• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

What if Microsoft had stuck with their original Xbox one plan.

3 years later and people are still trying to make it look like it was just like Steam. That's so cute.
If Steam was like the original XB1, I'd leave the service and move to GOG overnight. And I say this as someone who owns almost 1500 games in his account.

Besides, people who defend those shitty plans tend to forget that Steam isn't a requirements to play games on PC. There are tons of games that can be ran outside that ecosystem, so if it's bad I can choose not to use it. The same can't be said for consoles. You are forced to use whatever ecosystem the console makers force you to, without any alternatives.
 
^^^^

Wishful thinking. It never existed.

What is wishful thinking? The family share? An ex ms employee that worked on the bone (the sound block) said on B3d before launch that it was very real and even give details how it would work.

To sum it up:

- You would create a family and along that family there would be a family shared library;
- Games would have to be manually added by you to the library, and you could only add games two weeks after launch;
- When an family member would "rent" the license no one else could use. The minimum time for that rent was 1 hour (that's apparently what CBOAT twisted into being 1 hour demos). Meaning that even if you played a shared game for 10 minutes other people would have to wait an hour for the license of that game to be released;
- The licenses could be stacked up, for example a 10 people family could buy 5 licenses and take turns so your family could always play the games;
- Along that family share all your games would automatically be accessible on your home network, so people with multiple consoles in home could play the games on all of them at the same time (That's was actually announced, but later changed when they went for a console and profile license)

Edit: I forgot his name to check, but he was very vocal about leaving xbox team an Ms because he felt the corporate suits have taken over. He was also very annoyed by how the higher ups ignored the fact that Ps4 was going to be more powerful, because they felt the online strategy and kinect would be a success.
 
TBH I'm pretty tired of having to install a disc just to play it. What's the whole point of getting the disc version. My PS4 hard drive is jam packed and I always have to decide to delete something everytime I start a new game.

Wouldnt digital games still "jam pack" your hardrive? Wouldn't it be Even worst since if you delete a digital game and want to replay it you have to download it all over again and games installing from the disc(on ps4 as far as I know) are way faster?
 
OP and people saying: Family share would never have worked got it all wrong.

It was never meant to be a 10 licenses for your family to use thing. It was just one license that you or any (and only one) of your friends/family could play at a single time. Literally like a library, if two people bought the game and added it to the shared library two people would be able to play it at the same time, and so on.

Why would publishers allow that? Because it's a better deal than what they have now, currently they give two licenses for each purchase (one per console and one per account) and that leaves room for effectively having two full copies with the price of one.

That's also why they can't just add that back now. That worked because they were only going to give a license to your account, thus the console would have to be online. Same reason why they can't merge physical and digital games now... They needed the always online checks to add new licensing schemes, it wasn't just a way to try removing consumer rights.

And imho, it would've been a hell of a lot better.

Are you even reading what you're writing? How is what have now worse for publishers?

What is wishful thinking? The family share? An ex ms employee that worked on the bone (the sound block) said on B3d before launch that it was very real and even give details how it would work.

To sum it up:

- You would create a family and along that family there would be a family shared library;
- Games would have to be manually added by you to the library, and you could only add games two weeks after launch;
- When an family member would "rent" the license no one else could use. The minimum time for that rent was 1 hour (that's apparently what CBOAT twisted into being 1 hour demos). Meaning that even if you played a shared game for 10 minutes other people would have to wait an hour for the license of that game to be released;
- The licenses could be stacked up, for example a 10 people family could buy 5 licenses and take turns so your family could always play the games;
- Along that family share all your games would automatically be accessible on your home network, so people with multiple consoles in home could play the games on all of them at the same time (That's was actually announced, but later changed when they went for a console and profile license)

Edit: I forgot his name to check, but he was very vocal about leaving xbox team an Ms because he felt the corporate suits have taken over. He was also very annoyed by how the higher ups ignored the fact that Ps4 was going to be more powerful, because they felt the online strategy and kinect would be a success.

Link?
 
