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Microsoft Kills Xbox One Phone-Home DRM
One of the biggest criticisms of Microsoft's recently-announced Xbox One console was that it would require an internet connection once every 24 hours in order to keep playing games. Enough people complained about the DRM, and Microsoft listened. Today, they announced that they're removing the phone-home requirement. "After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360." They've also scrapped the game trading and resale system they'd built, which allowed publishers to set their own rules with regard to used game sales. "There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360." Unfortunately, that also means users won't be able to take advantage of the good parts of the original system, such as trading and gifting games without needing the disc, or sharing games with remote family members. "While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds." Also noteworthy: they've dropped region-locks as well.
Whew, that chair was clos.....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"Microsoft has--"
"Yeah, I saw."
"Well...they didn't have a choice. They're halfway there."
It's still recording while you masturbate.
they understood they were going to get buttfucked by PS4 at launch...and reversed their stance. I was seriously going to get a PS4 instead, glad they came around. After all "It's only software" right?
Hmmm... but what will happen now? This might be good news, but this is what should have happened from the very beginning.
So, even though they took it off for the Xbone, I fear that they simply paved the way for draconian restrictions by the next gen (if that happens someday).
This new Xbox 180 pretty much evens the console war again, it's going to be an interesting new generation.
We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds."
Actually, we just want one world: The one we had before. And thank you kindly to get your creepy kinect out of our living rooms, thanks. We're already giving the paranoid, who thrive quite well in an anarobic environment, a veritable algae bloom of justified looking over their shoulder. You stepped in dog shit like you were laser guided, Microsoft.
I don't think your reputation can be salvaged at this point... most people have already decided on the PS4, and will be leary of signing up since you're just a firmware update away from returning to putting 'em over a barrel. And yes, we do think you'd do just that, once the furvor dies down. We saw your memo. We know how you think. You won't give up this easily on your DRM locked down to hell shitty ass XBone.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"Oshitoshitoshit. That was bad PR. Let's backpedal a little bit and make them think we did them a favor."
"Make it so, xbox one."
We're all xboned, because the console won't be DoA, and they'll be able to go back to the original plan in a couple of years with a software update.
"Hey guys! I used to be for DRM; but when I saw that it would ruin my launch, I became totally against it! Don't worry, though, just because it would be trivial to alter the deal at any future time, either over the internet or through exciting and mandatory system updates baked into new disk releases, you can still trust me!"
Forcing you to buy $100 Kinect with the system? Tracking your gaming habits and selling the data if you are connected? Tracking your movements with Kinect at all times? Putting online features that are on the discs of games behind an XBL Gold paywall? Forcing XBL Gold subscriptions to use other online services through your Xbox? Paying MS money for XBL Gold only to be bombarded by advertisements?
I'll pass still. This is looking like a weak generation for gamers. Both the PS4 and XB1 have online locked behind paywalls (even for peer-to-peer games). The Wii-U is severely lacking in quality games geared towards older gamers. Hopefully the PC gaming developers take charge and win back some of the console players this generation.
The fact that the Navy blasted XBONE ( http://www.navytimes.com/article/20130614/OFFDUTY02/306140030 ) is probably the biggest reason Microsoft took such a drastic 180, not us regular consumers.
While you are playing your games, the clock ticks down it the upper right hand corner, reminding you that need to play that other game in the background. Your quest is to find an internet connection before the "24" clock runs out.
And you get tortured and hounded by government creeps in the process. Feels real.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
With this change they also removed the ability to share downloaded games, and the ability to share a game without lending the disk. Those must have been the primary drivers behind the phone home requirements.
Well this is a change of events. Glad to see the elitist attitude is now swayed.... slightly. The media has already broke with "Xbox One Is Going To Suck because (DRM/Phone Home/Etc)" so they have already shot themselves in the foot and really I think its a bit too late to save face when they've pissed off so many already. But congrats to listening to your customers, you've adhered to one of the core business fundamentals. Maybe they will actually sell some units now. However without Indie getting back on the rails, Its looking like my Xbox-console run will be changing to PS this generation.
