Support NeoGAF

[Nyoro SF]

Indeed. Once MS has you locked in, it's over. You will keep going with the console, you will accept whatever policies they put out. They just have to get that initial lock on you first.... that's all they care about.

Before a purchase of a console could be heavily mitigated if you changed course mid gen. Now if you're locked into an ecosystem, you will be there and stay there no matter what.

Hence all the people saying "All my friends are on Live"... is wonderful, wonderful music to MS's ears.

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

Poll seems a bit meaningless without more specifics. I think they'll try to reintroduce it some time in the future but what are we talking about. 2 years? Ten years? The real question is whether they're going to do it with the XBone.

 

[Drencrom]

I know folks who work with Microsoft on the DRM side for video content (ie Silverlight etc). And they say that there are already plans for future DRM use on the Xbox One, which would be released in future updates.

Again, I am just some random person from the internet, so you can completely ignore this if you want.

He's cleared.

'YES' voters redeemed

 

[stonesak]

I imagine at least some of them would attempt to sue. And it would lead to a firestorm of negative publicity that would definitely reach mainstream media.

More importantly, why would they ever do this? What's the benefit to Microsoft?

With the original plan they would get the advantages of getting people used to a digital marketplace, and increased control of the secondary market. They'd also have more opportunities to serve ads, but that is hardly guaranteed with a 24 hour check in requirement (as opposed to an Always On requirement).

The first two advantages are lost with a two year later renewal of the check. They couldn't really do the disc as delivery mechanism thing after the fact. People could've passed discs around and around and many people could have the game installed on their system with no way to tell who the original disc belongs to. And the genie would be out of the bottle when it comes to used games since there'd be Xbox Ones that would never get connected again and never see the update. So they'd still be perfectly capable of playing offline games from that time period and before.

Also, with Sony now absolutely not doing any of this kind of DRM, they'd be giving them a gigantic free strategic advantage going forward.

It just doesn't make sense for them to do it from any angle.

The big advantage introducing DRM policies mid-gen would be to avoid the shitstorm when the next XBox releases. People would realize that buying an Xbox means needing an internet connection. No mess, no outrage, no confusion trying to "inform" consumers of the "benefits" of always online. It would simply be part of the Xbox ecosystem, like Gold and Kinect.

 

[flyinpiranha]

'YES' voters redeemed

But that's video content. I don't see what that has to do with the gaming side.

 

[Rebel Leader]

But that's video content. I don't see what that has to do with the gaming side.

Stream is video.. is it not?

 

[lastflowers]

DRM could be:

Xbox Video
Xbox Music
Cable Things
HBO
ESPN
ANYTHING TO DO WITH MEDIA


All of it probably has some DRM. The man could be talking about integrating playready type of DRM into apps. It is Silverlight his friend works on, which would indicate it is more on the OS app marketplace side rather than the game side....

Spoiler

work for MS on the WP team, all above writing is speculation.

 

[BruiserBear]

I imagine at least some of them would attempt to sue. And it would lead to a firestorm of negative publicity that would definitely reach mainstream media.

More importantly, why would they ever do this? What's the benefit to Microsoft?

With the original plan they would get the advantages of getting people used to a digital marketplace, and increased control of the secondary market. They'd also have more opportunities to serve ads, but that is hardly guaranteed with a 24 hour check in requirement (as opposed to an Always On requirement).

The first two advantages are lost with a two year later renewal of the check. They couldn't really do the disc as delivery mechanism thing after the fact. People could've passed discs around and around and many people could have the game installed on their system with no way to tell who the original disc belongs to. And the genie would be out of the bottle when it comes to used games since there'd be Xbox Ones that would never get connected again and never see the update. So they'd still be perfectly capable of playing offline games from that time period and before.

Also, with Sony now absolutely not doing any of this kind of DRM, they'd be giving them a gigantic free strategic advantage going forward.

It just doesn't make sense for them to do it from any angle.

You bring up another good point. Not only would it damage the Xbox brand substantially to bring these policies back, what does Microsoft even gain from doing so? They've already conceded the gen is starting without that stuff, so bringing it back later just seems silly from a strategic point of view.

The big advantage introducing DRM policies mid-gen would be to avoid the shitstorm when the next XBox releases. People would realize that buying an Xbox means needing an internet connection. No mess, no outrage, no confusion trying to "inform" consumers of the "benefits" of always online. It would simply be part of the Xbox ecosystem, like Gold and Kinect.

I'm sorry, that is just a completely irrational idea. To prepare customers for the next console, we enrage many of them about our current console and create a furry of bad press? lol, no

 

[flyinpiranha]

Stream is video.. is it not?

I don't follow. I assume the "DRM" in question is about games. Reselling and Online Checks. I don't see what anybody cares about the other stuff, you can't do shit with DD anyway these days on any ecosystem. If their friend works on the video side, they may have different paths for their video ecosystem than what games would have. We know MS is basically a hydra with no heads talking to each other.

 

[John Harker]

you guys know if a publisher wants to restrict game usage from day 1, or anytime they want from now till infinity, they still can right?

it's all still in there, just optional now.
it only takes one person to test it, and if it works, it'll turn tides pretty quickly i imagine.

