Xbox One Live Down - What would've happened with previous DRM Restrictions?

[rfirth]

Either all console makers force the DRM restrictions on us and we have no choice or the company that wants to enforce the DRM restriction sells it to us with benefits that outweigh the negatives.

 

That's what Microsoft was attempting. But it was assassinated by GameStop, Sony, Sony fans, people who rant against DRM no matter what, people who think it's cool to make fun of Microsoft, people who didn't understand what Microsoft was trying to offer, and a couple people who don't have an internet connection.

[BajiRav]

Not sure why people considered the DRM ahead of its time which is the reason it didn't work out. It didn't work out because the majority of people didn't want it. Its like saying if Coca Cola joined up with Bear Grylls and released a drink "urine in a can" and it flopped, it was just ahead of its time the company was thinking drinks circa 2050, not now in 2014. Either all console makers force the DRM restrictions on us and we have no choice or the company that wants to enforce the DRM restriction sells it to us with benefits that outweigh the negatives.

these same people then go and sing praises for steam and how it's DRM done right! I am left amazed when posts like these keep on harping how Microsoft's DRM is something draconian and never been done before.

It was exactly like steam with the 24hr check added to enable used games sales.

[Thief000]

That's what Microsoft was attempting. But it was assassinated by GameStop, Sony, Sony fans, people who rant against DRM no matter what, people who think it's cool to make fun of Microsoft, people who didn't understand what Microsoft was trying to offer, and a couple people who don't have an internet connection.

 

Finally someone that sees the light...

[duddit2]

for diskless gaming, diskless sharing, family sharing benefits, selling digital copies on etc. DRM is NEEDED, because you have content owners (game publishers) that have to be satisfied that the system cant be easily abused, if they aren't satisfied then they wont let their games be released on the device.

 

As others have said there is far too much unknown about the full range of benefits, but the ones I heard about I would have loved and it would have been well worth it for me. Being able to have all the benefits of a digital download game but also having the disk for install would have helped all those with data caps.

 

What makes me laugh is all the people ranting at the time about what if my internet goes down.....well their connections seemed pretty solid while they were foaming at the mouth posting constantly on forums about how they fear this feature. To me they didn't even have time to play games, they just rant on forums........oh wait... :)

[Thief000]

for diskless gaming, diskless sharing, family sharing benefits, selling digital copies on etc. DRM is NEEDED, because you have content owners (game publishers) that have to be satisfied that the system cant be easily abused, if they aren't satisfied then they wont let their games be released on the device.

 

As others have said there is far too much unknown about the full range of benefits, but the ones I heard about I would have loved and it would have been well worth it for me. Being able to have all the benefits of a digital download game but also having the disk for install would have helped all those with data caps.

 

What makes me laugh is all the people ranting at the time about what if my internet goes down.....well their connections seemed pretty solid while they were foaming at the mouth posting constantly on forums about how they fear this feature. To me they didn't even have time to play games, they just rant on forums........oh wait... :)

 

There is no digital future without DRM, everybody with a properly functioning brain knows it, otherwise no content provider would put its content on a digital service.

It's actually sad that because of all that misinformation tossed around by a no-life community that didn't know the facts, we are missing out on some neat stuff and those fools are still treated like holy prophets when all they do is FUD around and attract the most gullible flock of sheep. Gamers are supposed to be so smart, but nearly everywhere I look that doesn't seem to be the case and it's just another fanboy war going on for the sake of it.

Steam (DRM) doesn't even allow the things MS were proposing and pushing (and I know they were, because one of my best friends works at MS and told me about it, which I reposted here back then and people wanted me to betray his trust) and that has become the golden standard for digital distribution on the PC.

Now a once in 24 hour license verification doesn't seem all that bad when you can share all your games with 10 people online and even offline for an hour. A disc verification system doesn't even allow such a large timespan, but somehow it's supposed to be that way for entitled gamers when everything in the entertainment industry is moving towards digital. In the movie industry streaming use already surpases physical sales on Blu-Ray, which was supposedly the future by those same individuals with a lack of vision.

The proposition of being able to resell your games was also a very big plus and something that the EU is hammering at for example, yet is still missing everywhere. Essentially, MS were providing the liberties of physical games to the digital versions and that's where those entitled narrowminded people went completely wrong in their assumptions. They didn't see it.

Xbox Live is rarely down for longer periods than 24 hours, even when they fudge up their maintenance, they now even have redundancy servers in place to bridge when something goes wrong, Azure is THAT dependable.