So they're going to sell Xbox One, wait a year or so after there's a good install base and then force a system update to play Gears of Halo 5: Madden Warfare which will of course reactivate all the restrictive DRM.
The restrictions they put on the system were horrible their justifications for them were insulting.
Above and beyond this could only happen if they thought we were idiots and simply wouldn't understand. They need to appreciate the distinction between lack of interest/awareness and actually being stupid.
Most people are not stupid. They're oblivious. But not stupid. Explain the rules to people and they'll typically see what is going on pretty fast.
MS tried to pull a fast one and was caught in the act. They've done this repeatedly with other product launches. It needs to stop.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
As much as I enjoy bashing Microsoft, they have redeemed themselves a little by listening to their customers.
They're reportedly on top of the security issue as well. A little focus on the areas of privacy, ethics, and standards might convince me to become a customer again.
[Rent This Space]
They turned it off for now. What's to say they won't turn it back on a year or two from now?
Still its amazing given the public's reaction to the roomers about the always on requirements they had an opportunity to "fix it" prior to launch and just say it was always just roomers. Seems they could have easily avoided the embarrassing public back pedal here and loss of trust.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
People didn't complain. They simply told Microsoft off and said they'd choose Sony. Calling this complaining is like walking into your boss's office, telling him to go f*** himself, and walking out to another job that is just as good if not better that is waiting with open arms. Microsoft's response is basically like the old boss begging you to come back.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Now can we get the start menu back? and maybe even Modern/Metro' apps being able to run in a window. With out needed to use a 3rd party add ons?
They should have announced some terminations to along with this news... That may have helped their story a little more.
Wow microsoft actually reacted to customers before it all went boom. The lessons from Windows 8 and Surface must be hitting home hard.
"But...but Microsoft, I've owned the console for 6 months, now you're making me connect to the internet again?"
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
"This deal is getting worse all the time!"
If they were so quick to listen to the gaming community, why have they been so deaf to the feedback about Windows 8?
Because there's no EULA prohibiting you from selling your 360 to someone else, so those consoles will always be plentiful on the secondary market.
Meanwhile, Windows 7 can be pulled from stores and you are prohibited from transferring your license to any other computer, whether you own it or not.
In short, you don't have to listen to your customers when they're locked in and you control the market scarcity.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Even the mainstream news cycle picked up the "Can you believe this shit" tone that was going around during and after E3. Many, many people have now firmly dismissed the Xbox One (or Xbone) as a choice based on that, and they're not going to be hearing that the restrictions have vanished because this correction isn't going to get nearly the traction the original story (and associated outrage) did. When you have active duty personnel penning columns in newspapers saying that Microsoft's basically decided to shit on all active servicemembers with the call-home and in-country requirement, a little retraction buried on page 29 isn't going to make it into many peoples' minds.
Most likely because they've got an expensive machine to sell with the Xbox One (is it it acceptable to just call it Xboner for short from now on?), while with Windows... for the most part it's just software and their traditional monopoly products that fuels it (MS Office...). Not to mention, I figure they've got more to lose with their video game systems, since that market seems to be continuing to expand and has has had some pretty stiff competition for decades now. But who knows... maybe the guys in the Windows division just have more balls, or the Xbox guys care a bit more about their customers' view of their products. It's Microsoft, we'll probably never really know. All I know is that their true desires and intentions have been revealed, I wouldn't just give them a free ride after finally doing the "right thing" in the end. I would consider them highly suspicious of similar activity in the future, whether the Xboner is still the current-generation system at the time or something else has succeeded it.
What guarantee is there that Microsoft won't later re-enable the phone-home drm feature?
