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

Honestly, I don't think having things the way they are today is worth losing this feature.

I have six or seven really close friends all over the country who all have Xboxes and similar taste in games. This feature was one of the biggest selling points, and the innovation MS was creating with their cloud game libraries is dead now because consumers didn't have vision.

Obviously the best approach is a hybrid, but they're clearly not ready for that. I liked the proposal of keeping everything the same as was originally announced and having a disc-based fallback in case your connection did go out, but I guess it wasn't feasible.

This is a loss for people who like innovation. The industry will stay stagnant for another generation.

We'll probably miss out on Steam-style sales now, too.
 
Well, raspberries. I was looking forward to not having to use discs after the initial download too.

I suppose there's always digital download.
My takeaway as well. This is a net loss for me. You know what they say... The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And GAF and reddit cried loud enough.

Welcome to the future where the entire Internet gets to be your product design team.
 

Stat!

Member
It's a big price to pay for such a small base.

Honestly, how many people aren't connected? I'm kinda of sick of hearing people who don't have internet from people clearly connected to people on the internet.

This was one of the best new features. Honestly, I haven't loaned a game in years because my friends are far away and I don't want the disc to break.

It was an awesome feature. The ability to share games with friends and family who weren't beside me. And now? For what? What's the benefit? I don't see one.

I live in a small city in Canada, and maybe twice in two years, I've had my internet disconnected. It was for a few hours.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
It also means that really awesome 'play this game while Xbox Live searches for an online match in this other game' is over. As is quick switching between titles.

I guess digitial downloads would allow those still?

Going to be odd to buy a console without any games on day 1 and go home and download them... I don't have broadband caps, but I liked the 'buy disc, install, throw away disc' option.
 

Emitan

Member
I'm so upset by this. Took away family sharing digital games, which is the future, and also kept the need for disc in tray. Gave me no internet connection needed - I'm on 24/7 as it is, that's not a benefit.

This helps almost no one. Anyone upset by the initial MS offering jumped to PS4 and will be too proud to jump back. Anyone who is a PS fanboy is already getting PS4.

All it's doing it hurting people who were going to buy and were excited about the new future features.

It helps Microsoft considering how badly they're being beaten in preorders because people don't like always online DRM.
 
To be honest I liked Family Sharing more then how it is now. This system was so good and had so much potential, and it's gone now. :( Maybe :(


I hope Microsoft keeps the system and implants it for Digital Copies of games. I really love that the Xbox One got rid of all it's crap DRM and Always Online restrictions, but now I'm a little heartbroke it did, I really was looking forward to Family Sharing. I was hoping to start a NeoGAF family and hopefully everyone gets to play every launch game because we're all in the family and we all bought different games. So disappointing.
 

EVIL

Member
This feels like "oh, you don't want forced online checks and drm?.. fine! then you also can't have this awesome family plan feature" *sticks out tongue*
 
the details around this were so sketch and "too good to be true" that they were likely to disappoint.

I'm good with this tradeoff
 

dmg04

#DEADWRONG
This is such bullshit. The sharing and lending feature wasn't even available at launch, by their own small print. Add to that, we have no idea what restrictions would have been placed, and whichever dolt made this has cleverly forgot to include the fact that the people sharing have to download the game first to be able to play it. Given the expected sizes of next gen games, that doesn't sound too fun.

You know what's bullshit? An internet collective denouncing any form of innovation, in terms of moving towards the future, because they don't completely understand it.

I'm ready for a digital future. I'm ready for disks to be phased out. I'm ready to share a game with multiple people without having to worry about the disk getting fucked in the process, not to mention sharing with someone on the opposite coast.

I'm also ready to "gift" games digitally after I'm done with them. But now? If I download something, It's mine. Forever. Stuck in my fucking hard drive, unable to share or disperse.

When I download something, I understand I can't resell it or get any cash back for it. But the potential to share it or give it to someone is fucking awesome. And now because the internet bitched their asses off, I'm unable to do this. I'm stuck in 2010.

Thanks, guys!
 

Caayn

Member
Glad to see that Microsoft has listened to the outcry. But I'm dissapointed that we can't play disc-based games without the disc anymore. I wouldn't mind if they traded the "old" system for a system were a game was tied to your account, thus allowing to play without the disc, untill you disconnect it from your account. Giving you the ability to trade and sell it without any complications, while still enjoying the benifits of the "old" policies.
 
Knew it was too good to be true. There was no way in hell any publishers would side with the 10 person sharing program. It just makes no sense from their perspective.

So, does this mean sharing disc based games is unlimited? Meaning you dont need to tie it to your account then un-link it to share it??? I'm assuming it's going to be the same as today. Disc = ok to play as long as it's in the system.
 

