RUMOUR: Microsoft to Pull Complete Reversal on Xbox One DRM Policies

[crazyal]

I thought they would not back down and they proved me wrong - good on them for listening to the customer and coming to the right decision for all.

[Bald Bouncer]

Sounds like family sharing is out of the window though.

Yes I read it that way as well

[Mr.James]

Cunts. Now I'm gonna have to make a decision, rather than it being the no-brainer it was before.


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[Fear345]

Maybe all done on purpose to generate press and then to reverse their decision and say we listen to the customer.

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[pheonixsingh]

Personally I'm probably one of the few people that are a bit disappointed M$ made this u-turn. I believe they genuinely tried to move the gaming landscape forward by going digital and treating games like 'apps' with the benefits such as being able to share games etc far outweighed the downsides.

Now we're back to where we are currently at, the gaming industry not having made any generational leap to embrace the digital age with developers still peev'ed at the second hand market and theres going to be a pretty fragmented approach by developers on how they try to recoup lost earnings from the preowned market.

[Bald Bouncer]

Now we're back to where we are currently at, developers still peev'ed at the second hand market and theres going to be a pretty fragmented approach by developers on how they try to recoup lost earnings from the preowned market.

With all due respect there is no 'lost earnings' from the pre-owned games market as it was never their earnings and never has been, they just wanted/want a slice of that pie as I am sure book publishers would along with music and film publishers. It's just greed pure and simple trying to steal income from the pockets of high street game shops which are struggling to stay afloat.

[Mr.James]

Maybe all done on purpose to generate press and then to reverse their decision and say we listen to the customer.

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Nah, I had a word with my mate Bill


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[pheonixsingh]

With all due respect there is no 'lost earnings' from the pre-owned games market as it was never their earnings and never has been, they just wanted/want a slice of that pie as I am sure book publishers would along with music and film publishers. It's just greed pure and simple trying to steal income from the pockets of high street game shops which are struggling to stay afloat.

Fair point, 'lost earnings' may not be the term consumers think of it as but thats what the industry as a whole regards it as. The preowned market for music/films is nowhere near as large as for games. You could argue its because of a fundamental pricing flaw but having another link in the chain (high st retailer) taking a cut isn't going to help to push that price down or increase margins for developers/publishers.

At the end of the day its a business and we as consumers will lose out, if developers/publishers cant see the value of investing in new titles/ increasiing budgets to push boundaries then they wont. What we will get is rehashes of the same shit sold to us again, shit free to play models where the person with the biggest wallet wins, developers looking at ways to extract more cash (DLC etc) and multiplayers passes etc.
Hardly a good situation for consumers,

I dont have an in depth knowledge of the industry but I would have thought ideally you would want game distribution to be digital with developers directly submitting games to a 'market place' so that in turn they have higher margins allowing for further future development and contracting/outsourcing marketing work to specialised firms. Essentially cutting out another link in the chain - the publishers.

[ZX7R]

Wow, I am surprised by the u-turn. Good on them for listening to the consumer.

[rIKmAN]

Bet EA are well pissed off LOL!

Wonder how long before they find a new Online Pass system.

[Mr.James]

Games industry is worth more than the movie industry. They have fuck loads of money without needing to pick the pockets of the children who trade in the majority of 2h games.


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[WotTheFook]

This was al all-out attempt to take Apple's business model to another level and it was a step too far. People have paid for the rights to use games that they own and this was going to take those rights away, so quite rightly the public told them to sod off. Sony also tried this and failed. Apple should take note of this, you can only push people so far.

[flumperino]

I hope somebody does a Hitler video for this too

[{{909}}]

What about the 'cloud'? I thought that was the future of everything according to the MS bullshit and without a permanent net connection devs cant utilize it.

The 24 hour thing isn't going to disappear out of the consumers minds though, I am sure you will get Mums wandering into Game with the info on their minds, pestering the sales assistant if its the xbox or the PS4 that needs to be online all the time.

[{{909}}]

Games industry is worth more than the movie industry. They have fuck loads of money without needing to pick the pockets of the children who trade in the majority of 2h games.


