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[dorkimoe]

i feel bad for them. they cant win

they really 100% cant have this feature without the other

 

[adixon]

1) There is now a split between a physical copy and a digital copy. Previously, it doesn't matter where I bought the game (retail or digital), it all got put into the same library that was shareable to anyone in my family group. This loses a lot of the appeal right away.

As someone who buys games, it loses none of the appeal. I now get to choose whether I want a physical copy of a console game, which behaves the way all physical copies have always behaved -- or I can buy a digital version, with all its tradeoffs. I'm much more likely to buy a digital version, which gives microsoft/publisher/developer a bigger cut of the revenue, with added features like game sharing and license transfers.

Maybe it's a less exciting feature if your friends all buy mostly physical copies, but that's why adding incentives for buying digital are a good thing.

2) The removal of the connection requirement even for digital games means that this would easily be exploitable. Start playing a game, unplug, and the service doesn't know if the sharing license is in use or not. You could then play offline permanently assuming you don't leave the game. Since MS is now unable to force this, there's no way publishers would want their games to be able to be shared, with the potential they could lose out on a lot of sales. Previously, there was a limit as to how many people could play at a time, and you could know that someone would have to get back online within a day and the license could be refreshed.

Your shared games (games you add to the shared library) could only function if the xbox has been able to connect (on its own, just like before, or through you turning it on) in the past 24 hours. The 24 hour check in would literally affect nothing else. We know they already have the technology for this built.

 

[farisr]

I get the feeling that people that were so overly excited about the family sharing plan most likely had false notions in regards to it.

I'll clear the common misconceptions in regards to it.

2 people cannot play the same game at the same time, unless of course they're playing splitscreen on the same console at once (Larry Hyrb confirmed this to Angry Joe). So yeah, Person 1 can play Game 1, Person 2 cannot play Game 1, but can play Game 2. There was no "2 people can play one copy of the game at the same time" not multiplayer modes, not single player modes, not anything.

Only 2 people could access the shared library at once. So even if 10 people are on the plan, the other 8 CAN NOT access the games when 2 people are. So If person 1 and 2 are playing from the library, and there are Games 3-10 in the library as well, Persons 3-10 cannot access any of those games while Persons 1 and 2 are playing.

The ONLY real advantage to this system was that digital games could be accessed from anywhere (but they would have to be downloaded entirely, not as fun and magical as MS made it sound that it's all up in the cloud for instant access). So if you had a family member across the country or across the world even, and you bought Halo. He could download and play it too (when you weren't playing it) at no extra cost.

It was their attempt at trying to quell the physical disc restrictions but it wasn't good enough as with physical discs you can lend your games off to as many people as you want, you're only limited by how many games you have to give out.

ALSO, Microsoft NEVER said that you would be able to sell your digital download titles. the participating retailer trade-in was only in regards to disc based purchases.

 

[cicero]

God damn internet whiners bitching about DRM... Might as well stay with the PS3 and 360 because the next Gen now advances NOTHING. Leave it to GAF to cut off its nose to spite its face.

I find an earlier post of mine quite appropriate as a response to your ridiculous comment.

all progress is not inherently positive. The newness of something doesn't inherently give it increased merit. Increased draconian DRM schemes aren't a superior plan to enable gamers to play games better than they did before. The 360 was a step UP from what they planned for the Xbox One. You just want to view what MS had planned in a positive light because you obviously could care less about losing access and control to what you purchase. MS's draconian DRM wasn't draconian for you. MS held out a pile of crap and called it a carrot, and you lunged for it completely.

The idea that the sole point of "next Gen" "advances" or worthwhile merit to the Xbox One was MS's draconian DRM and the vague non-concrete promise they held out as a pacifying olive branch because of it, is an interesting theory you seem to be proposing. I would like to hear more if possible.

 

[Pillville]

You don't have to buy the console.

That was all any one threatened to do, not buy the console. No was tried to stop them from making it. People just said "I'm not buying it with these policies in place".

