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[Curufinwe]

PCs aren't consoles. The majority of console games are still bought as physical media.

Xbox One IS a digital platform. If anything, MS is doing a lot of people (those with slow internet speeds or data caps) a favor by allowing you a chance to simply get the games on a disc.

It's not a favor. It's the way they make the entire Xbox One venture profitable. A digital only console in 2013 would be a financial disaster.

 

[nib95]

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that Gamestop actually sells every game they take as a trade-in. If Gamestop aren't offering your fair value, go on CAG, or ebay, or Amazon or a dozen other places and sell/trade your game there.

BINGO. And this is what Microsoft was trying to remove the option of doing. Selling privately. It was a very sneaky and anti consumer move, that would have monopolised the used game market and only given us gamers even less value proposition.

 

[Crimson_Gold]

If their great sharing plan was really just timed demos then it's good they killed it before people found out. The below is not some kind of killer feature.

Based off of that, DRM wouldn't have been saved by the sharing plan. The sharing plan that everyone imagined was nothing like what it was going to truly be. The sharing plan was meant to get people interested in games that others were buying and then sell more games. No way there was going to be game sharing in the sense of buy once and let your family enjoy this game all of the time without any caveats.

 

[Pillville]

Xbox One IS a digital platform. If anything, MS is doing a lot of people (those with slow internet speeds or data caps) a favor by allowing you a chance to simply get the games on a disc.

I hope all the squeaky wheels enjoy their grease for now. Can't for ~2020 and everything is all digital.

But you can't take an industry that has been running on physical copies for 30 years and suddenly say "oh yea, those physical copies don't really mean anything any more".

 

[LittleJohnny]

LittleJohnny, you seem to have a pretty limited understanding of these practises and the business behind it. They offer you $5 because that's what it's worth to them based on supply and demand. They offer you $5 because they already have hundreds or maybe even thousands of that particular item in stock, and it's worth little to them. The lower prices basically average out the stock price and leverage the selling price or profit margin. Otherwise the game being traded in is essentially dead weight. I used to work at one of these stores and there were lots of factors that come in to it.

I understand the practice just fine and I'm not saying its wrong, what I'm saying is that when GameStop turns around and sells a used game, developers didn't see a dime, but MS' plan was going to be a solution to this

 

[yankeehater]

But you can't take an industry that has been running on physical copies for 30 years and suddenly say "oh yea, those physical copies don't really mean anything any more".

Why not? I used to buy PC games on floppy disk and then one day that stopped. Eventually physical disks are going to die, it wont be this gen but maybe the next. Some company is going to have to be the one to kill this shit off.

 

[devotedgmr17]

If only digital had the same flexibility and consumer rights as physical....

This has never, ever been the case though. Sure GMG might have offered something like that for a limited time, but honestly trading in or reselling digital goods? That just doesn't make sense

 

[dude819]

But you can't take an industry that has been running on physical copies for 30 years and suddenly say "oh yea, those physical copies don't really mean anything any more".

Imagine if they took music, movies or books and made you download files. That would be nuts.

 

[jmdajr]

PCs aren't consoles. The majority of console games are still bought as physical media.



It's not a favor. It's the way they make the entire Xbox One venture profitable. A digital only console in 2013 would be a financial disaster.

The internet infrastructure is definitely not there to have a hit like Xbox 360 which doesn't require it.

 

[ZeroCDR]

I don't understand why MS would remove their DRM-required features by letting us play physical and downloaded media offline indefinitely.

So you want to play your games, physical or digital, anywhere on any Xbox One without the need for a disc? You want to be able to "share" your library with "family?" Okay says Microsoft, you need to be online with frequent checks to authenticate your library.

So you want to give your digital copy to a friend? Okay says Microsoft, they must be on your friends list for 30 days, you have to be online to complete the trade, and you lose immediate access to the game and it's theirs forever.

So you want to play your physical or digital copy offline indefinitely on your main Xbox? Okay says Microsoft, you need the disc in the tray for physical games, and your games will no longer be shared until you log back on.

