Xbox One on the way. DRM removed, more details to come.

[Blaster man]

I wonder if they will now get most of those who abandoned ship back? The X1 is now #1 at amazon, but that may not mean much because the PS4 is now split into Launch (all gone), standard (not at launch) and then a bunch of launch day bundles. It may mean, though, that MS is going to have more X1s at launch than Sony will have PS4s, and then suddenly X1 will be in the lead. So I think maybe Sony needs to ramp up production so they have more launch day consoles available.

I think they've garnered some goodwill and will get some people back. That said, I I was definitely getting an "Xbox 720", then they announced the Xbox One with all the DRM and I moved to PS4 and decided to never get an X1. Now that they rolled this back I'm still getting a PS4 buttons read of never getting an X1 I will buy one after its a couple hubdred dollars less and has had at least one hardware revision.

 

[aptanor]

Where are you seeing Sony was planning to use the same sort of DRM as MS? The only evidence is that they patented something that could possibly have been that several months ago, but Sony stated that was completely unrelated to the PS4 and is for another product in development. Whether that's actually true is shaky, but we really don't know one way or the other.

And Sony helped themselves by doing right by their consumers. Their goals coincided with what people wanted them to do, so everyone wins.

 

[Ashane]

Where are you seeing Sony was planning to use the same sort of DRM as MS? The only evidence is that they patented something that could possibly have been that several months ago, but Sony stated that was completely unrelated to the PS4 and is for another product in development. Whether that's actually true is shaky, but we really don't know one way or the other.

And Sony helped themselves by doing right by their consumers. Their goals coincided with what people wanted them to do, so everyone wins.

The reddit link on the previous page. Click the user post history and read a few of his other posts.

It's clear he's working/knows someone working in a gaming studio, question is which one. Says it isnt EA, but it isnt small either. Must be multiplat, so I'm thinking Ubisoft, but who knows.

 

[tylerh1701]

An anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft's Xbox One team has posted a statement on Pastebin explaining their frustration over Microsoft's backtracking.

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

The motto around the offices for the family plan was "It's the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora" it was a social network within itself! The difference between the family sharing and the typical store demo is that your progress is saved as if it was the full game, and the data that was installed for that shared game doesn't need to be erased when they purchase the full game! It gave incentive to share your games among your peers, it gave games exposure, it allowed old games to still generate revenue for publishers. At the present time we're no longer going forward with it, but it is not completely off the table. It is still possible to implement this with the digital downloaded versions of games, and in fact that's the plan still as far as I'm aware.

If the above is true, Microsoft's family share plan wasn't even going to be like PS3's current 2 console game share policy. It would had been more like the PS+ 1 hour Game Trial benefit for PS+ members. I'm more glad now Microsoft is backpeddling cause the family plan everybody thought was possible wasn't even what Microsoft had in mind.

Came here to share this same info. Assuming it is true (it sounds true but I'd love to see some sources on it) it makes Family Sharing sound like a pretty worthless feature.

 

[rpmboy]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/19/xbox-one-drm-policy-changes-waited-on-gamers-knowing-complete-story/
 
“You have to be connected [for cloud processing to work]."
 
"Finally, Whitten could not give any reassurance that Microsoft will not change its policies in the future."
 
Sound like DRM might there under the guise of cloud processing.

 

[tylerh1701]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/19/xbox-one-drm-policy-changes-waited-on-gamers-knowing-complete-story/

“You have to be connected [for cloud processing to work]."

"Finally, Whitten could not give any reassurance that Microsoft will not change its policies in the future."

Sound like DRM is now going to be there under the guise of cloud processing.

It has to be there for any game developed to use cloud processing. Developers were told to use cloud processing in their games if they wanted, and they're not going to change that.

Hopefully they put a warning on the box for games that use the cloud processing that it will require internet access.

 

[aptanor]

Where are you seeing Sony was planning to use the same sort of DRM as MS? The only evidence is that they patented something that could possibly have been that several months ago, but Sony stated that was completely unrelated to the PS4 and is for another product in development. Whether that's actually true is shaky, but we really don't know one way or the other.

And Sony helped themselves by doing right by their consumers. Their goals coincided with what people wanted them to do, so everyone wins.

The reddit link on the previous page. Click the user post history and read a few of his other posts.

It's clear he's working/knows someone working in a gaming studio, question is which one. Says it isnt EA, but it isnt small either. Must be multiplat, so I'm thinking Ubisoft, but who knows.

