Microsoft to Pull Complete Reversal on Xbox One DRM Policies

I heavily dislike Microsoft after this generation. The RRoD was the big one for me. Microsoft initially blaming it on me and wanting to charge me $150 to send it in. The terrible updates to the dashboard were the second (I like that they were trying to change and evolve with the consumer base), but they basically made it pretty unusable and slow. The 3rd big thing was their terrible xbox live walled community to basically everything. 4th was their super expensive hdd prices, and Major Nelson trying to defend the thing on his radio show sounding like an idiot. 5th, Major Nelson telling me that people who complained about avatars being pretty useless were actually the ones spending hours buying accessories (I didn't buy anything except the bungie shirt for charity). 6th was their steady decline of XBLA and the higher prices for games that were actually crummier, Geometry Wars was actually the best priced and best game still on the XBLA store.

I wish they would have pushed their DRM centric console even harder, it would have been funnier for me.

Mandatory Kinect is definitely a deal-breaker for me. I wouldn't even know where to put that thing around my TV. There's already too much stuff cluttering that shit up.

Even thought the Xbox One is more like the Xbox 360, the two things stopping me from thinking about getting one are the price and the Kinect. To me, the Kinect is useless.

@darkmario265: Every company with shareholders is about money. Don't fool yourself. Just because one company makes a product you identify with doesn't make them somehow immune to this. That product was designed to appeal to you and extract as much $$$ as possible from your fists.

Even with the reversal i still wouldn't buy a console from a company i already know is all about money
i knew they weren't going to change anything until they absolutely had to, for the sake of their money
the choice was either make some or make none

Guess they had to do something

@patrickklepek This article was used briefly on the BBC News show Click when talking about the Xbox One. Weird seeing Giant Bomb and your name up on the news!

I think it's very funny whenever I read a comment that says that the NSA will use the Kinect to spy on them. I have a government job albeit not in the NSA, but I can assure you that the NSA has no plans or an agreement in place with Microsoft to use their gaming peripheral to spy on you. I'm sure the NSA has enough funding to use more sophisticated equipment than the Kinect. Plus do you actually think that if Microsoft was doing it, they would lobby our government for transparency? Once granted transparency, then you can see that the Kinect is in no way shape or form a device for spying, but a device to be used for what it was designed to do, to play video games!

@khidi:
And one more thing

Q: Why mandatory Kinect!? are they SPYING on us!? OMG!

A: Kinect became mandatory because MS wants to see it used to it's full potential by developers. Ie: A horror game that knows when you're relaxed so it freaks you the hell out when you literally least expect it. They invested a lot of time into what is actually a very advanced, underused, and honestly futuristic peripheral. If it is mandatory, developers won't be scared to integrate it into their games and you'll see amazing new things. (Example: The Psycho Mantis fight from MGS1 when dualshock hit the scene, too damn cool back in the day...)

@khidi:

Waaaaaaaayyy Tl;dr

Let me explain this as simply as possible for the slower crowd...
The biggest of your arguments are voided by a few sentences.

Q: Why have restrictions in place and always connected?

A: Because at time of release, Physical media still exists. Going direct to all digital is the plan, but even they understand that a complete digital shift so quickly would not be acceptable to many gamers. By having physical media and making it downloadable to the console, you essentially have a "passkey" for a downloaded game, unfortunately, this passkey actually contains the data and it would be unreasonable just to allow hundreds to download the game onto their console for no charge. Always on connection puts a system of checks in place to ensure that doesn't happen with physical media. Once physical discs leave entirely, DRM wouldn't be necessary to play games. (except to download them in the first place)

Q: What if there is a breach like PSN!?

A: You pay for XBL for a reason, and for the billions they are investing in the already far superior amount of servers and security, that concern is minimal. Remember, this is a software company that has the deepest of pockets. This is what they do. Microsoft addressed this, although briefly, in the first press release. This is probably the main reason Sony slipped in the PS+ charge during E3. That, and MS was taking all the heat.

Q: Why no sharing?

A: Read my first post in full, grasp the economics, then, if you still don't understand, re-read. In short, would you rather be able to buy used games for a jacked up price benefiting the retailer, or decrease the cost of, and selling price of games as a whole and support developers directly?