(even if the system is never reconnected to the internet again after setup, it's conceivable an update could later be performed via a game disc with little to no notice to the user)
Likewise, what guarantees are there that a game publisher itself won't roll out a game update that includes phone-home drm?
On a related topic, what promises has Microsoft made regarding the always-on camera? Seems to me there's really no guarantee it can't be accessed without the user's knowledge unless there's a hardware way to turn it off (ie. an opaque cover over the camera).
I think the DRM would have been accepted a lot better. I think the Surface, Win8 and then the XBone had their flaws, but there is a definite piling-on mentality against MS. They just aren't sexy and their marketing and customer education/relations is awful and often just downright confusing at times. Again, I'm not defending MS or their products, they just seem to provide the perfect storm for consumer outrage and bad product launches where others might have faired a lot better given the same circumstances, imho.
Calling this complaining is like walking into your boss's office, telling him to go f*** himself, and walking out to another job that is just as good if not better that is waiting with open arms.
My. Ass. Nobody actually did anything, people only threatened to do things, that goes for Microsoft and it goes for the users.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If they had taken this same attitude with windows 8 it would have been a usable product a year ago.
Alright, let's try another one. This is more analogous to walking into a car dealership, them telling the customers something they refuse to change (and owners cannot change) they don't like about the cars they sell at that dealership, and the customers going to a different dealership, resulting in a change of policy at the dealership everyone walked away from.
Either way, it's not complaining. It's economics. Offer what people are willing to buy, and you win. Offer crap that people don't want to pay for, and you lose. Sure, you can change at that point, but you may still lose.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Sadly, I don't seem to have it written down anywhere, but the gist of it was that advertisers and politicians have long known that the best way to get people to eat rat-shit sandwiches is to heavily advertise a "rat-shit and garbage" sandwich, then after that media blitz, start another blitz saying "we listened to you! Our sandwiches no longer have garbage in them!"
They're one-upping MS. The PS3 is now always offline.
The part that bugged me was it was more expensive, less powerful, and had loads a features I didn't care about. (Like Kinect.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
We occasionally hear about the dog-eat-dog corporate culture at Microsoft.
I hope someone will shed light on the details of what happened over the past 10 days or so, who managed to persuade who to reverse whose decisions, etc.
Must be an interesting story to tell.
I probably still won't buy one, but whatev. I've always been a PC gamer and never really got into the console market. I was contemplating hopping on board this gen, but the initial xbox specs instantly turned me off. PS4 just isn't an option. I refuse to buy anything from Sony even though the price is always right. I'd rather pay double somewhere else than give a penny to that shit-stain of a company. I even try to stay away from their movies. I've considered the Wii, but never seriously. If I want to play such casual games, I'll open my browser. Xbox was really my only option. That's where the games are. That's where my friends play. I definitely won't be standing in line on opening night, but this news gives me some hope. I'll wait and see how launch goes and just maybe with enough glowing reviews, I'll bite the bullet. Or maybe I'll keep dumping money into microtransactions on f2p mmos. We'll see.
This is more analogous to walking into a car dealership, them telling the customers something they refuse to change
Yes, those adhesive advertisements they put on the back of the vehicle that ruins the paint.
Return of the start BUTTON. It still takes you to metro, which is useless on a desktop. It's not what consumers asked for, it's just paying lip service.
worked on xbox 360 titles where we were requested by MS to have the user be logged into live in order to save the game. so basically they will continue to ask devs to do that so you still have a phone home or you just cant save the game.
Yeah, as someone who has no interest in either the XBox One or Windows 8, I think you're kind of reaching there.
Of course, it *sounds* good to anyone who hates Microsoft, so you still get cheap mod points.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
(TF)
They were one of the earliest companies working for/with the NSA on snooping their customer base, that was listed on some of the timeline graphics leaked. They did what they could to get camera and mic in all their customers' homes. They could upload firmware to the unit under secret-non-court orders to enable live recording/viewing. The "gate" of everyone visiting said customer's home can be collected for future identification off security cams. Facial recognition collections. Voice ID. All of this would be considered meta-data in the business they are in, to be collected in the big data bin of Utah.
