XBox One, PS4, DRM, and You

[Deleted member 11852]

The problem is MS was also offering a digital version of every disc bought game and making that available and shareable... so... not they couldnt continue that.

Then they don't do that. Just have different policies for disc vs digital purchase. Just like now on all the consoles. Why is this such a difficult concept to comprehend?

 

[Bagel seed]

Actually I was seriously considering getting a PS4 first as no MS exclusive apart from Halo 5 was looking interesting to me, but now I've decided not to support Sony at all. They've become a stumbling block and I can not support that attitude.

This is all Sony's fault now?

Well, I can kind of see where that feeling is coming from. Sony lambasted MS DRM schemes and it was easy to prod the public in that direction. However, the onus is on MS to respond and convince the masses that what they offered is a good thing, and they simply couldn't.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Common sense makes me certain. It's enough for me.

So based on nothing other than a hunch, you going to accuse Sony of agreeing with publishers to support a DRM policy as MS were intending, then pull a 180 and backstab them at E3, and ride the wave of popularity and rake in the preorders in light of MS sticking to the industry-wide agreed DRM policy, and now instead of the publishers going public and claiming Sony backstabbed them and vowing not to support Sony's console, ensuring it will die or Sony must change position, everyone's dropping what the industry wanted and going with a business strategy nobody at all wants dictated by one company.

You've a different interpretation of 'common sense' to me, I guess. Your interpretation strikes me more as jumping to conclusions than common sense. IMO what probably happened was Sony was in discussion with publishers talking about their plans and what they would and wouldn't like, then settled on a strategy which they informed the publishers off months before E3 in their development contracts and documentation, and everyone knew exactly what was going on. No-one's betrayed. MS just chose a different strategy not expecting the public outcry, and have now reevaluated.

Maybe a book on this gen, "XB1 revealed", will have a chapter about the DRM policy and talk about Sony's evil betrayal and show us the emails and papers wherein Sony implied they would support a similar DRM system only to viciously betray the industry. Until then, a random guess is no sane basis for a somewhat vindictive attitude.

 

[ninzel]

Good move IMO, it works better for me if I buy XboxOne.
My sharing, if I do it, is with people close to me geographically.
All this outrage about not being able to share digital over lone distances..was this really something people were clamouring for? I never heard about it last gen. Sounds great in theory but how many people would actually need this feature.
It seemed to me that that feature was something MS was trying to sell as some big deal because they knew it wouldn't cost them anything. Trying to create a market to serve themselves,as opposed to serving a market that was for the consumer.
Still like I said before, MS could have two separate policies for disk games and DD games.
It would have still required some check but it would be better than this petulant all or nothing approach.

 

[jonabbey]

The digital version is actually much more capable of avoiding the call-in requirement than the dumb plastic disc.
The plastic can't modify itself to indicate it has been installed, but the download infrastructure knows the console, account, and time of the download, and the Xbox would know how to obey the signing.

Except Microsoft was attempting to block simultaneous play of shared games for more than two users at a time, which would require an ongoing connection.

If Microsoft had amended their policy to allow one install to play with the disc in the drive and one install to play with an online connection, it could have worked, but they were trying to get away from the disc in the drive requirement, which necessitated everyone having a connection.

 

[patsu]

I'm not sharing my DD titles anyway so I'm not sure, but what's the current activation limits? Because through careful "rationing" time to different PS3s, it's possible to go beyond 3 PS3 limit. At least I remember that was the case when the limit was 5 PS3s.

I think they changed the limit from 5 PS3s to 3 PS3s.
Vita and PSP count separately. I forgot the numbers.

You can find out from your account in the Sony Entertainment Network website.


Now let's see if (good) AAA games can survive with this new DRM. Cliff Bleszinski may have a point, but he may also be overly dramatic.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I have one question regarding this one. Lets say in the future when the XBOX 5 is released and MS abandons the support for XBone, and hence no online service will support it, will I be able to play my XBone games for nostalgia reasons? What will inform the console that the game I am inserting passed the release date if lets say my console is formated and no history is left in it?

Sorry, I don't quite understand your question in relation to the quoted post. If a game requires online, such as Warhawk say, then when the online servers are switched off, the game stops working. If a product requires a cloud component and the cloud service is disabled, the game stops working. That's different to online validation though. You need a 24 hour online validation policy to ensure that every game can make use of the cloud. Any game can make use of the cloud independent of console DRM policies.

 

[Xenus]

It wouldn't of required an ongoing connection though just one flag. Set when user starts the game unset when user stops any user trying to share it just checks the flag and if it's in use they can't play.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Doesn't make much difference to me, but losing access to my full library from other consoles and losing the sharing feature sucks.

They must have seen some preorder data they didn't like.

Mixed feelings. The ownership is in line with how I feel, but part of me feels like this is digital and connected progress stalled.

Modvention: Not helping.

 

[3dilettante]

Except Microsoft was attempting to block simultaneous play of shared games for more than two users at a time, which would require an ongoing connection.

It could have required the 24-hour check-in for that, since the servers know if a game is shared or not, or more likely just checked during a routine shared library refresh when attempting to use the master account's list.

The sharing Xbox would need to go out to the servers to build and maintain its list.

 

[Nesh]

still does not apply to gaming

Why not?

 

[patsu]

Doesn't make much difference to me, but losing access to my full library from other consoles and losing the sharing feature sucks.

It might be a temporary situation. They have to tackle households with multiple Xbox Ones too.

