XBox One, PS4, DRM, and You

[Deleted member 11852]

I can't see any reason for anyone to switch from x86 now, between now and when games become streamed from the net.

Power efficiency as a big a deal as performance, that's why is was PowerPC for current gen. Next time around it could be ARM.

We've heard rumours that XB1 hardware is behind a thicker API layer in contrast to PS4.

Yup, but that doesn't mean we're talking n Android-like virtual machine. Perhaps Microsoft really do want to abstract the GPU architecture from the developer, who can't "see" or manage the 32mb ESRAM, it could all be handled by a driver, but I don't think so.

My recollection of the "thicker API" rumours were about greater overhead on Xbox One compared to PS4, and even the Xbox 360. It think this is part the old argument about DirectX vs libGCM with an added dose of One's virtualization.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Power efficiency as a big a deal as performance, that's why is was PowerPC for current gen. Next time around it could be ARM.

Only if ARM can significantly outperform low-power x86 cores like Jaguar and what comes out after. Jaguar's hardly a power hog.

Yup, but that doesn't mean we're talking n Android-like virtual machine...
My recollection of the "thicker API" rumours were about greater overhead on Xbox One compared to PS4, and even the Xbox 360. It think this is part the old argument about DirectX vs libGCM with an added dose of One's virtualization.

No, they were saying Sony devs were allowed to hit the hardware but MS's devs weren't. Not conclusive by any stretch, but it was some noise in that respect where you couldn't recall any. If XB1's hardware is completely virtualised, it wouldn't be out of the blue.

 

[Jubei]

The DRM and 24 hour check is a product of a digital delivery system where you can still share games ......gift games and yes part exchange games .

we are going from a bricks and mortar delivery system for games to a online system .

Now can anyone name one time when prices have not decreased when the bricks and mortar stores has gone to a online sales model.
Less over heads cheaper games ........steam is proof of this .

I can't be sure but common sense tells me that a all digital game machine would lead to cheaper games .

Microsoft are on the first run now to a all digital model which means cheaper games in the long run in my opinion

Time will tell if I'm right

Firstly there is a massive difference between a full digital download store and selling physical copies and then claim you dont own those physical copies because you happen to also have a digital download store. Hell Steam is fighting a court battle in Germany right now, it will be appealed to higher court either way and the verdict will have an impact on online stores. Now imagine what happens in countries like Germany or France when the used game market is killed or at the very least manipulated by MS,

Secondly just because Steam has cheap games doesnt mean MS will, two different type of corporate mentalities here, Steam allows you to play offline, MS wants you to pay for Xbox Live just to watch Netflix, Windows Phone and Windows 8 app stores are also more expensive than Apples or Googles. If they are planning to sell cheap online Xbone games, nothing in their other strategies is revealing such a plan

 

[zupallinere]

Firstly there is a massive difference between a full digital download store and selling physical copies and then claim you dont own those physical copies because you happen to also have a digital download store. Hell Steam is fighting a court battle in Germany right now, it will be appealed to higher court either way and the verdict will have an impact on online stores. Now imagine what happens in countries like Germany or France when the used game market is killed or at the very least manipulated by MS,

Yeah that EU ruling last year is probably why MS came up with policy of used game sales using approved companies.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/04/eu-judgement-implications

Secondly just because Steam has cheap games doesnt mean MS will, two different type of corporate mentalities here, Steam allows you to play offline, MS wants you to pay for Xbox Live just to watch Netflix, Windows Phone and Windows 8 app stores are also more expensive than Apples or Googles. If they are planning to sell cheap online Xbone games, nothing in their other strategies is revealing such a plan

Steam is in a much more competitive space than MS in the console world. PC games aren't siloed in the same fashion as console games.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm surprised he said you can connect your 360 to the HDMI in on the Xbox One. I don't know if I'd do that, but considering GTA5 and some other games will overlap with launch, I could play those games without cutting myself off from next-gen features on the Xbox One.

 

[dagamer]

I'm surprised he said you can connect your 360 to the HDMI in on the Xbox One. I don't know if I'd do that, but considering GTA5 and some other games will overlap with launch, I could play those games without cutting myself off from next-gen features on the Xbox One.

I suspect that the recommended place for the Xbox One in the HDMI chain is between the TV and an AV receiver, so that the only time you don't get the overlay is if you are using your TVs smart apps.

 

[expletive]

I'm surprised he said you can connect your 360 to the HDMI in on the Xbox One. I don't know if I'd do that, but considering GTA5 and some other games will overlap with launch, I could play those games without cutting myself off from next-gen features on the Xbox One.