Now I can understand if you can't pay your internet bills or you have a very crappy provider that has longer than 24 hour interruptions on a frequent basis (I don't know many that have this problem, but I'm sure in some remote locations that could be), this would have become unusable. But in an ever increasingly connected world, this is inevitable.

[trooper11]

But we're not talking about going to the cabin in the woods, we're not talking about some rare occasion.....

Not sure why you quoted me since your reply had absolutely nothing to do with what I said.

[neoadorable]

Not sure why people considered the DRM ahead of its time which is the reason it didn't work out. It didn't work out because the majority of people didn't want it. Its like saying if Coca Cola joined up with Bear Grylls and released a drink "urine in a can" and it flopped, it was just ahead of its time the company was thinking drinks circa 2050, not now in 2014. Either all console makers force the DRM restrictions on us and we have no choice or the company that wants to enforce the DRM restriction sells it to us with benefits that outweigh the negatives.

 

Ahead of its time because many are still accustomed to discs and being able to hand someone that disc, and because there's a perception that consoles should maintain this schoolyard approach, while Steam and Origin of course don't have to....ahead of its time because sooner or later everything will be online, with almost no physical distribution of entertainment. I think DRM is the wrong key word - it's just a side effect of having to make all content online. I think 2013 was simply too early to announce this future has finally arrived, and as firth said, it also irked MS' channel partners like Gamestop.

 

 

When someone chooses to design something that not everyone can use for whatever reason, it is not because they are being mean or ignorant of reality. Usually, its because they want to provide some sort of new service or a premium experience for those that want access.

Steam is not an option for many people around the world, but Valve is not being mean by offering the service. So if MS or any company wanted to offer say a digital download only service, it wouldn't be mean, it just wouldn't be for everyone.

These companies are not coming into this with emotional baggage or bad intent. Their goal is to make money and they make money by offering compelling services and exciting customers.

 

The second part of my post was referring to this...sorry if i confused you, the cave thing was for Baji :)

[GotBored]

Ahead of its time because many are still accustomed to discs and being able to hand someone that disc, and because there's a perception that consoles should maintain this schoolyard approach, while Steam and Origin of course don't have to....ahead of its time because sooner or later everything will be online, with almost no physical distribution of entertainment. I think DRM is the wrong key word - it's just a side effect of having to make all content online. I think 2013 was simply too early to announce this future has finally arrived, and as firth said, it also irked MS' channel partners like Gamestop.

 

The DRM restrictions didn't make the X1 digital, you could still purchase physical disks. On both the PS4 and Xbox One you can go completely digital now. You should also really stop comparing Steam and Origin to what Microsoft was trying to do because Steam and Origin both have offline modes which allow you to play games completely offline (no need for online checks). Steam also does specials which make it worthwhile to actually go digital.

[neoadorable]

The DRM restrictions didn't make the X1 digital, you could still purchase physical disks. On both the PS4 and Xbox One you can go completely digital now. You should also really stop comparing Steam and Origin to what Microsoft was trying to do because Steam and Origin both have offline modes which allow you to play games completely offline (no need for online checks). Steam also does specials which make it worthwhile to actually go digital.

 

Fair points, though still it doesn't change what i think - that MS wanted something the target device and its audience were not ready for. Steam and Origin - for sure, the offline mode is a major point, that's why they are more viable and i never accused them of being unrealistic. What you say of the sales is also true, though at least Sony is trying, MS could do more on this front.

 

Ironically i've only bought one physical game for X1 till now, everything else has been downloaded from the store.

[Emn1ty]

 Steam also does specials which make it worthwhile to actually go digital.

 

This is only true because of the volume of games they sell. If we don't let a service get established these kinds of sales won't happen. Don't expect them on day one.

[Skiver Veteran]

This is only true because of the volume of games they sell. If we don't let a service get established these kinds of sales won't happen. Don't expect them on day one.

I don't think its strictly down to the volume of games, it may play apart but the biggest reason is there is competition for digital content. There are so many places now that you can buy the digital codes for games, most of the time being steam codes themselves. They have to be competitive with prices when other web sites offer the same content for cheaper.

Right now, digitally MS has no competition at all. I don't know how it works on PS4 because I believe their is an Amazon marketplace (or at least will be at some point), but without owning and using it I can't comment on how well it works or what is on offer.

[duddit2]

The DRM restrictions didn't make the X1 digital, you could still purchase physical disks. On both the PS4 and Xbox One you can go completely digital now. You should also really stop comparing Steam and Origin to what Microsoft was trying to do because Steam and Origin both have offline modes which allow you to play games completely offline (no need for online checks). Steam also does specials which make it worthwhile to actually go digital.