What's so hard about this?

 

[nib95]

I understand the practice just fine and I'm not saying its wrong, what I'm saying is that when GameStop turns around and sells a used game, developers didn't see a dime, but MS' plan was going to be a solution to this

And why should they? If they want to curb used game trade ins, they need to make games that offer more value. Better quality games, longer spanning multiplayer modes, less churn outs and yearly rehashes etc. People only trade a game in because they no longer see value in it, or want to use the value left in it towards a new purchase. And THIS is where it does benefit other publishers. Research shows that the majority of game trade ins are put towards the purchase of new games, often a game from the exact same publisher. Eg, Gears 2 towards Gears 3, COD BO towards COD BO II, Fifa 12 towards Fifa 13 etc etc.

 

[razgriz417]

Yeah - it's pastebin but for what it's worth:
http://pastebin.com/TE1MWES2

wait family sharing was just Timed demos? Like the ones on PSN? But with some saved progress? No wonder MS wasn't giving a decent explanation

 

[Ponn]

I understand the practice just fine and I'm not saying its wrong, what I'm saying is that when GameStop turns around and sells a used game, developers didn't see a dime, but MS' plan was going to be a solution to this

And when said person uses that promotion of getting an extra 50% tiv towards preorder of a new game? Yea, lets keep sweeping that under the rug.

 

[Mesoian]

So this is interesting, though I don't know how creditble the source is:

10 person family sharing plan was just a way of spreading trials around through word of mouth, and was never intended to let people linked to an account play the full versions of games.

http://www.heyuguysgaming.com/news/12507/heartbroken-xbox-one-employee-lets-rip-must-read

mock if old.

 

[Toki767]

wait family sharing was just Timed demos? Like the ones on PSN? But with some saved progress? No wonder MS wasn't giving a decent explanation

PSN saves your progress too.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

He asked a question about why gamers are complacent. Why are they?
Probably because it's a hobby that while I and many get a joy out off, it doesn't rank too high on the priority list in the over scheme of things.

Seems to me you take a lot of things personal from me. I don't see the name Steve Youngblood anywhere in my posts though. Perhaps I should be more cordial with my replies, but it's not like calling me out on post counts is all that polite.

If we're just talking about regular Joe Gamer out there who buys Call of Duty and Halo and Madden, you probably have a point. That person just wants to play games and probably doesn't know or care about all the political implications going on behind the scenes until it affects them, if it even affects them at all. Yes, I can see that point. But people in the know that actually care about this hobby -- and I would argue that that statement is applicable to most every member of this forum with any sizable number of posts -- can not really hang their hat on that kind of sentiment.

I can argue that DRM is a fair tradeoff, I can argue that DLC is a good value proposition, and I can argue that ultimately I get my money's worth out of the hobby even in the face of emerging business practices that rub many people the wrong way. But if challenged to formulate an opinion -- even though I too have limited time to play games these days -- I can't in good faith take some ambivalent stance arguing that "it's just video games, man."

 

[John Caboose]

But you can't take an industry that has been running on physical copies for 30 years and suddenly say "oh yea, those physical copies don't really mean anything any more".

Yeah. Their problem from the start was thinking they could dislodge peoples perception of what a disc means versus what a digital game means and meld them together.

MS wanted to deliver "best of both worlds" but only got halfway there and absolutely sucked at trying to explain and market their system.

 

[CadetMahoney]

So A LOT of people are saying "just buy digital". I already responded to why it's not that simple earlier but I'll do the short version again. . .

I would've been able to buy from wherever I wanted, preferably the cheaper place, and still get the digital copy. This is now dead.

thx for the explanation. . . hmmm that doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Also because of that digital versions aren't gonna be be cheaper anymore. So saying "just buy digital" doesn't mean much to many ppl.

 

[Acheteedo]

wait family sharing was just Timed demos? Like the ones on PSN? But with some saved progress? No wonder MS wasn't giving a decent explanation

I can fully believe this. Sounded too good to be true, and they would probably wait out the storm before revealing how lame it is.

