Xbox 720 Could Require Always-On Connection, Lock Out Used Games

MojoKid writes "Sony's next-generation PS4 unveil is just two weeks away, which means leaks concerning both it and Microsoft's next-generation Xbox Durango (sometimes referred to as the Xbox 720), are at an all-time high as well. Rumors continue to swirl that the next iteration of Xbox will lock out used games entirely and require a constant Internet connection. New games would come with a one-time activation code to play. Use the code, and the game is locked to the particular console or Xbox Live account it's loaded on. Physical games will still be sold (the Durango reportedly supports 50GB Blu-ray Discs), but the used game market? Kiboshed. If this is true, it's an ugly move on Microsoft's part. Not only does it annihilate the right of first sale, it'll eviscerate any game store or business that depends on video game rentals for revenue."

Comments

Always on = !on

[ernest.cunningham]

Always on always turns me off.

The main problem I see with this is the ability to lend games to friends, or have friends lend games to me! This is what hooked me in with COD 4 and the reason I purchased an Xbox. My mate lent me his copy for a day and boom I was hooked.

That wont be happening again I guess....

Re:Always on = !on

[Kokuyo]

How was it the reason you bought the console? If he lent you the game without having the console, how on earth did you play it?

Re:Always on = !on

[luther349]

in a time where game company's are going bankrupt making a console like that would flop sony tried the with psp go kinda a test bed for such a model and watched it fail.

Re:Always on = !on

[N1AK]

If he left the console and the game then the friend could play using his mates xbox live account thus making GPs post a valid point. You sir are wrong.

Re:Always on = !on

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that, because of online activation for multiplayer me and my girlfriend can't both play online with games that use this technique. They expect two people in the same household to buy two copies of the game to both be able to play online even if one of the discs isn't even in use at the time because activation gets tied to your account and we have separate accounts so we can play different things at the same time on each console.

Re:Always on = !on

[ernest.cunningham]

I had a mate staying at my house with an Xbox. I used this to play COD 4 and decided to buy my own xbox and COD 4 game.

Re:Always on = !on

[cheekyjohnson]

I think their beef should be with DRM. Demos only allow you play up to a certain point.

Re:Always on = !on

[wesleyjconnor]

I would imagine this is part of a service where you download your games instead of purchasing discs, so it would want to check in to make sure you haven't tampered with the software.
It would be unrealistic and unnecessary to have a constant internet connection the entire time you are using the device.
Connecting back every day or week is not going to break the lolz

Also who are these people without reliable internet? I used to live in AUSTRALIA, the asshole of the world and even there we had 100mbit cable

Re:Always on = !on

[flyneye]

I picture Microsoft stuck with a warehouse full of them until the laughing from their peers and loss of profits force them to change their suckass firmware.
Par for the course for Microshit. Misguided leadership as per usual.

Re:Always on = !on

[warrigal]

I used to live in AUSTRALIA, and even there we had 100mbit cable
I'd like to know where, cobber.
We're on fibre here in 3076-land and seldom see 10MBs. Usually less because of chronic under-provisioning, even when we pay for 100.

the asshole of the world
Just passing through, eh?

Re:Always on = !on

[Sockatume]

Score:4, Informative?

"I did not know that you need a console to play a game. I will mod this up."

Re:Always on = !on

[craigminah]

I think this is a dick move by MS. Games, like college textbooks, are fricking expensive and it's nice to know you can recoup some of your money when you're done with them via the used games market. I travel a lot and it's good to have a console with you...don't always know if I'll have Internet where I'm at and I don't know if I give a crap about hooking it up just to play a game I bought legally.

MS needs to rethink this..maybe copy the Steam model where you buy the game once and can play it anywhere would work.

Re:Always on = !on

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends. If it is on the xbox the game was registered on then no, since it is registered to the box and the accounts dont matter. On a non registered xbox then the account it is registered to is what mattered then maybe depending on the game.

Re:Always on = !on

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have a misguided sense of trust in your average consumer... This is stuff that is very much a no-no for the Slashdot community, but the average consumer doesn't care about these things: They will want to play the next CoD, and they -might- find out afterwards that these are the restrictions to their console, but will have already forgotten the next day (or stopped caring).

Re:Always on = !on

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get the anger here. Valve have been doing this with Steam sales for ages. You can't even give away an old game on Steam; it's locked to your ID. You can't even remove it from your game list.

Re:Always on = !on

[RaceProUK]

I think this is a dick move by MS.

It's just a rumour at the moment. I'm gonna wait until details are confirmed before deciding to buy it or not.

Re:Always on = !on

[MitchDev]

Sure it does, company produces crippled platform, protest by not buying it. Perfectly valid reason.

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid my friend...

Re:Always on = !on

[h4rr4r]

No, because the steam games are sub $10. The Console games are never that cheap.

Also because the steam games are trivially hackable.
Give me a console that is trivially hackable and I will say the same.

Re:Always on = !on

[Chickan]

But then when he wanted to show you a different game, say battlefield 3, he would have to bring over his entire xbox instead of simply the game.

