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MS eliminates its best new feature: 10 person, 60 min Family Sharing plan for Xbone

F

fertygo

Member
SMH how its "our" fault MS can't sell their promise, those fuck not even show this at introduction or even frigging E3. Their PR dudes got confused by it, maybe they don't even have the fucking system yet its still all talk and they can't figure how its gonna works and just abandon everying.

HOW its our fault then?

I thought that drive 360 success is MS PR? They turn controversial thing like paywall to selling point. Where those guy now?
Ah now I remembered they replaced by those ass that making dumbfuck nuclear sub analogy and grabbing mic at interview, no wonder they can't sell their fucking system.
 
G

goomba

Banned
Did anyone think such a feature would be possible if there was no checkin?

This just seems like spinning the good news that the DRM/checkin is cancelled into a negative.
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
Couldn't they have made it so installs are optional and install = turns license verification digital? Either play it off the disc and keep your selltrading, or install it, tie the game to your account and get all those benefits instead?

Or is sleep deprivation making me think silly thoughts here?
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I don't think the idea was even sustainable and would have been changed quickly, likely before the service rolled out. It seemed like it would have been worse than used game sales.
 
I

iammeiam

Member
VibratingDonkey said:
Couldn't they have made it so installs are optional and install = turns license verification digital? Either play it off the disc and keep your selltrading, or install it, tie the game to your account and get all those benefits instead?

Or is sleep deprivation making me think silly thoughts here?
Click to expand...

The problem with that is that unless you force a disk-check periodically, there's no way to know if the physical copy 'registered' to a digital account has been traded in/given away or not. Since you never have to connect online to play a disc based game, there'd be no way for the disc to tell if it was registered and off-limits and unregistered and okay to play on a new system.
 
F

FlashFlooder

Member
supersaw said:
I love how people extrapolate some kind of digital sharing golden dawn from a few cryptic sentences of PR drivel that were ever uttered about this feature.

In all likelihood this was some extension of the Live Gold Family pack that was tied to local accounts only.

If you seriously believe that a company like Microsoft would allow you to redistribute a game to 10 randoms on your friends list you need to reduce the dosage of whatever it is you're smoking.
Click to expand...

This post is spot on. Lots of people jumping to conclusions about this feature.

Also, MS backtracked because they were being publicly ridiculed by Sony and, by the looks of it, the Xbone is being outsold by the PS4 by a pretty good margin. And those are the ONLY reasons they made this move. They knew full well BEFORE deciding to include this DRM that there would be backlash from customers. They just underestimated how ridiculous it would make them look.
 
J

Jabba

Banned
Unreal, people seriously are not thinking about what sharing would do to publisher profits. Would it be an awesome feature? Of course.

I get any game, ten gaffers are my list. Even if two people on the list have to wait to play any game, gaffer number one plays said game. Next gaffer and so on and so on.

This is just for one game. Do the math guys really.

Publishers would be hurting themselves even if each game could only be shared once. Nevermind 10 times with different players. Ask yourself , if you were a publisher, would you allow 9 or 10 people to potentially play your game for free? Would you?

I know I sure as hell wouldn't.
 
Y

yankeehater

Member
I am really sad that MS backed down. The DRM issue seemed stupid to me and i loved the benefits an all digital console would bring. I am much less excited about next Gen now that it is just this Gen with slightly better graphics.
 
K

kitch9

Banned
Ushae said:
It's not so bad guys. MS can still implement features to incentivise digital downloads post-launch. This is what they should have done initially I think.

But yes, this was an amazing feature :(
Click to expand...

What was?

We had a 60 page thread on gaf, numerous PR "statements" from MS and STILL no-one had a clue how it would work.
 
A

amishpriest99

Member
supersaw said:
I love how people extrapolate some kind of digital sharing golden dawn from a few cryptic sentences of PR drivel that were ever uttered about this feature.

In all likelihood this was some extension of the Live Gold Family pack that was tied to local accounts only.

If you seriously believe that a company like Microsoft would allow you to redistribute a game to 10 randoms on your friends list you need to reduce the dosage of whatever it is you're smoking.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Microsoft's PR messaging (and from their execs) has been so muddled and contradictory that I highly doubt this sharing feature would have worked the way people seem think it would have. And that is if it was to ever actually be implemented at all.
 
M

mangochutney

Member
Nowhere Man said:
They could still have the sharing for DD versions of games, just not discs. They want an all-digital future and features like this would be one way to do it (along with ideally a lower price). They just need to have customers CHOOSE to go digital rather than forcing them.

