Kaboom.
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update
More updates via interviews:
Kotaku
Giantbomb
Alternate read: Microsoft executive announces that players can sell all the goddamn used Xbox One games in the world, for all he cares
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update
Don Mattrick: Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.
For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.
Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.
You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.
So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:
An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.
Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.
In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions.
These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.
We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.
Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year.
More updates via interviews:
Kotaku
"There’s a few things we won’t be able to deliver as a result of this change," Marc Whitten, v.p. of Xbox Live told Kotaku, "One of the things we were very exicted about was 'wherever we go my games are always with me.' Now, of course, your physical games won’t show up that way. The content you bought digitally will. But you’ll have to bring your discs with you to have your games with you. Similarly, the sharing library [is something] we won’t be able to deliver at launch."
That means that two features are being cut, at least for now, from Microsoft's Xbox One plans. Microsoft's concept of having your full game library travel with you is gone.
Microsoft's offer to let you share Xbox One games with up to nine other "family" members is gone, too.
The play-your-games-from-anywhere feature had been tied to the idea that all Xbox One games must be installed to the system's 500GB harddrive in order to run. In theory, if you had registered the game online—a requirement that's also been dropped for disc games for the Xbox One—you'd then be able to play those games from any other console you were logged into. Now, with disc games not needing to be registered, you'd have to bring the disc with you to prove you had the rights to play the game on it.
Giantbomb
Giant Bomb: You guys spent last week talking a lot about the policies that were already in place. Clearly, these were things you had thought about for months, if not years, and were building for it. And just several days after E3, to reverse a lot of these big, bold choices about the machine...why does this come just days after E3 closed?
Marc Whitten: This was our first opportunity, frankly, if you look over the last month, from the Xbox One unveil to E3, to actually lay out what our program is, and to talk about it. We’ve been working on it for a very long time, and this is our first time to start getting feedback. By the end of E3, we’ve given a view across our entire program of how the system works, [from] the amazing line-up of games and how those games take unique advantage of Xbox One and the cloud and what they can do. We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback. It was the time where we heard from everybody and what they loved about our games, what they loved about our vision--but they also wanted more choice. They wanted the flexibility to use your console offline, and they wanted the flexibility to be able to use physical discs the way they've always used them. Frankly, we just listened. We wanted to take that feedback and make changes.
Alternate read: Microsoft executive announces that players can sell all the goddamn used Xbox One games in the world, for all he cares
Microsoft executive Don Mattrick published a missive on the official Xbox site today that walks back many of the restrictions that the Xbox One was going to place on used game disc sales and offline play. “We’ve listened to your feedback and made changes” is the stated message. “Fine, you can unplug your goddamn internet and keep your precious GameStop trade-ins, you braying pack of Luddite ingrates” is the implicit message.
The statement “We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future,” Mattrick writes in his opening paragraph, reflecting wistfully on the utopia-in-the-cloud that Xbox One might have ushered in if it weren’t for those meddling kids. He continues, “Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my [visionary] team and I have heard directly from many of you [backward-thinking troglodytes], read your [cretinous] comments and listened to your feedback [at least when we could hear you over the sound of your butter churns and tinfoil hats].”
As a result of your feedback—feedback that Don Mattrick insists is just swell and doesn’t at all make him want to murder small animals every time he opens his Twitter feed—Xbox One players will enjoy the following luxuries...