It wasn't just one site, it wasn't just Internet nerds, it wasn't just Sony fans laughing, it was just about everyone (except the people on this thread apparently).

 

[bishopcruz]

BS. Gamers would've cried no matter how they "presented" it. They always do.

Oh quite a few would have, don't get me wrong. But their main fanbase, they lost a lot of them with how they did it. From the second MS released that Q and A they were done. They made no real effort to try to sell their digital future, and started on a bad note. Fact is we knew NO specifics of their family plan, we knew really jack and shit. People would be willing to deal with SOME of the digital restrictions, maybe if they were getting enough in return. Steam has proven that. The problem is MS didn't even try to give a carrot to everyone. Or better said, they promised a carrot was going to come sometime down the line. It was idiotic, and they should have fucking well known better.

 

[NeoUltima]

i feel bad for them. they cant win

they really 100% cant have this feature without the other

They could. If only the 'master' account can play games off-line. And the other family members would need to be online (or have an hourly check) to play games.

 

[Cartman86]

I was actually looking forward to the Family Sharing feature. Is there an answer on if buying a disc copy will add the game to your Cloud library? Or has that been eliminated too? I prefer having physical copies of my games, but I really liked the idea of going on a friend's console, logging into my account, and have access to all my games without the disc. Or do you have to double dip in order to do this (like it is today)?

Most certainly this has been eliminated as well. Discs are just discs now. You'll have to make the choice to go digital on a game by game basis.

 

[Marty Chinn]

That isn't what Microsoft was offering.

They weren't adding rights and freedoms to digital, they were simply imposing the restrictions of digital onto physical.

They were in fact adding further restrictions to digital in a 24-hour authentication.

Because regardless of the PR platitudes, it wasn't about your cloud library or letting you share anything.

It was about controlling what you do with your physical purchases after you purchase them. And by consequence controlling "lost revenue."

And now that they can't do that, there's no point in doing any of the other stuff to try and make the control more palatable.

Again, if Microsoft still wanted to implement cloud libraries etc. they would. If they had a well-thought out plan for digital sharing and really wanted to implement it, they would. If they really wanted to sell the equivalent of install discs alongside status quo console retail games, they could. But none of that was the intention.

I never said it was what MS was offering. I said with their stance change today, they had the opportunity of giving what everyone wanted, including me, and still offer the Family Share feature that would have been of great benefit. You'd get the best of both worlds. They didn't do that and simply went in the opposite direction.

Plus, let's be accurate here. To some degree, they were offering it. They were offering the ability to register your disc and then move around like it was digital, but still offer you a way to resell the disc by deregistering it. It wasn't perfect, but you had the ability to do both.

Yea but thats not how it was gonna work on XB1. It was going to be when you brought home your physical game that will get tied to your account and the disc forever after is useless. This was only a stepping stool to get people hooked in digital so that later this gen or next gen they can go completely disc-less. The only reason they imposed all this shitty DRM was to cater to both digital and physical demands. If they took one step more and went ALL digital we would not have seen any physical games but they didnt because they knew it was too soon.

No it wasn't. They already said you could resell your games so there was going to be a method of deregistering your game from your account. Those details were still not unveiled, but they already said you could do that.

 

[Cartman86]

Oh quite a few would have, don't get me wrong. But their main fanbase, they lost a lot of them with how they did it. From the second MS released that Q and A they were done. They made no real effort to try to sell their digital future, and started on a bad note. Fact is we knew NO specifics of their family plan, we knew really jack and shit. People would be willing to deal with SOME of the digital restrictions, maybe if they were getting enough in return. Steam has proven that. The problem is MS didn't even try to give a carrot to everyone. Or better said, they promised a carrot was going to come sometime down the line. It was idiotic, and they should have fucking well known better.