Unless the XBO has two HDMI-Ins, it sounds like you would have to choose between the 360 BC or a set-top box. If MS really intends for this to be a "supported" stop-gap BC solution I think it needs to have two inputs.

I see the marketing now though:

"Xbox One: You'll never miss a skype call again."

 

[Billy Idol]

Btw, didn't Sony introduce online DRM and fees for used games on consoles? What else is this stupid online pass?

 

[dagamer]

Unless the XBO has two HDMI-Ins, it sounds like you would have to choose between the 360 BC or a set-top box. If MS really intends for this to be a "supported" stop-gap BC solution I think it needs to have two inputs.

I see the marketing now though:

"Xbox One: You'll never miss a skype call again."

If you want multiple inputs, get an AV receiver. They start at $200.

 

[dobwal]

Virtualization doesn't make backwards compatibility more likely. Although there hasn't been much focus on this technical aspect of the console, traditional virtualization is generally used for allocating hardware resources (CPU/GPU/RAM etc) across multiple operating systems. My guess is that Microsoft have done this so they can offer a traditional console game OS as well as a Windows-derived OS for applications - which they can support and update independently. Netflix and others won't want to write their app using a gaming SDK.

For backwards compatibility to be viable, Microsoft would need to insert the type of hardware abstraction, traditionally undertaken by hardware drivers, back into the gaming OS architecture. Now you could make this abstraction part of the virtualization process but generally a console will be looking to lose layers between the game and hardware because each layer is an overhead that results in lost performance.

If Microsoft move to a different CPU architecture, virtualization won't help. The changes need to be emulated. If Microsoft drop in a different GPU without 32mb ESRAM, virtualization won't help. The changes need to be emulated -- That is unless the actual hardware isn't even visible to the developer, like the Android OS. But I don't believe this is the case, we would have heard about such a radical paradigm shift.

If the use of virtualization supports any argument for a different hardware configuration in future, it will be hardware geared towards the Windows OS side of the console. As ERP noted, having spent a lot of time and money on the current design, Microsoft aren't going to want to change it other than for cost reduction.

The design you see on the XB1 has been kicked around inside MS since practically the start of last gen.

http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/SC2007/Manferdelli-SC07-Workshop.pdf (look at page 18)

XB1 seems to be a coalescing of several different research projects. It may be a design thats a precursor for all MS OSes just not the one found inside of the Xbox. A console OS isn't burdened with all the legacy crap that MS must deal with when its comes to Windows.

You have MS's Drawbridge, Helios and Barrelfish thats seemed to have an influence on XB1 design.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/drawbridge/
http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/101903/paper.pdf
http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/81154/helios.pdf

MS seems to be conducting a lot of research of the limitations that exists today and possible solutions to overcome those limitations. Maybe when MS designed XB1 it took its own paper to heart:

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=151215

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Btw, didn't Sony introduce online DRM and fees for used games on consoles? What else is this stupid online pass?

No. Online Pass is only to access online content. You are free to play any 2nd hand game offline without paying Online Pass. eg. Uncharted 3 you could play the campaign at no added cost, only paying OP for access to the multiplayer.

 

[MrFox]

Btw, didn't Sony introduce online DRM and fees for used games on consoles? What else is this stupid online pass?

Kind of, but not really online DRM in our context. EA and THQ introduced online pass in 2010, and Sony followed in 2011. Hopefully EA and Sony stopped doing it and they both said it's not coming back. No idea about other publishers, though. Obviously THQ didn't stop, but that's not important anymore.

Still, online play is not a product, it's a service. I hated online pass but it wasn't nearly as bad as Microsoft's online DRM, because it didn't affect ownership, nor was it designed for planned obsolescence. The rest of the game which doesn't require a online play will work forever as expected.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/12/ps4-sony-dropping-online-pass-system-expects-others-to-follow-suit/

Ryan said that Sony will allow publishers to implement soft used game restrictions like OnLine Pass systems, but nothing more. “They’re allowed to do something like the Online Pass feature, which doesn’t block or stop it,” he said. “It gives an option to charge. I don’t think they can block it.”
Sony clarified that publishers cannot utilise any scheme which makes system changes to PlayStation 4, which would be required to restrict players from accessing used games they have on disc.
“Basically, what we’re saying is that there’s no change from current-gen to next-gen,” Ryan said.
Of course, that does leave the door open for Online Pass systems, but Ryan said he doesn’t expect to see many of those in the coming generation.
“Very much the way the tide is going on current-gen is that people are not pursuing the Online Pass thing. It’s being dropped,” he said.
“I mean, some publishers have gone bankrupt and others are dropping it. We’re dropping it ourselves.
“It’s a diminishing phenomenon and I don’t see any reason why that should reverse itself.”

