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

Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
I think this alternative is way better in the long run. I have a very strong suspicion that publishers would have had some control over their game being shared. You would have gotten some excuse like "Family sharing is deactivated with this title to maintain the integrity of its online features." I can already see the PR guys/girls saying it now...

Family sharing would have been more damaging for them than used games, by a huge margin. And considering how online multiplayer is shoehorned into nearly every big game these days, I bet they would have figured out a way to make sure Assassin's Creed 6 or Madden 2015 wasn't getting shared within a group.
 
N

nib95

Banned
dmg04 said:
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!
Click to expand...

They can still do all of that with digital games, but the idiocy was in trying to translate digital to physical. There's a reason people buy physical over digital.

Also, why wouldn't you be able to still share digital stuff? PS3/4 allows for game sharing, albeit on a limited amount (2 people) so I don't see why Microsoft can't.
 
eso76

eso76

Member
Yeah, tbh this was potentially much better than no drm.
I'm sure Microsoft realized too late how it could cut sales to 1/10th.

Maybe this played a role in the whole backpedaling.
There's no way it would have stayed that way, anyway.
Microsoft themselves cancelled their Xbox live family membership years ago for the same reason.
 
8

8bits

Banned
The family sharing was one of the main reasons I pre-ordered and XB1...

On that note, why can't Microsoft allow family sharing with only digital games? If you want to share digital games than you have to check in every 24 hours. If you don't want to have to check in you can just use disk based games but you won't be able to share them.
 
S

Sathsquatch

Member
I am bummed about this. There is no reason they could not enable this for digital copies of games and simply make it always online in order to "borrow" someone else's game.
 
R

Rourkey

Member
John Caboose said:
This makes me really fucking sad, sharing the games online was definitely the best Xbox One feature.

I wish using discs would be left behind going into the next generation. Thanks for ruining it guys!
Click to expand...

Totally MS's fault, they should have announced it in their conference
 
E

Eusis

Member
I admittedly would've liked it if they kept it as a DD feature even if they cut the number down to 3 others or something, but I do wonder if retailer/publisher pressure kept them from keeping it.

Ah well, Steam will lead the way there I guess.
 
S

smerfy

Banned
Great...one awesome feature that I was seriously looking forward to is killed.

I'd like to thank most of GAF and the rest of the hc gaming community that probably wouldn't have bought the console anyways for destroying an amazing feature.

no more off-disc play.
no more sharing with friends/family over live.

so now we have the xbox 360 2. hype totally deflated.
 
A

Air Zombie Meat

Member
Pretty obvious this was a last minute band aid alternative to dropping drm.

smerfy said:
Great...one awesome feature that I was seriously looking forward to is killed.

I'd like to thank most of GAF and the rest of the hc gaming community that probably wouldn't have bought the console anyways for destroying an amazing feature.

no more off-disc play.
no more sharing with friends/family over live.

so now we have the xbox 360 2. hype totally deflated.
Click to expand...

Deal with it.
 
B

besada

Banned
Leviathin25 said:
Guys, it's a net win. Be happy.
Click to expand...

It's not a net win for some people. For some of us it's a loss. Neither the DRM or 24-hour check in were going to have any effect on me, but the Family plan was.

And now we go back to the status quo and another generation of not going DD-only slips away because people would rather have dirt cheap games than technical innovation.

For some use cases this is a huge win, but for some it's clearly not.
 
Q

Qassim

Member
Indeed. One of the best things about this current generation of consoles was the convenience these new things on the XBone provided, I was really looking forward to that, now that is gone, and we've had no progression in terms of distribution and convenience for this generation of consoles.

I'm sad. One of the biggest things I was looking forward to this generation of consoles was them finally catching up with PCs in terms of distribution and getting in and out of games. Consoles for me at the moment are just a bit annoying and haven't moved with the times.

Now they seemingly won't. Boo!
 
N

Nowhere Man

Member
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.
 
C

Chitown B

Member
nib95 said:
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.
Click to expand...

you're wrong. The "lending and renting" you speak of was with disc games.
 
O

Owzers

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

I still don't believe they were ever going to let you share games with 10 random people, this lets them out of that.
 
A

Alienous

Member
Jinfash said:
Never forget...

Qf0kCRD.png
Click to expand...