I truthfully hope your post wasn't a very long-winded troll, but it appears to me that it was mostly just a rage post. Come at me with something real, and with relative intelligence and rhetoric, then I'll consider your rantings to have some merit.

@darth8ob: Really? I mean really? Still this crap? This hurts my brain.

- TLDR - Step in the right direction, now remove and lower the price or let the Kinect be unplugged and XBox might be on even grounds with PS4.

First the really bad.

How is adding multiple new restrictions and additional (not earned btw) control over what the consumer does with his/her product not "MS wasn't trying to intentionally screw over any of their customers" ? Limiting where, how or when I/you/someone can use the console and games without any real benefits isn't "screwing customer over" ? Then what is?

*Also I'll talk about the supposed benefits in a bit but let's continue with this train of thought, other than to MS and big publishers that is.*

Also forcing a device with a camera that can see you in the dark and a microphone that you must have connected and powered to use your console at all, they pointed out that you can decide how the Kinect works to some degree but still you can't unplug the damn thing if you want, isn't screwing consumers over?

If you don't want to or won't get anything that will use any of the features that Kinect provides, why can't you keep it unplugged?

Or if you don't want to have an active survaillance device in your house that MS or NSA or 4chan or all together could use for their own fun, why do you have to have it powered? Even after the removal of online requirements/DRM you can't leave it unplugged, why is that? Why it must still be connected? I think you can stick "Uses Kinect" stickers to your games if you use it for anything.

Online checks and additional DRM for disc based games (yes yes the "cloud libary" will be talked about) also doesn't count as screwing over?

Why would you even use discs if you are going for the digital future? While trying to hop straight to "digital only" is stupid enough, why wouldn't you just ignore discs? The machine is supposed to be always connected to a broadband connection isn't it? Why confuse people with the illusion that they are still getting a physical copy and think that they can use it like before? Oh wait, the evil retail behind the curtain is looking mean.

Have you witnessed a launch of an mmo? Or launch of an expansions to those, WoW for example? While they have gotten better at those, they still have serious problems in the first week(s). And those are games that are 24/7 online, meant to be so from the start. Then there was D3 release which wasn't exatcly good one, actually a crappy one. And it was also Blizzard doing that, they know what to expect at launch.

How did new SimCity launch go? Did it take one week or more to be able to play a game that didn't have to be always online? Wasn't that fun? Now XBone would require regular check ups, not constant connection. Still the first time that service went down, be it at launch or time after that for any reason, black outs, accidents, DoS attacks for an extended ammount of time and consoles would become useless for their supposed use, how do you think consumers would feel? Consumer is required to jump at the word "go" and so assumes that service provider will be always ready, it has to be when it builds the service around that idea. It would be, apologies, a fucking shitstorm.

Now how long was PSN out after being hacked? It was weeks, not one day or two, several weeks. That was only the online services, PS3 still worked fine in offline but people didn't really like the outage, nevermind possible security problems.

Now imagine all new Xboxes becoming bricks for weeks. Even several days would be enough.

After that it would "probably" take more than month of PS+ to get people back. Not only because it did happen but because it can happen and consumer is at the mercy of service providers actions if consumer wants to use his/her console to, you know, play games with. The thing that the product is used for. This would be just a timebomb waiting to go off. Be it for any reason, internal, outside or just beyond anyone's control the first major outage would be fatal for the console, especially when across the road there is another console that would work just fine in similiar case.

Do I have to go to the negatives that needing a internet connection to work at all causes? I'm not US citizen but you and I understand that that is a insane requirement for military personel, hospitals and such. Also mandatory Kinect has big problems in those cases.

So, you don't have internet connection requirement anymore, except when setting up. Or the pseudo-"digital only" playing around with discs. Good. You still have mandatory Kinect that can't be unplugged. Bad. You (MS) dropped possible features that would have worked just fine with "current" digital market. Strange.

Now the "positives" that this crap could have brought

The "Cloud"

Mother of buzzwords right now. Beyond possible Titanfall or Forza AI computing what else is there? Right, we don't know. So let's leave it there.

Digital game libary

How does this differ from what you have now? Buying digital copy from online and having it tied to your account. Even with the now "lost" digital future it would be just like now, unless MS was planning to go all Gaikai on us and all your games would be streamed from the "Cloud".

