XBox One, PS4, DRM, and You

[Strange]

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.

Then it seems to me that game sharing is ultimately really up to the publishers to allow. It doesn't seem too far fetched that the biggest antagonists to game sharing would be publishers.
I mean, game sharing and multiple people simultaneously playing the same game on different consoles is, in a sense, consumers overstepping our line.

You don't get to have two people both driving a car simultaneously when you bought a single car. Demanding such a thing on games is a request too far in my opinion.

A nice option probably would be time limited passes that players can hand out to friends so that their friends get to play the game for a while with you.

For example, with each copy of the game you get to hand out a key that requires the recipient to play the game for, lets say, 3 hour "online and connected at all times".
After activation of the key, then the owner receives a 3~7 day cool down until he gets to hand out another key for the same game.

 

[Cranky]

Honest to God, I don't get how people are standing up and defending the Xbox One's DRM system. How exactly was MS standing up for consumer rights with this?

I much, and so does most everyone else quite obviously, prefer the Sony approach. Not the MS approach.

The reaction from Laa-Yosh and Joker are just.. Extreme. "Fuck Sony" Really? You won't buy their console because its a "Stumbling block"?

Wtf.

Nothing that MS announced was designed as DRM for DRM's sake. It was simple a positive outcome of the steps take to provide consumers with more value and utility for their purchases. Disc-based Used game sales and lending have virtually no value today and none past the next couple of years. AOAC should be expected of any gadget bought in the last several years. Therefore consumers were losing nothing except some imaginary "rights." MS was offering massive increases in value through their digital access polices. The math is quite simple. The ROI on an investment in which you pay virtually nothing and receive massive value is enormous.

 

[Scott_Arm]

did they say all games still require to be installed?

Of course they will. The streaming performance off disc is too slow. PS4 will install as well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

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 .

Well you know what you have to do (apart from reduce your use of zillions of full stops to just one period at the end of each sentence ) and that's make lots of noise. It's been proven to work on getting DRM reversed (which must've come as a shock to those confident it would blow over and the silent majority would prove it doesn't matter). Maybe enough vocalisation can get an optional online check policy for those in favour? I can't see how more choice isn't good in this regard.

 

[RacVic]

No, they shouldn't. They shouldn't any more than I should pay the people who made the house I live just because I enjoy the experience of living here.

Ok, I must say I have never looked at it from that point of view. But are you really comparing the long term investment of home ownership to the short term entertainment a game is intended to provide? Do you maintain a game? Does it shelter your family? They are two fundamentally different business models and should be treated as such. But wait can you point out an instance of house pirating?

Pay for it and don't copy it. Like with anything else.

The theory doesn't match the practical

Are we being responsible when we let a friend use our car? What if they enjoy the experience of driving it? Should a MS server detect this and deactivate the car?

They'd get their own I'd hope, just like the game. Or do you regularly gift your cars to your friends? Again a different business model.

How much of a cut do you think the people who built your house should get when you sell it?

Same answer as above.

Cool.

And this is why we have all this DRM bullshit to deal with.

Preferably before I'm stripped of owning the things I've paid for.

I agree. I don't want my that for myself either. But then again when I die I can take none of it with me. But that's a different discussion.

That's a preferable thought to "I'm just one person so this huge company should be able to do whatever they can get me to put a thumb print to" and then extending that thought to " so if they can do it to one person they should be able to do it to everyone else". Companies aren't our home country that is about to be invaded and purged by hellspawn; we shouldn't have to sacrifice ourselves and the rights of our parents to serve the greater good of "some company". That's insane.

Companies will exploit any loop hole they can. That is the truth. I'm not sure what age your parents are but I know when mine were my age didn't consume stuff the way we do. Ownership was a privilege one worked towards. They grew up in an analogue world. News took days to get from one place to the other. Today you can share a file in the click of a button. Everyone knows whats taking place instantly. Times change and so do the tools of those times. Have the rights of use and the privileges of ownership kept pace and do they reflect the times we live in? You tell me.

And in what way were publishers and MS supposed to be inconvenienced MS's proposed DRM system? I lose right of ownership, freedom to sell freely, freedom to lend freely, and the guarantee of life long (and probably longer) access. What do MS and their publisher chums give up? (I'd really appreciate an answer on this point).

So I take it MS made no effort to allow you to continue doing the things you are accustomed to? There were policies for lending, sharing and second hand sales. And this is a system that is supposed to treat all games as a digital copy. No wait, MS is the hell spawn. It's a little knee jerk if you ask me.

 

[joker454]

The reaction from Laa-Yosh and Joker are just.. Extreme. "Fuck Sony" Really? You won't buy their console because its a "Stumbling block"?
Wtf.

Ummm, what? When did I ever say that? Don't put words in my mouth, there's already a mountain of fud to wade thru without you adding more of it.

At this point apparently yes, but it was Microsoft's PR disaster which made it that way. The semi-always online thing was simply a step too far, if they had simply allowed offline play for your own games they would have had room to sell their ideas.

