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Original Xbox DLC - Already Dead and Gone?

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
I know, that's exactly why I never buy anything on Wiiware and Virtual Console, while I spend hundreds of dollars on Live and PSN. Nintendo's digital distribution service sucks so hard, it's fucking ridiculous. Thank God for Microsoft and Live where everything is tied to your account: Even two gen from now you'll be able to download everything you owned before!


edit: oh for fuck's sake gaf
dzav80.jpg
 
Dash Kappei said:
I know, that's exactly why I never buy anything on Wiiware and Virtual Console, while I spend hundreds of dollars on Live and PSN. Nintendo's digital distribution service sucks so hard, it's fucking ridiculous. Thank God for Microsoft and Live where everything is tied to your account: Even two gen from now you'll be able to download everything you owned before!


Unless it was on the Xbox 1...

I can't believe they're doing it this way, in the other thread I suggested they should make all Xbox 1 DLC free until April as a way of compensating all of us for removing Live support. But it turns out they're removing the DLC altogether.

That is very strange and most disappointing.

EDIT: I just tried to download the Splinter Cell 1 single player missions and got that same error message, "could not refresh your content list" or similar. This is a disgrace. I had hoped that the DLC system was different enough from the online system that they'd be able to leave the title updates and DLC for Xbox 1 games up, even after they turn off online play. And to do this without warning is just insane. Screw you Microsoft! You've ruined my big Splinter Cell marathon leading up to Conviction's release.
 

Foil

Member
This really doesn't bode well for the future.

Hopefully I still have the Splinter Cell single player missions on my HDD. Though if my HDD goes they're gone for good. Kola Cell and the two Vselka missions were great. I'll miss a lot of those great Halo 2 dlc maps as well.
 
Dash Kappei said:
I know, that's exactly why I never buy anything on Wiiware and Virtual Console, while I spend hundreds of dollars on Live and PSN. Nintendo's digital distribution service sucks so hard, it's fucking ridiculous. Thank God for Microsoft and Live where everything is tied to your account: Even two gen from now you'll be able to download everything you owned before!
Except you're not.

If this pattern continues I can only imagine the grand irony. In a decade if you want to fully play a game released today you'll HAVE to pirate it in some way.

THIS IS THE POTENTIAL FUTURE FOLKS.
 

turnbuckle

Member
Persona7 said:
This sucks, If my XBLA games ever get this treatment I will never buy another XBox product again.

I have a shitload of XBLA and indie games. :( Well over 500$.

What about PSN? I have a bunch of PSP and PSN games.


Yeah, between DLC and XBLA I've easily spent close to a grand now (maybe more ....). I'm probably gonna hold off buying much anymore unless Microsoft makes some kind of announcement that guarantees access to our purchases for future consoles and / or guarantees they won't remove access to the games for x # of years (x being > 10).

More than the elimination of price wars and retailer competition that would result, this is now my biggest fear about a DD future.
 
I don't have an inherent objection to taking down multiplayer servers after X amount of time, but taking away access to paid-for content is another matter altogether. Not really happy at all with that particular aspect of this decision by Microsoft, and I'd certainly like to see some sort of guarantee that DD content on the 360 (which has a lot more of it) is going to be safer going forward.
 

turnbuckle

Member
epmode said:

Damn straight. I've shifted a lot of my spending towards PC gaming in the last year, and it's things like this that push me to doing that even more. I just hope Steam doesn't fall apart.
 

Aspiring

Member
Dash Kappei said:
I know, that's exactly why I never buy anything on Wiiware and Virtual Console, while I spend hundreds of dollars on Live and PSN. Nintendo's digital distribution service sucks so hard, it's fucking ridiculous. Thank God for Microsoft and Live where everything is tied to your account: Even two gen from now you'll be able to download everything you owned before!