But wait, why then would you have to even install anything if the.. I'll use C now for the "cloud"...digital copy of the game is in the C? Yeah, it's the good old Steam/PSN/XBL/GOG/similiar model that is currently in use.

That is right, your copy is magically in the C so you don't "have to" carry your game collection with you, but unless you are running with 100M+ connection where you are going with your game libary, you would still carry those "old and useless" discs with you so you don't have to wait 12h to download the game you want to play, fun times!

Your digital "libary" is pointless now, you will want to carry your discs with you, so you can actually play the damn games instead of waiting to download it. Or just bring your god damn brick of a console with you, yay for digital future!

"Steamlike" prices/sales.

Wouldn't happen. Why? Monopoly. Not much else to say, figure it out.

Sharing and "Family plan"

Now being able to sell/loan/give digital versions of your games to others would be awesome I admit. Still even the giving part is made a bit complex. It would've been that you could give your copy to one person who has been on your friend list for 30 days and as far as I understood it, you can only gift game once. Does this mean that if I buy the game it can only be gifted once in it's lifetime or does it mean that I can only give my copy once and the new owner could do the same? What information we got said that you will lose your "copy" so 2nd isn't that atleast, might not be 1st either, not enough information. So cool idea with maybe needless hoops to jump through but still a solid idea. Why was this dropped then? Also this wasn't supposed to be available at launch AFAIK.

Now the big one, in many ways. The "Family plan".

Basicly you could add 9 people to your "family" and they could get acces to games you put in your shared libary. Ok, sounds cool but what does it mean exactly? My understanding was that added "family" members could acces any of your games that you have put in the libary. You could play game A and one of them could play game B/C/D/E at the same time. Would have worked best with 1-2 friends with not exactly same tastes in games because you could still play "your" game you bought and X could play a game that he/she bought together with you. Or similiar cases point being that you could split game costs and/or possibly try new things without having to buy it "blind".

Now sounds cool doesn't it? Not "too good to be true" yet though. Could happen because with more than a few people managing it would become a nightmare, time wise and who gets what game bound to their account. Still not impossible yet IMO.

Now the thing that some people cry that we have "lost" because "crying gamerbabies".

Buy 1 game and share it with 9 other people.

Yeah, sounds way too good to be true doesn't it? Yes because it wasn't from this reality.

A system that was made to kill used games would let you split game costs with 9 other people without any kind of catch?

Are youinsane?

Not only that but instead of allowing a system where game might be sold once or twice after initial purchase would let you buy one copy and allow 10 people to use that one copy? Sure it would have been fine with MS, they won't get much if anything from game sales so it would've had not hurt them really. Now ask EA/Ubi/ACTIVISION what they would think about that? Yeah, thought so, no fucking way in icy hell.

Also if you have followed the "news" (rumours in neogaf), the whole glorious "Family plan" might have been worse version of full game trials that PSN has for PS+ members. Because they have either put it on hold or scrapped the whole idea, we will probably never really know what it was supposed to be but it could not have been the version that some people made it to be. There is no way in this industry that you could share 1 game with 9 people without other limits than 1 person being able to play it at times.

Cute by the way that games getting bigger and bigger budgets is moving forwards supposedly. It's not like it's the biggest problem at the moment or anything. "No small budget game brings out any new ideas that is for sure."

While Gamestop/equal is hurting developers in the end, it is not the consumers duty to pay up to it. Publishers and retail have to work it out themselves, killing any form of 2nd hand market, rental or just plain gifting your games away isn't the solution for problems that they themselves created.

And if innovation means that MS and big publishers get to milk everyone even better than before, it is a wrong direction for sure. Treating customers as wallets that you can beat down without any consideration to them is a industry that needs to either crash horribly or get somekind of change in direction because that sure as hell won't do. And if the planned XBone would have sold actually decent numbers, that is even more reason to call this kind of bullshit out. You may not mind being slave to shareholders whims but a lot of people don't like that idea. Also trying to create planet consuming diseases is innovation and trying to create a black holes on earth counts as that too. CAN'T BE A BAD IDEA RIGHT? It's not automaticly good if it is being "innovative".