(/TF)
That's great. Can we have the Start Menu back now on Windows? (And no, a button going to the same crappy Metro screen as before doesn't count.)
... and it shows they really want the xbone to succeed, even if it involves a complete 180.
No matter the complaints over the metro interface in Win8, the only fix they're working on is to make the Metro interface extra sparkly and loaded with bullshit features non of the Desktop users need or want in 8.1.
Goes to show that Windows 8 needs a real competitor to make MS work for the money.
>> We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds."
Here let me fix that for ya...
"It was and still is our intention that customers were meant to discover how badly we're screwing them only AFTER we got their money and they are so locked in to our infrastructure they cant back out.
As we only care about sales, we now have to temporarily remove some income generating "features" until later, when we can again roll them out. This time we will do it over several firmware updates so people cant object in a united way.
As the Xbox is primarily meant to be the core of the home media environment, use of its core features already requires an internet connection so automatic upgrading will be unavoidable.
Only a few of the most difficult customers (probably all pirates a.k.a. Linux users) will actually do what we suggested was possible and never connect the Xbox to the internet, so we will also ensure all premium games will include artificial limitations to require updated firmware that, completely coincidentally contains the removed for launch "features".
In 2 months it will be like it never happened.
Microsoft's big idea for getting people to actually buy a Windows RT Tablet is to partner with Best Buy and have actor/salesman "blue shirt" say the Windows RT is pretty cool. This is so snowblind to the actual tablet market conditions, and the way people in the real world think, it's almost impossible to comment on without resorting to expletives. Three years ago, I was just about to get my first Windows Phone, was enjoying my XBox 360, and for the first time ever, happily paid full price for a Windows license when I bought 7. Now, I hate my Windows Phone and curse at it on a semi-daily basis, am probably going to go back to exclusive PC gaming (despite racking up a 150K gamerscore), and I've completely abandoned trying to use Windows 8 for anything but testing software compatibility.
catch is Sony and Nintendo did not need widespread protest to never even think of this crap in the first place. Microsoft give a shit less bought you or what you think. what really happened hear was xbox stock was falling devs where leaving and the pr was in shambles. in other words if they did not do a 180 the xboxone would have been a bigger flop then virtual boy.
that's just fanboys talking. its simple they knew they where going to lose huge amounts of money if they did not make this change. even with this change there is still some issues having that pos kinict that's competently useless and is nothing more then a spy device. the price the always install quickly filling up its small hd. and the lose of xbox arcade. the lost of trust with many users lets face it the console is still garbage.
worked on xbox 360 titles where we were asked by MS to require a login to live in order to save. so you can play the game. but unless it phones home you can;t save.
Make a ridiculous threat that you *know* will invite revolt, then relent and follow through with the slightly less ridiculous (but still ridiculous) plan you had interned all along.
Next time, scheduled phoning home won't seem so ridiculous. Well, maybe not next time, but the time after that, or maybe the time after that ... but it's coming.
Also known as the Anchoring Effect
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/27/anchoring-effect/
Just look at the shit we put up with MS Office and new Windows installations these days. No, you can't just have a disc, you need to spend a half hour entering all your personal info (mostly re-entering those fucking captchas because their shitty forms don't validate interactively) in an MS account so we can keep tabs on you and send you spam. Even then, you're not getting an installation package file, we'll only give you some brain dead all-in-one downloader that only works on *your* computer, provides absolutely no configuration options and doesn't tell you where the installer files are located (though they probably aren't even usable if you do find them). Sure, you *can* get installation discs if you cough up another $15 and wait a week.
Fuck that, I'll head over to TPB and have a an ISO in 15 minutes.
Do you think we'd have willing to choke down this shit sandwich even a few years ago?