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The problem with that thinking is that yes, the games industry is big, but its big because of companies like EA and Ubisoft who churn out crap day and night and morons buy it. The smaller developers are folding because they aren't making enough money. The same happens in the movie industry but the movie industry with smaller studios closing, but there are probably more ways to make money in the movie industry with services like VOD being cheap to provide with good profits, as well as DVD and BD sales and so on.

The main crux of the 'problem' with s/h games is that people do walk into a store with 40 quid in their pocket to drop on the latest Fifa or whatever and they see if on the s/h stand for a piddling fiver less, but a fiver is a pint so why should they care?
I do think it would make sense to control that but there is no real way to do it without fucking retail games stores, which some may argue are doomed anyway. I think the best way to handle it would remove s/h sales from chain store games shops and leave it in the hands of indy shops and personal trades.

[Geko]

When will Microsoft and Sony realise people buy gaming consoles for gaming. Not as a media centre. They are always shit at it. Look at the PS3. If you use it as a blu ray player, fine. But that isn't a media centre. They are only used by the less technical. And from what I have read, correct me if I am wrong, they only play a specific format of video.

Personally I'm probably one of the few people that are a bit disappointed M$ made this u-turn. I believe they genuinely tried to move the gaming landscape forward by going digital and treating games like 'apps' with the benefits such as being able to share games etc far outweighed the downsides.

Now we're back to where we are currently at, the gaming industry not having made any generational leap to embrace the digital age with developers still peev'ed at the second hand market and theres going to be a pretty fragmented approach by developers on how they try to recoup lost earnings from the preowned market.

If games developers are looking at increasing their profits, they should make better games. Rather than blaming piracy, or the second hand games market. The issue lies with poorly developed games. If the game is good they will hit their numbers in the first few weeks and make their money. If the game gets sold more cheaply in a few months time. That should be outside their timeline of that game.

[DavidF]

When will Microsoft and Sony realise people buy gaming consoles for gaming. Not as a media centre. They are always shit at it. Look at the PS3. If you use it as a blu ray player, fine. But that isn't a media centre. They are only used by the less technical. And from what I have read, correct me if I am wrong, they only play a specific format of video.

To be fair when XBMC was invented and thrown onto the original xbox everyone loved it, raved about it, still do to this day. People in their thousands were very dissappointed that the 360 did not really do enough to build on the success of XBMC and again the community looked for ways to port the current one over to the 360. Now they have moved more in the media centre direction which remember people have been asking for for the best part of 10 years+...yet they still get slated.
Maybe the way round this always online situation is to have the ability for games developers to utilise the "cloud". Meaning that games can be say disk based OR cloud based. Leave the ball in the game developers court so to speak. Maybe when the next gen is well established then microsoft and sony can collate their online figures supply that info to the game devs and then they can make a commercial decision. You could see a two tier experience....one for those who wish to connect 24/7 and one for those who don't. As long as the infrastructure is in-place and the design of the console supports it I can't see this as being too bad.
It would be a shame if this move does stifle innovation.

[EvilBoB]

Cloud is up to the debs. If the cloud is t there or not accessible gamers will lose some of the fancy bits like enhanced graphics or more powerfully AI but then I don't think this is a deal breaker. I spend mos of my game playing online games anyway so my consoles are all connected to the net as I am pretty sure most of everyone here's is.

[inspectercoley]

I think this was a good decisions although I was really looking forward to having a console where I didn't have to change the disc for different games.

The used games market is important to the customer in that selling / part exing old games gives a lot of people money to buy new ones and a lot of used games purchases are for people who weren't thinking of getting the game but instead do because of the reduced price point.

I think Sony wrote an interesting article on this:
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/sony-on-...-value-6410372


Now that gaming is a lot more popular, I would like to see games aim for a more DVD / Blue Ray price point.

Just think that if every new game was £20 at launch then it would be a no brainer to buy so they would get more sales and people wouldn't be as worried about being able to sell them. Or even if console games went down to the PC £30 per game. Developers complain about the cost of making the games but films also can cost around the same amount.

I guess this will never really happen though due to the cost of the systems to buy in the first place reducing the overall potential market.

[Mystical_2K]

wow really surprised at the uturn but good on them for listening to people

the only thing i am disappointed in was the ability to share games with family is now gone but it was a nice to have feature and not a deal breaker, well done MS you have just sold another Xbox one!