else publishers are pointing their finger at is code word for, "We are making stupid business decisions so someone has to pay and that person is YOU".

It is really quite straight forward. Do you like AAA console games and want to continue playing them? If yes, then these policies are perfectly reasonable reactions to the market realities. Your last paragraph is nonsensical. This a change of business model. One that is directed entirely at gamestop, with the side benefit of potentially reducing piracy substantially. There is no anti-consumer INTENTION here.

Given that these policies are probably necessary for the industry, then MS actually has provided a lot of extra value / services to make up of what they are taking away. In particular, the gifting, the play anywhere, and family play /accounts represent a substantial gain of functionality. For me personally with two boys, the last one is extremely significant and represents massive value - one that could potentially save me a couple of thousand dollars over the generation.

 

[Xbat]

Not if you accept the EULA. And you accept it if you play the game.



There are thousands of devs who's livelihood is hurt.

Yes but there have been millions of businesses hurt over the last 5 years because of all types of reasons life's tough but apparently gaming needs special needs. The problem is devs became used to making monster profit margins and now they are whining like a baby that had its teat pulled from its mouth.
Activision doesn't use online passes or drm but yet they make a killing, if the used game market was so toxic how come they make so much money?

 

[Jwm]

This seems like an entirely reasonable compromise. Perhaps part of the reason for moving to an online authentication solution is wanting to ditch ever more convoluted disc protection schemes.

Yes I could see that, and honestly was not taking that into account.

My hunch is Sony goes with disc in tray, but maybe they are using the rfid system in each disc based on an earlier patent. Both companies will evolve the piracy protection system forward, maybe MS choose the cheapest longterm solution.

 

[Reiko]

I think the point for any device is not to offend the consumer. IMO And then you wonder why the big wigs in corporate are left scratching their heads when projected sales do not pan out as well as they have hoped.

Focus groups can be wrong.
Out of touch marketers can be wrong.

Yes, MS is reacting to a ever changing market beforehand with the XBXONE, but who's to say that market will go in the direction that MS is hoping for? It's a gamble.

Either the XBXONE succeeds greatly, is a mild success, or crashes and burns.