Don't care about family sharing myself and still don't trust DD on consoles. I will stick with physical media as long as it's available.
Click to expand...
No they couldn't, because just because you downloaded a game doesn't mean you have access every 24 hours, or hourly if not your console.
 
S

Stone Ocean

Member
supersaw said:
I love how people extrapolate some kind of digital sharing golden dawn from a few cryptic sentences of PR drivel that were ever uttered about this feature.

In all likelihood this was some extension of the Live Gold Family pack that was tied to local accounts only.

If you seriously believe that a company like Microsoft would allow you to redistribute a game to 10 randoms on your friends list you need to reduce the dosage of whatever it is you're smoking.
Click to expand...
Yep. Sony was pretty much forced to lower PSN sharing from 5 to 2 and people are actually thinking Microsoft would allow 10 fucking people?

Come the fuck on. There's naivety and then there's this.
 
E

ekim

Member
Yeah - it's pastebin but for what it's worth:
http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy. The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library. Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world. There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone. When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour. This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to. When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game.
Click to expand...
 
K

kinggroin

Banned
I'm dumbfounded by the folks seeing the DRM policies removal as a negative and pointing to the loss of a vague, unexplained feature by a company who's proven to have no direction or real game plan with said policies, as the reason why.

After all the shit they try to get away with time and time again, you were willing to naively believe they were this digital paragon?

Come the fuck on.


Personally, I'd love to see an all digital library with the kind of sharing features GAF thought they'd get. I don't trust MS to be the company to deliver that though.
 
P

Pillville

Member
yankeehater said:
I am really sad that MS backed down. The DRM issue seemed stupid to me and i loved the benefits an all digital console would bring. I am much less excited about next Gen now that it is just this Gen with slightly better graphics.
Click to expand...

What were the exact benefits?

Sharing? We had no idea how it would work, and not worth the DRM headache.
Disk-less? You can still do that with Digital Purchases.

You don't care about faster machines with more memory, bigger worlds, better AI, better graphics, redesigned controllers, video sharing, etc.. etc...????
This whole gen, for you, was about maybe sharing your games with 10 people?
 
D

dosh

Member
Seanspeed said:
You are definitely being entitled.

The sharing plan isn't something they wanted to do, obviously. Its not good for software sales. They did it as a concession for being put under the always online policy. If they dont have that, then they take out the concession. Pretty simple.
Click to expand...

I don't feel entitled at all. Property and usage of digital goods need to be redefined beyond what we have been accepting since their emergence.

Transmiting, lending and sharing them is as culturally important as it is with physical goods.
 
D

dude819

Member
I hope everyone who whined about "DRM" is happy.

Now we get to live with the status quo rather than moving forward.

You're all heroes.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
that demo share is actually pretty elegant (although actual demos would be a lot easier to download). Most people are much more inclined to check something out their friends are playing than what an ad campaign tells them to.

Of course it's a far cry from the model OP believed it would be, but I already said he's probably on some pretty good mushrooms to ever believe that that was MS' intention.
 
P

Pillville

Member
dude819 said:
I hope everyone who whined about "DRM" is happy.

Now we get to live with the status quo rather than moving forward.

You're all heroes.
Click to expand...


I am happy.

If "moving forward" means losing consumer rights and being treated like a criminal, then status quo sounds pretty good.
 
D

Double

Member
It wasn't even a feature yet. It was an improvised emergency plan made up after the initial shitstorm. They didn't plan to do this at all (or where was it at the conference / before the backlash) nor did they yet have a real idea how it would be like after all (or did you hear any compliant facts about "the family plan" or any official announcement).

Now if you think further, if they didn't even want to do this in the first place and were just going to to fight the current criticism, how long do you think it would have taken them to cut the feature back into a shape they and publishers would be more happy with the moment they'd see fit to do so?!

People who are now mourning about the loss of this "feature" are pretty much delusional imo. You have no idea what you would have actually gotten. Neither did MSFT.

Can't miss something that wasn't even there in the first place.
 
T

Triggerhappytel

Member
Awntawn said:
this was never going to be as good as you thought it was. just be thankful you didn't end up having to find out about it after the shaft was already inserted
Click to expand...

I still don't believe we'd seen the full picture. It's a shame that they're canning it, but the whole thing seemed too generous. Had I owned an Xbox One, I would have linked my account to one friend only so we could both play the same game without limits, and probably split the cost too.

It seemed designed to be exploitable. As though, they knowingly miss out on widespread sales in exchange for ensuring there's no piracy. But piracy is still niche and this would have been massively popular.
 