 

[razgriz417]

PSN saves your progress too.

O that I didn't know (never used it) but yea man what a stupid feature then since according to that pastebin you had to be in a person's "family" to access the demo

 

[Stone Ocean]

Xbox One IS a digital platform. If anything, MS is doing a lot of people (those with slow internet speeds or data caps) a favor by allowing you a chance to simply get the games on a disc.

I hope all the squeaky wheels enjoy their grease for now. Can't for ~2020 and everything is all digital.

Yes, they are doing their customers a favor by allowing them to actually use their product. Silly me.

 

[kaching]

Why not? I used to buy PC games on floppy disk and then one day that stopped. Eventually physical disks are going to die, it wont be this gen but maybe the next. Some company is going to have to be the one to kill this shit off.

Nobody has to formally kill anything off, it's not any one company's responsibility to do it, just offer a better alternative and people will naturally migrate away.

The key point being that you can't just force it to happen.

 

[iammeiam]

Is there any reason to lend credibility to that pastebin beyond "It makes the policy sound bad and M$ is evil so it's probably true"?

 

[Pillville]

Why not? I used to buy PC games on floppy disk and then one day that stopped. Eventually physical disks are going to die, it wont be this gen but maybe the next. Some company is going to have to be the one to kill this shit off.

Imagine if they took music, movies or books and made you download files. That would be nuts.

One medium overtaking another is normal. BUT this is different, this is keeping the old medium (discs) and telling you that it's another (digital).

If you want to go all digital, you have to remove discs. You can sell someone a physical item like they've been getting for 30 years, and tell them it's not a physical item.

 

[razgriz417]

I can fully believe this. Sounded too good to be true, and they would probably wait out the storm before revealing how lame it is.

Yeah that sounds completely probably to me, so all in all, the only true benefits the xbone system had for customers were full game install with no disc check, and a persistent game library?

 

[Quadraphonic]

one of the features I was most proud of was Family Sharing. I've browsed many gaming forums and saw that many people were excited about it as well!
When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode.

Oh, honey....

The only reason people thought they liked it is because you didn't tell them all the details.

Is there any reason to lend credibility to that pastebin beyond "It makes the policy sound bad and M$ is evil so it's probably true"?

Do you believe the pastebins from employees saying GOOD things about MS?

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Is there any reason to lend credibility to that pastebin beyond "It makes the policy sound bad and M$ is evil so it's probably true"?

Can someone verify that the person is legit? Probably not. As such, there's no reason for you to necessarily believe it. Then again, I would also argue that there was no reason to believe that an unimplemented feature that has been abandoned was going to be as awesome as some hoped either.

 

[jmdajr]

I can argue that DRM is a fair tradeoff, I can argue that DLC is a good value proposition, and I can argue that ultimately I get my money's worth out of the hobby even in the face of emerging business practices that rub many people the wrong way. But if challenged to formulate an opinion -- even though I too have limited time to play games these days -- I can't in good faith take some ambivalent stance arguing that "it's just video games, man."

Like most, I just ultimately vote with my wallet. I for one didn't buy horse armor by the way!

You know I just had a battle with cancer not too long ago and while going through that I wasn't really too concerned about a drm or no drm future.

I am glad to still be alive though with the opportunity to play games in some capacity. It's just gravy though.

 

[dollartaco]

I don't understand MSFTs insistence that digital and physical must be treated so similarly that the only benefit of the former is convenience. Humans come in both ambulatory and sedentary varieties. Retailers profit from one, publishers the other. Why not just acknowledge this? Why not bifurcate the media, treating each one differently and allow for choices? You are Microsoft, according to your own PR one of two entities capable of pulling off a cloud so vast that it approaches infinite power. You are a goddamn industry giant. Instead of flexing your muscles to grow your bottom line, maybe advocate for your consumers instead -- as a starting point. Maybe that would have gone over better. Maybe we'd all merrily switch over to digital media not because we were forced, but because it was the better option.

