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To be truly Steam-like, Microsoft should have only required online checks when registering a game to your account or downloading a game to your account. If you live out in the burbs (quite A LOT of people in the States do) and you lose a connection for whatever reason, you should still be allowed to play the games on your hard drive with the last account that was logged in; this is how Steam works. I can turn on my Surface Pro on an airplane, launch Steam in offline mode, and play just about any game that's already installed. I obviously couldn't play multiplayer games, but I could at least play any single player game installed.

 

I don't think that MS had to go with the all or nothing approach to this. They could have at least kept the advanced feature set for games downloaded from Xbox Live. Hopefully, as others have mentioned, they will ease up and start offering some of these features with future updates.

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To be truly Steam-like, Microsoft should have only required online checks when registering a game to your account or downloading a game to your account. If you live out in the burbs (quite A LOT of people in the States do) and you lose a connection for whatever reason, you should still be allowed to play the games on your hard drive with the last account that was logged in; this is how Steam works. I can turn on my Surface Pro on an airplane, launch Steam in offline mode, and play just about any game that's already installed. I obviously couldn't play multiplayer games, but I could at least play any single player game installed.

 

I don't think that MS had to go with the all or nothing approach to this. They could have at least kept the advanced feature set for games downloaded from Xbox Live. Hopefully, as others have mentioned, they will ease up and start offering some of these features with future updates.

Read this: http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/828937979095845728/

 

You can't fully go offline with Steam for an unlimited time.  That's exactly what the Xbox would be.  Consoles are much less portable than a laptop so it was going to do a check every 24 hours and if it didn't connect it would keep trying for a specified period of time.  I seem to remember 2 weeks but I can't be sure.  After that you'd need to connect, just like Steam. But you don't hear the outcry from Steam because people don't run into that problem, much like they wouldn't with the Xbox.  It's the concept of DRM that people don't like and they have a knee-jerk reaction to it.  The reality is that if people will steal a game, they will and the people that make them have to protect themselves somehow.  This solution, much like the Steam solution, is a much better one than something like SecuROM.  

 

This is an interesting, if not sad, read: http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/29/technology/innovation/game-dev-tycoon-piracy/index.html

 

I have friends that make games and piracy is a huge concern to them.

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Only on Neowin would a multibillion dollar corporation's policy changes be attributed to "internet trolls". Rather enlightening to say the least.

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Only on Neowin would a multibillion dollar corporation's policy changes be attributed to "internet trolls". Rather enlightening to say the least.

 

This place is the epicenter of denial at times.

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MS really have lost touch with reality :/ we are currently in what I call the "bitch and moan era". It doesn't matter what you say or do, people will bitch and moan about it. Why? because they can and because the internet allows them to do so anonymously and without repercussions of their actions. That is my 2 cents, take with a grain of salt.

 

There is no reason why they couldn't have done the check in on Digital downloads and kept Discs just like they have always been.

 

I dunno, the X1 (from how I understand it) is a digital console, it's primary delivery method is digital. Disc based games were merely tacked on as an "offline method" of delivering online games to people without the internet infrastructure to download it via the primary method. While I agree leaving discs based games as they always have been would of been a better option, it probably would of caused alot of headaches with how they planned to manage/control the games in general (which would be why they had to axe some of the features to allow disc based games to function as they do now). Just my thoughts.

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warwagon, on 06 Sept 2013 - 20:59, said:

There is no reason why they couldn't have done the check in on Digital downloads and kept Discs just like they have always been.

 

Holy hell, sensible solution

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At the end of the day - it's all down to marketing. IMO Sony hasn't won the launch console war, they won the launch console marketing war. Sony played the marketing game brilliantly, and Microsoft didn't - simple as that.

 

Ask yourself - if it's such a big thing - why did nobody know about family sharing, etc. You can't blame "internet trolls" for poor marketing. Plus, as warwagon said, why did it have to be an all or nothing thing? They could have quite easily met people in the middle.

 

Plus - one more thing - I highly doubt any of this has affected pre-orders in any way. The PS4 was cheaper, so it will naturally attract more/faster sales. I'm personally one of those people who has every console to play exclusives - last gen I got the 360 on launch day, and the PS3 when it dropped in price a bit. This gen I'm doing it the other way around - not because of price (although I really wish kinect was optional and it was a bit cheaper for those of us who will never use it) but because the PS4 has the exclusives I'd rather play.

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At the end of the day - it's all down to marketing. IMO Sony hasn't won the launch console war, they won the launch console marketing war. Sony played the marketing game brilliantly, and Microsoft didn't - simple as that.