 

You miss the point though that the DRM was so that ALL GAMES would be digital, even disk based copies. This was needed so that people didn't need to download a 40GB game, they could buy the disk to use for install and once activated on their account and xbox the disk could be tucked away and never needed. The digital games we have no all have to be downloaded and there are other differences (no family sharing, no resale - both are handled by the disk based version of games).

 

It comes back always to this, everything is moving digital from movies and content to simply using your pc, when your connection goes down you lose a LOT of functionality across the board RIGHT NOW even without the xbox one. The point is that most people are happy with this because their connections don't go down that often if at all, and the industry is moving (due to more and more pressures) to make it even more stable for everyone. Various situations can be thought of that make it seem unfair but if you are a person that believes for whatever reason that their connection to the net is not guaranteed (army/move a lot/generally unstable internet etc.) no one was forcing you to buy into the xbox one idea, but lets be clear this example represents a majorly small percentage of the overall user base of consoles. More and more games are focusing on online more than single and some are online only, all the other media stuff is online only, there are games you can play offline for sure but lets be clear when your connection goes down your ####ed in more ways than "I cant play on my console" - you also cant post crap on internet forums, you cant stream movies, cant whats app or tweet stuff, cant facebook or watch youtube, would this move really have impacted anyone that much?

 

If so though, if you really thought that this would have impacted you, there was always the PS4 - it was such a clear option that I was stunned and the amount of vocal negativity towards MS's planned approach that it seems clear to me that most of the negativity was started by people wanting to start it, and then loads more jumped on the internet hype wagon and started to think up wild situations where their lives would be in peril if they couldn't play a single player game while they also couldn't do all the other stuff they like to do online - its absolutely ####ing bat #### crazy.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

No swearing please. If I can make out the word, it gets removed.

 

One friendly warning to you all. Next time action will need to be taken.

[duddit2]

Sorry didn't intend as insult just for emphasis

[BajiRav]

I think this thread has run its course, beating the dead horse and all that.

The DRM restrictions didn't make the X1 digital, you could still purchase physical disks. On both the PS4 and Xbox One you can go completely digital now. You should also really stop comparing Steam and Origin to what Microsoft was trying to do because Steam and Origin both have offline modes which allow you to play games completely offline (no need for online checks). Steam also does specials which make it worthwhile to actually go digital.

Do you know why 24hr check was required?

The system was exactly like steam/origin etc. with a 24hr offline mode if you will.

Valve also don't have to subsidize your PC.

Both XBL and PSN have routine sales. I bought Bioshock infinit for $15 on XBL less than a year after launch.

[Showan]

No swearing please. If I can make out the word, it gets removed.

 

One friendly warning to you all. Next time action will need to be taken.

 

 

I know this is off topic from what you wrote... But...

 

Skype in snap mode.... about time.... AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW SNAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    :woot:  :laugh:  :D  :rofl:

 

I just felt like bothering you...

 

Back to your regular scheduled program... Have a good day...

[Showan]

I think this thread has run its course, beating the dead horse and all that.

Do you know why 24hr check was required?

The system was exactly like steam/origin etc. with a 24hr offline mode if you will.

Valve also don't have to subsidize your PC.

Both XBL and PSN have routine sales. I bought Bioshock infinit for $15 on XBL less than a year after launch.

 

I also bought Bioshock Infinite from Live... I got it for around $13... But this was during some crazy New Years flash sale they had going on...

 

I actually own a ton of digital games I got dirt cheap for being Live Gold member.  I probably own around 50-60 digital titles on the 360.  Ranging smaller games to AAA games.  I got about 80% because they were at a very very tempting price.  

[GotBored]

You miss the point though that the DRM was so that ALL GAMES would be digital, even disk based copies. This was needed so that people didn't need to download a 40GB game, they could buy the disk to use for install and once activated on their account and xbox the disk could be tucked away and never needed. The digital games we have no all have to be downloaded and there are other differences (no family sharing, no resale - both are handled by the disk based version of games).

 

It comes back always to this, everything is moving digital from movies and content to simply using your pc, when your connection goes down you lose a LOT of functionality across the board RIGHT NOW even without the xbox one. The point is that most people are happy with this because their connections don't go down that often if at all, and the industry is moving (due to more and more pressures) to make it even more stable for everyone. Various situations can be thought of that make it seem unfair but if you are a person that believes for whatever reason that their connection to the net is not guaranteed (army/move a lot/generally unstable internet etc.) no one was forcing you to buy into the xbox one idea, but lets be clear this example represents a majorly small percentage of the overall user base of consoles. More and more games are focusing on online more than single and some are online only, all the other media stuff is online only, there are games you can play offline for sure but lets be clear when your connection goes down your ####ed in more ways than "I cant play on my console" - you also cant post crap on internet forums, you cant stream movies, cant whats app or tweet stuff, cant facebook or watch youtube, would this move really have impacted anyone that much?