Might be. Isn't any more substantiated than anybody else posting on a forum (like the family sharing quote above), so who knows.

After reading through that I still don't understand how that guy can keep saying that Sony is saving GS when the MS DRM supported them completely.

 

[Blaster man]

An anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft's Xbox One team has posted a statement on Pastebin explaining their frustration over Microsoft's backtracking.

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

The motto around the offices for the family plan was "It's the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora" it was a social network within itself! The difference between the family sharing and the typical store demo is that your progress is saved as if it was the full game, and the data that was installed for that shared game doesn't need to be erased when they purchase the full game! It gave incentive to share your games among your peers, it gave games exposure, it allowed old games to still generate revenue for publishers. At the present time we're no longer going forward with it, but it is not completely off the table. It is still possible to implement this with the digital downloaded versions of games, and in fact that's the plan still as far as I'm aware.

If the above is true, Microsoft's family share plan wasn't even going to be like PS3's current 2 console game share policy. It would had been more like the PS+ 1 hour Game Trial benefit for PS+ members. I'm more glad now Microsoft is backpeddling cause the family plan everybody thought was possible wasn't even what Microsoft had in mind.

Came here to share this same info. Assuming it is true (it sounds true but I'd love to see some sources on it) it makes Family Sharing sound like a pretty worthless feature.

I have a hard time believing family sharing was as good as people think it was but WTF even I didn't think it was that bad. That thing is downright awful.

 

[htz]

An anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft's Xbox One team has posted a statement on Pastebin explaining their frustration over Microsoft's backtracking.

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

The motto around the offices for the family plan was "It's the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora" it was a social network within itself! The difference between the family sharing and the typical store demo is that your progress is saved as if it was the full game, and the data that was installed for that shared game doesn't need to be erased when they purchase the full game! It gave incentive to share your games among your peers, it gave games exposure, it allowed old games to still generate revenue for publishers. At the present time we're no longer going forward with it, but it is not completely off the table. It is still possible to implement this with the digital downloaded versions of games, and in fact that's the plan still as far as I'm aware.

If the above is true, Microsoft's family share plan wasn't even going to be like PS3's current 2 console game share policy. It would had been more like the PS+ 1 hour Game Trial benefit for PS+ members. I'm more glad now Microsoft is backpeddling cause the family plan everybody thought was possible wasn't even what Microsoft had in mind.

Came here to share this same info. Assuming it is true (it sounds true but I'd love to see some sources on it) it makes Family Sharing sound like a pretty worthless feature.

Full Game Trials
Try before you buy! Play the full game for 1-hour. If you decided to buy the game, you pick up where you left off, and the trophies you earned will unlock. In the past we've featured games like: BioShock® Infinite, Army of Two, Army of TWO™ The Devil’s Cartel, Batman: Arkham City and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning™.

Like I said before, it sounds like PS+ 1 hour game trial, only that you can turn your full physical retail game into one to share with 10 friends. :I

Sounds legit enough that publishers will be okay with giving a 1 hour trial of all your games for up to 10 family members. Don't know how MS was going to spin it to sound like it was going to be a major benefit that we as gamers were thinking we would get.

 

[twiceborn]

An anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft's Xbox One team has posted a statement on Pastebin explaining their frustration over Microsoft's backtracking.

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

The motto around the offices for the family plan was "It's the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora" it was a social network within itself! The difference between the family sharing and the typical store demo is that your progress is saved as if it was the full game, and the data that was installed for that shared game doesn't need to be erased when they purchase the full game! It gave incentive to share your games among your peers, it gave games exposure, it allowed old games to still generate revenue for publishers. At the present time we're no longer going forward with it, but it is not completely off the table. It is still possible to implement this with the digital downloaded versions of games, and in fact that's the plan still as far as I'm aware.

If the above is true, Microsoft's family share plan wasn't even going to be like PS3's current 2 console game share policy. It would had been more like the PS+ 1 hour Game Trial benefit for PS+ members. I'm more glad now Microsoft is backpeddling cause the family plan everybody thought was possible wasn't even what Microsoft had in mind.

This actually sounds like a plausible game sharing plan. Unlike the pipe dream where one person buys a game and 10 people can play it indefinitely for free.

 

[rpmboy]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/19/xbox-one-drm-policy-changes-waited-on-gamers-knowing-complete-story/

“You have to be connected [for cloud processing to work]."

