Xbox One: You must connect to the internet to "activate" all games


Recommended Posts

Here's how the system works: when you buy an Xbox One game, you'll get a unique code that you enter when you install that game. You'll have to connect to the Internet in order to authorize that code, and the code can only be used once. Once you use it, that game will then be linked to your Xbox Live account. "It sits on your harddrive and you have permission to play that game as long as you?d like," Harrison said.

http://kotaku.com/you-will-be-able-to-trade-xbox-one-games-online-micros-509140825

Makes sense. This should stop some piracy issues, as it requires you to authenticate your game.

At least it's not completely "always online" like other people have said.

Makes sense. This should stop some piracy issues, as it requires you to authenticate your game.

At least it's not completely "always online" like other people have said.

Well some games will be.

And I'm pretty sure they'll have some function of allowing you to use it for so long before having to reconnect to the internet again, otherwise you could get 3 xboxs, get all the games on one, then sign in on the other 2 xboxes and get them transferred and keep all 3 xboxes offline and play all the games on all of them at the same time, i.e. piracy.

I can see why some people might complain but it has been the same on Steam for some time with little complaints which is probably a reason why Microsoft are taking this approach. But the PC market and console can be quite different with things like this.

That really stinks, so if you have two Xbox ones in your house, you can't play the game on the other? I think this is very restrictive.

I can see why some people might complain but it has been the same on Steam for some time with little complaints which is probably a reason why Microsoft are taking this approach. But the PC market and console can be quite different with things like this.

Very different.

PC's are more for just an individual to play, where as consoles are for 1 to 4+ players. Consoles have turned into a social gathering item. No one goes to a persons house with 4 other people and crowd around a PC to play... but we do it on consoles all the time. If people are playing together with PC's, it's either online or in a lan mode. And this last batch of consoles was trying to aim at lessening people having to move their consoles around....

And with Steam, I can log into a friend computer, use my login, and download the games and still play them on the same account while on a different machine. MS has to at least allow this or they are seriously shooting themselves in the foot before the race even starts.

That really stinks, so if you have two Xbox ones in your house, you can't play the game on it? I think this is very restrictive.

Next time read the story, it links to your Live account, so just log in to your live account on the other Xbox One.

That really stinks, so if you have two Xbox ones in your house, you can't play the game on it? I think this is very restrictive.

If you use the same live account on both consoles then it'll work fine, but if your talking about 2 separate xbox's with 2 separate accounts then it won't work.

And I'm pretty sure they'll have some function of allowing you to use it for so long before having to reconnect to the internet again, otherwise you could get 3 xboxs, get all the games on one, then sign in on the other 2 xboxes and get them transferred and keep all 3 xboxes offline and play all the games on all of them at the same time, i.e. piracy.

youre forgetting that you still have to have the disc in the drive to play. that wont allow more than one person to play at the same time,because there is only one disc.

If you use the same live account on both consoles then it'll work fine, but if your talking about 2 separate xbox's with 2 separate accounts then it won't work.

I'm also willing you can log on to accounts on any console as easy as it is now so I don't see how brining your game to a friend's house would be an issue either.

It is certainly restrictive for reselling games. I hope Sony doesn't do this. I love being able to easily sell and buy games! I never owned an Xbox nor do I plan to, but I hope this isn't a trend in general!

Very different.

PC's are more for just an individual to play, where as consoles are for 1 to 4+ players. Consoles have turned into a social gathering item. No one goes to a persons house with 4 other people and crowd around a PC to play... but we do it on consoles all the time. If people are playing together with PC's, it's either online or in a lan mode. And this last batch of consoles was trying to aim at lessening people having to move their consoles around....

And with Steam, I can log into a friend computer, use my login, and download the games and still play them on the same account while on a different machine. MS has to at least allow this or they are seriously shooting themselves in the foot before the race even starts.

Yeah, that's what I mean about the market with this type of proposal being entirely different.

And I think this is going to be very bad for Microsoft.

People are confusing restrictive with a small fee.

What small fee?

"They would be paying the same price we paid, or less?" we asked.

"Let?s assume it?s a new game, so the answer is yes, it will be the same price," Harrison said.

