Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
"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 $100 Kinect with the system? Tracking your gaming habits and selling the data if you are connected? Tracking your movements with Kinect at all times? Putting online features that are on the discs of games behind an XBL Gold paywall? Forcing XBL Gold subscriptions to use other online services through your Xbox? Paying MS money for XBL Gold only to be bombarded by advertisements?
I'll pass still. This is looking like a weak generation for gamers. Both the PS4 and XB1 have online locked behind paywalls (even for peer-to-peer games). The Wii-U is severely lacking in quality games geared towards older gamers. Hopefully the PC gaming developers take charge and win back some of the console players this generation.
The fact that the Navy blasted XBONE ( http://www.navytimes.com/article/20130614/OFFDUTY02/306140030 ) is probably the biggest reason Microsoft took such a drastic 180, not us regular consumers.
If you've followed the Xbox One conversation at all (there, I used the real word, now I can call it Xbone), you know that there's only one thing Microsoft could possibly do as damage control at this point, and they just did it. Everyone has expected them to tone down the phoning home and used games policies. The "halfway" is, as many commenters below have pointed out, that they've yet to remove the built-in Kinect.
It's hilarious people are running back to them so fast. There's nothing stopping them from putting DRM in a year from now. It's still 100$ more than PS4, still has worse hardware, it still has Kinect, even though you're the type of person who doesn't care about rights it still makes the system less powerful as a segment of it is reserved for this telescreen
Enjoy your Halo kiddo
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!
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]
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?
The world where triple A titles will be on a system that RMS approves is the same world where communism works.
That is, not this one.
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
If you've followed the Xbox One conversation at all (there, I used the real word, now I can call it Xbone), you know that there's only one thing Microsoft could possibly do as damage control at this point, and they just did it. Everyone has expected them to tone down the phoning home and used games policies. The "halfway" is, as many commenters below have pointed out, that they've yet to remove the built-in Kinect.
So they've only shot themselves in one foot so far and are reloading for the other one ... still a chance to save that sock a holey demise.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
It's a trap. They will just make more games online only, no disc and thus no lending or resale or offline play.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
to 'fix' the mic problem, do the following:
1) find an old wall-wart power supply
2) open it and remove the filter capacitors (yank them out or unsolder them)
3) feed the low voltage output to the mic wires
what you've done is created a NICE 60hz hum that will be so strong, nothing the mic will pick up will ever come thru.
(you're welcome)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
For convenience, I've added the missing part of that conversation.
I just had this conversation with a coworker:
"Microsoft has me sexually arroused"
"Yeah, I saw."
"Well...they didn't have a choice. They're halfway there."
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Steam has huge regular sales. Microsoft keeps the digital versions of games in sync with the retail versions as much as possible. People don't build huge libraries of 60$ Steam games, they build libraries of 5$ Humble Bundle games, and they don't care about resale because they paid so little going in. Microsoft's digitial-instead-of-disc games that GP suggests are going to be 60$ digital. Not that I have any concrete evidence of what they'll do half a year from now...buy certainly on Xbox 360 the downloadable AAA games are the same price as retail MSRP.
There's nothing stopping them from putting DRM in a year from now
To be fair, there's also nothing stopping Sony from changing anything and everything about their PS4 software at any point. And Sony does have a track record to create suspicion that they might.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Here's what is wrong with it -- and the comparisons to Steam are always off the mark.
On previous consoles, you can play any game you own. You bought it. It is yours. You physically have it somewhere. You can still play your PS2 games on a PS2. You can still play your NES games on an almost 30 year old NES. With digital games on console, you'll be able to play them until they decide to turn the download server off. Or turn the DRM system off. Or turn off XBox Live and move on to the next thing. It also means that there is no more going out and buying a Sega Jaguar from 20 years ago and a bunch of used games somewhere to play it on, because you enjoy it or because you weren't into games at the time the Jaguar came out, but you'd like to experience them.
Then, there's also the issue of generations... 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. 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. I can still play PC games on my PC that are thirty years old.
And, finally, Microsoft has shown no interest in discounting games. Their "on demand" selection is both pathetic in variety and price, usually charging more for the digital version of a game that is several years old than the actual physical copy would cost to order online and have shipped to your house. On PC - you have a massive collection of indie stuff directly from developers and publishers, a ton on Desura, many sold through Humble Bundles. You have tons of older stuff preserved through GOG, and you have unbelievably steep discounts on newer games, on Steam. Often, during the same year they were released. And all that without paying $60/yr.
Gamestop's business model is irrelevant. Further, what do you or I care? I am not in the business of worrying about the financials of the game industry. I am in the business of watching my own finances and if I can save money, that is important to me. Gamestop is pretty crappy and so is their exploitive business model. Using that as some justification to diminish consumers' rights to own their purchased content and have portability and resale and so on is a bit like using the shit the Westboro Baptist Church says as an excuse for eradicating free speech.
Nobody is taking out DRM from XBOX or Playstation. They're only talking about taking away region locking and phoning home for daily authentication. You're still going to have to deal with Ubisoft and their uPlay bullshit and redeemable one-time codes and so on.
People also seem to be constantly conflating DRM with used games. The two have little to do with each other. Sony has said they won't infringe on your right to own your purchases and lend, give, trade, sell them and they won't let others do that, either. That doesn't mean DRM won't still be used.
Why not just clip off the mic?