Publishers are allowed to restrict an online play service, but they cannot do anything close to what Microsoft is doing. They are not allowed to restrict disc based single player games. They are not allowed to implement a 24 hour check. Sony guarantees the gamers they'll have ownership, and no planned obsolescence.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Only if ARM can significantly outperform low-power x86 cores like Jaguar and what comes out after. Jaguar's hardly a power hog.

ARM doesn't have to outperform x86, it only has to be cheaper, more energy efficient and powerful enough.

No, they were saying Sony devs were allowed to hit the hardware but MS's devs weren't. Not conclusive by any stretch, but it was some noise in that respect where you couldn't recall any. If XB1's hardware is completely virtualised, it wouldn't be out of the blue.

Virtualization allowing two operating systems to run is one thing, but virtual machines is something altogether different and would be wholly out of the blue. But like I said before, I don't think this is the case. With all the leaks we'd know by now. I think what I was recollecting (badly) was this EDGE article.

Furthermore, the operating system overhead of Microsoft’s next console is more oppressive than Sony’s equivalent, giving the PlayStation-badged unit another advantage.

When the 360 first launched there was [IIRC] no low-level hardware access but access was added for a few lower-level functions as time went on. Microsoft have seemingly reigned back for the Xbox One - although that's not to say it won't play out the same next generation. The above, I believe, is not a reference to DirectX but the virtualization of the two operating systems.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Still, online play is not a product, it's a service.

That's not DRM. Not every fee associated with a creative product is rights management. It was a fee to access online, as you say, which means OP was a service fee, not a digital rights control scheme.

 

[3dilettante]

I think control measures that do more than is technically necessary for copy control, or have significant use cases beyond it, fall outside of what is typically discussed as DRM.

The ability to restrict used game sales for discs, and the general lack of such capability for DD games has less to do with managing rights for a specific work than it is reallocating rights in the market itself, which is something that occurs at a higher level than whether something is being copied.

 

[Billy Idol]

No. Online Pass is only to access online content. You are free to play any 2nd hand game offline without paying Online Pass. eg. Uncharted 3 you could play the campaign at no added cost, only paying OP for access to the multiplayer.

Even if it is 'just' the online part...it still is the first step in this direction, first step to make money from used games by blocking features behind a paywall...right?

 

[Brad Grenz]

But online passes are not allowed on PS4 so I'm not sure what point their discussion has.

 

[MrFox]

Even if it is 'just' the online part...it still is the first step in this direction, first step to make money from used games by blocking features behind a paywall...right?

Slippery slope? No. Sony made sure of that.

"Sony clarified that publishers cannot utilise any scheme which makes system changes to PlayStation 4, which would be required to restrict players from accessing used games they have on disc."

What you're talking about is a SERVICE. You pay a fee for that service. The publishers can offer that service for free, or it can be part of the console's subscription (Gold, PS+), or it can be a separate $15 per month for a really massive MMO. It can also have transactions in game. The business model for these services isn't related to the absolute restrictions to use the disc.

DRM is when the use of the disc is artificially restricted and controlled by the vendor. OTOH, an online service isn't an artificial restriction it's optional and you pay for that service if you like what it offers..

 

[Rockster]

DRM has nothing to do with discs and there is nothing artificial about it. Its a system or set of systems designed to restrict digital content from being copied, sold, distributed, or otherwise used outside the terms of use.

This stuff has been around forever. Originally the protections were placed on the physical media, with things like macrovision, etc. It's why you need a key cards to decrypt cable and satellite tv signals, and why you want your TV to support HDCP. The move to DRM for digital content is nothing new, and not going away. Unless people all of a sudden get honest and decide to stop stealing it. I find it ironic that Sony is now this pro-consumer entity when they basically installed rootkits on peoples computers with XCP. But I digress.

It's all part of the continuing struggle to strike a balance to protect content from being stolen but not interfere with fair consumer use. Clearly the DRM makers would want any system to be completely transparent to those not trying to exploit their content, and consumers want the maximum amount of flexibility for their purchases. I challenged this board in another thread to come up with a non-exploitable system to replace the current Xbone policy, that would still allow the mobility, diskless game switching, and family sharing components they are promoting; and didn't get any viable alternatives.

The good news is consumers are in control, as it's up to us to decide what terms we are or aren't willing to accept.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Copy protection and DRM are not the same thing.