Umm . . . Is this a joke? I have no idea how Nintendo works there service but this is MS screwing everone around. If everything is tied to your account and will be here 2 gens later why are they cancelling it one gen later? I understand maybe the servers go down for online play, but Marketplace is there and always will be, so why not just leave them up there, especially as they have the Games On Demand service? Its a joke, and i feel for the people that have DLC they paid for but can no longer access it.
 

border

Member
Aspiring said:
Umm . . . Is this a joke? I have no idea how Nintendo works there service but this is MS screwing everone around. If everything is tied to your account and will be here 2 gens later why are they cancelling it one gen later?

It's my understanding that everything is NOT tied to your account for Xbox 1 DLC. People who pirated Halo 2 maps could play those maps online without repurcussion (so long as they un-modded their system prior to going online). Even though your account history showed no record of purchasing the maps, they were allowed to play and use them.
 

minus_273

Banned
soldat7 said:
This is the error I get when trying to download content for both Splinter Cell and Halo 2. I'm assuming that if you try to download content for any other original Xbox title, you will see the same error.

You see, I have this content already, and in the case of Halo 2, paid a pretty good chunk of change for it. Thanks to Microsoft's wonderful hardware quality, I've had to purchase a new Xbox 360 (kept my HDD) and now all of my DLC is corrupt (presumably linked to my old 360.) Lovely.

Microsoft, you're killing Xbox Live for the original Xbox in April, not February. Give us a chance to download original Xbox content before the cutoff date.


this my friends is a preview of what the next gen transition will be like.
 

Aspiring

Member
border said:
It's my understanding that everything is NOT tied to your account for Xbox 1 DLC. People who pirated Halo 2 maps could play those maps online without repurcussion (so long as they un-modded their system prior to going online). Even though your account history showed no record of purchasing the maps, they were allowed to play and use them.

OH OK so because its not tied to your account nothing merged across with my other details to the 360? OK fair enough. I would be pissed though. There has to be some way to transfer them to your Xbox though. MS should just put them up on there website or something and let you transfer them over. Its a joke. If you pay for it it should stay regardless. Honestly how much does it take to keep DLC up on the store when its already there?
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Aspiring said:
Umm . . . Is this a joke? I have no idea how Nintendo works there service but this is MS screwing everone around. If everything is tied to your account and will be here 2 gens later why are they cancelling it one gen later? I understand maybe the servers go down for online play, but Marketplace is there and always will be, so why not just leave them up there, especially as they have the Games On Demand service? Its a joke, and i feel for the people that have DLC they paid for but can no longer access it.

thatsthejoke.gif

We usually had this threads popping up everywhere since when Virtual Console started (and many more later with Wiiware and DSiware), where GAF's consensus was that out of the big three, Nintendo was going to screw us 100% (a vast majority was saying that was the reason they never buy anythijng for Nintendo's DD services), PSN had a fair chance of keeping stuff available but, most of all, Microsoft would be the guaranteed choice as far as DD on consoles goes... for fuck's sake, most people were even talking about Arcade games not only being re-downloadable ad-libitum but also sure as death and tax they were going to be compatible with Xbox"NEXT".
That's working out well now, right Ethelred?

For the records, I've bought Trials HD bigpack a few days ago.
 

Aspiring

Member
Oh OK lol, thats why i asked, i was not sure. Fair enough. We should have known MS would be like this. I have no problems with them cutting online servers etc, but DLC that you pay for?
 
If steam falls apart...

give me the gun

I no longer want to live. ; _ ;

unless they patch it out to have the game unlocked and burned on to discs.
 
charlequin said:
I don't have an inherent objection to taking down multiplayer servers after X amount of time, but taking away access to paid-for content is another matter altogether. Not really happy at all with that particular aspect of this decision by Microsoft, and I'd certainly like to see some sort of guarantee that DD content on the 360 (which has a lot more of it) is going to be safer going forward.

Exactly, taking away access to content that you paid for is not acceptable. Even reimbursing you with cash is not a satisfying alternative; if what I wanted was money, I wouldn't have bought the content in the first place.
 