GashPrex

NeoGaf-Gold™ Member
This feels like "oh, you don't want forced online checks and drm?.. fine! then you also can't have this awesome family plan feature" *sticks out tongue*

The 24 hours checks were to ensure it couldn't be exploited - so without that safety precaution, no family sharing...its pretty simple really. Some of us really looked forward to that feature and didn't care about DRM issues.

I thought about making it optional, but I think its just to messy to implement.
 
Where is that Bgamer guy who claimed his one and only reason for choosing the Xbox one over the PS4 was for this and only this game sharing. Lets see if his I am not bias to any console rhetoric holds true.

BGAMER, your are on the clock, tick tock.
 

StuBurns

Banned
Pathetic, it's just a big fuck you to people. They were going to give people something, but no, fuck off, you begged for no DRM, you ain't gettin' shit beyond that.
 
They should add it in as an optional feature. It would require the 24-hour check in, but it wouldn't be mandatory for all games.
 

Megatron

Member
They could have still theoretically implemented this on digital only games. It's a shame they chose to just drop it completely.

Yes, that's a great point. This would be a good way to convince people to buy digital instead of retail and choose to eliminate used games themselves. But of course Microsoft doesn't do that.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Can't have it both ways. They could have kept the feature for DD, but my thoughts are publishers would not have liked this one bit.
 

Wiseblood

Member
I hope this is just collateral damage of having to strip out all the stuff they were building for this authentication scheme and that there's still a possibility of it coming back. I mean if they really want to move people towards digital purchases then they should have features like this to incentivize people buying games digitally.
 
You know what's bullshit? An internet collective denouncing any form of innovation, in terms of moving towards the future, because they don't completely understand it.

I'm ready for a digital future. I'm ready for disks to be phased out. I'm ready to share a game with multiple people without having to worry about the disk getting fucked in the process, not to mention sharing with someone on the opposite coast.

I'm also ready to "gift" games digitally after I'm done with them. But now? If I download something, It's mine. Forever. Stuck in my fucking hard drive, unable to share or disperse.

When I download something, I understand I can't resell it or get any cash back for it. But the potential to share it or give it to someone is fucking awesome. And now because the internet bitched their asses off, I'm unable to do this. I'm stuck in 2010.

Thanks, guys!

I understood it fine and I didn't want it.

There's plenty of products that I want that won't ever be made because the market is too small. Suck it up. Buy a PC.
 

Jomjom

Banned
Can any of you guys even explain what the vaunted "family sharing" plan was? Was it sharing with 9 people and 9 people could all play, 1 person including online, 1 person not including online, 2 people within a 500 mile radius but only if they were both facing west?
 

BWJinxing

Member
All I wanted was no Mandatory Connected Kinect. I could swallow the DRM pill for the family share, i may not have to buy games again user that rule. i dont need the latest and greatest.

Id take the drm if I could dump connected Kinect.
 

jtb

Banned
Inevitable.

They could have probably found a way to make it work for the digital only titles (that would've been a HUGE plus to buying digital games through the xbox marketplace) but why bother when it clearly wasn't generating them any positive press lol
 

RayMaker

Banned
Its a shame this feature has gone, but I would much rather have the ability to lend/rent/sell my physical copy.

Good call MS, it makes the next gen decision that much harder.
 

LQX

Member
They came to the realization that 9 people not paying for a game while still playing it is far worse than one person potentially not buying one game.
 

Avallon

Member
Of course this is going away -- people were going to exploit it hard, just like they did when Sony allowed 5 console sharing.

It's been said before, but this is why we can't have nice things.
 

parasight

Member
This is a loss for people who like innovation. The industry will stay stagnant for another generation.

This is pretty much how I feel. I'm not exactly pro-DRM, but I do believe in the steps Microsoft was taking to move the industry towards a fully digital console. Now we're basically the same as last generation but more powerful hardware.
 

statham

Member
RByR9Mx.jpg

"Mi Familia"
 
Looks like they had to make a choice of traditional trading/sharing vs their proposed family sharing plan. The internet spoke and they made their choice. It's unfortunate that many of the new policies that I was most looking forward to had to be sacrificed with the elimination of DRM.
 
Decent trade off.

Both consoles now have amazingly similar policies now. Now the difference is the price and mandatory Kinect. I'm not sure that MS will get rid of mandatory Kinect now.

It is possible that they will drop the price though, maybe by $50. I had heard that retailers had been asking for a premium margin on Xbone because of the devaluation of physical discs so this is obviously not an issue now.
 

Noema

Member
Game sharing + no need for the disk after the game was linked to your account was actually pretty cool and now they are both gone.
 
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