 

If so though, if you really thought that this would have impacted you, there was always the PS4 - it was such a clear option that I was stunned and the amount of vocal negativity towards MS's planned approach that it seems clear to me that most of the negativity was started by people wanting to start it, and then loads more jumped on the internet hype wagon and started to think up wild situations where their lives would be in peril if they couldn't play a single player game while they also couldn't do all the other stuff they like to do online - its absolutely ####ing bat #### crazy.

 

I don't think you get it, a physical copy is still a physical copy. All games on the X1 and PS4 save onto the console be it a physical or digital copy the DRM restrictions had nothing to do with that. The hard drive has faster read speeds than the blu-ray drive which is why they do it this way.

 

Now onto your positives: Family Share.

Microsoft didn't really explain this well but with the Internets most positive outlook this was basically supposed to allow ten people who link XBL accounts together into a family account and would be able to share their games library and play each others games.

Firstly if this was how it was supposed to be, it would have been abused by quite a few people. (One person would buy a game and then the other 9 would be able to play it, it could effectively be cutting away 90% of sales) Which would mean that either no publisher would want to publish on the Xbox One or more likely Microsoft would just cut away family share.

 

Re-Sale of Digital games.

Firstly this wasn't even available, Microsoft was planning on making it happen down the track. Sony are planning to do this on the PS4 without the DRM restriction Microsoft proposed (Digital sales). Microsoft plan also ment that re-sale of games added an additional publishers re-sale fee and it also ment physical copies couldn't be resold because they were linked with the XBL account and you needed to do a digital transfer (which included additional costs).

 

Other negative the DRM restrictions added was the fact you couldn't share your physical games disc. Which to a lot of people basically means you couldn't share your games. Lots of people aren't tech savvy and wouldn't care to figure out how the digital share works.

 

For me personally I have a very stable internet connection, it is up probably 99.9% of the time and is a 100mbit line. I wasn't sold on the DRM not because I'm worried about my internet being down but because I would not have used any of the benefits but I would've lost the ability to sell my physical games, lost the ability to share games (physical) and in the off chance my internet was down it wouldve been nice to have something else to do like play games on a console.

 

- Just as a side not, Sony fanboys weren't against the DRM restrictions, if you look at all the petitions to get it back you would see that a lot of the petition signers were Sony fans who wanted DRM back because they thought it would cause the Xbox One to fail. (They literally wrote it in the comments when they signed the petitions)

[duddit2]

The disk was for install only. It would bind to your account and if you sold the disk the buyer would need to then buy a licence digitally. You can't have diskless gaming from disk based purchases any other way. The disk was to save you from the download only.

[GotBored]

The disk was for install only. It would bind to your account and if you sold the disk the buyer would need to then buy a licence digitally. You can't have diskless gaming from disk based purchases any other way. The disk was to save you from the download only.

 

Basically it gives you the benefit of buying a physical copy but not needing to have the disc inserted to play, yes I know.

Why not just buy digital if you can't be bothered putting a disc into the console?

For a minor benefit which is already available to me if I just buy digital why should I have to lose the ability to share physical games, lose the ability to sell my used games (without incurring additional fees and be required to transfer the game digitally which is likely to cut away lots of potential buyers who aren't tech savvy) and also have to ring home at least once every 24hrs to make sure I'm not pirating games.

[duddit2]

Download caps. Slow connections.

The sharing would be there but digital, with a disk either you have it or your friend does, there is the big chance of it being damaged or lost.

[GotBored]

Download caps. Slow connections.

The sharing would be there but digital, with a disk either you have it or your friend does, there is the big chance of it being damaged or lost.

 

That is odd, most people who wanted the DRM think everyone should have super stable fast speed internet. (Future thinking apparently)

 

For the DRM proposed sharing you couldn't play the same game simultaneously so its the same as either you or your friend have that physical disc. As for the 'big' chance of the disc being damaged, as I don't typically use my game disc as a frisbee it doesn't really apply to me; either the disc is in the console or in its case and the chances of the disc being damaged or lost is highly unlikely for me.

[Emn1ty]

Now onto your positives: Family Share.

Microsoft didn't really explain this well but with the Internets most positive outlook this was basically supposed to allow ten people who link XBL accounts together into a family account and would be able to share their games library and play each others games.