Dash Kappei said:
thatsthejoke.gif

We usually had this threads popping up everywhere since when Virtual Console started (and many more later with Wiiware and DSiware), where GAF's consensus was that out of the big three, Nintendo was going to screw us 100% (a vast majority was saying that was the reason they never buy anythijng for Nintendo's DD services), PSN had a fair chance of keeping stuff available but, most of all, Microsoft would be the guaranteed choice as far as DD on consoles goes... for fuck's sake, most people were even talking about Arcade games not only being re-downloadable ad-libitum but also sure as death and tax they were going to be compatible with Xbox"NEXT".
That's working out well now, right Ethelred?

For the records, I've bought Trials HD bigpack a few days ago.
Anybody who would trust Microsoft with their money for anything is a fool, plain and simple. After all the shady shit that company has pulled over the years, this should come as no surprise.

This kind of thing is why I have said since they announced the original Xbox that Microsoft would be bad for console gaming as a whole.

Smarten up people, stop buying Microsoft.
 

MrDaravon

Member
PhatPhucGabe said:
Anybody who would trust Microsoft with their money for anything is a fool, plain and simple. After all the shady shit that company has pulled over the years, this should come as no surprise.

This kind of thing is why I have said since they announced the original Xbox that Microsoft would be bad for console gaming as a whole.

Smarten up people, stop buying Microsoft.

:lol
 

Slavik81

Member
PataHikari said:
Except you're not.

If this pattern continues I can only imagine the grand irony. In a decade if you want to fully play a game released today you'll HAVE to pirate it in some way.

THIS IS THE POTENTIAL FUTURE FOLKS.
Good. Maybe when IP law has been shown to be utterly ridiculous and nobody respects it, then it will be re-written in a way that's beneficial for society as a whole.

It takes a war to make people value peace.
 
Dash Kappei said:
We usually had this threads popping up everywhere since when Virtual Console started (and many more later with Wiiware and DSiware), where GAF's consensus was that out of the big three, Nintendo was going to screw us 100% (a vast majority was saying that was the reason they never buy anythijng for Nintendo's DD services)

And... that's still true? What you see here in this thread is a lot of people increasing their skepticism of Microsoft's DD offerings due to the knowledge that they may not be durable over the long-term -- which is the exact same criticism offered in the thread you're referring to. The only real difference here is that it was already certain that Nintendo's offerings weren't durable in that fashion because Nintendo's policy is extremely terrible upfront, whereas Microsoft has a significantly better policy for people on currently supported platforms but have sort of revealed here that even a good policy on DD content isn't worth much if you pull down the service altogether eventually.

Broadly speaking, if one person mugs you when you meet them, and another person takes you out to a nice dinner but then runs off with your wallet when you're not looking, you don't thank the first guy for being honest, you just decide that both of them are crooks.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
PhatPhucGabe said:
Anybody who would trust Microsoft with their money for anything is a fool, plain and simple. After all the shady shit that company has pulled over the years, this should come as no surprise.

This kind of thing is why I have said since they announced the original Xbox that Microsoft would be bad for console gaming as a whole.

Smarten up people, stop buying Microsoft.

...
 

MrDaravon

Member
As a serious aside, I don't think there's any way that Microsoft can get away with not supporting some sort of transfer of DLC/Arcade titles to their next console. Even if the system is not disc backwards compatible somehow, given how big their Arcade DLC sales are the uproar would be astronomical if they didn't allow a transfer of some kind. I do think that at some point (probably the generation after that) online/DLC for this gen won't transfer any further. Nintendo still largely hasn't figured out online at all, and I'd expect Sony to probably go the same route as MS, although their next console is probably farther out anyway.

In short, having a console hardware cycle will ultimately fuck the consumer. The PC which is more or less standard, and will still pretty much run anything with some workarounds needed for really old stuff, and you can probably find old stuff no longer sold or supported on private servers and file sharing, things that consoles are largely locked out of by their very nature.
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
minus_273 said:
this my friends is a preview of what the next gen transition will be like.
I doubt it. This is happening because XB1's Live infrastructure was outdated and unmalleable. 360 is far more open for adapting to any changes or additional features that are added to Live.