Yeah I agree. I don't care about discs or an online check. I mean sucks for others that do, but as a consumer the One appealed to me as a theoretical digital only product, but Microsoft did nothing to sell that concept. People who read the documents and were trying figure out why they had certain policies in place could piece together the general idea, but they never gave the specifics required to let everyone at least understand the vision before they rejected it. I mean finding out about more family plan stuff from Major Nelson in random interviews is nuts.

They can still do pretty much all of this stuff though. Which is one of the most annoying parts about this whole situation. Even before with the 24 hour check it didn't quite make sense as a universal system requirement. There were ways around it that still let Microsoft control everything.

 

[cicero]

You don't have to buy the console. You can get a PS4 if that mattered to you. Personally, I have a great, stable connection, I don't care about selling my games back, and I don't buy used. Family sharing and disc free installs were awesome features that only worked with some type of verification to prevent abuse.

What do your personal desires have to do with the basic concept of consumer rights and draconian DRM schemes that treat consumers like criminals? MS didn't conceptualize "Family sharing and disc free installs" from altruistic motives. The DRM and attempts to restrict control to the end user always came first, as it has for their OS, software, and other services and products. They are always about limiting control over the products and services they sell.

 

[Wolf Dawgz]

Publishers probably backlashed against the feature, so they're covering taking away the feature as a tradeoff for playing games offline.

 

[Seanspeed]

I get the feeling that people that were so overly excited about the family sharing plan most likely had false notions in regards to it.

I'll clear the common misconceptions in regards to it.

2 people cannot play the same game at the same time, unless of course they're playing splitscreen on the same console at once (Larry Hyrb confirmed this to Angry Joe). So yeah, Person 1 can play Game 1, Person 2 cannot play Game 1, but can play Game 2. There was no "2 people can play one copy of the game at the same time" not multiplayer modes, not single player modes, not anything.

Only 2 people could access the shared library at once. So even if 10 people are on the plan, the other 8 CAN NOT access the games when 2 people are. So If person 1 and 2 are playing from the library, and there are Games 3-10 in the library as well, Persons 3-10 cannot access any of those games while Persons 1 and 2 are playing.

The ONLY real advantage to this system was that digital games could be accessed from anywhere (but they would have to be downloaded entirely, not as fun and magical as MS made it sound that it's all up in the cloud for instant access). So if you had a family member across the country or across the world even, and you bought Halo. He could download and play it too (when you weren't playing it) at no extra cost.

It was their attempt at trying to quell the physical disc restrictions but it wasn't good enough as with physical discs you can lend your games off to as many people as you want, you're only limited by how many games you have to give out.

ALSO, Microsoft NEVER said that you would be able to sell your digital download titles. the participating retailer trade-in was only in regards to disc based purchases.

How on earth are you downplaying what would have been an awesome feature? Regardless of whether or not people could play it at the same time, it would have enabled MASS game sharing. How many games do you own? How many do you play at any one time? Probably a small percentage right? Well the entire rest of your library could be played by somebody else and likewise you would have access to 10 other people's libraries with access to any of their large percentage of games they're not playing.

C'mon now man, that shit would have been sweet.

 

[Spongebob]

MS hadn't even revealed all the restrictions that would be tied to the family plan.

 

[Owzers]

Not 100% sure what you're saying here?

Are you implying that the game sharing thing was never actually going to happen? I think thats plausible. It did seem too good to be true, like I said. But thats just speculation and will only ever be speculation at this point. We'll never know the full story behind it.

That's what i'm implying, and it's speculation because MS hid from it and third parties never acknowledged its existence.

 

[Teppic]

Whatever.

 

[maquiladora]

they really 100% cant have this feature without the other

Digital games, why not?

 

[Mayor-McCheese]

Kind of a bummer, some of the features that XBO was offering looked pretty cool to me, maybe they will implement them some where down the road when the world is ready.

 

[kittens]

Kind of a bummer, some of the features that XBO was offering looked pretty cool to me, maybe they will implement them some where down the road when the world is ready.

Uhh, who's "not ready" for this? No one was asking for family sharing to be cut. MS made the decision to keep on swingin' the axe after they cut DRM.