They still haven't won me over one bit. They never should have tried this in the first place and they'll need to do something else (price drop, etc) to clean their image up.
Maybe if desktop users shout loud enough MS will be convinced to roll back the interface formerly known as Metro into something grandmothers can love.
Although I believe that Microsoft did the right thing here, I did think that some of the DRM features were interesting, especially the pure digital trading portions.
What they should of done is make it opt in. If you want the ability to share digital games between opt in friends then you turn it on with the caveat that you must always be online. Don't or can't be online, then turn it off with the caveat of having to lug CD's around.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
MSFT is up almost 30% YTD.
MP3 players were becoming the in thing. Sony, which dominated the analog portable music player market with the Walkman, was expected to dominate the MP3 market. But somehow their $0.15 billion/yr music division pulled rank on their $35 billion/yr electronics division, and forced their initial MP3 player to be designed so that it couldn't play MP3s at all. It had to use a proprietary, DRM-encrusted format. (Yes it's advertised as an MP3 player, but you had to convert your MP3 collection into their proprietary format first.)
They flopped in the market, and Apple went on to dominate the MP3 player market in 2001 with an MP3 player which had DRM if you bought from iTunes but could still play MP3s you copied to the player manually. Microsoft corrected themselves much more quickly than Sony did back then (it took them years to finally add MP3 support, and they didn't give up on ATRAC until 2007), so we'll have to wait and see how bad the damage is.
Sony comes out with a ground-breakingly open game console (as modern mainstream game consoles go) which forces Microsoft to open theirs up, and recently opened one of their smart watches...could they actually be turning over a new leaf, opening up and providing something their customers want? This seems wrong. They were definitely one of the most evil megacorps just a few months ago.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It seems we are seeing a trend here: 1. Create an undesirable product designed to extract as much money as possible from your customers. 2. Act all surprised when they complain about it. 3. Pretend you are doing them a favour when you are forced to backpeddle. I'm no brain surgeon but I have trouble equating this formula with sensible business practice.
If you disconnect from most Steam games and all Blizzard Battle.net games, you instantly disqualify yourself for all achievements until rebooting, disable game saving, and disable high scores and stored scores of any kind or stat tracking. There are logical reasons for that related to cheating and modifying of files then resyncing them but still. So just keep in mind that they never promised they wouldn't make not connecting annoying or borderline unplayable.
Microsoft stuck the clutch on their paradigm shift.
As it is, I still see no reason at all to buy a dedicated game box when my desktop is more than equal to the task
One reason is the ability to play a game on a big TV without having to carry your desktop PC back and forth between your desk and the living room TV. Another is the ability to play a video game with house guests who happen to be visiting you but aren't carrying their own gaming laptops.
I thought Europe and Australia were one "region" with respect to the firmware of video game consoles.
They will not be able to resist 24/7 DRM. Wait 5 years before buying it and see if I'm wrong. :)
They're exactly as evil as Sony but not quite as stupid about it.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
It also means that there is no more going out and buying a Sega Jaguar from 20 years ago
I'll assume you meant "Atari Jaguar or Sega Saturn from 20 years ago". With that out of the way:
A game you buy in September of this year on the 360 won't be playable when you upgrade to the XBOX ONE two months later.
How is that true? My buying a Super NES doesn't render my NES Game Paks unplayable on my NES, and just because my cousin plans to buy a Wii U for Smash Bros. U when it comes out doesn't mean the games he already has will stop working on his Wii, no matter whether they're Wii discs, GameCube discs, or from Wii Shop. How does buying an Xbox One break your 360?
On Steam (well, PC in general - let's stop acting like Steam is the entirety of PC gaming) - I can still play games I bought ten years ago on my newest rig, even though it is the tenth machine I've built in ten years.
Is that true even for games that use additional third-party DRM that counts installations? Or do Steam's terms forbid third-party DRM from enforcing install limits?
Gamestop is pretty crappy and so is their exploitive business model.