 

[ultron87]

you guys know if a publisher wants to restrict game usage from day 1, or anytime they want from now till infinity, they still can right?

it's all still in there, just optional now.
it only takes one person to test it, and if it works, it'll turn tides pretty quickly i imagine.

Well that's just as true on current systems.

 

[stonesak]

You bring up another good point. Not only would it damage the Xbox brand substantially to bring these policies back, what does Microsoft even gain from doing so? They've already conceded the gen is starting without that stuff, so bringing it back later just seems silly from a strategic point of view.




I'm sorry, that is just a completely irrational idea. To prepare customers for the next console, we enrage many of them about our current console and create a furry of bad press? lol, no

It's like you totally forgot about RRoD. Once people are heavily invested in the ecosystem, they will accept things they would not have accepted when initially purchasing the system. How many people who've gone through multiple 360's would've have bought one if they knew what was laying ahead? Much better to get the bad press out of the way when you have an established userbase than when promoting a new product. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, as they say.

 

[John Harker]

Well that's just as true on current systems.

It's worth noting, that MS removed the 'mandatory' requirement. Literally everything, including restricting used games and sharing, can happen on a dime for all of EA's games, for example, if they want to, whenever they'd like.

 

[ultron87]

It's worth noting, that MS removed the 'mandatory' requirement. Literally everything, including restricting used games and sharing, can happen on a dime for all of EA's games, for example, if they want to, whenever they'd like.

Yes. But that has nothing to do with Microsoft or with what they removed or didn't remove.

 

[Coffee Dog]

He's cleared.

ahahahaha. Jesus. I knew it was coming but I didn't realize so soon.

 

[Eusis]

Admittedly now that I think about it I do wonder if maybe the DRM is more on the multimedia side... but that Kinect DRM for videos is one of the most revolting ideas I ever heard, I may want that to fail more than no used games because at least you can argue the death of used games is a natural casualty from tech progress as physical media, especially for what are programs, becomes more and more vestigal, but using a camera to check how many are actively watching a movie? Fuck off.

 

[Taiser]

of course ...they will slowly re-introduce it once they have enough people invested in their ecosystem.

 

[Liamario]

The policies that MS did a 180 on have not been scrapped. They realised that their consumers didn't find them palatable.....in one lump sum. They will slowly but sure spend the rest of next gen getting their fans used to the taste of the policies and then by next next gen (assuming they haven't gone further down the road of media hub) the policies will not be anything that will be complained about.

The policies are coming one way or another.

 

[b0neshank]

Absolutely they will slowly start to introduce these features, of course I believe Sony will add more with pressure from publishers as well.

 

[Biker19]

You mean

Microsoft is polling badly everywhere.

They've been in the news for all the wrong reasons:
Always on DRM
Forced Kinect
NSA scandal

Add to that their terrible PR spokespeople and you have a recipe for disaster.

It's great that they've made reversals on most of their anti-consumer policies, but they've lost a lot of trust from consumers.

I agree. One of the most important things that a company like Microsoft should never, ever do, is to lose consumers trust, because it could cause them a bad reputation in the long run.

Look at what happened to Sega after with the constant add-ons such as Activator, 32X, & Sega CD during the SNES/Genesis era, as well as launching Sega Saturn at a $400 price tag & by coming out too early. By the time that Sega got themselves together with the Dreamcast, it was already too late. They've salvaged their trust within both consumers & 3rd party publishers long before Dreamcast came, & that's what doomed them to failure.

You can pass it off as trivial, but it's absolutely not. For many people it's been years since they have touched physical media. Between smartphone app stores, Roku streamers, smart TVs, iTunes, Pandora... Disks are dead. I can't tell you when the last time I've seen physical media in someones possession and data will back this up.

Oh, wow...this post just cracks me up.

He's cleared.

Ha! I knew it! Microsoft's stance about, "We've got rid of DRM entirely!", etc. definitely hasn't changed one bit.

 

[plainr_]

He's cleared.

Okay, I'm voting yes.

 

[keit4]

From the other thread:

I don’t want to open up an entirely new issue here, but here’s my shot. I don’t see that ever happening with content you’re buying today either on disc and digitally. All of that DRM stuff was in place because there was no physical security on the disc itself, so all the licensing was done digitally. When you build that type of model, then you need to make sure people can’t install games on a bunch of machines, then unplug them. That would have made us an awesome Pirating machine, and that can’t happen for obvious reasons.

When we went back to disc security, those DRM policies weren't necessary. So no reason to turn it on later.

If there’s ambiguity, it’s because it’s possible that, in the future, IF WE ADDED BACK some of those family sharing ideas we had in the beginning, we’d have reintroduce similar types of policies. So IF you wanted to have a game and have that family sharing, always-in-the-cloud, and digital loaning – then we might add those requirements back. You can imagine a world where we have both types of models at the same time.

Again, big IF, but the bottom line is I wouldn’t worry about us making those policies “retroactive” which seems to be the issue I hear people worry about.