Re:Always on = !on

[Kelbear]

I own all 3 consoles and a gaming PC. The reason I can do this is because I only have to buy the console games I want to keep, while I can rent games that I want to try (and send back the ones that aren't worth it). On PC it's even easier. I can just buy everything under the sun, because Valve pushes everyone to participate in discounting their games after they're out of the limelight. I don't need to buy used on PC because they sell me "new" games at "used game" prices.

On consoles, if their games are out of the limelight, they'd rather just not sell them at all and stop making money on them. I wish they'd smarten up and realize how much more money they can make by competing with "used" games instead of just not selling at all after falling out of vogue. Sell me the game at used price months later, or shit, just rent games to me directly and make money off me that way . Bottom line is that if I don't want to buy their game at full price, they get no money from me. If they want some of my money, they can get some by meeting me in the middle with a discount after the hype has died down. It's not rocket science and Steam has proven that you can make money off this model.

Re:Always on = !on

[mlts]

It might make Joe Sixpack realize something when instead of taking about 10 titles in for his $10.00, that he gets nothing. Even the little cash coming back from used games denied may be a game-changer.

At least with the used game market now, people get something, even if it is $5, for bringing in used games. The psychological factor of "once its bought, its bought" may be a hurdle that causes people to either hesitate on buying titles, or buy them on Windows.

Of course, there will be the fact that one has to have both the game CD/DVD, the console it is locked to, and perhaps the right XBL account for it to work.

That is a lot for an average console gamer to swallow, even though they are used to other DRM factors, not to mention paying 2-3 times as much for the game for additional DLC.

Re:Always on = !on

[tnk1]

You are probably right in surmising that there is a way around many objections being made.

The real question is why we should have to pay them so we can jump through their hoops?

The answer to that is because people buy console games and accept a locked down platform. Having game companies make use of their advantages on this platform to control your access to what you have bought has always been a "feature" of consoles. It is one reason I don't waste my money on consoles for gaming.

Re:Always on = !on

[tragedy]

Apparently when a company offers you a free sample, that's not good enough. You want a free game.

No, they want to use a friend's paid-for game while the friend isn't using it. Like they might do with a vacuum cleaner, or a car, or a book.

Re:Always on = !on

[FyRE666]

"No, because the steam games are sub $10."

I'm on the UK Steam store right now, and unless the US version has a totally different pricing structure, all current titles are way over "$10".

Borderlands 2 = £29.99 ($47.11)
Call of Duty Black Ops 2 = £34.99 ($54.97)
Devil May Cry = £29.99 ($47.11)

So basically you're lying, and I'm surprised your comment has been flagged insightful. Not only that, but trying to justify Steam's system because you can get around it by criminal means (in the eyes of the games companies) is ridiculous.

Re:Always on = !on

[CodeHxr]

Fully agree. It seems to me that console manufacturers are continually pushing the boundary on their policies and practices. The only thing that these large corporations see is the bottom line - money. If they aren't selling product, they're going to (hopefully) attempt to find out why. If we continue to buy products laden with (consumer hostile?) restrictions, the manufacturers of said products will (rightfully) know that they can get away with that practice and in the next iteration will push that boundary further.

The only thing that one can really do is decide that they don't "need" that new gizmo if they feel it restricts them beyond what they feel is fair. Personally, I won't be buying any console that is locked in this manner, Xbox, PS, or otherwise.

Re:Always on = !on

[h4rr4r]

I do not buy them if they are not on sale. I got Serious Sam 3, my most recent purchase, for $5.99 I think.

I am comparing a simple feature, easy to crack or not. I really do not care what game companies think of this feature.

Re:Always on = !on

[Dr_Barnowl]

The three of those have different value propositions though.

A vacuum cleaner or a car retain their utility after a single use.

For many people, a book or a game loses it's utility after one run through. If you read a book that you were lent and fall into this group, you are unlikely to buy yourself another copy just because you thought it was so good the author / publisher deserved an extra chunk of money. In short, the act of lending may have prevented a sale.

Whether you think this is right or wrong, it's different to lending a car or a vacuum cleaner.

Re:Always on = !on

[Glothar]

Sony holds a patent for this tech, IIRC.

On being dicks? Now, granted, Sony has done a lot of innovation in the field, but I still think that Microsoft has better prior art.

Either way, I don't know the details of this supposed patent on Dickery, so I can't speak with authority, but I assume that the legal team at Microsoft pays enough attention to the news to realize that Sony isn't the only company that's been a dick to consumers. Ubisoft and EA have been publicly flaunting their dickitude for a decade without legal action from Sony. Microsoft itself has been dickish for at least that long. I don't know what grounds Sony would have for suddenly trying to push legal action against any of them based on their being dicks to consumers.

By the looks of the market, I'd almost assume that if Sony had patented Dickery, they've already signed licensing agreements with a dozen other companies.