So I want to know what guys would thing the Xbox ecosystem would look like if Microsoft stuck with their original vision. I will show you the points they had currency of a blog on ign by InTheHeezy

Every game that releases in physical form, has a digital counterpart available the same day.

Once you install the game, you would no longer be required to use the disc to play. The disc would be "ripped" to your Xbox One and you could store the disc and avoid the usual wear and tear(adds resell value).

You can convert your physical copy of a game to a digital version. Ex. You could rent or borrow a game, download it to your Xbox One, and then change it to a digital license. You could also purchase the physical copy, change it to a digital copy, and then sell the physical copy with the license renewal system.

Used games could be sold as either physical or digital without a fee. This was only for Microsoft published games. 3rd party publishers had the option to add a fee for the transfer of licenses. 3rd parties could allow or deny you the ability to sell, trade, or lend their games, not Microsoft.

Digital loaning or trading could be done but only to friends on XBL and you would have needed to be friends on XBL for 30 days or longer. There would have been an option for the amount of time you wanted to lend your game(people never return shit on time so this makes perfect sense, lol). You would initially be limited to loaning each game once.

The always online and 24 hour check-in requirement was to verify the license of the game you're using is in fact legit, to verify if system, game, or application updates are needed, to verify if you've acquired new games, resold, traded, or given any games to a friend.

The always online feature was required for any games that take advantage of Azure aka "the cloud".

Download a game on a friend's console from the cloud and play without the need for a physical copy.

Family Sharing would have allowed up to 10 members(household or not) to have access to the entire game library of the main account. On any designated Xbox One(any of the 10 selected), as long as the main account is logged in, up to 10 Xbox Ones could access the entire library at once. The main account holder could still access any of their games and also play online with anyone of the designated members. You could literally buy one copy of a game and share it with up to 10 people in your country. Anyone outside of your country would then be subject to the loaning policy.

So those were all the main points I think. Personally I feel like Microsoft might have sold more units if they stuck with this plan. Now they should have explained it a lot better but all the points are really good. Sure always online requirement really does suck but the other stuff has big potential. I mean selling used games online and having developers taking a cut was smart. You as a customer can take more risk, and the cooperation can see what games are getting traded in the most. The biggest potential tho, was having every game become digital. We could be looking at a new steam store. Microsoft could have some crazy big deals because now they are cutting out the middle man completely.

Honesly I'm a little sad this never panned out :(

None of this potential outweighs 24 hour check-ins and online requirements
 
Are you even reading what you're writing? How is what have now worse for publishers?
What do you prefer, to have any purchase to grant two licenses and have people buying a game once and playing together without any restriction, or just have a single license that only one can play at a time?

The later allows for more people wanting to play than licenses available which could drive more sales. The first makes every purchase a buy one get two.


Like I said, it was before xbone launch. I did posted here on one thread but it was largely ignored XD
 
What do you prefer, to have any purchase to grant two licenses and have people buying a game once and playing together without any restriction, or just have a single license that only one can play at a time?

The later allows for more people wanting to play than licenses available which could drive more sales. The first makes every purchase a buy one get two.

Again, that doesn't make much sense from a publisher's standpoint. What reason would they have to do that?
 
What do you prefer, to have any purchase to grant two licenses and have people buying a game once and playing together without any restriction, or just have a single license that only one can play at a time?

The later allows for more people wanting to play than licenses available which could drive more sales. The first makes every purchase a buy one get two.

Did you missed the part where 1 purchase can net you 10 licences? And that it applies to physical (which was already 1 licence) not just digital copies?

Also the rumors said, only two can play at the same time, so exactly as we have now but with player #2 being anyone from 9 guys.

And let's say I buy what you're saying, only one guy can play at a time and publishers did like it. Didn't just remove one of best consumer rights for digital? How is that not anti consumer?
 
exactly. and keep in mind that Sony originally had game sharing between 5 accounts for all digital games.

They ended up having to restrict that down to 2 or 3 (I forget which) due to pressure from publishers, and revamp it entirely for PS4. There is no way microsoft would have gotten away with family share as you describe.

I used to bring this up all the time in these threads.
 
What is wishful thinking? The family share? An ex ms employee that worked on the bone (the sound block) said on B3d before launch that it was very real and even give details how it would work.