 

[Owzers]

Is there any reason to lend credibility to that pastebin beyond "It makes the policy sound bad and M$ is evil so it's probably true"?

Well the fact that Microsoft tried to hide the program and third party publishers didn't acknowledge its existence despite being incredibly huge if true...it's not hard to believe this outside of general evil.

 

[LTWood12]

From http://us.playstation.com/psn/playstation-plus/

Full Game Trials
Try before you buy! Play the full game for 1-hour. If you decided to buy the game, you pick up where you left off, and the trophies you earned will unlock. In the past we've featured games like: BioShock® Infinite, Army of Two, Army of TWO™ The Devil’s Cartel, Batman: Arkham City and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning™.

No wonder the Family sharing plan was never fully explained. Actually sort of a gimped version of what you already get on PSN through plus.

 

[Wolves Evolve]

Well the topic is locked, but I posted it because it was getting traction on Twitter including a couple of likes by people working at Rare + IEB. I know that's not enough to give it legitimacy, but I suspect we'll never know what was planned.

Sharing games for an hour makes no sense to me. Just have demos from the store at that point. I'd rather go the PS4 way and watch a video.

 

[Hellsing321]

Is there any reason to lend credibility to that pastebin beyond "It makes the policy sound bad and M$ is evil so it's probably true"?

Well it sounds plausible because there is no way Microsoft would let 10 people play through a game off one copy.

 

[IlludiumQ36]

People here thinking that Microsoft's vision of digital sharing was some grand and simple all-access consumer-friendly process obviously never owned a Zune.

 

[Kusagari]

I doubt that pastebin but if it is in fact true then the family sharing plan was complete and utter shit.

Even worse than they had explained. The fact the employee, if he was an employee, was so giddy over a gimped rental service speaks volumes.

 

[Jomjom]

Well the topic is locked, but I posted it because it was getting traction on Twitter including a couple of likes by people working at Rare + IEB. I know that's not enough to give it legitimacy, but I suspect we'll never know what was planned.

Sharing games for an hour makes no sense to me. Just have demos from the store at that point. I'd rather go the PS4 way and watch a video.

It totally makes sense from MS's standpoint. Offer no benefit really, but be able to put a nice label on it "family sharing with 10 people anywhere!" and prop it up as a huge benefit. I mean just look at all the people in the thread pointing fingers at everyone because they lost their dear family plan.

Fanboys will believe anything and they ate that thing up without ever knowing what it even offered.

 

[iammeiam]

Do you believe the pastebins from employees saying GOOD things about MS?

I honestly can't remember the last time I trusted pastebin for actual personal accounts of anything--and if somebody posted claiming to be an MS employee and pitching family share as better than we dreamed, I'd tend to think that was BS too. It's the speed from which it's gone from a random anonymous claim to people talking about it as "oh, so that's what was really going on." that prompted the question.

 

[Casimir]

Again, previously I would have been able to buy digital (by proxy of disc) from ANYWHERE resulting in cheaper prices for me. Now you can ONLY buy digital from the Xbox Store. I literally have ONE price to 'choose' from when buying digital.

This is not how systems with no used games work. You would have either paid close to retail or if the game was terrible a clearance price. You think Microsoft or other publishers are willing to give up their margins?

lol, if you're this gullible I have some insider prices on the Brooklyn bridge I'm willing to offer you for this limited time only. Send me a PM and I'll tell you the name and number of the account for the Swiss company to wire your money to. Thinking that the old Xbox one scheme would have resulted in cheaper prices is the dumbest thing since SEGA Genesis fans and Blast Processing.

 

[KingFire]

Nobody has to formally kill anything off, it's not any one company's responsibility to do it, just offer a better alternative and people will naturally migrate away.

The key point being that you can't just force it to happen.

Ever heard of Valve?