Re:Always on = !on

[FyRE666]

You didn't add the caveat "old games are sub $10", you just stated that steam games are sub $10. This is demonstrably incorrect. You might as well say "Ford cars are better than BMWs because they cost under $100", and not mention the fact you're talking about some 20 year old junker (mandatory car analogy completed!)

I tend to buy current titles, and I'd bet that's where the vast majority of game companies (and Steam's) revenues come from. Whether you do or not is totally irrelevant - the fact is, Steam sell the latest games for £30 or more, and prevent resale, or gifting after the game is used. Yes, I could only buy old stuff from 2011 to play on PC, but then I could also buy old "bargain bucket" games for the console too. The fact is that what Sony and MS are proposing to do is almost EXACTLY the same as what Steam have been doing for ages. I'm sure that eventually someone will find a way around the copy protection with the consoles, as they have with every prior generation.

With all this said, I'm a PC gamer, not a console gamer (though I've owned most consoles) but I don't kid myself that Steam are any better than any other company out there. They exist to make money; they're not your friend, or anyone elses. Everything a big company does, it does to increase its profits. There's no moral compass involved.

Re:Always on = !on

[CrashPoint]

And the other thing about the silly reaction is what if they are tied to the Live account? No need to lend the console, you just log on as yourself when you show your friend the game. What would be nice is to be able to download the games so you don't even need the disc. Just go to someone's house, log in, start the download watch a movie on another system, when the movie is done, play the game.

Downloading is fine, but you know what would be nice? If you could just pop in the disc and play the goddamned game. Like current consoles already do. Wanting the same basic functionality from next-gen hardware that its predecessors had isn't a "silly reaction" at all.

Re:Always on = !on

[CrashPoint]

I had a mate staying at my house with an Xbox. I used this to play COD 4 and decided to buy my own xbox and COD 4 game.

But with this new system, your mate will still be able to bring along his own Xbox and let you play his own copy of COD 4 on it. You will still have to buy your own Xbox to play the game if your mate's not there.

Great. So in order to loan a game to a friend, I have to loan him my console as well, even though he has the same console in his house. Gosh, that's not retarded at all.

Yes, you will have to buy a copy of the game instead of borrowing his, but so what? If it's that great you'd want to have your own copy anyway.

Says who? I've borrowed great games from friends without wanting to buy them myself, and in turn loaned great games of my own to friends who didn't want to buy them. That's not some edge case either, it's a common and perfectly reasonable thing to do. Furthermore, what if we simply want to give each other games? Or buy used games? Or rent games?

You really don't see how this is clearly worse than the way things are now?

Re:Always on = !on

[toiletsalmon]

"who are these people without reliable internet"

We're called "Comcast Subscribers" and we live in the United States of America. :/

"It would be unrealistic and unnecessary to have a constant internet connection the entire time you are using the device."

Not necessarily. Once you hack an Xbox 360, you have to be really particular about when and how you connect it to the network. If you REQUIRE the console to always be connected to the Live network, it limits the amount of ways you can compromise the system and gives MS constant access to the hardware kill switch that I'm almost certain will be implemented.

Re:Always on = !on

[julesh]

For many people, a book or a game loses it's utility after one run through. If you read a book that you were lent and fall into this group, you are unlikely to buy yourself another copy just because you thought it was so good the author / publisher deserved an extra chunk of money. In short, the act of lending may have prevented a sale.

You're probably right. We should ban libraries, just in case.

Re:Always on = !on

[FyRE666]

Heh, that Borderlands 2 price has honestly changed since I posted that comment! I wouldn't have posted that price if it wasn't correct at the time - weird. Anyway, anyone can see the current prices of CURRENT games on the store. You know you can also buy discounted games on the console stores right, or buy them for next to nothing when they're past their prime?

It's totally irrelevant anyway. Whether you're having a £15 game locked to your account, a £30 game, or a £1 game, it's the same restriction. What my point was, before the excuses came raining down, was that Steam are using the same type of restrictions for their customers, and have been doing so for some time now - this is a fact, not an opinion. People who have been purchasing games from Steam, with full knowledge of this have no right to rage about Sony and MS doing the exact same thing. If anything, the people paying Steam, and supporting its sales model have encouraged other companies to do the same, as they can see it's been successful.

Re:Always on = !on

[MitchDev]

Well goody gumdrops for you. Go ahead and support the locked down stupidity...

You are thinking only of your own usage supporting a paradigm that hassles all the other users.
The way you use it is TOTALLY unaffected by the simple changes we are desiring. Your way on the other hand...

Re:Always on = !on

[Darinbob]

For many people, a book or game maintains its utility for many uses. I've played some games more often than I've used my vacuum. Though maybe I've revealed too much about myself.

The act of lending can indeed increase sales. Libraries of books used to get people hooked on certain authors (ie, Stephen King with his prolific output) and then when a new book was available people would often go and buy it instead of waiting for the library copy. I have purchased full price games after playing the prior version from a discount reseller, games I would not have known about otherwise. For videos the library makes sense, few people are willing to waste $20 to watch a movie one time. And of course video rentals are big business and those stores are making money for Hollywood.