To sum it up:

- You would create a family and along that family there would be a family shared library;
- Games would have to be manually added by you to the library, and you could only add games two weeks after launch;
- When an family member would "rent" the license no one else could use. The minimum time for that rent was 1 hour (that's apparently what CBOAT twisted into being 1 hour demos). Meaning that even if you played a shared game for 10 minutes other people would have to wait an hour for the license of that game to be released;
- The licenses could be stacked up, for example a 10 people family could buy 5 licenses and take turns so your family could always play the games;
- Along that family share all your games would automatically be accessible on your home network, so people with multiple consoles in home could play the games on all of them at the same time (That's was actually announced, but later changed when they went for a console and profile license)

Edit: I forgot his name to check, but he was very vocal about leaving xbox team an Ms because he felt the corporate suits have taken over. He was also very annoyed by how the higher ups ignored the fact that Ps4 was going to be more powerful, because they felt the online strategy and kinect would be a success.

So the guys designing the audio circuitry had a better handle on the digital rights management policies than the executives (whose job it actually was to write the policies) they sent to E3 that year?

I'm beginning to see why the thing was a mess at launch.
 
I'm calling BS on this, still.

MS never in any way shape or form came out about what the family sharing actually entailed until AFTER they pulled the 180.

They were entirely shady af in any interview where questions came up about it, until after they changed the policy and then said all these things about the family share and how GREAT and AMAZING it would've been.

I'm almost certain someone had said on here back during that timeframe that it was only timed access to the games, as well.

Absolutely, I believe it was just them and EA on board with that.
Eventually they turned that into EA Access instead. I'm not seeing any reselling going on there.
 
The system would probably be doing just as bad as the Wii U in monthly sales.

Nah. I think it would have started worse, but finished strong. Good word of mouth as people realised they're connected to the Internet anyway and how fucking AWESOME it is to pay disc prices for a digital game.

Like the dashboard now, the DRM and licensing stuff would have evolved and got better.

Still salty over it. Would have been so fucking good.
 
If publishers and console manufacturers were smart, they would shitcan all these idiotic schemes relying on absurd made-up rules for digital games. DRM, internet-enabled license checking, "primary" consoles, and so on. Make the buying process actually attractive to customers (not "consumers") and be a place they WANT to shop and spend money. Digital games should come complete with a return period guarantee, lower prices for digital reflecting lower distribution costs, sales, and multiple distribution channels that force price competition. PS+ and Games with Gold are already providing extra hooks to encourage people to use the services via free games, game save backups, and original content -- keep providing that kind of high value with these services to get people to LOVE your service and happily pay for it for years.

Why don't these companies ever seem to think of this kind of thing? It seems to work fine for PC game publishers. As a game customer, I'm so tired of being treated like I'm a potential thief, a cheat, a scammer, or just a mark for teams of people working furiously behind the scenes to come up with any possible new way of squeezing another dime out of me. It's like if they spent half that effort on trying to create an engaging and straightforward experience where they treat customers with respect and try to deliver real value instead, everyone would benefit. Where's the Gamer's Club Unlocked for digital console games? I'd cheerfully pay for that.
 
I'm calling BS on this, still.

MS never in any way shape or form came out about what the family sharing actually entailed until AFTER they pulled the 180.

They were entirely shady af in any interview where questions came up about it, until after they changed the policy and then said all these things about the family share and how GREAT and AMAZING it would've been.

I'm almost certain someone had said on here back during that timeframe that it was only timed access to the games, as well.

Nah, this wouldnt have flown. They already complained about the PS3 doing it with 5, and reduces it to 2. But now 10 forever was ok? 😂
 
All Microsoft corporate policy in the minds of some after some time has past:

V6EZtw8.jpg
 
Nah. I think it would have started worse, but finished strong. Good word of mouth as people realised they're connected to the Internet anyway and how fucking AWESOME it is to pay disc prices for a digital game.

Like the dashboard now, the DRM and licensing stuff would have evolved and got better.

Still salty over it. Would have been so fucking good.