P

Pillville

Member
dude819 said:
Then I assume you hate iTunes and Steam, right?

Otherwise, you're just another in a long line of cheap hypocrites.
Click to expand...

I don't buy from iTunes, I don't buy from Steam.
Irrelevant anyway. We are talking physical ownership. When I buy a music CD, I don't have to connect to iTunes everyday to get permission to play it.
 
J

jmdajr

Member
Pillville said:
I am happy.

If "moving forward" means losing consumer rights and being treated like a criminal, then status quo sounds pretty good.
Click to expand...

Everyone was jumping to PS4 anyway. No one had to jump in if they didn't want.

I think they should have at least test drove the idea for a few months to see if it was even worth a damn.
 
Y

yankeehater

Member
Pillville said:
What were the exact benefits?

Sharing? We had no idea how it would work, and not worth the DRM headache.
Disk-less? You can still do that with Digital Purchases.

You don't care about faster machines with more memory, bigger worlds, better AI, better graphics, redesigned controllers, video sharing, etc.. etc...????
This whole gen, for you, was about maybe sharing your games with 10 people?
Click to expand...
Not just the sharing but that was huge for me. I loved the idea of buying a disk and then putting it in and having a digital copy. I live in Vegas and my brother is in Philly. When I go visit him I want to be able to access all my games without bringing my console. Mainly though I want someone to push the industry forward. Sony is all in on specs which is nice but they are not being forward thinking and neither is Nintendo, MS seemed to have a vision that was going to push things forward and now that is dead.
 
D

dude819

Member
Pillville said:
I don't buy from iTunes, I don't buy from Steam.
Irrelevant anyway. We are talking physical ownership. When I buy a music CD, I don't have to connect to iTunes everyday to get permission to play it.
Click to expand...

Well, you are certainly the exception.

I don't know anyone who buys CDs or physical copies of PC games anymore.

You are a hero.

I just can't wait until 2020 or so and there are no disc drives on these things. Then maybe everyone will get with the program or eat a bullet.
 
Hoho for breakfast

Hoho for breakfast

Member
dude819 said:
I hope everyone who whined about "DRM" is happy.

Now we get to live with the status quo rather than moving forward.

You're all heroes.
Click to expand...

If you really think that's moving forward I think you have some seriously cloudy vision. If you want to talk about moving forward talk about instant day one streaming and vr, because that's the future.
 
C

ColonelColon

Member
dude819 said:
Then I assume you hate iTunes and Steam, right?

Otherwise, you're just another in a long line of cheap hypocrites.
Click to expand...

Strange, my Steam has an offline mode. And I don't need to connect my MP3 player to the internet every 24 hours to get permission to listen to music. Huh.
 
C

CadetMahoney

Member
goomba said:
Did anyone think such a feature would be possible if there was no checkin?

This just seems like spinning the good news that the DRM/checkin is cancelled into a negative.
Click to expand...
yea, we weren't going to get the 10 person sharing plan and the ability to have permanent offline/used/trade games.
 
P

Pillville

Member
yankeehater said:
Not just the sharing but that was huge for me. I loved the idea of buying a disk and then putting it in and having a digital copy. I live in Vegas and my brother is in Philly. When I go visit him I want to be able to access all my games without bringing my console. Mainly though I want someone to push the industry forward. Sony is all in on specs which is nice but they are not being forward thinking and neither is Nintendo, MS seemed to have a vision that was going to push things forward and now that is dead.
Click to expand...

Sharing and digital copies maybe "moving forward", but having an expensive brick if you lose internet or when they take the servers down in the future, that's not "moving forward".

That MAJOR restriction just isn't worth it for a couple of nice features.
 
fatty

fatty

Member
scoobidoo112 said:
They could have completely implemented this for digital games anyway.
Click to expand...

Exactly. There is no reason that MS couldn't have those who want to 'family share' their digital games to require the 24 hour check in. This still doesn't have to change. Those complaining about wanting to go 'all digital' wouldn't be buying discs anyway.

Initially, you were able to share some PS3 games with other people as well, we were always aware of the benefits. But being able to use the feature at the expense of what we had to give up was not worth it.

Not being able to buy used games doesn't really affect me personally, but I'm going to fight for other peoples' rights to do so. The issue I was most concerned with is that you're asking me to rely on MS, who has obviously shown that they are not consistent with their policies, to still make the online resources available if I want to play this platform 15, 20 years down the line. I don't trust them.