This DRM stuff does not hurt pirates in any way. Instead it hurts people who are trying to be moral and ethical. The problem is that the publishers have this mistaken notion that they deserve to be paid full price by every consumer even though the law says otherwise, so DRM is their way to effectively bypass the legal rights of the consumers.

Re:Always on = !on

[Darinbob]

Well a long time ago the people who sold video games were interested in video games and their customers. Today though these games come from big publishing pipelines instead. The small devs aren't the ones doing this, they've just realized that they need a big investor at the front end to fund development and then rely on a some big soulless company that uses DRM to sell it at the back end.

Re:Always on = !on

[Darinbob]

Anyone on the road has unreliable internet access, or maybe even no access at all. Hard to play a game in most hotel rooms (though granted few are going to drag a console with them, it does apply to PC games). For many people internet still comprises dial up. Where I am now, internet only exists upstairs but not down in my living room where the TV is, so if I did have a game console it would be unable to be on the net. I used to have an ISP that did not allow more than one device on their net unless I paid extra for a family plan.

And with this DRM plan, all it takes is a one day outage of internet to equal one day of having a powered up console loaded full of games that refuse to play.

Re:Always on = !on

[Wolfrider]

--Yes - case in point: My cable went out yesterday. Cable company says earliest time we can get a tech out to your house is Friday. Went down and played Halo Wars to pass the time.

--Not possible if 720 REQUIRES an internet connection. Stupid, stupid, stupid... MS, DON'T DO THIS!!111one!

Re:Always on = !on

[CrashPoint]

Forgot to mention: Some PS3 games do require a firmware update (that is included on the disc in case you're not connected) or else they refuse to play. That IS pretty shitty, and one of the reasons I don't buy PS3 games new anymore. With the 360, you might get asked to download a patch for the game, but I have yet to encounter one that won't play without it. Declining the update does disconnect you from the network, but as I mentioned that doesn't disable achievements.

Re:Always on = !on

[boxxertrumps]

That's fine, but understand that your use case does not represent the majority of the market.

You should pick up Metroid if you haven't though, I'll let you borrow it and see if... you.. like it...

Well...

[Kokuyo]

No new console for me then *shrugs*

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep.

I already dropped out of modern console gaming due to DLC bullshit. This just sounds like suicide on their part to me.

Give me PCs and emulators and go fuck yourself until you can provide a good product again, game companies.

Re:Well...

[TheCarp]

My wife was hounding me for a while because before we had gotten married I borrowed some money from her that she was planning to buy a PC with for Diablo 3 when it came out, so... I got us both gaming PCs..... my first in years

The consoles have all been collecting dust ever since. It killed a few game series, just because buying a controller isn't that high on my list and third person running around games suck on kb and mouse... but the experience is better too.

Its not so much about graphics, my PC blows them away, but its also a lot newer, so thats understandable.... and thats kind of my thing... I can upgrade it.

The tradeoffs are simple. Consoles are consistent. Games are written to their specs for years. If a game says "Xbox360" there is no question, it will work on my Xbox360.

The downside, no upgrades untill the next version comes out. Performance has always been far behind PCs (a friend was over and saw my wife playing skyrim and he was shocked at how short the loading screens were compared to his console).. and as great as controllers are for some games (3rd person and games with simple rough mechanics) they are decidedly inferior to keyboard and mouse for anything remotely FPS, and when you look at the recent FPS RPGS like skyrim and Fallout....one word.... autorun.

Of course when I put a PC together, I can't seem to do it for less than 3x the cost of a console, but, I know the lower end of the market is perfectly fine at this point and, based on the last gen of consoles, at about the same price.

Thats the real kicker. When a console is $100-200... thats one thing... when it converges on the price of a low end gaming PC.... which can be used to do so much more, its hard for me to justify the console.

For me the balance is just so far tipped towards PC; I just can't justify another console.

Re:Well...

[drinkypoo]

It may well be that someone inside Microsoft deliberately leaked such a rumor to test the waters. Hopefully they will find them as uninviting as everyone but Valve. I don't care either way, I'm not planning to give Microsoft any money for anything but the occasional discounted windows license ever again. I probably should have bought Win7 with this motherboard, for that matter, so I could use it in a VM. I still haven't managed to find a good price on a legit license key for Win7.

And for those with a normal...

[Zemran]

... unreliable internet connection (most of the world) this will make it unusable.

Re:And for those with a normal...

[damnbunni]

I live in a nation that, despite giving billions to the telecom industry, doesn't even have reliable dialup in every town.

I'm in a town about five miles outside a city of 200,000 people, and the best I can get is 3G cellular. The speed on it is actually okay, but it's certainly not reliable, and it drops out fairly regularly.

I'm half a mile from a school, so it's not like I'm way out in the boonies.

(Technically yes, I could get service with another company. There's satellite, with its dropouts and terrible ping times, there's dialup at 28.8 at best due to the quality of the copper, there's ISDN at $700 per b-channel, or a T1 at $2619.20 per month.)

But then, that's how things are in these United States of America.