It would have made the Atari Jaguar look successful.
 
There was an outrage and a 180 for a reason.

It would probably be doing wii u numbers or worse and would in no way shape or form would it be doing better in sales if they had stuck to the original plans.

I dont think so. Maybe I'm just an optimist but I feel tweaking it a little and they could have rode it out. I think once it was out and in use you'd see how the new systems worked and many would feel better about that. Not that I think it would be selling better than the existing system. To do that you would have had to priced it the same day 1 as the PS4.
 
What is wishful thinking? The family share? An ex ms employee that worked on the bone (the sound block) said on B3d before launch that it was very real and even give details how it would work.

To sum it up:

- You would create a family and along that family there would be a family shared library;
- Games would have to be manually added by you to the library, and you could only add games two weeks after launch;
- When an family member would "rent" the license no one else could use. The minimum time for that rent was 1 hour (that's apparently what CBOAT twisted into being 1 hour demos). Meaning that even if you played a shared game for 10 minutes other people would have to wait an hour for the license of that game to be released;
- The licenses could be stacked up, for example a 10 people family could buy 5 licenses and take turns so your family could always play the games;
- Along that family share all your games would automatically be accessible on your home network, so people with multiple consoles in home could play the games on all of them at the same time (That's was actually announced, but later changed when they went for a console and profile license)

Edit: I forgot his name to check, but he was very vocal about leaving xbox team an Ms because he felt the corporate suits have taken over. He was also very annoyed by how the higher ups ignored the fact that Ps4 was going to be more powerful, because they felt the online strategy and kinect would be a success.
Nah.
 
Shit would have bombed so bad.

  • More expensive than the competition
  • Weaker than the competition
  • Digital reselling would have been something tragic like 10% of the price if they ever allowed it. So like have fun only getting $6 at MOST back.
  • Hope XBL services aren't off for more than 24hrs.
 
Nah. I think it would have started worse, but finished strong. Good word of mouth as people realised they're connected to the Internet anyway and how fucking AWESOME it is to pay disc prices for a digital game.

Like the dashboard now, the DRM and licensing stuff would have evolved and got better.

Still salty over it. Would have been so fucking good.

Somehow people forgot they were connected to the internet? What is this bullshit?

You act as if suddenly people would be aware of their internet connections and stuff, as if they weren't already debating how viable that is in their head. For me, if I go to a hotel and I can't access their wifi for the duration of their trip, guess what? I'm shit outta luck with my games. Oops, can't play it at my grandma's house either. What's that RCN? You have an outage? Guess my console has one too.

And people shouldn't have to wait for DRM stuff to "get better", because companies taking away the rights of the consumer for "protection" or whatever reason should be workable from the get go.

I'm glad it was applicable for you and a handful of other people, but for the majority, it wasn't.
 
Nah. I think it would have started worse, but finished strong. Good word of mouth as people realised they're connected to the Internet anyway and how fucking AWESOME it is to pay disc prices for a digital game.

Like the dashboard now, the DRM and licensing stuff would have evolved and got better.

Still salty over it. Would have been so fucking good.

you are insane
 
"pay disc prices for a digital game"


This is always the narrative. As if somehow markets just keep the EXACT same pricing when you upend the whole structure and cripple competition with used games.

Microsoft, right now, has by far and wide the worst digital deals of the two major consoles. It's not even close: They run half as many sales, with typically half as deep discounts, and with maybe half as many games. Right now, as the console that didn't even pitch a digital-focused future, the PS4 has more and better deals during a monthly flash sale than Microsoft typically has in their yearly "big" ones.


Their original plan would have restricted competition with used games and let them control the full market: If you believe that this would somehow lead to physical prices being how they are today with just that added benefit of getting a digital copy, I've got a bridge to sell you.

They wanted their restrictive setup because they wanted to leverage the walled garden on the downstream as well instead of the current competition we have that leads to steep, fast discounts on physical games and that has slowly led to Amazon and Best Buy bidding down their margins through GCU/Amazon Prime. They wanted to curb competition with used copies, a crucial factor in how pricing of new games are shaped.