If you break GameStop, you also break person-to-person sales of game media on eBay and the like.
They will just make more games online only, no disc
As I understand the Xbox licensing structure, if a company doesn't ship a certain amount of discs, it isn't deemed a "publisher" and thus has to rely on another publisher that does ship disc games for slots in Microsoft's XBLA release schedule.
I think people are looking for a 3rd option this next generation (or 4th if you include the Wii U a part of this next generation). I don't think it's going to be either Sony or Microsoft.
Would this third option be Ouya or a home theater PC?
MS is just following Steam's lead.
That depends on whether Microsoft considers brown-nosing an established disc game publisher for an XBLA release slot to be equivalent to the Greenlight process.
Have you considered the absurd and audacious option of just disconnecting the Kinect when not using it? Use a power strip and turn it off when not using the console: problem solved. Use a wired Ethernet connection to the console and disconnect it when you don't need it to be online: problem solved.
It's not like the Kinect is some first cousin of the PowerPwn with built-in WiFi or something. If you disconnect it (from the console, from the power grid, or from the Internet) it has exactly zero ways to spy on you. Get a grip, people; it's not like there's some law that if you have a Xbox One, the sensor must remain online at all times. This is ludicrous.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Sony's contempt for its customers is just ordinary, run-of-the-mill contempt.
Microsoft's contempt for its customers is de luxe, extra virgin, cold pressed contempt, imported from the most famous contempt-growing areas of the world and painstakingly refined into the attitude that you see displayed.
Sony tried a milder version of that last generation. It bit them, hard. Really, really hard. Lawsuits and downtimes and massive expenses and multi-month losses of revenue hard.
On the extremely unlikely possibility that Microsoft would do something so stupid as what you describe, well, it's not hard to guess what would happen: the backlash would be incredible. Since you apparently failed to make this eminently logical conclusion yourself, I suspect you're a fanboy (or perhaps more accurately hater) too blinded by emotion to apply logic to the situation, so you would probably cheer if Microsoft were to do something like that. It could easily mean the end of their presence in the entire market segment within a year or two.
Oh, and to pre-emptively address the "I didn't think they'd be so stupid as to make these policies in the first place" argument: yes, that hurt them some, but they backed off before the product reached launch. Not a single customer was ever impacted in any way by those policies, because thus far, there *are* no customers, and the policies are no longer in place. So... a little stupid to push that far at and before E3, but quite smart of them to back off now, before anybody is affected.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
replying to myself...bad form, I know.
But FYI, grandparent, Sony is being hammered for its contempt for its customers. A finance analyst caused a small stir recently by suggesting that Sony's consumer electronics business has negative value, and that Sony should sell it, and stick to what it does well: selling insurance.
Exactly...
Sony is better on the subject of DRM? Sony, the company that retroactively removed features from their last console via mandatory update? Sony, the company that sued hackers who managed to re-enable those features? Sony, the company that included automatically-installing rootkits on audio CDs all in the name of DRM? You think *that* company is better?
Microsoft never actually *did* a damn thing to you, at least not on this topic. They said they were *going* to do something. Potential customers (there are no actual customers; the product hasn't been released yet!) said "do that and we won't buy it!" Microsoft said "OK, we won't do that then."
Some people...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
It wasn't "the people" they listened to, it was the sounds of Sony destroying them at E3.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
the failure of Microsoft to make an easy-to find way to put a pc to sleep or to launch subfolders of apps makes Windows 8 a pretty sucky desktop OS, at least for casual users.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I hope I'm not mistaken, but can't you already do that by purchasing your games digitally from their Xbox Live virtual shop?
The wording is a little vague, but it might be referring to the "day one patch" that you need to download to remove the phone-home crap. Either that or Microsoft is still retaining a vestige of permission-to-play by forcing the initial setup to register the console with the mothership (perhaps to gather statistics on how often new consoles are set up vs. existing ones being traded, or some such).