Re:And for those with a normal...

[smallfries]

On slashdot "most of the world" is a synonym for America. It's like, in the faqs and stuff dude.

Re:And for those with a normal...

[Mashiki]

But then, that's how things are in these United States of America.

And here I thought you were talking about Canada. Same deal up here.

Re:And for those with a normal...

[Issarlk]

How about america ? I live in France but I see friends from the US complaining about their network connections every day, getting disconnected several time a day.

Burn them all at the stake!

[Dahamma]

We don't need proof, unsubstantiated blog entries will suffice!

Re:Burn them all at the stake!

[Dahamma]

And when you RTFA(s) you see that most of the /. summary is just uncited cut and paste from one of the linked sites. Journalism at its finest!

Re:Burn them all at the stake!

[Sockatume]

The original source for the story - not the third hand one provided here - is Edge magazine. While this seems far fetched, they don't tend to post hardware rumours unless well-substantiated. I don't think they've run a story like this since they got the scoop on the GBA SP a decade ago.

Re:Burn them all at the stake!

[squiggleslash]

Interestingly Gamestop's share price dropped yesterday, something that was seen by most of the financial press as being related to this unsubstantiated rumor.

Sounds like a good way

[mailuefterl]

to get themselves out of the console business again

If these rumors are true

[rolfwind]

Valve's Steam Box may give these guys a run for the money.

Of course, these rumors may only exist because of Valve's entrance into the market.

Re:If these rumors are true

[asmkm22]

Steam games are already tied to an account, so I can't see how a Steam Box would be any kind of savior here...

Re:If these rumors are true

[Anonymous Coward]

But if I buy 10 other computers, I can install steam on all those 10 computers. Then I can burn those computers in a fire, and install everything I own on 10 new computers. And steam will even sync your save files/settings across all your devices if you are so inclined. Plus, steam gives the developers the option of foregoing the drm, in which case the purchaser may fully access the files and do whatever with hem. If I have 2 x boxes (1 for each kid's room, maybe i move between two houses a lot, maybe my old one broke and I bought a new one because of the xbox 720 infamous purple hexaflexagon of death bug, etc...) according to this I need two copies of the game. And if I have a steam box, I can download my games and then install it in, say, a cabin in the woods or a tree house or something, while the xbox requires a constant internet connection even after I have the games installed. So yeah, they certainly seem the same. Admittedly, you can't resell steam games, but in exchange for that they actually provide a lot of benefit.

Re:If these rumors are true

[Sique]

And then you run afoul the ruling of the European Court of Justice, that allows explicitely for resale, and requires the original seller to remove all hindrances for a resale should the current owner want to.
And don't come up with that "it's only licensed!" stuff, this doesn't fly in the E.U. It's either a sale (and all the usual conditions for a sale apply), or it's a rent (and then the usual conditions for a rent apply).
For reference

Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy – tangible or intangible – and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right.

Re:If these rumors are true

[Sique]

That's why Valve is currently dragged into a German court.

Re:This is a move to stop online piracy.

[l0ungeb0y]

So what you're saying is you WANT to have to go out and replace ALL your DVDs, CD and Games every time you buy a new DVD Player or Console?
I can't even begin to describe the amount of utter stupidity you have posted here.

Dick move? Note even close.
Lesser Evil? My ass.

Thanks, Microsoft

[Leo Sasquatch]

Just made the next few months so much easier, because all the hype, specs, leaks, teasers and general media d1ck-sucking can be safely ignored.

You've chosen to release a console that's less powerful than the PC I built 2 years ago, so heavily encrusted with DRM that it will get in the way of playing games I have purchased. Router bounces - say goodbye to your game session. ISP has problems - no games for you, you filthy thief.

Here's a little hint, MS - you are not the only game in town. There has never been such excellent choice in the games and console market. I can run MAME on my Raspberry Pi, or Skyrim at full shiniez on the PC. What do you have to offer that's so unique? Halo? No, that's not looking a bit tired at all. Halo 5? Wow, I wonder what you have to do in *that* game!? (hint: shoot aliens...)

My PC plays anything that needs heavy lifting - my 360, Dreamcast, N64, PS3, PS2 and Saturn all still work, and I have plenty games to tide me over your entire current console lifecycle. Really, what are you offering this time around to make up for all this shit?

Re:Thanks, Microsoft

[l0ungeb0y]

Halo 5? Wow, I wonder what you have to do in *that* game!? (hint: shoot aliens...)

And what are they supposed to do? Race Penguins in go-carts? Grow things on their Farm and sell them at the Market? Save a Princess from an Ape?
Don't bag on a franchise for sticking to formula, it's what the audience wants.

I just bought DeadSpace 3 for my PS3 yesterday and love that it's essentially the same as 1 and 2 and hope to see a DeadSpace 5 and would expect it to be the same thing all over again as well. Because. It's. What. I. Want. To. Play.