Plus the average 360 owner has made orders of magnitude more of an investment on DLC, it's a far more potent deterrent in that case. Xbox 1 owners that had DLC averaged maybe $15-20, nevermind that probably only 20% of the userbase tops even bought any DLC at all.

Not to say current-gen system will never have their online shut down, but I feel pretty confident it'll be more along the lines of 8-10 years after their successors, at worst.
 

ethelred

Member
Dash Kappei said:
thatsthejoke.gif

We usually had this threads popping up everywhere since when Virtual Console started (and many more later with Wiiware and DSiware), where GAF's consensus was that out of the big three, Nintendo was going to screw us 100% (a vast majority was saying that was the reason they never buy anythijng for Nintendo's DD services), PSN had a fair chance of keeping stuff available but, most of all, Microsoft would be the guaranteed choice as far as DD on consoles goes... for fuck's sake, most people were even talking about Arcade games not only being re-downloadable ad-libitum but also sure as death and tax they were going to be compatible with Xbox"NEXT".
That's working out well now, right Ethelred?

For the records, I've bought Trials HD bigpack a few days ago.

What is this apologist bullshit? You're taking the opportunity of Microsoft doing something really shoddy from a consumer perspective and using it to try to defend Nintendo's even worse anti-consumer digital distribution policies. :lol

What Microsoft is doing here is pretty bad, and they deserve to be called out for it. And hey, just last page I said that this move increases my reluctance towards buying DLC off Xbox Live. And hopefully the centralized nature of Live on the 360 versus the way things worked on the original Xbox means that this stuff will transition over a bit more smoothly for their next console and we won't have mishaps like this -- hopefully, but I wouldn't put any faith in it. By all means, be skeptical of DD on the 360, but don't act like things aren't a hundred times worse with the Wii and the DS where you don't even have your purchases tied to a central account but rather to the systems themselves so if they break you can't even get anything done without having Nintendo physically handling your system or if you own multiple DSes you can't transfer your purchases from one to the other.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
charlequin said:
And... that's still true? What you see here in this thread is a lot of people increasing their skepticism of Microsoft's DD offerings due to the knowledge that they may not be durable over the long-term -- which is the exact same criticism offered in the thread you're referring to. The only real difference here is that it was already certain that Nintendo's offerings weren't durable in that fashion because Nintendo's policy is extremely terrible upfront, whereas Microsoft has a significantly better policy for people on currently supported platforms but have sort of revealed here that even a good policy on DD content isn't worth much if you pull down the service altogether eventually.

Broadly speaking, if one person mugs you when you meet them, and another person takes you out to a nice dinner but then runs off with your wallet when you're not looking, you don't thank the first guy for being honest, you just decide that both of them are crooks.

And?
Does this make my point any less valid?
I'm not seeing where I applauded Nintendo's way of handling the services or something, I was basically saying that only fools could be so certain that Live = I'm safe with my digital purchases till the end of the world... even if Microsoft never said so.
If you buy things over PSN or Live, there's no reason to not do the same over Wiiware/VC.

ethelred said:
What is this apologist bullshit?

Can't help you there, there's none.
So, are you going to stop buying Live DLC/Arcade games then? Seems only logic to do so from your point of view.
 

ethelred

Member
Dash Kappei said:
If you buy things over PSN or Live, there's no reason to not do the same over Wiiware/VC.

Yes, there is. Nintendo's DD system is much, much worse and much, much less consumer friendly and secure than PSN or XBL.
 

Mandoric

Banned
Shig said:
I doubt it. This is happening because XB1's Live infrastructure was outdated and unmalleable. 360 is far more open for adapting to any changes or additional features that are added to Live.

But doesn't the Xbox 1 DLC structure completely avoid Live, and work game-by-game?
 