 

[onlyindreams]

hoooly shit that family sharing catch in the pastebin makes so much fucking sense

microsoft is a joke

 

[Nikodemos]

It totally makes sense from MS's standpoint. Offer no benefit really, but be able to put a nice label on it "family sharing with 10 people anywhere!" and prop it up as a huge benefit. I mean just look at all the people in the thread pointing fingers at everyone because they lost their dear family plan.

As I've postulated in one of my earlier posts, the whole 'family plan' sounded like a re-design (with some Microsoftian twists added) of the old 'shareware version' idea. That pastebin message, if true, validates this viewpoint.

 

[jmdajr]

People here thinking that Microsoft's vision of digital sharing was some grand and simple all-access consumer-friendly process obviously never owned a Zune.

I have one and never really tried the sharing features. Probably because no one had one

 

[Quadraphonic]

It's just MS stealing the PS+ game trials and rebranding it as their own.

You KNOW it'd still require Gold, but now instead of giving everybody on Gold that demo, you have to know someone with the game first.

 

[LQX]

It's just MS stealing the PS+ game trials and rebranding it as their own.

You KNOW it'd still require Gold, but now instead of giving everybody on Gold that demo, you have to know someone with the game first.

This is ridiculous.

 

[nib95]

hoooly shit that family sharing catch in the pastebin makes so much fucking sense

microsoft is a joke

It falls in line with what CBoat said about Microsoft's DRM being much worse than advertised. And CBoat has a pretty proven track record.

 

[mightynine]

Imagine if they took music, movies or books and made you download files. That would be nuts.

Imagine if they put them on devices with far more portability than a console connected to your TV. That would be nuts.

 

[Jomjom]

Yeah that sounds completely probably to me, so all in all, the only true benefits the xbone system had for customers were full game install with no disc check, and a persistent game library?

I've seen this in multiple posts. What did MS mean by this? Just that you can have your game library from any console you log into?

If it's this, how is that any different than what the PS3 currently does? I do this all the time - going to my friends' houses that have PS3s, log into my account, and download a game to play. The only difference maybe is that my persistent library is in the form of a download list in PSN.

 

[razgriz417]

I've seen this in multiple posts. What did MS mean by this? Just that you can have your game library from any console you log into?

If it's this, how is that any different than what the PS3 currently does? I do this all the time - going to my friends' houses that have PS3s, log into my account, and download a game to play. The only difference maybe is that my persistent library is in the form of a download list in PSN.

yup that's what I meant by it, but with their original plan, every disc based game would be added to your xbox live account (since discs were technically useless save for installs), not just digital purchases

 

[FinKL]

If the Pastebin is to be believed, Family Sharing was STILL not fleshed out even the day of retracting the DRM. I just find it weird we only started hearing about Family Sharing around E3 with sketchy details.

"We were toying around with a limit on the number of times members could access the shared game (as to discourage gamers from simply beating the game by doing multiple playthroughs). but we had not settled on an appropriate way of handling it."

Give the limit of 1, you have exactly what PSN has now I assume? Give someone "borrowing" a game more than a limit of 1, you risk people beating the game and never purchasing it.

You might as well call it 1-hour trial

 

[AndyD]

It's just MS stealing the PS+ game trials and rebranding it as their own.

You KNOW it'd still require Gold, but now instead of giving everybody on Gold that demo, you have to know someone with the game first.

The funny thing is the pastebin guy compares it to PS game sharing, not to PS+ times demos, which are directly comparable and presently implemented even better than the family plan.

It falls in line with what CBoat said about Microsoft's DRM being much worse than advertised. And CBoat has a pretty proven track record.

Yep.

I've seen this in multiple posts. What did MS mean by this? Just that you can have your game library from any console you log into?

If it's this, how is that any different than what the PS3 currently does? I do this all the time - going to my friends' houses that have PS3s, log into my account, and download a game to play. The only difference maybe is that my persistent library is in the form of a download list in PSN.

I think the advantage would be that all games would be available. Even ones bought on disc as they will now all be also available digitally. Steam like.