Re:Thanks, Microsoft

[slimjim8094]

People keep forgetting that the reason people like Steam is because they provide a service in exchange for you giving something up. If you buy your games with a Steam account, you get them integrated with social features, achievements, cloud saves and settings, automatic updates, and most importantly, brain-dead simple moving to new computers.

That's without all the "good faith" things people have come to expect from Valve like frequent deep sales, new platform support, etc.

Meanwhile, you can be damn sure your new Xbox game will be strictly less functional than before, not a trade off. The problem is the one-sidedness.

Re:Thanks, Microsoft

[cheekyjohnson]

People keep forgetting that the reason people like Steam is because they provide a service in exchange for you giving something up.

Why give up anything? They could easily get rid of the silly DRM and give people all the other features as well. You could choose whether or not the tie the game to Steam.

Re:Thanks, Microsoft

[Sockatume]

The same things that got you to buy a PS3 and 360 when you had a PS2 and Dreamcast?

Re:Thanks, Microsoft

[EvilIdler]

The best games to buy are the ones which use SteamWorks if available, but let you run them outside Steam. There's a list of games which don't care if Steam is running on the Steam forums. Support those developers to send a message :)

Steam has many parts. There's the distribution, which may sometimes send you an encrypted binary before official release. Once decrypted it may be DRM-free. Then there is the online/social API which requires Steam running, but that's not DRM. Then some use SteamWorks as DRM, and need you to verify online that the game belongs to your account.

Re:Thanks, Microsoft

[tepples]

PC gaming started the trend of restrictive DRM

Nope, that was Nintendo in 1985 with the Checking Integrated Circuit that ran 10NES. And even before that, there were funny disk formats used by Commodore 64 and Apple II games.

Re:Hacktivism

[asmkm22]

I can't imagine any legal grounds anyone would have for a lawsuit, in this instance. You can sell or trade or give away your games all you want, leaving the first sale doctrine intact. The fact that the game no longer works for the poor guy who bought it isn't Microsoft's problem since they aren't obligated to provide support for used products.

In reality, there will probably be a way to "unlock" a used game, by paying a fee through xBox live or whatever. It identifies a game disk is already tied to an account, and offers to change ownership for whatever they think is fair for the program (probably pretty close to current retail rather than something trivial like $10). There is built in accountability due to having account information from both the source and destination accounts, and they'll be able to gather a whole crap load of useful metrics about the used games market that they really don't have right now.

No matter...

[Onuma]

...only informed, conscious gamers will be dissuaded by this type of asshattery. CoD kids using their mom's credit card at the local GameStop will continue to purchase the regurgitated crap they've been playing for years.

The pool of gamers (and people in general) who actually give a shit is dwindling rapidly.

Re:No matter...

[Sockatume]

The same GameStop that does its best to sell that "CoD kid" preowned games over new? Yeah, they'll be jumping at the chance to sell "Madden 2014 GameStop Can Eat It Edition".

This will get them sued in the EU

[gweihir]

Currently, STEAM is sued in Germany for not allowing re-selling of things bought on STEAM. This will likely be escalated. If MS thinks angering consumer protecion agencies in the EU is a good idea, they may find out that they are wrong.

Re:This is a move to stop online piracy.

[c0lo]

Poe's law - on /. nobody see your smile (or grin).

Misunderstood Intentions

[l0ungeb0y]

Neither Microsoft or Sony have any interest in eliminating rental companies like Gamefly or resellers like Gamestop. What they do want is what the Publishers want -- Increased Revenue. It's well known that the Publishers have put pressure on Sony and Microsoft to restrict game resales because they don't get a dime of profit from 2nd hand sales.

Yes, Sony and Microsoft will be tying unlock codes to game systems to prevent play from 2nd hand owners. But what they don't tell you is that they will allow 2nd hand owners to BUY an unlock code via the Playstation or XBox stores for either unlimited or fixed duration (rental) game play.

So the question is not whether you can play a pre-owned game, because you will be able to, but whether or not game rental companies and game retailers can remain profitable with the added cost of the unlock codes in the mix.

Gamestop and Gamefly will work with this new system to include activation codes for rentals and pre-owned with the sale to make the customers life easier. I know that I already get all sorts of PlayStation Store redemption codes from GameStop when I pre-order Games or buy added DLC at point of sale. So an unlock code should not be that big a deal, since all it really is is a redemption code anyway.

In the end, I suspect that not much will change other than it might cost a bit more to own that 2nd hand game.

Re:Misunderstood Intentions

[MetricT]

But that's just it. Publishers *do* get money from resale.

If I know I can pay $60 for a game when it first comes out, play it for a week or two and then sell it, I'll buy it opening day.

But since I can't resell it, I wait for that sucker to hit the bargain bin before I even consider it.

Re:Misunderstood Intentions

[l0ungeb0y]

I understand what you are saying, and it's true. They also make money by friends lending out copies, or from rentals. There are many 3rd party channels that lead to sales.

The reality is that intangibles like "goodwill", "word of mouth" etc just don't make it into the all mighty spreadsheets that are the end all be all for corporate decision making. But "estimated annual lost revenue" from resale and rental channels does.