Dacvak

No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
For some reason I smell a potential class-action lawsuit.
 

Kagami

Member
Vindication



On a more serious note,
arstal said:
It's only the services like XBL, PSN, and Steam that tie playing the game (online at least) to the service which will have this problem. Impulse/GG won't.
This. I have no problem with buying data over the internet, as long as I have full control of that data once purchased.

It's not about the money. Games are cheap.
It's about emotional investment. I don't like people taking my toys away from me. Feels bad, man. I'm not going to spend money to feel bad.
I'm a 30 year old single guy with money to burn, but the major publishers have driven me away.

Let's look at Kagami's game purchasing for 2009:

1 used Super Famicom cartridge
1 DLC-free DS game
1 DLC-free PSP game
3 DRM-free classic PC games
14 DRM-free indie PC games
0 big-budget "blockbusters" loaded with DLC & DRM

So, yeah, I'm in the indie PC camp now.
Feels good, man.
 
Wait, has there been any official word of original XBox DLCs being shut? Or is everyone going apeshit because you can't connect right now and 2 days ago, MS finally decided to kill XBL support for Xbox games?

Not saying this isn't true, just saying all these reactions seem a bit premature.
Hell, if this is confirmed, they'll deserve whatever shitstorm the issue raises.
 
Palette Swap said:
Wait, has there been any official word of original XBox DLCs being shut? Or is everyone going apeshit because you can't connect right now and 2 days ago, MS finally decided to kill XBL support for Xbox games?

Not saying this isn't true, just saying all these reactions seem a bit premature.
Hell, if this is confirmed, they'll deserve whatever shitstorm the issue raises.

On @XboxSupport they said it should still be available for a little while longer.

I don't see why they would shut off access before April. Probably could get some more money out of people.
 

bj00rn_

Banned
I'm confused. Are you people pissed because you can't play the content you have already downloaded, or are you pissed because you can no longer download..?
 
It seems silly to get upset with this and assume that all our XBLA and marketplace purchases are going to disappear in 3-4 years. You only have to go to xbox.com to realize that there's a more permanent residence for your live purchases than there was back in 2003.

Besides, MS isn't stupid enough to risk an actual, legitimate shitstorm by doing that. Especially if this non-event of pulling DLC nobody cared about (except the halo 2 stuff, but I assume they'll get that figured out when they get back in the offices on monday) caused this kind of uproar/temper-boycott/whining.

Even MGO from MGS3:S lasted barely a year, if i remember right. I know games like Socom:Confrontation, Warhawk, and MAG are probably going to be valueless discs in 10 years or so when those servers get put onto something else.

If you didn't play and get what you felt like was your money's worth out of some game from 2003 by now, will you ever? Would you have cared if they weren't pulling the plug? Probably not.

It does suck that I can't put in Counter-Strike on xbox for random fun anymore. That was my first live game, fucking loved that game. I miss Subsistence's online mode too..
 

Rlan

Member
I believe the situation between the Xbox 1 being dead and the Xbox 360 dying will be entirely different matters. The original Xbox was not created to be an online machine, it was basically wrapped in some crazy hack that allowed all this online connectivity.

The Xbox 360 has been completely build with online in mind (well, outside of not having wireless as standard). The fact that they've changed up things like updating to the NXE means that have a lot of room to move around. Stuff like the amount of players available would not be a problem with the Xbox 360 and Xbox Next because they CAN go back and fix / change things for the original console. Xbox 1 they can't.
 
SonOfABeep said:
It seems silly to get upset with this and assume that all our XBLA and marketplace purchases are going to disappear in 3-4 years. You only have to go to xbox.com to realize that there's a more permanent residence for your live purchases than there was back in 2003.

Besides, MS isn't stupid enough to risk an actual, legitimate shitstorm by doing that. Especially if this non-event of pulling DLC nobody cared about (except the halo 2 stuff, but I assume they'll get that figured out when they get back in the offices on monday) caused this kind of uproar/temper-boycott/whining.