"Finally, Whitten could not give any reassurance that Microsoft will not change its policies in the future."

Sound like DRM is now going to be there under the guise of cloud processing.

It has to be there for any game developed to use cloud processing. Developers were told to use cloud processing in their games if they wanted, and they're not going to change that.

Hopefully they put a warning on the box for games that use the cloud processing that it will require internet access.

Of course, but if lots of developers start using cloud processing, then it basically takes you back to square 1, nullifying MS's announcement.

Also, I don't really believe that the cloud is as great as MS is hyping it up to be. Even if you had something good enough for the 24-hour check in, (as MS suggested, like a phone tether) that isn't anywhere close to being a good speed for a cloud connnection. Onlive barely works for me, and I have a pretty good internet connection.

 

[WV Matsui]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/19/xbox-one-drm-policy-changes-waited-on-gamers-knowing-complete-story/

“You have to be connected [for cloud processing to work]."

"Finally, Whitten could not give any reassurance that Microsoft will not change its policies in the future."

Sound like DRM is now going to be there under the guise of cloud processing.



It has to be there for any game developed to use cloud processing. Developers were told to use cloud processing in their games if they wanted, and they're not going to change that.

Hopefully they put a warning on the box for games that use the cloud processing that it will require internet access.

Exactly! Cloud processing is a good thing! I don't know how people don't see that!

 

[INMATEofARKHAM]

Its very counter intuitive but the only part of the pie missing from retail vs digital sale is the retailers share... Which in the US is about 6 dollars. (Also the price to manufacture a blu ray disc? A handful of cents by now.)

So for everyone to get their current share they could only take about $6.04 off the MSRP.

 

[aptanor]

"Cloud Processing" was a buzzword MS used to stir up some positive conversation, the idea isn't really fleshed out. Quite frankly, the online speeds most people have I don't think are really prepared to do anything meaningful in "the cloud." Correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever "the cloud" is doing could have just as easily been done by using some of that ram (or faster ram, or more ram) for something other than 3 operating systems.

 

[Erad30]

I think it's more because the cloud is just so vague at this point, a lot of technical experts have said that it hasn't even been proven it can be used in the way Microsoft is claiming it can. Plus given the general internet infrastructure of the US and many other places, even if it is possible we might not be able to take advantage of this. Right now the "cloud" is right up there with Mode 7 and Blast processing in that it's merely a buzzword.

 

[rpmboy]

"Cloud Processing" was a buzzword MS used to stir up some positive conversation, the idea isn't really fleshed out. Quite frankly, the online speeds most people have I don't think are really prepared to do anything meaningful in "the cloud." Correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever "the cloud" is doing could have just as easily been done by using some of that ram (or faster ram, or more ram) for something other than 3 operating systems.

I think it's more because the cloud is just so vague at this point, a lot of technical experts have said that it hasn't even been proven it can be used in the way Microsoft is claiming it can. Plus given the general internet infrastructure of the US and many other places, even if it is possible we might not be able to take advantage of this. Right now the "cloud" is right up there with Mode 7 and Blast processing in that it's merely a buzzword.

Internet speeds in the US aren't good enough for stuff like this. See: Onlive. Maybe when everyone in America has Google Fiber-like speeds it could work.

 

[benjamouth]

Wow so taking that at face value, that sounds like the MS I know and love.

Exchange all your ownership rights for the ability to let your friends demo games, ing terrible.

If anyone thinks that's worth the DRM restrictions, I have a hand full of magic beans to sell you.

MAGIC BEANS !!!!!!

EDIT - Having read the rest of it, again taking it at face value, this was quite obviously an attempt to kill the used market as it states and the new features sound like a pile of garbage, we should all be glad this died when it did.

 

[Methoes]

Found an article that would sum up to you all haters!!!
LINK

 

[Erad30]

Except that it's a joke article and mostly inaccurate. I.E. its been repeatedly pointed out that it's nothing like Steam.

 

[htz]

Found an article that would sum up to you all haters!!!
LINK

Before anyone jumps on me, I want to say this: I AM NOT DEFENDING THE XBOX ONE. Hell, I'd spent most of the day writing an article ripping the Xbox One apart (that I would post, but it would be completely and utterly pointless now). Just trying to channel what I think Don Mattrick, who genuinely was behind Xbox One's dumb bad policies, has been thinking.

fail...