Dear Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Please read this carefully:
Always-on internet and/or unable to resell or buy second hand games = no deal

I hope I'm clear.
A long-time XBox 360 player

So, Microsoft, you're saying just like Steam?

[AbRASiON]

You want to make a console like steam, no lending to friends and no used sales?
Well Microsoft, I can deal with that - I buy heaps of things on steam and I buy a heap of things on my consoles, so maybe we can come to an arrangement here,...

Only one problem is, the average price of games I buy on steam would be between 15 and 30$ and the average price of games I pay for on consoles is probably 40 to 50$, Steam games are _very_ regularly discounted to sensible prices.

So if you're willing to drop the prices of console games down to a similar, sensible level, then you might see me participate in this. but don't for a second think I'm signing up for this bullshit at 60$ US a shot for a game (and I KNOW you assholes will region lock it, so as an Australian, I'll be paying - 110$ US per game with no way for American friends to "gift" me the game at US prices and I paypal them)

You wanna have your cake and eat it too? Sure but I'm not participating if so.

Re:So, Microsoft, you're saying just like Steam?

[White Flame]

Only $60 per game? I think you're forgetting about that whole DLC thing.

Re:So, Microsoft, you're saying just like Steam?

[sapphire wyvern]

For a certain value of "old". Games that are 3-6 months old are actually regularly discounted deeply on Steam. Lots of people are perfectly ok with waiting that long for a game.

Re:Hacktivism

[Sique]

I can't imagine any legal grounds anyone would have for a lawsuit, in this instance. You can sell or trade or give away your games all you want, leaving the first sale doctrine intact. The fact that the game no longer works for the poor guy who bought it isn't Microsoft's problem since they aren't obligated to provide support for used products.

It won't work in the E.U., given current rulings of the European Court of Justice. It explicitely ruled that making available a permanent copy of a software to a customer for a fee is a sale (independently of the name in the contract, just naming it "license" doesn't make a difference), and thus the First Sale Doctrin applies. The copyright holder is not allowed to oppose such a seal, and technical means to render a resold copy unusable will probably be seen as an opposition of the copyright holder to a sale -- thus making them illegal.
The ruling goes even further:

Therefore the new acquirer of the user licence, such as a customer of UsedSoft, may, as a lawful acquirer of the corrected and updated copy of the computer program concerned, download that copy from the copyright holder’s website.

Re:same as steam

[0111 1110]

console gamers will have to adapt or start playing on a PC but wait... SAME PROBLEM THERE ....

Citation needed. Only a small percentage of PC games have DRM that is even remotely this draconian. And very few of all the new great games coming out through kickstarter will have any DRM at all. In addition I can't think of a single PC game with DRM that remained uncracked for any significant length of time. So if one finds the DRM too restrictive cracks are just a short download away.

Re:Hacktivism

[deimtee]

I can't imagine any legal grounds anyone would have for a lawsuit, in this instance. You can sell or trade or give away your games all you want, leaving the first sale doctrine intact. The fact that the game no longer works for the poor guy who bought it isn't Microsoft's problem since they aren't obligated to provide support for used products.

That won't fly in AU. Goods must be fit for purpose, and second-hand sales do not erase the manufacturers responsibility. A quick reading of the consumer guide seems to say you could buy it second hand and then demand a full refund from the manufaturer if it didn't work due to a manufacting defect. The interesting challange would be to get disabling DRM defined as a fault with the goods.
Link to the guide for those interested: http://www.consumerlaw.gov.au/content/the_acl/downloads/consumer_guarantees_guide.rtf

It's all Nag-ware anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fed up anyway with the way things are going gaming. I may abandon consoles altogether until all this blows over.

I don't think the manufacturers realise that not everyone can afford t pay £50 per game, without the opportunity to trade in old games against it.
And let's face it; most games these days are in fact just 'nag-ware' which constantly rub your face in the fact you are missing out on all the DLC you haven't forked over for.

Thanks, that's what I wanted from my new game; to be told that it isn't complete and I am missing out unless I pony up the green.

Grim days to be a gamer I say.
And gone are the days of buying a game and having the exact same experience with your friends who have the same game.

This is really simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I can't own it, I'm not buying it.

The only reason why I own a 360 and PS3 is because I feel like I'm buying a game, and I therefore own the disk that it comes on. I can expect that disk to work in any other console, no questions asked. It's mine, and I can do as I please with it- I can play it whenever I want, trade it to whomever I want, borrow it to whomever I want, doesn't matter. It's mine. I paid for it, I own that disk.

Copyright laws be damned, I don't give a flying fuck about what passes for law in the USA these days. I don't care if I don't "legally" own the data on the disks. I don't even care if it's encrypted or not, as long as I can buy a console, plug it into the wall (sans internet), and expect it to work. This has been the case for nearly every console up to and including our current generation of offerings.

If they want to take that away from me, then fuck them.