Even MGO from MGS3:S lasted barely a year, if i remember right. I know games like Socom:Confrontation, Warhawk, and MAG are probably going to be valueless discs in 10 years or so when those servers get put onto something else.

If you didn't play and get what you felt like was your money's worth out of some game from 2003 by now, will you ever? Would you have cared if they weren't pulling the plug? Probably not.

It does suck that I can't put in Counter-Strike on xbox for random fun anymore. That was my first live game, fucking loved that game. I miss Subsistence's online mode too..
IIRC, Warkawk (Disk Version) has LAN play and server hosting built in you don't need to be connected to the PSN to use it.
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
KAL2006 said:
I stopped buying digital games a long time ago (never EVER bought DLC though), mainly because when I wanted to sell my 360 for a PS3 I found out all my XBLA games were wasted (no resale). Although in the end I decided to keep my 360 and buy a PS3 aswell, that tought me not to ever buy anything digital, I just feel like I don't fully own the games.

Uh, you thought there was a chance you could resell XBLA games?
 
well, that's good. as unlikely as it is to set up an lan to play any game.

Might be fun to get a bunch of cheap original xboxes together and have a 16 player halo 2 lan..
 

elektrixx

Banned
I am confident that this is the last time it will happen. Outside of licensing issues like Yaris (ugh) and the Ultimate Alliance 2 DLC, our 360 stuff is still going to be there.

They put their feet in with the original Xbox. They're too deep and there are too many people on LIVE on their Xbox 360's now to get out of it.
 

DeVeAn

Member
goldenpp72 said:
I just think it's interesting, today, its 5 pieces of dlc we bought on xbox 1, 5 years from now? 500 bucks in xbla titles.
This really bums me out. Gonna hold out on dlc now.
 
elektrixxx said:
I am confident that this is the last time it will happen. Outside of licensing issues like Yaris (ugh) and the Ultimate Alliance 2 DLC, our 360 stuff is still going to be there.

They put their feet in with the original Xbox. They're too deep and there are too many people on LIVE on their Xbox 360's now to get out of it.

Even if MS did care (which remains to be proved), there's a number of games where they'll depend entirely on the publisher. And if the publisher bails out, they won't have much of a say and they'll be fucked.

The best and most recent example is Mass Effect 2. I love this game but the asinine DLC activation method through Cerberus Network through an EA account pretty much indicates you (and your saves) will be fucked the day EA pulls out and all you have left is the vanilla game (with vanilla savegames). I think the small print mention they retain the right to do so from 2012.
Should this happen, the biggest joke is that pirates would end up with the superior version.
 
There was an error while downloading the content list for your game.
That there is old as dirt. A friend of mine thought it was a good idea to play some SC PT multiplayer for the good old times. (it never happened though)

This was about round the time of Summer of 2009 and even then it would gave those messages.

Granted, after trying several times you could finally dl it. You have more chance to download it on a Original Xbox than the 360.
 
I'm glad that people are finally starting to wake up to the dangers of the current DLC system on the three main systems, although I'm disappointed that this had to happen before people started to sit up and listen.

In 10 years time, if Microsoft have decided that supporting the 360 is holding up advancing the next Xbox and they kill off support, what happens to everything on your hard drive if it, or the console dies? You can still play 30 year old Atari games, but potentially thousands of XBLA games and bits of DLC will be gone forever unless Microsoft make sure they play on future Xbox systems.

Another thing that isn't getting any attention is the patches, many games need them to boot up DLC and if your save relies on DLC being present then you can kiss goodbye to your saves if the patch is not there. Considering how frequently the system automatically purges them from the cache, a LOT of DLC and saves are going to be dead in the future regardless of if you still have them on your hard drive.

It's very concerning and the main reason I have almost completely stopped buying anything digital for the three consoles, I still regularly play my 20 year old Mega Drive games, but one day my copy of Castle Crashers will be dead and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
 
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