 

[plagiarize]

How on earth are you downplaying what would have been an awesome feature? Regardless of whether or not people could play it at the same time, it would have enabled MASS game sharing. How many games do you own? How many do you play at any one time? Probably a small percentage right? Well the entire rest of your library could be played by somebody else and likewise you would have access to 10 other people's libraries with access to any of their large percentage of games they're not playing.

C'mon now man, that shit would have been sweet.

not sure if serious.

however, if serious, it was two people accessing the library at a time, not accessing one game from the library.

also, as it stands on the Xbox 360, if you know what you are doing you can play a digital game you own on one Xbox, while someone else plays it on the Xbox you bought it on. unless MS are lying to say this works the same way as the 360, that will still work.

buy your digital games on your friends Xbox, you will be able to play them on yours (while you are online) and he will be able to play that game at the same time on his.

 

[cicero]

Kind of a bummer, some of the features that XBO was offering looked pretty cool to me, maybe they will implement them some where down the road when the world is ready.

May the world never be "ready" for the draconian DRM schemes these features seem to demand, at least according to anti-consumer companies like MS.

 

[farisr]

How on earth are you downplaying what would have been an awesome feature? Regardless of whether or not people could play it at the same time, it would have enabled MASS game sharing. How many games do you own? How many do you play at any one time? Probably a small percentage right? Well the entire rest of your library could be played by somebody else and likewise you would have access to 10 other people's libraries with access to any of their large percentage of games they're not playing.

C'mon now man, that shit would have been sweet.

Not downplaying anything. I have plenty of real life friends who play games so have all the game sharing I need and better game sharing at that seeing as there are no limits on how many people can be playing at the same time.

Now if they had plans on bringing Steam-like sales and bringing that kind of sharing plan, that would be something else.

And don't get me wrong, the sharing plan sounded great compared to what we have now for digital downloads on consoles, but it was in no way an acceptable substitute for the physical disc based game rights that were being taken away. If Microsoft was smart, they would find a way to implement this digital sharing method (alongside physical disc based games acting like 360 games) to attract people towards digital downloads to get them used to it, instead of trying to yank the rug from underneath them.

 

[Kelegacy]

MS hadn't even revealed all the restrictions that would be tied to the family plan.

I think it was an announcement just to get some positive feedback. I think it sounded too good to be true and Microsoft was just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something would stick.

Was the family plan ever confirmed to be cold hard truth the way people are describing it? It wasn't even announced at the E3 presser was it?

I think it would have been heavily restricted as it was just too good to come from a company like Microsoft. For it to be reality they'd charge a fee every time someone else played your game. Giving stuff away for free basically? Microsoft?

 

[Harp]

So they took away a feature that didnt even exist on May 21st. and is gone on June 19th. Guess what that means? It was never real to begin with. If they had actually thought about it they could have simply announced cheaper games for the system. Why introduce a feature that takes away options from the people that pay full price for games? Add value to Digital purchases and people will purchase digital.

 

[bobbytkc]

They could have implemented this for digital games, but lets face it, Sony tried that experiment years ago. Game sharing will never go well with developers.

 

[OriginalNameGuy]

You don't have to buy the console. You can get a PS4 if that mattered to you. Personally, I have a great, stable connection, I don't care about selling my games back, and I don't buy used. Family sharing and disc free installs were awesome features that only worked with some type of verification to prevent abuse.

That is what it comes down to. The internet was on fire and gamers wanted nothing to do with the X1. Too many people were saying "I'm not going to buy this thing" and Microsoft had no choice, but to change their gameplan.

 

[Marty Chinn]

They could have implemented this for digital games, but lets face it, Sony tried that experiment years ago. Game sharing will never go well with developers.

Sony didn't try this experiment. It was a biproduct of another feature. Microsoft imposing a limit of a single instance of the game can exist on the shared list makes a significant difference to how it would work. You can't say what Sony did was the same with what this was shaping up to be.