 

[twiceborn]

Found an article that would sum up to you all haters!!!
LINK

Yet another dope comapring Steam to what MS might do, had they gottten their monopoly.

 

[mr.me]

An anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft's Xbox One team has posted a statement on Pastebin explaining their frustration over Microsoft's backtracking.

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

The motto around the offices for the family plan was "It's the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora" it was a social network within itself! The difference between the family sharing and the typical store demo is that your progress is saved as if it was the full game, and the data that was installed for that shared game doesn't need to be erased when they purchase the full game! It gave incentive to share your games among your peers, it gave games exposure, it allowed old games to still generate revenue for publishers. At the present time we're no longer going forward with it, but it is not completely off the table. It is still possible to implement this with the digital downloaded versions of games, and in fact that's the plan still as far as I'm aware.

If the above is true, Microsoft's family share plan wasn't even going to be like PS3's current 2 console game share policy. It would had been more like the PS+ 1 hour Game Trial benefit for PS+ members. I'm more glad now Microsoft is backpeddling cause the family plan everybody thought was possible wasn't even what Microsoft had in mind.

This actually sounds like a plausible game sharing plan. Unlike the pipe dream where one person buys a game and 10 people can play it indefinitely for free.

Yeah. Do you really think greedy MS was going to make it easier for you to lend games to people to play in full? They weren't doing it for the customer, they were trying gouge money out of people.

 

[Erad30]

It would make a lot more sense as to why they weren't really trying to use it as a selling point...

 

[PenguinMaster]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

 

[highoffcoffee496]

Well, feel sorry for those selling all their 360 stuff and boycotting MS. LOL.

Why would I feel sorry for boycotting MS? They are still a terrible company who tried to push all these extreme anti-consumer requirements onto us. This boycotting helped lead to these changes we saw yesterday.

I'll admit I have always been a huge PlayStation fan and have never liked MS, but this whole fiasco has made me dislike the company even more. HOWEVER, it's nice to see they did change their policies because it seemed like the PS4 was going to destroy it; I don't want that because competition is good for the industry.

What's funny is people are finally starting to come out and say that Sony was actually on board with the entire idea.... until they saw the backlash MS got.

I wonder what would have happened if the conference dates had been reversed.

So let's not white knight Sony please. They saw a clear opportunity to stick it to Microsoft and attempt to gain more market share, and they took it. It had absolutely nothing to do with you, the consumers.

Imho I think it's slightly ignorant to say it had nothing to do with consumers. Did they play a big role? Probably not. I agree Sony probably backed out due to the backlash and as you stated did it to gain market share. But they saw what people wanted, and listened and corrected it right away; they saw all the benefits it would give them as a company while keeping their customers happy. It took mass public outrage and mass media coverage for Microsoft to finally give it up. In the end, Sony just played this out better and now they are ahead (for now...)

 

[Erad30]

If there was actually a chance it would've been like Steam, possibly. See this is where TRUST is important. Valve had to really earn it but now they have pretty damn good customer trust. MS has no such customer goodwill in terms of these policies.

 

[htz]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

Probably the guy I was arguing with in this thread. :lol:

 

[gotdott]

"Cloud Processing" was a buzzword MS used to stir up some positive conversation, the idea isn't really fleshed out. Quite frankly, the online speeds most people have I don't think are really prepared to do anything meaningful in "the cloud." Correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever "the cloud" is doing could have just as easily been done by using some of that ram (or faster ram, or more ram) for something other than 3 operating systems.

It's not a buzzword, the cloud is something that has been gaining popularity in the tech sphere. Many major corporations have made a switch to the cloud for their server infrastructure.

 

[kill3r7]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

 

[WV Matsui]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?


No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

But it's the Internet! It has to be true or you can't post it! :lol:

 

[htz]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

http://www.onlive.com/

 

[Erad30]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

Sony and Nintendo have been doing day and date digital for awhile now. Huge step forward. They also often offer sales on digital versions of games that would supposedly piss off GS, Walmart, etc. too much because they undercut them. Microsoft is way behind on this.

 

[WV Matsui]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?


No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

http://www.onlive.com/

Gaikai

Which all the PS folks already think its going to be free. If it ever launches, I would bet big time that its extra on top of PS+. But MS/X1 fans aren't allowed to buy into a vision. That's only reserved for PS4 folks.

