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Microsoft is shutting down Xbox Fitness

oktarb

Member
Man I literally almost bought this over the weekend. The price seemed a tad high, $60 bucks for some programs. Figured I do a little research. Glad I listened to my gut...pun intended.

Exercise is the mother of procrastination.
 

Swass

Member
Absolute BS.. I recently purchased P90X Xbox Fitness version with the expectation of being able to use it for many years to come just like I can use the DVD sets indefinitely, not for what is essentially a 1 year license. Microsoft should be giving at least partial refunds for this..
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
This was one of the best uses of the Kinect and MS should have really pushed it. I know a friend who basically only uses their Kinect for this and actually lost some decent weight by keeping up with the programs. Disappointing to see it cut.
 

Struct09

Member
The wife and I loved Xbox Fitness especially when there was a lot of content for Gold members to use. Sad to see it go, what a wasted opportunity :(
 

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
That's a pretty damn shitty move to remove the content for existing owners as well. How long until they start this with games? Oh, they did with Project Spark already. Yes, you only buy a license and the terms state they can revoke that license for whatever reason. But still, that's not the way to make your customers more interested in digital purchases, not at all.
 

danowat

Banned
Can anyone remember what the EULA said when purchasing? , did it include 'services maybe withdrawn at anytime'?

I know people like to use any excuse to drag MS through the mud, but it's not only MS who shutter services like this.
 

farisr

Member
Well looks like I can now safely sell the xbox. This was literally the only thing making me keep the xbox since MS started doing their whole windows 10 initiative.
 
Yeah, this is pretty screwed up. And it honestly makes me hesitant to buy anything on Xbox Live now.

Every piece of digital content that I've seen or purchased comes with an agreement. I've yet to see anything digital that doesn't specifically say you're only licensing the content and they can pull that license at any time. Physical versions of movies/games comes with similar agreements, the only flaw there being that companies can't exactly come and take away a physical copy of something.

It's a shame to see things like this happen, but it is indeed an unfortunate side-effect of our digital future.
 

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
That's a pretty damn shitty move to remove the content for existing owners as well. How long until they start this with games? Oh, they did with Project Spark already. Yes, you only buy a license and the terms state they can revoke that license for whatever reason. But still, that's not the way to make your customers more interested in digital purchases, not at all.

I think MS gave refunds for Project Spark like they did with Fable Legends. Hopefully the same applies to Kinect Fitness.
 

TheYanger

Member
That's a pretty damn shitty move to remove the content for existing owners as well. How long until they start this with games? Oh, they did with Project Spark already. Yes, you only buy a license and the terms state they can revoke that license for whatever reason. But still, that's not the way to make your customers more interested in digital purchases, not at all.

How long until people start this with games? 20 years ago bro.
 

epmode

Member
You might as well not buy anything on any digital service by that logic. They've literally all shut things down that people paid for.

Microsoft in particular has done this kind of thing before.

Yes, I'm still annoyed that Xbox Live 1.0 was shut down.
 

Great Guy

Member
It's exactly the same as basically every other shuttered online service in the history of the internet. A year grace period is LONG by those standards as well. It doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but it's crazy that people are acting like this is some new low.



You might as well not buy anything on any digital service by that logic. They've literally all shut things down that people paid for.

Glad you are not overly disappointed. Used this quite a bit, though never could get my kinect to register all activities very well in my limited workspace. Had a lot of promise, despite taking minutes to load sometimes on my machine. Am relieved I only bought an on sale yoga workout from all the programs available.
 
Wut, no!

Damn, I feel like this could be a realy big differentiator for xbox, but I can see why they are moving away from it.

EDIT:

They should have at least ported everything to Ms Health.
 

danowat

Banned
I meant Dance Central. Sorry. But yes it is a game... a game that uses the Kinect exclusively. You have to wonder whether this decision to shut down Xbox Fitness will have any impact on that game too.
Fitness was a service, DC is a retail game, big difference, can't see why you'd think one would have an affect on the other.
 
Xbox Fitness was kind of shitty in my opinion, basically just exercise videos. The Kinect stuff was completely useless. Just screen vomit that vaguely responds to how vigorously you flap your appendages.

But what the hell happened to the Xbox Cloud and how efficient it is if they can't even afford to keep their streaming workout vid service alive indefinitely?

Even though this doesn't affect me at all, this and the Project Spark thing are shit moves.
 

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
Can anyone remember what the EULA said when purchasing? , did it include 'services maybe withdrawn at anytime'?

I know people like to use any excuse to drag MS through the mud, but it's not only MS who shutter services like this.

Everything you buy these days is only a license. Even physical games only grant you a license that can be revoked.
 
Every piece of digital content that I've seen or purchased comes with an agreement. I've yet to see anything digital that doesn't specifically say you're only licensing the content and they can pull that license at any time. Physical versions of movies/games comes with similar agreements, the only flaw there being that companies can't exactly come and take away a physical copy of something.

It's a shame to see things like this happen, but it is indeed an unfortunate side-effect of our digital future.


But how much of this paid digital content on consoles is completely removed without any chance of playing it again?


I know digital content comes with fine print they can take it away, but on consoles, especially ones still being supported, this isn't some common thing...


I understand online game servers being taken down, but a lot of games still have offline content....or single player content...


Went won't they let you access your Fitness content offline? I don't understand that.
 

TheYanger

Member
Microsoft in particular has done this kind of thing before.

Yes, I'm still annoyed that Xbox Live 1.0 was shut down.
Literally EVERY online company in the world has done this before. "MS in particular" my ass. The only reason XBL 1.0 was shut down was because it was incompatible with modern XBL architecture.