 

Ask yourself - if it's such a big thing - why did nobody know about family sharing, etc. You can't blame "internet trolls" for poor marketing. Plus, as warwagon said, why did it have to be an all or nothing thing? They could have quite easily met people in the middle.

 

Well you can - they yelled about the issues louder than Microsoft could respond and it really just drowned out their message.

 

I do still agree with you though - Microsoft wasn't exactly forthcoming with the finer details of how the ecosystem was going to work.

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Well you can - they yelled about the issues louder than Microsoft could respond and it really just drowned out their message.

 

I do still agree with you though - Microsoft wasn't exactly forthcoming with the finer details of how the ecosystem was going to work.

 

But good marketing can overcome that. Heck, look at the trolls at every iPhone/Mac announcement. Apple's marketing doesn't give the trolls a chance to make an impact - that's what Microsoft needed to do (especially coming in at an ?80 premium over your competitor).

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(OP:) On my desktop, only really IM+ and Mail, which was really surprising to me as I was one of those people who adamantly supported Metro on Windows when it came out. On my tablet & my laptop I absolutely loved Metro IE, Metro Mail, Metro Calendar, Metro everything, but after putting together my first real desktop computer (since XP), I was really surprised by how accurate a lot of the criticisms were about 8 when the previews started coming out.

 

Still, though, it's not like it gets in my way at all (on the contrary, being able to snap IM+ to the left side of my screen and have the desktop running at the same time is very useful), and I still love using Metro on tablets, laptops, and anything with a touchscreen.

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Isn't that the problem MS has most of the time

They have some good ideas, but either the execution, or in this case the presentation of those ideas is just crap

MS has never been good at showing of their 'stuff', they never show us in a clear way the whole picture, it's always a little bit there, then some more info the next week,...

I hope the first thing the new CEO does is fire marketing, and hire somebody who can talk and demo things properly, I think there might be way less backlash when they bring something new to market

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Holy hell, sensible solution

 

This.

 

No need to trash the disc eco system when a digital system can quite easily work alongside it, and already has this generation with pretty rigid DRM that many have accepted. Although Sony allowing 5 PS3s to access each digital download at launch was generous, and was eventually cut back to a measly 2.

 

It's not like your ethernet equipped Blu Ray player says sorry Dave, I cannot play this Blu Ray disc as you haven't checked in in 24 hours/this is your friends Blu Ray, please use my online Netflix app/buy your own Blu Ray disc instead.

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I honestly think that Microsoft can break away and do something interesting here.

 

Because developers get more money for digital downloads than disks and also not having a disk, case, and printed manual also saves them money.

 

Believe me, I am doing my own work on my business and I have been in a class called "Profit Mastery" that teaches you MBA level stuff to help with your business

and not having an actual inventory or distribution is huge.  My "pretend" gaming company would definitely not even bother with an inventory or distribution at all and save that money to advertise.

 

The lower your overhead obviously is better and in this case you don't have to fight with big box stores like Walmart to sell my game when I can have it online for digital download and advertise. 

 

Because of all the advantages to publishers, Microsoft could work out deals where they could go places with this.  Like "buying used games" for digital for example.

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Things like restrictive drm against used games and a required check in every 24 hours or else the console essentially becomes a big black brick are "forward thinking" and the "next level"?

 

Was thinking the same. You will always find that a certain % of people tend to bend their rear and like to take in all that goes.

Original Xbox One features were anti consumer. Period.

 

While in development, they may have been made to read lines like "Xbox One would be the most awesome console ever created" N number of times. That was the reason for the deep embedded confidence in their subconscious of it's success and when there was a backlash, they were "surprised".

 

/s

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Also, look what the Steam model has done to pricing.  It's been amazing how many sales are available on Steam where you have the opportunity to pick up older games pretty cheap.  Steam doesn't support used games and how many "PC is the best gaming system" threads are started any given day?

Yes, look at what the steam model has done, plenty of sale bonanzas throughout the year.

Now go and take a look at MS's xbox 360 store where the first released 360 games are still priced at ?40-?45.

 

Oh yes, of course MS would have sales.... No.

 

EDIT: Some LOL prices:

Xbox 360:

Modern Warfare? 3 - ?49.99

Call of Duty?: Black Ops - ?44.99

Modern Warfare? 2 - ?29.99

GTA IV - ?17.99

 

PC (via xbox live store, not steam):

GTA IV PC - ?4.99

 

So xbox 360 tax is that the price is almost quadrouple! Sales - my arse.

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Yes, look at what the steam model has done, plenty of sale bonanzas throughout the year.

Now go and take a look at MS's xbox 360 store where the first released 360 games are still priced at ?40-?45.

 

Oh yes, of course MS would have sales.... No.

yep, even with digital only distribution, i doubt MS wish for price to go down like how it did on steam.

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