And you believe you somehow would have been better off with respect to prices, when Microsoft was controlling who can resell games and how?


Please.
 
Wouldn't mind if the whole selling discs must be friend and gamestop only can deactivate license blahblah never happened. Insane scheme was and still insane.
 
Nah. I think it would have started worse, but finished strong. Good word of mouth as people realised they're connected to the Internet anyway and how fucking AWESOME it is to pay disc prices for a digital game.

Like the dashboard now, the DRM and licensing stuff would have evolved and got better.

Still salty over it. Would have been so fucking good.

It all makes sense now. All that salt is preventing you from thinking rationally.

Maybe have some water?
 
It would have been a disaster and the XBO would have trailed even worse than it does now. It might have given Wii U a run for its money, success-wise.

Even if this dream scenario of their original "plan" was true (a premise I dispute based on their own hilariously muddled messaging when they announced the system, clearly showing they didn't really plan for half of this shit to benefit players - particularly the laughable family share plan that was never.going.to.happen.ever.in.your.life.), it would have been so battle scarred from the hit they took from the game community that there's no way they could have succeeded. People forget just how severe the outcry was. Even Gamefly and Gamestop was getting in out it. The polls showcasing fan displeasure on XBO was amongst the highest I've ever seen.
 
Somehow people forgot they were connected to the internet? What is this bullshit?

You act as if suddenly people would be aware of their internet connections and stuff, as if they weren't already debating how viable that is in their head. For me, if I go to a hotel and I can't access their wifi for the duration of their trip, guess what? I'm shit outta luck with my games. Oops, can't play it at my grandma's house either. What's that RCN? You have an outage? Guess my console has one too.

And people shouldn't have to wait for DRM stuff to "get better", because companies taking away the rights of the consumer for "protection" or whatever reason should be workable from the get go.

I'm glad it was applicable for you and a handful of other people, but for the majority, it wasn't.

You don't have a smartphone that can tether? Come on now, it's 2016. Unless Xbox Live is down, everyone has a way to connect to the internet as a ONCE OFF.

you are insane

#noliesdetected


It all makes sense now. All that salt is preventing you from thinking rationally.

Maybe have some water?

Nah. I don't buy used, I don't lend/borrow and I rarely sell games. Which funny enough, aren't those things most devs/publishers would like? They'd rather sell 2 copies of a game as opposed to have one guy lend his copy out to a bunch of mates once he's done with it.

Which I guess is also why Microsoft were so vague with the family sharing. True sharing with 10 people would have pissed off devs heaps.

But yeah as someone who only buys new and keeps game with reliable internet options 24 hours a day, 7 days a week who lives in Australia, the original Xbox One was the perfect console. Our disc based prices are at minimum, $20 cheaper than digital launch day and sometimes up to $30 cheaper. For me? Up to $40 as I get staff price through my brother at JB Hifi.

So yeah, again, for me, it was perfection.
 
Microsoft's initial plans really reeked of thoughtlessness. They wanted you to be connected all the time. What if XBL got DDOSed? They wanted to restrict used games. What if a game goes out of print or I want to get rid of games I don't play for cash? They wanted to be an all digital device. Why include a blu-ray drive? They wanted you to connect it to your cable box? Why the hell is that a selling point in 2013?

Microsoft had some really terrible ideas cooking that never really benefited the consumer in the end. Not to mention they were in that awful transition period after Windows 8 flopped and Windows 10 was being developed. If Microsoft had waited another year, put Mattrick off the project, scrapped whatever initial plans they had from the get go and made it more powerful, the Xbox One would've been better. As of now it was a mess at launch and a mess now.
 
You don't have a smartphone that can tether? Come on now, it's 2016. Unless Xbox Live is down, everyone has a way to connect to the internet as a ONCE OFF.








Nah. I don't buy used, I don't lend/borrow and I rarely sell games. Which funny enough, aren't those things most devs/publishers would like? They'd rather sell 2 copies of a game as opposed to have one guy lend his copy out to a bunch of mates once he's done with it.

Which I guess is also why Microsoft were so vague with the family sharing. True sharing with 10 people would have pissed off devs heaps.