 

[PenguinMaster]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

Gaming moves forward because the games advance, because the developers are creative. I fail to see how a new distribution method would make for new game types. Especially since the Xbox One didn't require a constant internet connection what new gameplay innovations could it possibly have achieved by requiring DRM. Removing people's ability to own games doesn't change the gameplay.

 

[WV Matsui]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?


No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

Sony and Nintendo have been doing day and date digital for awhile now. Huge step forward. They also often offer sales on digital versions of games that would supposedly piss off GS, Walmart, etc. too much because they undercut them. Microsoft is way behind on this.

I would disagree and say that the sales around the holidays have been great on XBL. Bioshock comes to mind along with others like Sonic Generations and Tomb Raider is $30 right now which matches Amazon. Give some credit when it's due at least.

 

[htz]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

http://www.onlive.com/

Gaikai

Which all the PS folks already think its going to be free. If it ever launches, I would bet big time that its extra on top of PS+. But MS/X1 fans aren't allowed to buy into a vision. That's only reserved for PS4 folks.

I'm happy that you acknowledge that the PS4 will also get cloud features.

Edit: Without prohibiting our used games or imposing restrictive drm.

 

[Erad30]

So now that the Family Plan has been revealed to be shit, is there anyone on here that actually thinks the system with DRM would've been better?

No, but an anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft is not proof of what the plan was or could have been. IMO as I've stated over and over again in this thread, if both systems are "essentially" the same from a technological perspective then how does that move gaming forward. There has to be something new and interesting besides exclusives. For the folks who didn't care for DRM or M$ draconian policies there was always the option of buying a PS4.

I am a fan of digital media and realize that's the future of entertainment.

http://www.onlive.com/

Gaikai

Which all the PS folks already think its going to be free. If it ever launches, I would bet big time that its extra on top of PS+. But MS/X1 fans aren't allowed to buy into a vision. That's only reserved for PS4 folks.

I think the service itself would be free with PS+. Maybe pay for individual games? If not so what? Isn't Gakai essentially so we can access old libraries? According to MS that doesn't even matter...

 

[thenutman69321]

An anonymous poster claiming to be part of Microsoft's Xbox One team has posted a statement on Pastebin explaining their frustration over Microsoft's backtracking.

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game. We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it. One thing we knew is that we wanted the experience to be seamless for both the person sharing and the family member benefiting. There weren't many models of this system already in the wild other than Sony's horrendous game sharing implementation, but it was clear their approach (if one could call it that) was not the way to go. Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system. We wanted our family sharing plan to be something that was talked about and genuinely enjoyed by the masses as a way of inciting gamers to try new games.

The motto around the offices for the family plan was "It's the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora" it was a social network within itself! The difference between the family sharing and the typical store demo is that your progress is saved as if it was the full game, and the data that was installed for that shared game doesn't need to be erased when they purchase the full game! It gave incentive to share your games among your peers, it gave games exposure, it allowed old games to still generate revenue for publishers. At the present time we're no longer going forward with it, but it is not completely off the table. It is still possible to implement this with the digital downloaded versions of games, and in fact that's the plan still as far as I'm aware.

If the above is true, Microsoft's family share plan wasn't even going to be like PS3's current 2 console game share policy. It would had been more like the PS+ 1 hour Game Trial benefit for PS+ members. I'm more glad now Microsoft is backpeddling cause the family plan everybody thought was possible wasn't even what Microsoft had in mind.

Haha holy crap. We obviously have no idea if this is true but this sounds much more like what it would have been. The whole idea by some that the family share was gonna be some unlimited pass for you and 9 others was a ridiculous pipe dream, that scenario would hurt the industry way more than used games ever could. So if this is true family sharing basically was probably going to end up being nothing more than a demo for others. Sounds like a horrible program, this shit must have been hurriedly scrawled on a napkin at E3 when MS realized the backlash they were getting.

 

[Ashane]

Where are you seeing Sony was planning to use the same sort of DRM as MS? The only evidence is that they patented something that could possibly have been that several months ago, but Sony stated that was completely unrelated to the PS4 and is for another product in development. Whether that's actually true is shaky, but we really don't know one way or the other.

And Sony helped themselves by doing right by their consumers. Their goals coincided with what people wanted them to do, so everyone wins.

The reddit link on the previous page. Click the user post history and read a few of his other posts.

It's clear he's working/knows someone working in a gaming studio, question is which one. Says it isnt EA, but it isnt small either. Must be multiplat, so I'm thinking Ubisoft, but who knows.

