@mracoon said:

Neither seems to have any plans to compete with Steam. This seriously limits my potential interest.

The OP's view is based on two things:

1. That the problem with MS was only one of messaging and not one of policies that console gamers hated. (This is a misconception that many on the gaming media hold)

2. That had we just bent over and took what MS was trying to do to us, then by some sort of magic games would get cheaper, downloads would get quicker and barriers would come down (in fact, region locking was in place for the Xbone before the backlash, so barriers would have gone up).

What I don't get about the OP and others like him(her?) is why they're so openly hostile to those of us who prefer the traditional model (and this whole fiasco proves there's enough of us to constitute a market force). Digital's already there for them. Every game is day-one nowadays, or at least most of them are. What reason, other than spite, do they have for wishing to take offline-usable discs away from people who want them? No one has been willing to explain this open hostility and the unwillingness to live and let live.

My Internet at this moment is extremely poor, if I'm luckily ill get download speeds put to two mb/s. Unless I'm visiting my parents with a decent wi fi connection, I never want to have to download a 40 gb game... Ever. I love having a disc I can always put into to play. It won't take very long to re install the game if I deleted it and wanna play again and that in itself is enough for me to stick with discs. Sure I don't mind downloading indie games but they are much smaller and usually I don't mind waiting for those things overnight. The future will most definitely be digital but with slow download speeds and bandwidth caps, we have a ways to go first.

Also everyone else makes a good point with their pricing. Didn't they have Hitman blood money listed as 30 bucks last year? Or is it still that way. I picked that game up on steam as well as 3 other Hitman titles for a total of 6 dollars. You just can't sustain that in an all digital world, it's crazy and taking advantage of the systems you've built in. In the end, discs are still pretty convenient I think, especially for people like me that have shitty Internet and don't wanna wait to play a game more than they have too

I agree with most of what the original poster was saying. I disagree only with the "we ruined it" part. Microsoft had so many chances to pitch why their original vision for always online would be better for consumers, and create systems to accommodate for the edge cases. Family sharing, the ability to sell back a digital license, and never having to swap a disc are all pretty compelling, and Microsoft could have sold the audience on it if they had a clear message. Instead, they seemed to avoid talking about it (as it seems like they hadn't even fully figured out the policies) and told people to buy a 360 if they wanted to play offline. Microsoft blew it.

I really wish they hadn't. Being able to instantly switch to games I've downloaded is really slick on the Xbox One, and whenever I have to get up to put a disc in for one of the games I got from retail, I really wish I had a digital license for it, or a way to convert my disc to a digital copy (even if it means I can't sell it back).

And as others have said, there's still a ways to go with pricing on the digital front, which is why I bought my games from retail) I've heard that third parties can set the prices in the Xbox Store, so the possibility for Steam-like sales is there. The prices on the Xbox 360 store have dramatically improved, and they even had some good deals in the last year (I got Dragon Age and Bulletstorm for $5-$10 each earlier this year digitally on the 360). I think we'll probably see better prices come about on the digital store (on both XBL and PSN) once these new consoles aren't so new and you can pick up Ryse and Knack for $20 on Amazon.

To the people saying they enjoy selling their used games and/or buying games used...

Would you rather buy a used game, or buy the same game on a sale/when it's price has dropped? In the first case, your money goes to somebody who bought the game earlier. In the second, it goes to the developer/publisher. I prefer the second case myself, although I understand somebody else can be indifferent, or even want their money not to go to "evil" publishers.

If you sell your used games, which you bought new, you make some money back. You probably use that to buy more games. This is completely understandable, however preferably more affordable prices for games, say 40 dollars instead of 60, would be a much better solution (even for publishers).

This has probably gotten majorly off topic. Probably nobody ruined the Xbox One, and if they did - I would never care in a million years, because I won't buy it - but a non digital oriented system seems completely backwards to me these days. That's why I got my PC.

well this is certainly an opinion on a blog.

But this isn't Greenmangaming.com, Humblebundle.com or Steam, and there isn't much of a rant aganst used games killing the industry. I mean excuse for a lot of people for skeptical for Microsoft for the next couple of years.

Again, you're selling a fantasy. A falsehood. The whole reason Microsoft wants to end retail isn't because they care and want to lower prices - it's the opposite. By locking down the platform, by becoming the only way to get Xbone games, they were set to make a mint on keeping games $60 forever.

Selling games for less by itself would damage used games, as it would lower GameStop's profit margins substantially. Pricing games like movies would effectively kill GameStop by itself, and have the pleasant side effect of greatly expanding the realistic consumer base of the product. The reason publishers don't do this is the same reason Microsoft would never lower prices on a DRMed system - greed and unrealistic budgets. The biggest of the big publishers are so bloated that they're beginning to collapse under their own weight, and setting unrealistic goals in the hope of fooling investors long enough to get their golden parachutes ready. Remember how Tomb Raider 2013 was a failure, despite selling 3 million physical copies in its first month?

Any industry that requires that the consumer submit to draconian DRM is an industry that deserves to die in a fire, and I for one look forward to seeing what it'll look like when it rises from its ashes.