Microsoft will just silently re-add the missing features later on when all this has died down.
Last car I bought, I questioned them on it and they specifically do not use those, but my family has a tradition of making it clear that they will refuse to purchase any vehicle on which such a decal is affixed.
It's amazing how willing they are to either remove or not apply such a decal when you make it clear that you won't buy a car with one. All you have to do is tell them with unyielding firmness.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
but instead they did it for the survival of the XBox and even MS itself. They are still wolves but at least they are wearing sheepskins...
I swear i NEVER thought I would ever see the day that M$ was more responsive to it's customers needs than either Apple or Google. Looks like the "Big Bad Beast" has gotten a conscience.. while the "do no evil" camp has slowly become the devil incarnate... I think I like those guys at Redmond just a tiny bit more.... ;-)
It feels like MS used the gaming community as a focus group in a social experiment.
I still will be purchasing the PS4. To me, Microsoft has already demonstrated that they are willing to push boundaries on DRM. I do not applause Sony for their DRM strategies either but I feel I am choosing the lesser of two evils. To be sure though, even though they have removed the E.T. restriction, they still will have this unused code/system. We know from GTA games what happens to unused code. I don't trust them not to update the software in the future with incremental DRM updates that may someday resemble what they just pulled. Instead of doing it all at once though, they would take the incremental "improvement" approach much like apple.
I am a reformed PC gamer that plays console games exclusively now. I play predominantly online, and the reason behind the departure were three fold. 1.) Being able to play with multiple people in the living room. Yea, I did LAN parties back in the day, but that really is inconvenient. 2.) Cheating - I'm very competitive and I know it still happens on consoles (took awhile for the PS3), but there are far less people with modded games on consoles then PC. I need Valve and Steam and Pipe or whoever have helped rectify that to an extent, but its still far more common on PC 3.) And last, and probably the biggest... Everyone's console is the same. If I'm getting smoked at an FPS, its because the foul mouthed 12 year old on the other end is better then me.. Not because I didn't shell out $600-1000 on a video card and his mommy and daddy did. Kind of like Tom Curise in Days of Thunder "stock cars are built to run equal. I won't be beaten by a car, only by a driver". Or the game that comes out 3 years from now will work on my console without needed X Y or Z. So for the 50 people in this thread that keep saying just do PC gaming... That's why not.
I just wish Microsoft would listen to consumer complaints that quickly regarding their other big turd, Windows 8...
Microsoft Kills Xbox One. Phone-Home DRM!
as long as consumers make a bug enough racket, the companies will eventually listen. I'm betting my money that they'll find ways to bring DRM back without causing an uproar like before.
I meet this news with mixed reaction, on the one hand it is a blessing for those who enjoy a more 'open' console gaming experience, let us not forget that not everyone is made of money when it comes to buying video games, so its easy to see why that was a big issue, and not everyone has a half decent internet connection although that may be hard to believe for those who do. On the flip side of the coin however, developers need paying for their hard work and there is no doubt used games take money out of developers / publishers pockets. Also I really can see the benefit of a more connected box, games can leverage the power of cloud computing, more frequent updates enriching the experience etc. Here's hoping MS can merge the best of both worlds to everybody's satisfaction ;)
Citation needed.
Show me a review that shows a 20% real world boost from going to 1066 to 1333.
I have looked up going from 1333 and 1600, and it makes almost no difference whatsoever (about the only thing it might give you is some extra OC headroom, which you won't be able to do on a console anyway).
You would be hard pressed to find a real world review of going from DDR to 2, or even 3, without platform changes requiring other cpu/apu or other technology dictating the change.
That said, it was the minute amount of memory that both the Xbox360 and the PS3 had that dictated gaming challenges, so the faster you could potentially swap data in and out would seem to be critical. However this does not appear to be the case with the new systems (though I am sure time will tell), as both seem to be addressing the issue.
http://www.tekeroyun.com/