 

[Skeff]

I don’t want to open up an entirely new issue here, but here’s my shot. I don’t see that ever happening with content you’re buying today either on disc and digitally. All of that DRM stuff was in place because there was no physical security on the disc itself, so all the licensing was done digitally. When you build that type of model, then you need to make sure people can’t install games on a bunch of machines, then unplug them. That would have made us an awesome Pirating machine, and that can’t happen for obvious reasons.

When we went back to disc security, those DRM policies weren't necessary. So no reason to turn it on later.

If there’s ambiguity, it’s because it’s possible that, in the future, IF WE ADDED BACK some of those family sharing ideas we had in the beginning, we’d have reintroduce similar types of policies. So IF you wanted to have a game and have that family sharing, always-in-the-cloud, and digital loaning – then we might add those requirements back. You can imagine a world where we have both types of models at the same time.

Again, big IF, but the bottom line is I wouldn’t worry about us making those policies “retroactive” which seems to be the issue I hear people worry about.

Posted in another thread, thought it may add to the discussion here.

EDIT: beaten by seconds

 

[Lordwindowlicker]

I'm waiting for people to read the Xbox One's EULA veeery carefully.

 

[SwiftDeath]

I'm waiting for people to read the Xbox One's EULA veeery carefully.

Can you read the EULA's of a product before purchasing it?

I guess you could always return it

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Posted in another thread, thought it may add to the discussion here.

EDIT: beaten by seconds

If there’s ambiguity, it’s because it’s possible that, in the future, IF WE ADDED BACK some of those family sharing ideas we had in the beginning, we’d have reintroduce similar types of policies. So IF you wanted to have a game and have that family sharing, always-in-the-cloud, and digital loaning – then we might add those requirements back. You can imagine a world where we have both types of models at the same time.

I like how he had this in all caps, adding stuff can't be a bad thing, [small text] but taking things out can be [/size -322]. If they added back family share why would they need to do anything else and involve DRM? Just have family share for digital games only, it's simple. You want to send your games over the air to friends? Don't get physical, instant benefit to going digital if you're into that thing, leave physical drm out of it.

Though I could be missing something and the requirements that may be added back has nothing to do with physical disks. Though what requirements was put on digital games on old xbox one?

 

[Hana-Bi]

I like how he had this in all caps, adding stuff can't be a bad thing, [small text] but taking things out can be [/size -322]. If they added back family share why would they need to do anything else and involve DRM? Just have family share for digital games only, it's simple. You want to send your games over the air to friends? Don't get physical, instant benefit to going digital if you're into that thing, leave physical drm out of it.

Though I could be missing something and the requirements that may be added back has nothing to do with physical disks. Though what requirements was put on digital games on old xbox one?

I think that is what he tried to say:

I think, like most everyone else, the optional path is the best one. Let both ecosystems exist. Use various incentives (such as family sharing, cheaper prices, etc.) to drive people towards the digital model. I'm hesitant to go digital, but if the incentives are good, I would certainly consider it. STEAM has mainly proven to be successful because of all of the incentives they offer.

I like this path as well.

 

[Bundy]

I'm waiting for people to read the Xbox One's EULA veeery carefully.

 

[Lordwindowlicker]

Can you read the EULA's of a product before purchasing it?

I guess you could always return it

Someone along the line is going to read the EULA when the system launches. I'm then going to add that to my pool of information that will inform my final purchasing decision.

 

[CambriaRising]

Yup. People will be less likely to protest once they are invested. Part of the reason I am not buying an Xbone until later down the line.

 

[Finalizer]

He's cleared.

 

[Mikey Jr.]

That is a fucking tough question.

Could they do it? Like, it would have to be an opt-in type deal, right?

 

[NullPointer]

They will just slowly releasing more and more games that required online connection, it is very unlikely for people to switch system since they already invested for much money.

Yeah, I see this happening across the board, not just with MS. If a game is designed to be online only, or even online mostly, it will be preferred by publishers to any alternatives. Cloud features will be used to justify the move towards online. Offline modes will get stripped down and made shallower over time, with a focus on pushing players to social experiences. And yes, this is already happening.

So I said NO in the poll, because I can't imagine MS flipping some switch on the Xbox or changing the OS in such a way that current buyers get screwed. I wouldn't be surprised though if by the end of the gen most games aren't either always online, or mostly online. But that future doesn't depend upon MS flipping any of those pre-180 switches back on in the OS.

 

[lastflowers]

Yeah, I see this happening across the board, not just with MS. If a game is designed to be online only, or even online mostly, it will be preferred by publishers to any alternatives. Cloud features will be used to justify the move towards online. Offline modes will get stripped down and made shallower over time, with a focus on pushing players to social experiences. And yes, this is already happening.

So I said NO in the poll, because I can't imagine MS flipping some switch on the Xbox or changing the OS in such a way that current buyers get screwed. I wouldn't be surprised though if by the end of the gen most games aren't either always online, or mostly online. But that future doesn't depend upon MS flipping any of those pre-180 switches back on in the OS.

pretty much my sentiment as well. a +1 is deserved.