At least in PS3, we get to access our library on up to 3 PS3s. May be they will have something similar nextgen.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think they changed the limit from 5 PS3s to 3 PS3s.
Vita and PSP count separately. I forgot the numbers.

It dropped to a paltry two, meaning you can only really share with a single friend. I guess the thinking here is you have one copy at home and when you visit someone else, can download and play the game their with them. Due to the rigmarole of unassigning games to consoles though, portability of download games is very restricted. I'd like to see something like the option when wanting to assigning a game to a new console to choose which other console to deactivate from the new target. Eg. Mr. A visits Mr. B and they play split-screen QBert HD 2013. Mr. A then goes to Mr. C and wants to play Qbert there. They download the game to Mr. C's console and deactivate Mr. B's console, so the game is still only shared across two consoles.

One advantage with Sony's current system though is that both consoles can play simultaneously on the same game, so one purchaser could play online with a friend sharing his purchase. That's also something of a loophole and one that was readily exploited with the 5 game sharing. It's also possible for games to opt-out of game sharing, or at least WH could, so I guess that choice lay with the publisher in the end.

 

[Strange]

Doesn't make much difference to me, but losing access to my full library from other consoles and losing the sharing feature sucks.

They must have seen some preorder data they didn't like.

Mixed feelings. The ownership is in line with how I feel, but part of me feels like this is digital and connected progress stalled by the following groups of people:

- people with untreated mental issues that believe Kinect was going to spy on them
- people that live in caves and mud huts with electricity
- people that were never going to buy it anyway
- people that think the Internet is bad for gaming
- people that believe multiplayer isn't taking over
- people that have serious gaming addiction that must travel with their console at all times, even to remote locations
- people that demand cutting-edge $100 million dollar games but feel entitled to never have to pay for them
- people that will end up buying most of their games digitally anyways
- people who already buy games on Steam
- people who will now complain that they have to play with the disc in the tray

"Digital and connected" being the right direction doesn't necessarily mean Microsoft's scrapped DRM deal is the right direction.

Moving to digital and connected can be done many ways, and incidentally Microsoft chose the way that basically gave the middle finger to the consumer.

The revolt was against the particular method instead of the direction. I believe most people here understand the general direction was right but the execution was as shitty as hell.

 

[MfA]

Except Microsoft was attempting to block simultaneous play of shared games for more than two users at a time, which would require an ongoing connection.

This is true, which always made the 24 hour thing a bit weird ... every 24 hours wasn't ever going to be enough for limiting sharing to one instance.

 

[ArcticCircle]

- people with untreated mental issues that believe Kinect was going to spy on them
- people that live in caves and mud huts with electricity
- people that were never going to buy it anyway
- people that think the Internet is bad for gaming
- people that believe multiplayer isn't taking over
- people that have serious gaming addiction that must travel with their console at all times, even to remote locations
- people that demand cutting-edge $100 million dollar games but feel entitled to never have to pay for them
- people that will end up buying most of their games digitally anyways
- people who already buy games on Steam
- people who will now complain that they have to play with the disc in the tray

Very accurate. I'm guilty as charged for all of these points. And it feels good, better then undead James Brown.

 

[Gitaroo]

did they say all games still require to be installed?

 

[mrcorbo]

That's ridiculous. Microsoft can offer both, but have chosen not too. Folks who buy games only on disc could be spared having their games locked if they can't connect for more than 24 hours. But if you buy a digital purchase, those games are subject to that requirement. They aren't mutually exclusive.

This isn't rocket science; Microsoft are an operating system, software and services company.

You're assuming that publishers' agreement to allow the game sharing wasn't contingent on MS implementing their former restrictions. I don't think that's a safe assumption to make. All or nothing may actually be their only choices.

 

[brasnial]

Doesn't make much difference to me, but losing access to my full library from other consoles and losing the sharing feature sucks.

They must have seen some preorder data they didn't like.

Mixed feelings. The ownership is in line with how I feel, but part of me feels like this is digital and connected progress stalled by the following groups of people:

- people with untreated mental issues that believe Kinect was going to spy on them
- people that live in caves and mud huts with electricity
- people that were never going to buy it anyway
- people that think the Internet is bad for gaming
- people that believe multiplayer isn't taking over
- people that have serious gaming addiction that must travel with their console at all times, even to remote locations
- people that demand cutting-edge $100 million dollar games but feel entitled to never have to pay for them
- people that will end up buying most of their games digitally anyways
- people who already buy games on Steam
- people who will now complain that they have to play with the disc in the tray

All good points and all probably right to one degree or another ...I feel we just took a step backwards not forward .
I just hope Microsoft bring in another tear on Xbox live for the likes of me ....i'd gladly pay more for there digital game sharing feature .

 

[Tap In]

Why not?

http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-one-jus..._source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

You would also, as it happens, have been able to share and resell your digitally purchased games. That's a REALLY BIG DEAL. We won't be able to do that now, though. We still have to use the disc for games we buy physically. This is the loss of some of the most future-facing features of the system, things that changed and challenged the traditional limitations of console gaming. We are literally standing in stasis, refusing to move forward, at the behest of those who are loudest and not ready for the future.

Cheaper games. Easier sharing. The end of discs. The Xbox One would have been just fine despite the chorus of haters, would have been a better system for ignoring them. Microsoft losing its nerve on this isn't just disappointing for the features we lose. It's unfortunate because it shows just how heavy an anchor we can be.