Might be. Isn't any more substantiated than anybody else posting on a forum (like the family sharing quote above), so who knows.

After reading through that I still don't understand how that guy can keep saying that Sony is saving GS when the MS DRM supported them completely.

They were likely going to be a authorized reseller, however I think we all know the plan was to eventually simply go all digital and phase GS out completely.

It's funny though, people are linking the family plan as if its gospel and yet are going to ignore a same anon that says Sony was doing the exact same thing as MS.

 

[JoelyPoley]

From what I read Gaikai will be a subscription based service. It wont be free, but they haven't set a price for it yet. I would venture to guess that it will be something similar to netflix, except for games. Their website seems to point in that direction. http://www.gaikai.com/qa

 

[Mippo]

The problem for Microsoft is very simple.  If DRM can be patched to be shut off, that means it can be easily patched to be turned back on.  Microsoft has lost all trust on this issue.  Even moreso that it now appears they were purposefully misleading people with the family sharing plan.  Tons of people thought that they could share their games indefinitely with family members, just without concurrent use, but if was just a timed demo that is completely different and would have been met with even more backlash then they already had.  Microsoft was already getting very little support with the thought of unlimited game sharing, and most of the people who did support them even with their draconian DRM did so because they liked the family sharing plan.  They would've alienated the few people who actually were going to buy an Xbox One.  They didn't change this due to feedback, they obviously changed this because their sales forecasts were abysmal. 

What they lost with this failed attempt was trust, which is not easily gained back.  Even with them peeling back the DRM restrictions, all it means is I am not actively hating them and rooting for the console to fail.   However, it still doesn't win me over in an attempt to consider purchasing it again either for the simple reason stated above.   If DRM can easily be patched OUT of the system, what's to stop Microsoft from later adding it back into the system?  I just have no interest in taking that risk, especially after it appears Major Nelson flat out lied to people, in a very rude way, just this past week. 

As long as the executives responsible for this DRM push are working for Microsoft, I won't be buying an Xbox One.  You want to prove that it was a failure and you're trying to make amends?  Then fire the people responsible and right the ship.  Until that happens, no dice on the Xbox One.  I don't respect Microsoft for removing DRM only because their sales forecasts were horrible, they did it because the almighty dollar dictated they had to.  That doesn't prove anything to me.   End result is that I no longer wish the Xbox One completely fails like I did before, but this change doesn't bring me back on board either.   Microsoft still has more work to do, and it starts by firing the people responsible. 

 

[htz]

It's funny though, people are linking the family plan as if its gospel and yet are going to ignore a same anon that says Sony was doing the exact same thing as MS.

I honestly don't think Sony was going to do full digital. They cited the failure of the PSPGo experiment as the reason. If they would had restricted used games, they would had done it with the PS Vita probably. Either way Sony at least was smart enough to not go through with it, if they really originally planned it. I wouldn't want to be in Microsoft's current position backpeddling 5 months from a major console launch, and angering both sides(for physical or for digital).

The anonymous MS employee does sound reasonable in his explanation of the family share. Do you really honestly believe MS/Publishers/Retailers were okay with for every one game purchased it can be shared with 10 people? Sony originally offered 5 per console and even they reduced it to 2.

 

[Ashane]

It's funny though, people are linking the family plan as if its gospel and yet are going to ignore a same anon that says Sony was doing the exact same thing as MS.

I honestly don't think Sony was going to do full digital. They cited the failure of the PSPGo experiment as the reason. If they would had restricted used games, they would had done it with the PS Vita probably. Either way Sony at least was smart enough to not go through with it, if they really originally planned it. I wouldn't want to be in Microsoft's current position backpeddling 5 months from a major console launch, and angering both sides(for physical or for digital).

The anonymous MS employee does sound reasonable in his explanation of the family share. Do you really honestly believe MS/Publishers/Retailers were okay with for every one game purchased it can be shared with 10 people? Sony originally offered 5 per console and even they reduced it to 2.

If we believe that Reddit post, Sony dosent deserve any credit for not doing it. They were going to do it, but only backed off when they saw the reaction. That means they did exactly what MS did, just a bit earlier. I dont know though, it's hard to believe all these anon things all over, so who knows.

Reading the MS Employee seems a bit.. off. Like hes taking several direct talking points from /r/Xboxone and actually copy pasting them in, so no, I'm not sure how accurate it is.

However, did I expect it to be the be all end all? Of course not. I kind of expected it to be 1+1 and that was it, only one other person at a time playing. Which I would have been ecstatic with.