 

[bobbytkc]

Sony didn't try this experiment. It was a biproduct of another feature. Microsoft imposing a limit of a single instance of the game can exist on the shared list makes a significant difference to how it would work. You can't say what Sony did was the same with what this was shaping up to be.

I don't care if it was byproduct. The concept is the same, you can easily share your library. I am well aware Microsoft's implementation is a bit different, but it is pretty damn close. The only change is that for a single game, only 2 can play at a time, but the other 9 people can play other games in the shared library all at the same time. It seems amazing to me you don't think this will be abused.

 

[PBalfredo]

Sorry if this has already been brought up in this 7+ page topic (100pp fer life!), but what's stopping Microsoft from having Family Sharing as a feature for opting-in to the daily check-in. You're the disc holder and you want to enable Family Sharing. Sign up for that, and it enables the daily check in. Share online like it would have in the old DRM plan. If the disc holder then opts-out or fails the daily check-in, then the people on the share plan can no longer play, but the disc holder can still play his disc offline. Best of both worlds, no?

 

[Bgamer90]

I don't get the complaints (though frankly for DD games they should have kept sharing in since you can't fucking trade or gift them either...)


Just give the disc tothe person who wants to play it, like you've always done.
They'll thank you for not having to download 20-40 GB as well...

Not that convieniet if a friend lives far away.

 

[RM8]

It makes me feel uneasy that some people are pissed off about MS dropping the DRM. But people saying those DRM policies WERE what next-gen is all about?

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Farewell family sharing, we hardly knew ye.

Exactly. We hardly knew what it was going to be or how it was going to be managed by Microsoft.

It's baffling to me that people believe Microsoft wasn't going to fuck it up.

 

[Bgamer90]

I think it was an announcement just to get some positive feedback. I think it sounded too good to be true and Microsoft was just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something would stick.

Was the family plan ever confirmed to be cold hard truth the way people are describing it? It wasn't even announced at the E3 presser was it?

It was announced during the same time that the restrictions were.

More details were given after though.

 

[jedimike]

I know you're pretty upset right now, but you have to turn a huge blind eye to a lot of things to thing next gen is advancing 'nothing'.

You're right... I should have clarified. The "nothing" was in reference to the medium. Obviously there is a performance increase and "cloud" computing.

We accept DRM for so many things, it's a shame that we can't be willing to advance console gaming.

 

[miso_Jeff]

Publishers would've killed that feature pretty quickly anyway. Just look at what happened to the PSN share feature that ended up being reduced because publishers were getting upset about people being able to buy one copy of a game and then spread it out to multiple people for free.

I thought the same thing. How long would publishers have let this go? That's 10 people that didn't have to buy your game. I'd imagine that someone would eventually start a sharing ring, LOL!

 

[quickwhips]

That is what it comes down to. The internet was on fire and gamers wanted nothing to do with the X1. Too many people were saying "I'm not going to buy this thing" and Microsoft had no choice, but to change their gameplan.

If anyone wanted nothing to do with X1 then just don't buy it people wanted to make sure others wouldn't buy it because they felt they had to go on some crusade. If Sony had made this announcement I swear people would have embraced it and in 8 years we will see. I mean everyone is ok with paying for PSN now.

 

[FrankNitty]

Personally I'm more bummed about not having the instant access to my games. I would have liked being able to queue up things like multi and hop in and play or play a different game and get queued up and go right into the game I queued up for now I have to go put a disc in...looks like I'm going digital this time around.

Hopefully that feature still works. If not ill be very displeased.

 

[PBalfredo]

Wasn't Family Sharing one of those things that only would have worked if the game's publisher opt-in?

 

[dollartaco]

Personally I'm more bummed about not having the instant access to my games. I would have liked being able to queue up things like multi and hop in and play or play a different game and get queued up and go right into the game I queued up for now I have to go put a disc in...looks like I'm going digital this time around.

Hopefully that feature still works. If not ill be very displeased.