This coming from someone who still plays his NES and SNES with his kids to this day.
 
P

Pillville

Member
dude819 said:
Well, you are certainly the exception.

I don't know anyone who buys CDs or physical copies of PC games anymore.

You are a hero.

I just can't wait until 2020 or so and there are no disc drives on these things. Then maybe everyone will get with the program or eat a bullet.
Click to expand...


They can easily get rid of disc drives without requiring internet to function, but thanks for the threats and insults. Glad to see we're dealing with rational people about this.
 
C

chidrock

Member
dude819 said:
Then I assume you hate iTunes and Steam, right?

Otherwise, you're just another in a long line of cheap hypocrites.
Click to expand...

I just don't get it...everyone keeps bringing up Steam and now iTunes. That's a joke! When you eventually upgrade your computer, you can still go back and play your old games. When your iPod breaks and a new version comes out your music will still work with it. What happens when it's time for the next Xbox, or if MS decides it's time to get out of the business? Then you would be fucked or you have to hope someone has hacked their way through the system so you can still play your old games.

Plus, do people really think that publishers would've been cool with consumers sharing their games with a whole bunch of other people who could potentially buy their game? It'd be interesting to see how MS themselves would've handled it when the next Halo comes out.
 
T

Tobor

Member
dude819 said:
Well, you are certainly the exception.

I don't know anyone who buys CDs or physical copies of PC games anymore.

You are a hero.

I just can't wait until 2020 or so and there are no disc drives on these things. Then maybe everyone will get with the program or eat a bullet.
Click to expand...

Congrats, you win! You can pretend the drive isn't there and download from day one.

No one has to eat a bullet, either! Hooray for everyone!
 
D

dude819

Member
Pillville said:
They can easily get rid of disc drives without requiring internet to function, but thanks for the threats and insults. Glad to see we're dealing with rational people about this.
Click to expand...

I am just very annoyed by the amazing short sightedness of everyone on GAF.

None of you scream about your consumer rights being taken away by Steam or anything similar but you cannot resell anything on there. But you get cheap games so its 100% ok and everyone loves it.

If MS had said all digital versions would be $10 less on day 1, everyone would have swept it aside.

To me, it seems like a lot of people saying its about one thing "consumer rights," which you really don't have rights regarding anything aside from the right to not buy something, but it is really about prices.
 
J

jmdajr

Member
Microsoft needs to really show why digital is better and slowly eat into the physical disc market.

I guess one of the issue is that they can't undercut retailers. So if they can't get you with price there needs to be something else. I think digital sharing needs to exist somehow.

Heck it took people awhile but now no one wants CDs. Heck CDs cost fucking less than MPS3 albums, even auto rip ones on amazon! It's crazy.

Until people feel the physical discs are an inconvenience and no real advantage over digital we're going to be on this road.

edit: heck why not offer the digital version with all retail copies. You know, an unsharable one. Just a one time deal.
 
Q

quest

Not Banned from OT
yankeehater said:
Not just the sharing but that was huge for me. I loved the idea of buying a disk and then putting it in and having a digital copy. I live in Vegas and my brother is in Philly. When I go visit him I want to be able to access all my games without bringing my console. Mainly though I want someone to push the industry forward. Sony is all in on specs which is nice but they are not being forward thinking and neither is Nintendo, MS seemed to have a vision that was going to push things forward and now that is dead.
Click to expand...

You can do that still both will have day 1 digital for all games. You can do that with 360 digital games right now.

There was nothing being pushed forward by the Xbone's DRM. If MS wanted to push forward digital they would of had a version with out a bluray drive and made digital games 39.99. The who family sharing and free games was a pipe dream that was never going to happen. That is why the PR people gave different answers daily on how it worked.
 
BizzyBum

BizzyBum

Member
Isn't it amazing that after Microsoft makes all these changes that we were screaming about since it's reveal that a ton of people are still complaining and even going so far as to say the Xbone was BETTER OFF THE WAY IT WAS.

The fuck?

This just proves that no matter what people will complain about anything. It's like you're not existing if you don't complain about something.
 
K

kinggroin

Banned
dude819 said:
Then I assume you hate iTunes and Steam, right?

Otherwise, you're just another in a long line of cheap hypocrites.
Click to expand...


And comparing iTunes and steam to the.....whatever the fuck, MS may or may not have planned, makes you look like a naive fool.

Even worse that you and your ilk are still blaming gamers for losing some vague pie in the sky exploitive proposition, when if MS REALLY wanted to implement this feature...

...they STILL FUCKING CAN.
 
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