I said this all before the most recent rumours, and was shot down at the time. I believe:

They'll drop the live fee and require the xbox to be always connected.

They were going to find it extremely difficult to sell p2p gaming for another 7 years. So they were going to replace that with 100% of their consumer base being primed for advertising.

Also they thought they were doing publishers a favour with always online (for a cut in the fees of used-game access codes MS ain't going to do that for free). Unfortunately recent examples of only-online implementation haven't been to pretty. But if publishers were still considering it, the willingness of MS taking the stress of the logistics might work out well.

travisbickle said:

I said this all before the most recent rumours, and was shot down at the time. I believe:

They'll drop the live fee and require the xbox to be always connected.

They were going to find it extremely difficult to sell p2p gaming for another 7 years. So they were going to replace that with 100% of their consumer base being primed for advertising.

Also they thought they were doing publishers a favour with always online (for a cut in the fees of used-game access codes MS ain't going to do that for free). Unfortunately recent examples of only-online implementation haven't been to pretty. But if publishers were still considering it, the willingness of MS taking the stress of the logistics might work out well.

Click to expand...

if this 'always online' thing's real, this's the part of it that'll force sony's hand: ms telling publishers that it's willing to take all the heat for any/all problems arising from this...

the future's so dark i don't have to wear shades ...

statham said:

Tom from Verge chimes in.

Click to expand...

I honestly wonder what the difference is. Technically, the PS3 and Xbox 360 are always online when you're logged into PSN and Xbox Live respectively. For example, if someone sends you a message, you get it almost instantly, meaning that you're always connected. But i'm not sure that this is what he's referring to when se says "will always be online".

travisbickle said:

I said this all before the most recent rumours, and was shot down at the time. I believe:

They'll drop the live fee and require the xbox to be always connected.

They were going to find it extremely difficult to sell p2p gaming for another 7 years. So they were going to replace that with 100% of their consumer base being primed for advertising.

Also they thought they were doing publishers a favour with always online (for a cut in the fees of used-game access codes MS ain't going to do that for free). Unfortunately recent examples of only-online implementation haven't been to pretty. But if publishers were still considering it, the willingness of MS taking the stress of the logistics might work out well.

Click to expand...

I think that Microsoft will only make Xbox Live for free if the total Xbox Live subscriptions has decreased a lot during the last year, but i dont think thats the case. Wasnt the last number that Microsoft gave out something like 20 million Xbox Live Gold subscribers? I seems that tons of people are still willing to pay for it.

By the way, having to be always online doesnt necessarily means that used games wont work. I mean i've read a rumor surrounding this that says that you can still buy used games, but you still need to be online to play them. That is why i dont understand why always-on will be used. Piracy will not be an issue unless Microsoft makes a big mistake and the console gets hacked very quickly. But if the always-online is to block used game sales, then i understand why they use this always-online system (if the rumors are true that is).

semiconscious said:

if this 'always online' thing's real, this's the part of it that'll force sony's hand: ms telling publishers that it's willing to take all the heat for any/all problems arising from this...

the future's so dark i don't have to wear shades ...

Click to expand...

Even though it may seem like it, I don't think all publishers/developers view "online only" as the panacea for the video game industry. If MS mandates it into their OS it will be interesting to see if any publishers will vocally or even actively(by way of exclusives) support it before we see the public's reaction.

another random theory I just had:

MS will essentially treat retail games like XBLA games on the current Xbox 360. Every game will have a trial version. They'll use their rumored "you can play the game even when it's only partially installed" tech to help do this. This will apply to retail discs, or digital downloads.

Like current XBLA games, the game will get authorized to both the console you first install/download the game to, *and* your Xbox Live account. At this point, if you had a retail disc, it's essentially useless now (unless they allow some kind of deauthorization or re-licensing), so you can now play straight from the hard drive, kind of like a Steamworks retail game. But all the games can still be played offline, and by any user on that same machine, because it's registered to the console hardware as well. Again, this is basically how the current Xbox 360 works.

But, if you go to a different Xbox and try to play the same game, you will have to be logged in with your Xbox Live account to play it. Otherwise, it defaults to the trial version.

They could maybe modify this a bit and let you authorize up to 3 separate machines or something (so that you essentially have a set amount of "offline-capable" consoles), or make the license transfer more frequent (so if you play on a different console, you do have to log in at least once to "move" the license to the new machine, and automatically deauthorize the older one)

Obviously, I have no special inside info, but this does seem to nicely tie in their past behavior, and the rumors for the future. Still would be annoying DRM, and does restrict used games more, but it wouldn't be quite as evil as the current rumors imply.