Firstly if this was how it was supposed to be, it would have been abused by quite a few people. (One person would buy a game and then the other 9 would be able to play it, it could effectively be cutting away 90% of sales) Which would mean that either no publisher would want to publish on the Xbox One or more likely Microsoft would just cut away family share.

 

Family share, if I recall, worked differently than that. So long as you were all on the same physical machine you could share the games. This is no different than the 360 and having a family that owns the same games. I don't recall it being something over the net, it was merely a local share (this includes XBL).

 

 

Re-Sale of Digital games.

Firstly this wasn't even available, Microsoft was planning on making it happen down the track. Sony are planning to do this on the PS4 without the DRM restriction Microsoft proposed (Digital sales). Microsoft plan also ment that re-sale of games added an additional publishers re-sale fee and it also ment physical copies couldn't be resold because they were linked with the XBL account and you needed to do a digital transfer (which included additional costs).

 

This again, if I recall, was not the case. Firstly, I don't think Sony has said anything about whether or not their resale service would have DRM. I assume if you're reselling digitaly purchased games, then they do have DRM. The same DRM they have currently, just a reassignment of which account has the content available. You can't do digital resale without guaranteeing in some way a game is transferred.

 

Also, Microsoft I think explicitly denied any "fees" attached to the resale of games over Live, and they also explicitly said it wouldn't keep you from reselling your physical copies either (and that all first party titles would not be restricted from such resale).

 

 

Other negative the DRM restrictions added was the fact you couldn't share your physical games disc. Which to a lot of people basically means you couldn't share your games. Lots of people aren't tech savvy and wouldn't care to figure out how the digital share works.

 

For me personally I have a very stable internet connection, it is up probably 99.9% of the time and is a 100mbit line. I wasn't sold on the DRM not because I'm worried about my internet being down but because I would not have used any of the benefits but I would've lost the ability to sell my physical games, lost the ability to share games (physical) and in the off chance my internet was down it wouldve been nice to have something else to do like play games on a console.

 

- Just as a side not, Sony fanboys weren't against the DRM restrictions, if you look at all the petitions to get it back you would see that a lot of the petition signers were Sony fans who wanted DRM back because they thought it would cause the Xbox One to fail. (They literally wrote it in the comments when they signed the petitions)

 

You're perpetuating a falsehood. Microsoft had clearly stated that the resale of games would be possible at participating retailers. Whatever those retailers were is a mystery now. It could have been all the major players, and all it might have needed was a system to read the disc and unbind it from your Live account. Again, more assumptions and claims about how something we never got all the details for works.

[duddit2]

That is odd, most people who wanted the DRM think everyone should have super stable fast speed internet. (Future thinking apparently)

 

For the DRM proposed sharing you couldn't play the same game simultaneously so its the same as either you or your friend have that physical disc. As for the 'big' chance of the disc being damaged, as I don't typically use my game disc as a frisbee it doesn't really apply to me; either the disc is in the console or in its case and the chances of the disc being damaged or lost is highly unlikely for me.

 

No, just stable I think was the majority view. The whole point of MS's planned approach was to allow all games to be 'digital' and have the benefits of being digital but allow for disks so that people with caps could get the game without having their internet connection impeded.

 

Stable does not mean fast, you have to have fast enough for internet gaming but that's more latency that pure bandwidth. A lot of people however do have perfectly capable gaming connections BUT have download caps, so being able to install from disk was the method to allow for a full digital only future while also acknowledging the fact that a lot of ISP's impose caps.

 

Sorry but I get the feeling this has turned into a ###### for tat argument rather than a logical debate, I feel my point is made and I'm going to bow out now before it gets beyond stupid.

[duddit2]

the ####### above was part of a perfectly valid non explicit term that I can only change to breasts for tat.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

 

A lot is lost in that article I feel. I might have to edit it as its not how we brits use it. Think of it like arguing for arguing's sake.

 

 

to further expand (as I cant edit the above post) - a 'slow' connection can be fine for gaming, lets say 4Mbps. So long s the latency is low your fine. But downloading a 40GB game is a nightmare. I have 150 Mbps at home (don't get that, but it peaks around 130), so not an issue for me, but a LOT of people have these slow but perfectly fine for gaming connections.

 

~Then we have Wifi - even if someone has a 100Mbps connection, the nature of how WiFi works means that if an AP is capable of 150Mbps BUT 10 people are connected and using it then your not getting anywhere near that speed, your getting radio packet loss as well due to adjacent wifi networks bleeding into your own channel.

 

The disks were means to bridge this gap.