Perhaps but one has to wonder if they caved to early. The complaints remind me of riots, where 1% of the people rioting are actually pissed about what happened and the other 99% are just rioting because they want to create chaos and loot. In this case we'll never really know if the majority of Xbox players would have preferred it to remain the way it was, or if they even had any issue with it at all.

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.

If it's that easy then why hasn't any other digital provider on the planet offered anything similar to what the Xb1 was formerly going to be offering? Not Sony, not Apple, not Google, not Amazon, not Valve, not EA, etc, no one. Microsoft was breaking new ground here, with "was" being the operative word.

 

[Nesh]

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.

I was expecting that my question was not going to be clear. I will try to re explain.
MS has set a mechanism that does not allow a game to be playable/activated before its launch date. Obviously that requires to be online at least once to check the real date online. Unless this has also been abandoned. Assuming it is not, and the console does not require to be online every 24 hours the console should be at least informed once that the game was activated by downloading at least a verification that it was officially launched. If in the very far future my console is formatted like its brand new, everything is reset and the console is no longer supported online MS, wouldnt it still be playable?

And since you mention the cloud, lets say that a game requires the cloud to operate, in the future will I be able to still play the game when MS puts down the game's servers?

 

[Cranky]

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

Wow that man gets it!

 

[Nesh]

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

I still do not understand why this cant apply for games that you download digitally if MS decides to.

edit: And also I dont understand why for someone who wants to own a game physically to ensure he will never lose it in the future is not a good thing

 

[Tap In]

I still do not understand why this cant apply for games that you download digitally

it was a trade off for controlling how discs were shared traded which in their estimation costs the industry money... they were going to offer more and better features for digital as compensation for lack of disc features and entice people over.

I imagine that with discs being shared (and not accounted for in revenue) they can no longer afford to do that

 

[3dilettante]

I can't see how more choice isn't good in this regard.

Notice how with both polar opposite choices, choice isn't increased...?

 

[jonabbey]

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

I keep seeing people asserting that Microsoft was allowing sale of digital content, but the only thing they ever stated was that they had a (constrained) way of allowing users to re-sell or give away games that were installed from disc.

So far as I know, Microsoft never, ever committed to used game sales or transfer for digital downloads.

 

[Scott_Arm]

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

That article is great.

His comments are great too.

 

[AlphaWolf]

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

I would put this as my sig but it's a bit verbose. If you don't mind I'll just quote it often to rile up those who are offended.

 

[Rangers]

I still do not understand why this cant apply for games that you download digitally if MS decides to.

It sounds like it might.

I believe Whitten already said access your library anywhere is available for digital titles, and 10 friends sharing is not going to make launch for digital titles, implying it may come later.

But, you're not going to get those positives with disc purchases now, which is bad.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

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.

No, I'm definitely not. Im proposing Microsoft offer all the digital library sharing benefits and no-disc-in-drive benefits for digital purchases which remain subject to the exact same policies (24hr/check in, etc) as before. If it was OK 2 hours ago, why is it not acceptable now? Then for games on disc they do what they are proposing now. No digital sharing and the disc needs to be in the drive. They aren't changing any requirements, only giving consumers options.

But they seemingly don't want too. Consumers have pissed them off and consumers will now suffer.

 

[Tchock]

I still do not understand why this cant apply for games that you download digitally if MS decides to.

Several factors: too much complication to explain to consumers (disc vs digital rights etc) / resistance from retail cannibalization / resistance from publishers who posited an either-or scenario (full-digital-DRM or disc-based + our own always-online lock in)

But mainly I suspect that the flexibility of ex-XB1 DRM was because it was a hand-over from physical media- a compromise instead of a liberation. Native digital downloads were never meant to be flexible in such a manner.

 

[ninzel]

Well on a positive note,once all this dies down the focus can go back to where it belongs which is the games.

 

[Nesh]

it was a trade off for controlling how discs were shared traded which in their estimation costs the industry money... they were going to offer more and better features for digital as compensation for lack of disc features and entice people over.

Why do you care about money related to disks since you consider digital to be the future? Nothing prevents them from adding better features for the digital versions. Which is again absurd because this sounds like a carrot on a stick. Offer better features as a compensation for taking a convenience away and to entice people over?? Its the equivalent of artificially holding disk based games back so that they force the consumer to buy the better version through the medium the companies want. Its not the equivalent of "a new technology that opens potential that were not possible before". Its not moving forward. Its holding back what always could have been provided unless the consumer succumbs to the interests of the companies.

I imagine that with discs being shared (and not accounted for in revenue) they can no longer afford to do that

Oh you based that argument on an assumption.

 

[Rangers]

People keep saying "just make game online only" in response to "how are they going to use cloud now" questions...

To which I must say, the last "online required" (non-MMO) game I recall was called Sim City. We know the "outrage" that resulted...so I dont think "make game online only" is a viable response.