But yeah as someone who only buys new and keeps game with reliable internet options 24 hours a day, 7 days a week who lives in Australia, the original Xbox One was the perfect console. Our disc based prices are at minimum, $20 cheaper than digital launch day and sometimes up to $30 cheaper. For me? Up to $40 as I get staff price through my brother at JB Hifi.

So yeah, again, for me, it was perfection.

I also think it would be perfect if a bank came along that took money from everyone else's accounts and gave all that money to me. Other than me, how many people do you think will choose that bank? Then how long do you think the bank would end up staying in business?
 
I buy almost all my PS4 games digitally, and would be open to an all digital console as long as I felt I was getting something in return for giving up the option of physical media (smaller/quieter/cheaper hardware), and was reasonably convinced that prices digitally would be something close to competitive with physical media (and we are not there yet).

I don't think I would ever buy a console that required me to keep it connected to the internet in order to play a single player offline game. Especially not when I also have to connect to Xbox Live which has an above average record of server stability, but not a perfect one. I certainly wouldn't buy a console that required me to have a camera plugged into the console in order to use the console in any capacity, as was the original plan.

The TV TV TV functionality was of little interest to me, and as I think history has shown, the majority of console early adopters simply care about the console's ability to play games. Other features are nice, but they are way down the list of features that people want. I am not going to drop £430 on a box that lets me watch TV on my TV.
 
That was the worst idea for the whole industry in quite a while.

Everything apart of the 10 machine share, sounds disastrous.
 
It has done MS a lot of damage, brand-wise. Everything they built from 2006 onwards with the success of arguably the greatest console ever had been utterly ruined in the span of a week. I don't think it's something they'll recover from unless Sony do another 599 moment.
 
I must repeat one thing, because people seem to have forgotten it:
- 24 hour online check-ins were not the original plan. It was a backtrack!
The original plan was always-online. No connection, no play.

Poor feedback made them make the policy a bit less strict, before they scrapoed it altogether. All within some 45 days.
 
Really wish they kept the family sharing plan. Would have been great.

We know nothing of the family sharing plan other than stuff that was said after they cancelled everything. There is absolutely no way that it would have worked as outlined in the original post.
 
I didn't and still don't trust Microsoft to have upheld to the ideals outlined in their original plan. I only believe that they would've had this system, some suit would've calculated the potential revenue they were losing from it, and backpedaled hard post-launch. And likely the original terms of service probably would've entitled them to backtrack on anything they wanted to just in case a scenario like that came up.

That said, I do have a lot of faith in the Xbox crew right now and I am definitely a Team Spencer kind of guy... But I still think the suits above Xbox Division at Microsoft Corporate can call the shots any time they like. I don't think Microsoft is inherently bad, but I do think they tend to weigh their own interests more than their consumer's, and sometimes that synergizes well with what consumers want and sometimes it just plain doesn't, and going into Xbox One, their smug early reactions to consumer questioning and criticism really didn't instill a trust that this was going to be a synergetic plan.
 
You don't have a smartphone that can tether? Come on now, it's 2016. Unless Xbox Live is down, everyone has a way to connect to the internet as a ONCE OFF.

I can. But I shouldn't have to. And that's why I would have bought a PS4 over a One if they had that plan, simply because it would be annoying to continuously have to check in with MS for the sole purpose of supporting some draconian DRM.

But you and I aren't everyone. Not everyone has a smartphone, or are so willing to use their data plans to log in and figure that shit out. They really shouldn't have to in the first place - it's an extra unnecessary step.

Lastly, you keep saying "everyone". MS's market research apparently showed that not everyone around the world has perfect internet connections that are so reliable that this wouldn't be a problem. When MS says it isn't worth it, why do you continue to push the narrative that it is?

I must repeat one thing, because people seem to have forgotten it:
- 24 hour online check-ins were not the original plan. It was a backtrack!
The original plan was always-online. No connection, no play.

Poor feedback made them make the policy a bit less strict, before they scrapoed it altogether. All within some 45 days.

If that's the truth, that makes the post I'm responding to even more cute.
 
Top Bottom