It's a bit too late now though. Since its on pastebin, it all must be true, and will be true in gamers minds. Therefor, it really was a 1 hour demo regardless of what it "actually" was.

 

[htz]

Reading the MS Employee seems a bit.. off. Like hes taking several direct talking points from /r/Xboxone and actually copy pasting them in, so no, I'm not sure how accurate it is.

However, did I expect it to be the be all end all? Of course not. I kind of expected it to be 1+1 and that was it, only one other person at a time playing. Which I would have been ecstatic with.

It's a bit too late now though. Since its on pastebin, it all must be true, and will be true in gamers minds. Therefor, it really was a 1 hour demo regardless of what it "actually" was.

If you go back, read my posts, and others on here. We never said the article was true, just that it was reasonable.

 

[Erad30]

Since Microsoft doesn't bother to explain anything what other option are we left with? I'm completely serious.

 

[kill3r7]

Since Microsoft doesn't bother to explain anything what other option are we left with? I'm completely serious.

PS4.

 

[simmias]

Sony and Nintendo have been doing day and date digital for awhile now. Huge step forward. They also often offer sales on digital versions of games that would supposedly piss off GS, Walmart, etc. too much because they undercut them. Microsoft is way behind on this.

I would disagree and say that the sales around the holidays have been great on XBL. Bioshock comes to mind along with others like Sonic Generations and Tomb Raider is $30 right now which matches Amazon. Give some credit when it's due at least.

I've been a Live member for over five years and a PS+ member for about a year. It's pretty obvious to anyone who has both that PS+ is way ahead of Live in terms of digital sales. Two pretty good sales on digital content in five years isn't a great track record.

And Tomb Raider plus DLC plus Quantum Conundrum was just $20 on Plus, so your $30 example is pretty poor. Although many would argue it's worth $10 not to have to play Quantum Conundrum.

 

[twiceborn]

Reading the MS Employee seems a bit.. off. Like hes taking several direct talking points from /r/Xboxone and actually copy pasting them in, so no, I'm not sure how accurate it is.

However, did I expect it to be the be all end all? Of course not. I kind of expected it to be 1+1 and that was it, only one other person at a time playing. Which I would have been ecstatic with.

It's a bit too late now though. Since its on pastebin, it all must be true, and will be true in gamers minds. Therefor, it really was a 1 hour demo regardless of what it "actually" was.

If you go back, read my posts, and others on here. We never said the article was true, just that it was reasonable.

Exactly. The only reason we're commenting on an anonymous source is because no one at MS ever went into detail as to how exactly the trading and sharing system were going to work. We were only given a basic outline.

And now the people who filled in the blanks with the best case scenarios are dissapointed about features that If you looked at it with common sense and in a calm level-headed manner, were not going to be all that great.

 

[kill3r7]

Sony and Nintendo have been doing day and date digital for awhile now. Huge step forward. They also often offer sales on digital versions of games that would supposedly piss off GS, Walmart, etc. too much because they undercut them. Microsoft is way behind on this.

I would disagree and say that the sales around the holidays have been great on XBL. Bioshock comes to mind along with others like Sonic Generations and Tomb Raider is $30 right now which matches Amazon. Give some credit when it's due at least.

I've been a Live member for over five years and a PS+ member for about a year. It's pretty obvious to anyone who has both that PS+ is way ahead of Live in terms of digital sales. Two pretty good sales on digital content in five years isn't a great track record.

And Tomb Raider plus DLC plus Quantum Conundrum was just $20 on Plus, so your $30 example is pretty poor. Although many would argue it's worth $10 not to have to play Quantum Conundrum.

PS+ is pretty awesome there is no denying that. Their sales have been great but largely due to competing with the monster that is XBL.

 

[Hodaka]

"Cloud Processing" was a buzzword MS used to stir up some positive conversation, the idea isn't really fleshed out. Quite frankly, the online speeds most people have I don't think are really prepared to do anything meaningful in "the cloud." Correct me if I'm wrong, but whatever "the cloud" is doing could have just as easily been done by using some of that ram (or faster ram, or more ram) for something other than 3 operating systems.

It's not a buzzword, the cloud is something that has been gaining popularity in the tech sphere. Many major corporations have made a switch to the cloud for their server infrastructure.

yeah, the university system I work for uses "cloud" services. I think you can guess where most of our outages occur. Yup, in "the cloud".