No way it would work like that.

The probability is that the accounts would have to be linked on one Xbox One in order for the connections to occur. Perhaps even registered primarily to a single Xbox One, or created on that Xbox One.
 
Hawk269

Hawk269

Member
MarauderShields said:
I wish we could opt in to 24 hour checks to get game sharing.

I get it but the system is less appealing to me now.
Click to expand...

It does not make less appealing, but it does have some impact for me. I think it came down to the lesser of 2 evils. I am sure that publishers would not like digital sharing and disk sharing as well, so something had to give.

Perhaps something will be created to allow this feature in the future..I mean if they were able to reverse this now, I am sure they can make other modifications.

For me though the ability to play games without the disk in the tray was what I wanted as well and that is gone now. Not sure why though. If you go to play the game it would look for a disk, if no disk is found it would do an on-line check, if no internet connection then it asks you to insert the disk. I am sure it is something they can make happen.

All in all, I think this is a good move on their part. It does show that they are listening and not afraid to make changes as they see fit. MS is a big enough company to do what they want and the fact that they listened to the customers is a good thing. Yeah, we lose some of the benefits of the original plan, but it is something I can live with.
 
D

derFeef

Member
K

kafiend

Member
StuBurns said:
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.
Click to expand...

I'd have loved to listen to some of those inevitable Publishers phone calls to Microsoft. I bet they went a little similar to what you wrote.

"Pathetic, it's just a big fuck you to publishers. You had to give people something, but no, fuck off, you begged for DRM, then you gave 9 copies away."
 
nillapuddin

nillapuddin

Member
Family Sharing was the key to a guaranteed purchase for me, this is utterly bullshit

They promised a gaming console for the future, now we are stuck with a prettier 360 for another decade. Thanks alot "gaming community"
 
8

8bits

Banned
Alienous said:
No way it would work like that.

The probability is that the accounts would have to be linked on one Xbox One in order for the connections to occur. Perhaps even registered primarily to a single Xbox One, or created on that Xbox One.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's exactly how it would have worked.
 
G

Gintamen

Member
Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.
Click to expand...
:( :'( Damn.

So will all game still be available through download? I would really like to have titles bound to the account somehow. For convenience and such.
nillapuddin said:
Family Sharing was the key to a guaranteed purchase for me, this is utterly bullshit

They promised a gaming console for the future, now we are stuck with a prettier 360 for another decade. Thanks alot "gaming community"
Click to expand...
For the sake of the military and blackouts that seems to happen all to often. :p
 
F

Fresh Face

Banned
Daedalos42 said:
Why not let us have both, then? Have the option to register the games to our account, if we want to.
Click to expand...

I suggested this myself a while ago and got laughed in the face because nobody wanted to actually read how it would happen. Read my post history, it's the very first post I made with my account. People who actually read it liked it.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
We didn't even know enough about it to really know how good it was. No way they would have let 10 people share one game with no restrictions, and there was plenty of room for them to have so many restrictions that the service might as well be a extended demo program.

It was worth the trade.
 
A

Anteo

Member
Ha, I didn't know this was clarified and it was that good. Such a shame. But the consumers right stay so it's all good
 
J

José Mourinho

cocknose
You know, congrats internet. The collective wanted something and they got it.

As a person who give nil fucks about DRM I am disappointed that family pass is now an idea of the past.

Aw well, I was happy with the wold system and I'd of been happy with the now non-existent new system.

*shrug*
 
I

inky

Member
Grizzlyjin said:
I think this alternative is way better in the long run. I have a very strong suspicion that publishers would have had some control over their game being shared. You would have gotten some excuse like "Family sharing is deactivated with this title to maintain the integrity of its online features." I can already see the PR guys/girls saying it now...
Click to expand...

Of course they would. It was an opt-in feature and EA and Activision wouldn't have been happy about 1 person buying Battlefield or CoD and 2 people playing all of it forever, potentially more.

People were imagining things about how it worked that were not properly detailed, with conflicting reports.

On PS3 the system was even clunkier and Sony backtracked on it for a reason. This makes less sense than restricting used games. Plus, there is no reason they couldn't restrict it to digital copies or still find a couple of workarounds. If they decided to do away with it, that is on Microsoft, not on the people complaining about their policies.
 
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