Guess who also had innovative future plans? Yeah, we are going there, stick to your teddy bears because we are going to Godwyn this bitch up, Hitler.

And if you didn't catch the joke, MS isn't the new Nazis.

They get points for actually realising that what they were planning to do was insane and changing things. Or noticing that suitcases didn't like the idea of giving up at the start. But they still tried to do it. Remember that.

And if you wan't the new XBox because of the games, knock yourself out but don't try to guilt-bomb others who try to keep consumers of this industry as a little more than cattle with loss of vaguely described features that either couldn't happen in current industry or just weren't even explained proberly or both.

Fuck me this is too long.

Congrats troll, you made me spend ~1½ hours to writing a wall of text that has common sense applied to what info we have at this moment. And if you were really thinking that you wrote (you are part of the same "uneducated masses" that you ridicule who do understand these things), you would be wrong.

I need to sleep now...

I appreciate that sentiment, glad this idea gets through to someone, at least. I admit, it is a difficult model to see through the smokescreen of bad PR Microsoft has garnered, but that's part of why it was so ingenious. The average person could never have thought up such an almost universally beneficial long-term business strategy, and that's why those execs make the big bucks. Microsoft's Achilles heel is, and always has been, it's public relations strategy. A juggernaut like them, especially one that is so essential to modern-day operations, doesn't know how to properly market their product because almost every product they have ever put out has sold itself! (prime example, Windows OS') Whereas a company like Apple has to rely almost exclusively on aesthetic, advertizing, and curb appeal to move products. If you want to see a juggernaut from a PR and advertizing standpoint, look no further than Apple. I dislike all Apple products with a passion, I like the company even less, but I know a successful marketing strategy when I see one.
Microsoft, in my opinion, thinks that the public is smarter than it really is. They don't "dumb down" things for those unable, or more likely, unwilling to understand. They are working on it, but there is a fine line between "streamlining" and "dumbing down". That's probably why every other Windows OS is great, while the others between are just "meh..." If they could simply learn how to deliver their vision of the future with more grace and justifiability to core audiences, they would be even more profitable than they are today. Prime example, the Zune. It was an excellent device, just as (if not more) functional than the Ipods of the time, definitely more durable, with a solid marketplace application comparable to ITunes with no restrictions, excellent compatibility with Windows machines and a competitive price point. Why did it fail? Almost zero marketing effort compared to Apple's "all out" approach. This is Microsoft's biggest downfall, by a landslide. Not filling our heads with a bunch of trendy, useless, garbage, jargon-filled advertizing and just saying

"Hey, man. we got this new thing that we want you to explore for yourself. We want you to have the firsthand experience and excitement of discovering all of our new bells and whistles yourself, because we put in too much work to ruin that for you."

Alright, my bias really is starting to show now, and I'm a major business tech junkie so I'll leave it at that.
Just some food for thought.

This guy has a brain. I'm still neutral on what console I want to invest in but it was getting to the point where everyone just hopped on the Sony bandwagon and stayed there even though Microsoft removed the DRM. Which is what the main issue was in the first place, but people like to find a problem in every detail to validate their argument for the sake of having the last word, not for having a fair discussion.

It's amazing how not allowing one to share a digital game is setting the industry back for years, give me a break. Microsoft could still very easily let people do all of the same things with the digital versions of games but is choosing not to right now. I am willing to bet now Microsoft will still do the same plans they had before, just a little slower and a little bit at a time to ease people into it.

I don't see why they can't just undercut the physical discs slightly for digital, and still allow the same features for digital to entice people to the point where physical just gets naturally phased out.

I always get a good laugh from the comments that I read on every forum that I'm a member of where they say; "Still doesn't matter and a little too late, I'm still getting the PS4!" Because you never intended on getting an X1 to begin with, just PS fanboy hatred towards an American company.

Many security experts and media reports claim Windows contains a National Security Agency key. You can find these reports by searching for "NSA key Windows". I'm not a terrorist, pirate or any other kind of criminal. I just don't want Microsoft or the government to have an internet connected camera and microphone in my bedroom. Software settings are not a reliable way to disable the camera and microphone because all software has bugs and can be hacked. I'm very happy Don Mattrick decided to get rid of the requirement for an internet check-in every 24 hours. What still concerns me is that Microsoft is apparently clueless enough to have ever thought this was a good idea.