Why not just go digital only?

 

[Marty Chinn]

I don't care if it was byproduct. The concept is the same, you can easily share your library. I am well aware Microsoft's implementation is a bit different, but it is pretty damn close. The only change is that for a single game, only 2 can play at a time, but the other 9 people can play other games in the shared library all at the same time. It seems amazing to me you don't think this will be abused.

Allowing only one instance at a time is a significant handcuff limitation that you can't even make the claim that having 5 legit full anytime access licenses is the same. Heck all five could play online together if they wanted. The number of allowed instances is a HUGE difference.

 

[plagiarize]

You're right... I should have clarified. The "nothing" was in reference to the medium. Obviously there is a performance increase and "cloud" computing.

We accept DRM for so many things, it's a shame that we can't be willing to advance console gaming.

we don't blindly accept DRM. we accept it where most people feel the positives outweigh the negatives (like say, Steam) but we don't accept it in other places, like say, iTunes where public opinion got Apple to remove DRM from the music on the store. DRM has never been *blindly* accepted.

 

[Version 3.0]

They never fully detailed the plan, so it's hard to say what we've missed. Personally, I think they made it up after the backlash, so they never had said details. And there's no way it wasn't going to be "at the publisher's discretion", in any case.

 

[lastflowers]

They never fully detailed the plan, so it's hard to say what we've missed. Personally, I think they made it up after the backlash, so they never had said details. And there's no way it wasn't going to be "at the publisher's discretion", in any case.

They didn't. I knew about this weeks before the reveal.

 

[entremet]

What do your personal desires have to do with the basic concept of consumer rights and draconian DRM schemes that treat consumers like criminals? MS didn't conceptualize "Family sharing and disc free installs" from altruistic motives. The DRM and attempts to restrict control to the end user always came first, as it has for their OS, software, and other services and products. They are always about limiting control over the products and services they sell.

Didn't bother me in the slightest. Family sharing and disc less installs were worth the hassle of DRM for me.

It's not like others options exists, Sony and Nintendo have traditional disc options for folks like yourselves who wanted to continue to have the flexibility or reselling anywhere.

Regarding personal desires, that's how capitalism works!

 

[NullPointer]

To be honest, I thought these features were pretty interesting. Those who didn't care about the DRM had the PS4 as alternative.

Very true.

I guess MS didn't like how that was going to turn out. That or they got some backlash from other quarters besides gamers.

How on earth are you downplaying what would have been an awesome feature? Regardless of whether or not people could play it at the same time, it would have enabled MASS game sharing. How many games do you own? How many do you play at any one time? Probably a small percentage right? Well the entire rest of your library could be played by somebody else and likewise you would have access to 10 other people's libraries with access to any of their large percentage of games they're not playing.

C'mon now man, that shit would have been sweet.

I don't believe this. Not one iota. Why would publishers be OK with this when they spew fire and brimstone over used games?

Nobody even knew which games this would work for.

 

[Andalus0880]

You do understand that the "family plan" was merely a sugar coating on the shit sandwich they were trying to cram down our collective throats, right?

 

[SRTtoZ]

i feel bad for them. they cant win

they really 100% cant have this feature without the other

You feel bad for a multi-BILLION dollar company that has the worst PR ive ever witnessed?

 

[jedimike]

we don't blindly accept DRM. we accept it where most people feel the positives outweigh the negatives (like say, Steam) but we don't accept it in other places, like say, iTunes where public opinion got Apple to remove DRM from the music on the store. DRM has never been *blindly* accepted.

I clearly felt the benefits (family sharing, instant access anywhere, not swapping discs) outweighed the negatives (24 hour check-in, complicated used sell).

That's much better than steam imo.

 

[Marty Chinn]

You do understand that the "family plan" was merely a sugar coating on the shit sandwich they were trying to cram down our collective throats, right?

You realize that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation right? You can like some aspects of something and hate the rest.

 

[Zakkath]

People asked for it.