I have heard the argument stated several times that “the DRM on Xbox One will work just like it does on Steam, why do you have a problem with it?”

This attestation is idiotic. The main reason I love Steam so much is because of the consistently decumbant prices. Any gamer that has seen the Steam Summer Sale will tell you how mind-blowing the prices are, and those deals are the whole reason I am content with having Steam games locked to a single ID, and not being allowed to buy the games used.

That is a huge factor, and one that I do not trust Microsoft enough to deal with as they haven’t given me a reason to. Early in the life of the 360 Microsoft began to allow their titles to be downloaded, requiring no physical copies. This may have been a good idea to thwart used games, but Microsoft always kept their prices way higher than the retail prices. I would have loved to have the convenience of picking up Dead Rising while I was at home instead of having to work my way over to Gamestop, especially since every time I give money to that chain I feel like I’m abetting the Devil, but MS decided to make the download copy $20 more expensive than the version in the store. ($40 to download, $20 at Gamestop) Smart move Microsoft, instead of getting 100% of my money by urging me to download it, you got 0% because you decided not to match the price, or even make it reasonable.

That price difference was not a specific case. Every game released to download on the 360 was exponentially more expensive than buying a physical copy. If Microsoft won’t even lower their prices to compete with used games, how would anyone expect them to lower their prices when they have no competition at retail? I believe the main reason Steam does it is to battle piracy, and with all the hoops the Xbox one is making for the consumer I’m fairly certain that won’t be a problem, leading me to believe most games will scarcely drop in price.

I want designers to get money, I honestly do, but there are just so many games I am not willing to spend $60 on, and it looks to me as if Microsoft is giving me no choice.