Nothing irks me more then spending money on nothing. You think you're buying Halo 5 for the Xbox 720? Think again. You're giving Microsoft a wad of cash and hoping that they'll give you something in return, and if they do- that they'll let you play with it for long enough that you don't feel like you're being totally screwed when they inevitably take it away.

So really, me "owning" anything today is a huge stretch- but this kind of shit just iterates how little my rights matter to these corporations. You keep forcefully reminding me that I'm paying you for nothing tangible and nothing that I can permanently keep- damn straight I'm not going to buy into your newfangled bullshit. How do you think everyone would feel if car manufactures had the legal right to break into your garage and take away your car even if you paid full pop for it? I don't think that would fly very well. How come the same thing is OK for gaming?

Don't buy bad products...

[Mattsson]

The easy solution is to simply not buy the product if you think it's bad.

Re:Don't buy bad products...

[TubeSteak]

The easy solution is to simply not buy the product if you think it's bad.

We regulate businesses and proucts so that there are minimum levels of good in the world.

Ask yourself which is better for you and me:
1. Products that cannot be resold, thus violating the right of resale, and leading to a class action lawsuit
2. A regulating agency that prevents such a product from reaching the market

From a business standpoint, the first is better, as long as the settlement preventing harm from reaching the people remains the same.

Re:Don't buy bad products...

[Hatta]

All my favorite games developers did cease to exist. They've all been shut down or bought up. Sierra, Interplay, Origin, Westwood, Psygnosis, Infocom, SSI, Bullfrog, Shiny all gone. So I don't think I'm missing much.

Maybe it is the economy, but not how you think.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony's failure with the PSPgo is partly because they had to compete with their own more fully-featured product and partly because they didn't mandate day-and-date digital releases of retail titles.

Whether doing that worked with the Vita is impossible to tell, since that platform's sales numbers are pretty much crushed under its high price (including separate overpriced memory card) and having to compete with mobile gaming (such as it is), and pulling game sales numbers is a futile exercise anyway, since digital sales aren't usually reported, NPD's given the public the finger, and VGchartz's methodology is a disaster.

Looking at how digital sales on retail PSPs did might be better, but that may not be feasible.

And before you go on with "blah blah piracy": The DS was as wide-open as the PSP was. Developers who weren't fans of good-faith efforts used that as an excuse to develop on just the DS, or more likely have fled to mobile or folded. The 3DS is also suffering from the end of the cash-in, but is sort of weathering it because Nintendo. Pick another argument.

CAPTCHA: euphoria

Re:This is a move to stop online piracy.

[Rakhar]

I have a locked XBox Live account with +half a year or so paid on it. Being a yearly subscription, I forgot to update it when I canceled my bank account (due to another bank that I dislike buying out my bank). Instead of cancelling my account, MS left it running for another 4 or 5 months, THEN closed and locked the account for nonpayment. I went out and bought a year prepaid card, entered it in my account. The next day I was locked out again. The response I got from MS? "We don't take time cards as payment for debt owed." I also couldn't get any prepaid credit cards to work with their system.

Their system was more than happy to eat the $50 subscription card and bring my account back into the positive, but still keep me from accessing my account. Customer service told me I was out of luck. My Live account has hundreds of dollars of DLC and games on it. I sold my XBox within a week and haven't looked back. I'm done with consoles.

Where does Microsoft's confidence come from?

[popo]

These kinds of decisions are obviously going to piss off customers. But Microsoft clearly feels they are untouchable.

This might be understandable if they weren't currently the not-so-proud parent of a dismally failing tablet, a disaster of an operating system and a serial failure in the online space.

One would think that just maybe they should approach customers on the basis of what the customers want, and not what some repeat-disaster of a CEO thinks is good strategy.

This will be the year of the "upset" IMHO. Ouya and Steam look set to overthrow the aging behemoths. I look forward to healthy competition.

Re:Where does Microsoft's confidence come from?

[RaceProUK]

Are you saying Ouya and the Steam Box are just rumours?

No, he's saying the always-on/gamelock on the next XBox are rumours.

Reading - it's a useful life skill. I suggest you learn how to do it.

ATI or nVidia?

[PopeRatzo]

I gonna buy me a wicked cool video card with the money I save from not buying a new XBOX 720. And have enough left over for a gaming keyboard with the cherry switches or maybe a new Naga mouse.

Fuck XBOX and their "always on". Why do I want to buy an underpowered console when I can have a PC so powerful that when I play Far Cry 3 I can practically smell the kimodo dragon blood?

Consoles are for pussies.

What are these "games" you speak of?

[rjejr]

MS is going to sell the Kinectbox720 as WebTV part 3 and promote HBO Go and Netflix and Skype and IE 11 and maybe some $10 DL Geometry War type games with the ability to play blu-ray movies. They are not selling it as a games machine. The Xbox has had Halo and Gears of War. MS is not a games company, they are a software licensing company - see $50 Gold yearly fee. They won't have to talk about game DRM b/c they won't talk about games.

Re:Slashdots Moderation System

[Imrik]

A well thought out and structured argument might be worth upmodding, this is a series of inflamatory statements with no substance.