Glad you are not overly disappointed. Used this quite a bit, though never could get my kinect to register all activities very well in my limited workspace. Had a lot of promise, despite taking minutes to load sometimes on my machine. Am relieved I only bought an on sale yoga workout from all the programs available.

Never said I'm not, I don't even use it, but lots of people coming into this thread acting like this is some great betrayal and that MS is the first company to do this. (Shit like:
They truly have come back around to embracing gamer culture
for example)

Let's go play some MAG bro! or some EQOA! Shit happens when it comes to online based services that can't just be run in perpetuity.
 

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
I meant Dance Central. Sorry. But yes it is a game... a game that uses the Kinect exclusively. You have to wonder whether this decision to shut down Xbox Fitness will have any impact on that game too.

They won't just stop games from using Kinect that already exist. Kinect support is already on the Slim using an adapter too, so I don't think you have to worry. Xbox Fitness is a service on the other hand.
 

Rykuen

Member
Absolute BS.. I recently purchased P90X Xbox Fitness version with the expectation of being able to use it for many years to come just like I can use the DVD sets indefinitely, not for what is essentially a 1 year license. Microsoft should be giving at least partial refunds for this..

If you're anything like me, you bought it and never got past the warm up phase and this change will just erase your shame, like the purchase never happened.... I'm okay with that.
actually I'm super bummed out since I was working up to a point where I might be able to get past the warm up... I guess now I got 9 months to train and 3 months to get to the end.
 
And he I am about to buy a Kinect bundle. Unique features like these are help when you have the least exclusives compared to the other two.
 
Wow, this was disappointing yet understandable given Microsoft’s Kinect burial until reading we were losing access to programs we’ve previously purchased. Like others, I’ve bought Insanity and P90X programs at $60 and to completely lose access and not offer an offline mode is a shitty way to handle it. A shame, because it was the one program worth using the Kinect 2.0 for and the feedback was helpful. I guess this is akin to an MMO shutting down and there is likely language in the EULA covering them, but I would not have put any money into this knowing this was a possibility so shortly after launch. Shame.
 

Kyry

Member
Between this, the Xbox DVR/Xbox TV studios, the Win 10 exclusive sharing, and the treatment of Kinect in general, Microsoft needs to take a hard look at its areas of differentiation.

Maybe its an unpopular thought, but I don't like the idea of game systems being commodities.
 

Chitown B

Member
Well if I bought the DVD set for around the same price, I would still have use for them, so this is definitely messed up. Xbox Fitness was one of the best ideas for Kinect and something I still use several times a week.

sure, but it's not the same thing. DVDs are physical, and Fitness was interactive.
 
I used Xbox Fitness religiously for the first 2 years, and thought it was overall a great service (I think my best month ever was over 2 million points). I do have some content that I paid for, but I feel I've gotten my moneys worth out of it.

I'm not surprised at this decision. Back in Jan 2015 they severely cut down on the available free workouts. And while tracking was generally good, it was never perfect, and it never improved - it made the points tracking competitive nature frustrating when it simply wouldn't count some exercises I was doing. The game/app was also slow and buggy. I think they also missed on an opportunity to integrate the service with the MS band.
 

epmode

Member
Literally EVERY online company in the world has done this before. "MS in particular" my ass. The only reason XBL 1.0 was shut down was because it was incompatible with modern XBL architecture.

Nuts to that. That's some PR garbage. Microsoft absolutely could have come up with a way to have the systems co-exist. It wasn't some insurmountable engineering challenge. They just didn't want to spend the time or money. It was easier to steal my DLC.

Most digital services on PC don't remove your old content regardless of how old it is. The only examples I can think of are when a company was shut down or bought out.
 

Journey

Banned
Wow, this was disappointing yet understandable given Microsoft’s Kinect burial until reading we were losing access to programs we’ve previously purchased. Like others, I’ve bought Insanity and P90X programs at $60 and to completely lose access and not offer an offline mode is a shitty way to handle it. A shame, because it was the one program worth using the Kinect 2.0 for and the feedback was helpful. I guess this is akin to an MMO shutting down and there is likely language in the EULA covering them, but I would not have put any money into this knowing this was a possibility so shortly after launch. Shame.


An MMO is understandable, but we were recently given the ability to download workouts and there's no reason to block those from working, especially when we paid $60.
 

PrinceKee

Member
This sucks. Xbox Fitness was a really good idea and really worked. My wife loves it and has been using it since day one. It was one of the apps that really showed what Kinect 2.0 could do with being able to detect your heart rate and show what muscles you're using. This is another idea that Microsoft failed to capitalize on it more...
 
But how much of this paid digital content on consoles is completely removed without any chance of playing it again?


I know digital content comes with fine print they can take it away, but on consoles, especially ones still being supported, this isn't some common thing...


I understand online game servers being taken down, but a lot of games still have offline content....or single player content...


Went won't they let you access your Fitness content offline? I don't understand that.

As I don't work for Microsoft I can't pretend to have the full answer that question, but I can certainly guess!

Xbox Fitness seems is a service in and of itself, one which allows you to buy more content that is compatible with said service. As the content was designed around Xbox Fitness, shutting down the service that runs said content also shuts down the content.
 

Chitown B

Member
But how much of this paid digital content on consoles is completely removed without any chance of playing it again?


I know digital content comes with fine print they can take it away, but on consoles, especially ones still being supported, this isn't some common thing...


I understand online game servers being taken down, but a lot of games still have offline content....or single player content...


Went won't they let you access your Fitness content offline? I don't understand that.

it's not ever playable offline. You need to check in and verify. Likely due to licensing reasons.
 

DC1

Member
As stated by others, XBOX Fitness is the only redeemable product that I turn my XBOX ONE on for.
...that and early access to Division.
 
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