Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Apologizes For Cavalier 'Always-Online' DRM Tweets
Adam Orth, creative director of Microsoft Studios, on Thursday tweeted that "doesn't get" objections to DRM schemes that require always-on internet connection to play console games. An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft on Friday released an official statement regarding the tweets: 'We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter.'" I can't help reading those tweets in the voice of Sterling Archer.
"...but we're still making it always-on anyway. Fuck you. Sorry."
That explains why we are all being pushed onto a schizophrenic mess that nobody wants called Windows 8.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Some Microsoft guy made some comments thorugh personal channels
Not just "some Microsoft guy". He's creative director at Microsoft's video game division. If you think his opinion is irrelevant or atypical, you're delusional.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I read those tweets and felt the sheer contempt burning through the internet, as did many other people.
If the always-on thing is required for the Xbox720, effectively Microsoft are saying "we don't care if you can't use your product you purchased from us because of a hundred possible reasons". Moving house can mean a month of downtime to get internet connectivity back up, nope, can't play games during that month. Recently an Australian telephone exchange burned down in Warrnambool - the entire area had no internet connectivity for a few weeks - yep, no gaming during that time either. A tree took out my phone line and Telstra took 2 weeks to get it repaired - yep, no gaming during that time. These are just the examples I can quickly think of.
We currently own 67 Xbox 360 games in this house, and have two of the consoles (one for my wife and I and one for our kids). If having the internet permanently connected for the purposes of DRM is a requirement of the Xbox 720, I guarantee we will purchase exactly zero consoles and games for that generation.
... wait, what?
I absolutely agree with you. But I'm also not really sure what they need to apologize for. An employee stated an opinion on the net.
true, if said employee is a low level grunt, but when that employee is high level management, don't you think that changes things?
This wasn't some random drone, some low level programmer, whose input and decision plays no role whatsoever. This was the creative director. If ANYONE'S input in stuff like that is important, it is his.
The mere fact that this was NOT some "official" fart but actually a decision maker making a (from a purely company politically point of view) "stupid" remark says 100 times more than any "official" press release.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you own MS shares and the launch a console with an "always on" requirement - SELL. Don't even wait for the end of the press conference.
It's not the reaction of the slashdot market you need to worry about. Will we cry foul over such a requirement? Yes. Will we be less likely to buy the console as a result? Yes. Are we a drop in the ocean? No.
Rather, it's the huge "hinterland" demographic, particularly outside the coastal US and Western Europe, that you should be concerned about. If you think that internet connections are as reliable and "always on" as the electricity supply in most of the world, then think again. Personally, I'm pretty lucky; I live in the suburbs of London and have a pretty meaty 120mbit downstream 12 mbit upstream connection with no monthly cap. But even here, reliability isn't perfect - in the 12 months since I moved into this place, I've had two serious broadband faults; that's actually better than the reliability of my old 6mbit downstream 0.5mbit upstream connection in my old place.
Get outside of the major cities and, even in the US and Western Europe, broadband connections become a lot patchier. Moreover, people who don't fall quite so far towards the nerdy end of the spectrum as I do are more likely to be on cheaper broadband packages with restrictive monthly caps; an always on device which is doing anything more than pinging status back and forward could be a major inconvenience for them.
Oh, and then you get some pretty developed parts of the world, particularly out around the Pacific Rim, where home broadband is still fairly limited (sometimes associated with ultra-high-density housing) and most net activity takes place in internet cafes.
If MS announces an always-on console, you can take that as a declaration that it's not interested in competing in those markets.
If the always-on connection is linked to restrictions on the use of used games, then you can take that as a declaration that it's not interested in competing in ANY markets.
There's a lot to dislike about Sony's record. Seriously - a lot (do I even need to say this on slashdot?). But thanks to unbelievable levels of stupidity from both MS and Nintendo, the PS4 is heading to win the next round of the console wars by default, simply by following a low-key, low-risk approach (PC-like architecture, no always-on, no used-games-restrictions, no expensive tablet controller pushing developers into territory they don't want to bother with).