@spitznock: Wow after they pull crap like DRM, and now say no DRM, Microsoft you have already shown your true colors, still getting a PS4

@stimpack: @stimpack: honestly we gamers have screwed ourselves. Not that the possibility of digital library sharing and trading is gone were are stuck with ps3 ver2.0 and Xbox 360 ver2.0. I want to congratulate you the Internet people and Sony for holding this industry back a full generation good job guys pay yourselves on the back. And I'm not going to explain how the policies they had were going to turn out good for us gamers and consumers cuz if you don't already know its not worth the time to explain it to someone so obviously devoid of forward thinking and independent thought. Again way to go guys you should be proud you prevented Cost of games from going down in a year or two. Good job. All of you who want something for nothing and think the world revolves around you. A d you call yourselves gamers hahahahahahahahaha

I'm confused..

And I will likely reverse my pre-order unless they re-instate the game sharing feature. I understand people being happy to play without internet restrictions, but what I don't understand is how people can like the fact there's going to be digital game sales at launch, likely at similar prices to physical sales with ZERO second hand value after you are done playing them. For example Killer Instinct will be a digital download, and whether you pay for it in full, or buy one character at a time, it's still going to likely add up to a full price game and now those people cannot share that game.

Whether you pay $60 for a physical game or digital game there is NO reason why one should have the ability to lend, trade, rent, and the other should be locked down to a 1 owner purchase, with little value after you play it.

Right now the only option for people who buy digital are the same as those who buy Xbox Live Arcade titles. Worthless after you play through them. And it's really short sighted for people to say that "you should just buy physical" thinking that will avoid a bad trend. It won't.

It's a very scary proposition for me, because I personally believe people are lazy and will STILL pay $60 for digital even though they get 0 benefit afterwards. They will help usher in the digital era WITHOUT any of the benefits the digital game sharing plan was going to introduce.

I don't like it one bit, and I don't particularly like to support any product that offers digital game sales with 0 second hand value. People really need to pay more attention to digital than physical, and DEMAND things like digital game sharing, because with or without DRM for physical discs, we're still likely going to end up with an all digital model.

We need some sort of an equivalent digital model in place for sharing, trading, renting and getting second hand value even if it means no re-selling of licenses. Some people are breathing a sigh of relief, while personally, I'm biting my finger nails. The future of second hand value in video games just took a huge step back, even though I know it may not seem that way at the moment. But the fact is there is currently no plan in place for sharing and trading of digital games, even though we're STILL moving in that direction.

I hope Steam still goes through with the rumored digital game sharing plan.

I'm glad Xbox One will let me play offline for as long as I want. I'm in the 30-40% of the US population that cares about their privacy. I know everything I do on the web is tracked but the benefits outweigh the risks in that case. I use my Xbox 360 and Kinect for exercise and fun. The benefits of connecting a gaming console to the internet are not worth the risks for me. I don't want our surveillance society to extend into my living room and bedroom. I don't trust software settings to prevent the microphone, camera and WiFi from being used. The reasons I want an Xbox One are the more accurate Kinect sensor and the better graphics. I would pay extra for a version with no WiFi.

I don't mind swapping discs when changing games to avoid the need for an internet connection. I don't switch between games that much. If someone else doesn't mind having an internet connection, I would think there could be a different scheme that doesn't involve swapping discs when changing games.

LMAO, what a great analogy.

I'm glad to see that so many of us aren't buying into this bs and are sticking to our guns and giving the middle finger to Microsoft.

I too believe this is only a decision based on money and it was always Microsoft trying to see just how much shite they could shovel in before we the consumers told them we'd had enough.

I'm glad that we as gamers have made them completely re-evaluate their business strategy.

In the end it makes me feel like it's a small but important victory for gamers and consumers everywhere and am proud that we elicited that change, but it doesn't change my outlook or views on Microsoft.

Yeah, seems more than a bit like Chris Brown trying to get Rhianna back.

I currently own both PS3 and 360, and I am really lost on what to do next, my biggest concern is the ram breakdown. I wish someone with a much greater understanding than me would explain the useable difference between the machines, DDR5 with 8g using 1g for os and the other DDR4 with 8g using 3g for os......with the CLOUD!!!!!. With Jeff's great explanation of the use of the CLOUD via E from Microsoft, I find it really hard to believe that the answers to all the comments regarding computing power is the cloud. If you look back through the remarks made by M$ through the launch and E3, the CLOUD will make games look better with all of the hard work being done in the CLOUD.....but now I can play offline so now no CLOUD, does this mean the stuff being done in the Cloud is not being done anymore????

“And finally, game developers can take advantage of our worldwide, multi-data center infrastructure to drive direct game computation”

MARC WHITTEN – Xbox One Launch Event

A call for help from a gamer lost in the CLOUDs……………

I know that feeling. I personally just see what seems to be the best offer for me and what I'm looking for at the time. I don't really trust either company but I'm used to Microsoft putting something forward that looks suspect on the surface and then as it goes along everything turns out better then expected. On the Sony side they seem to promise the moon but as time goes on they often just don't seem to really have had any real interest in doing what they said they would do.

I'm going to pop on the Xbox side for now because it seems to be a system that will be better for me long term but until they dropped the online once a day stuff I was really unsure about what I would do.

Hmm...I don't know what to think. This makes Xbox One a possibility for me, but I don't really trust Microsoft now. Who's to say they don't do this in the future, on this console or a new one?

And I'm still left with that neither console is backwards compatible (if this was I might go Xbox this time...probably would, so long as you can OWN GAMES). And I'm left with Playstation 4 is still 50% more powerful, and Sony still does a much better job with first/second party development.

Soooo I don't know what to do now...

@humanity: Based on their actions lately? No way, even with region locks removal they might stick to original countries. Actually, I would put money on it that they won't launch in additional countries.

All whilst Gabe Newell bathes in his Steam money

Will the abandoning of always online restrictions mean they will be able to launch the XBO in more countries?

Too many Sony fanboys commenting on how they still aren't getting an X1 even though they were NEVER going to get it to begin with.

http://i.minus.com/ib04oymE3m3fjV.gif

Okay, just saw this being a rumor? Oh well. I'm 100% sure MS will revert on their policies, no matter how visionary, if they turn out to be netting them a loss.

Kind of back on board for the new Xbox, but not at launch, burned myself last time, literally, with the RROD :)

Hey they owned up to a mistake and turned it all around, good for them

I think the family share plan would have been short demos only, and MS just never elaborated on that. There is just no way that publishers would allow cannibalization of potential sales that would cause.

I think they had to reverse the DRM policies because going forward and revealing the full details of the share plan would have absolutely sunk the console.

@nok: Why does your reply read like an insult directed at me and not a discussion of the issues relating to the post or what I said?

Sure I'll bite: I waited over 18 months post launch to buy my PS3 (same time I bought my 360) because I thought Sony was not really delivering what I wanted before that. They underdelivered because they were so far up their own assholes they designed an uncompromising machine that dev's hated. So no I have not forgotten.

Part of the larger narrative here is that Sony has had a major shift in leadership; so talking about their poor decisions and attitude years ago isn't really ground to stand on. Sony made a profitable decision which also protects consumer rights. Microsoft was forced to make a knee jerk policy reversal because they knew it was killing their platform. So today I like Sony. If they do something I don't like, I will like them less. Things can change...

This is amazing! lol I am loving the back and forth between Sony and Microsoft right now :)

@stimpack said:

Pretty much this!

Everybody knew this whole thing would probably end up blowing in their faces, but everybody doesn't have to be right all the time.

Anybody remember the first reactions to the iPad reveal? Pretty much everybody agreed that the whole idea sounded stupid and was destined to fail. In the end Apple stuck with it and ended up making the tablet market mainstream.

What Microsoft has done is the exact opposite to that. They announced something that sounded stupid, visionary stupid i guess, but still stupid. And instead of sticking to their guns and trying to realize their vision, against all nay-sayers, they just cave in to the first bit of resistance.

I mean they didn't even try it, for all i care they could have had released the console with these limitations in place and just remove them in hindsight after a while. That way it would have looked way better.

But like this? This just makes them look weak and indecisive, it exposes their former "vision" as just a cheap try at a moneygrabbing. They just tried to look how far they can go with the moneygrabbing before customer backlash becomes too bad.