If you own a game, you should not have to pay a fee to play it on a friends Xbox. By requiring a code and a fee to play a game is restrictive

What small fee?

"They would be paying the same price we paid, or less?" we asked.

"Let?s assume it?s a new game, so the answer is yes, it will be the same price," Harrison said.

A near-new game costing the same price as a new game.. what madness is this!?

I'll wait and see what the actual price is MS set before judging.

What small fee?

"They would be paying the same price we paid, or less?" we asked.

"Let?s assume it?s a new game, so the answer is yes, it will be the same price," Harrison said.

IIRC on the stream they said "small fee." This article seems to contradict that.

A near-new game costing the same price as a new game.. what madness is this!?

No, if you're taking it round to a friends to play for a couple of hours they'll have to pay full price - completely destroying the previous culture of taking games round to a mates to play.

Relevant:

http://chiefs18.kinj...orces-509169613

How the Xbox One Fails the Armed Forces

People in the U.S. Armed Forces, are, for the most part, just like the rest of us. There are dedicated gamers in there too. If they get a little downtime, deployed gamers would like to spend it like they would at home, or at least as close to home as possible.

A Marine deployed to Iraq, a Guardsman in Afghanistan, a sailor out on the Persian Gulf, these guys would really like to play some games when they get done for the day, and for the most part, they do. I have personally known a Navy man who's entire non-clothes locker, meant for personal effects, was filled up by a Gamecube, a display, and a slew of games. I was even part of an onboard LAN party where we played Starcraft 1 and Diablo 2.

The Xbox One, however, will change how these men and women could game, if they were to bring one on deployment. Often times, loved ones will send a military person a care package, filled with treats, letters, and small gifts, with requested new games among them. An excited sailor whose wife just sent him the new Halo game would set up his display, hook up the Xbox One, pop in the disc, and be confronted with no way to activate the game on the internet, because the ship doesn't have any.

There won't be any more Marines bringing their personal games with them, and having one person bring the console, because it just won't work, the game will demand a new connection once a day. What's worse, many of the people this change will effect may not be well informed gamers, and may not even realize the problem until they're stuck in the middle of nowhere with little to do, and a lot of time to pass.

It's a worrying trend, publishers and hardware manufacturers who assume that the internet is fully functioning and prevalent wherever you may be in the world. That might be the case a couple decades down the line, but for right now, our brothers and sisters who are deployed, and in the most need of entertainment are deprived of some really great games, and now, looks like they might even be deprived of an entire console.

People honestly expect Microsoft to cater for every tiny fringe case there is possible?

Why is it necessary for a console to have online-based DRM? What features does it provide the consumer? How will you be able to play your games in 10 or 15 years from now? I can still play with my brother on Goldeneye on the N64. Can Microsoft guarantee me a similar experience with the new CoD or what have you?

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • OpenClaw now has native mobile apps on iOS and Android by Karthik Mudaliar OpenClaw, the viral open-source personal AI agent, now has its own mobile app, available on both Android and iOS. Users can pair the app with an existing OpenClaw gateway and can start using new mobile-native features that are now available on the app. The app supports all the existing features you'd already have seen on OpenClaw's TUI, as well as some more, such as real-time and background Talk mode, action approvals, sharing from iOS, and optional access to device capabilities such as camera, screen, location, photos, contacts, calendar, and reminders. These features are available on both the Android and iOS versions of the app. What's important with these apps is that they don't run OpenClaw on your phone, but are actually just companion apps that require a running OpenClaw Gateway on an existing device, on macOS, Linux, or Windows via WSL2. To pair the app with your existing OpenClaw gateway, users need to run the command "/pair qr" on the TUI or existing chat interface, which brings up a QR code. Users can then scan this QR code to pair it up with the mobile app. There's also an option to manually pair the app by entering the host and a port. Previously, OpenClaw had been available on phones via WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Matrix, and others. Now, with a native mobile app, the interface is much cleaner and more focused on just the OpenClaw, of course, with the added support for camera, screen, location, and more. It's important to note that OpenClaw comes with its own security warnings. There's always a chance of prompt injection with these tools, so users are recommended to double-check authentication, tool policy, sandboxing, and execution approvals rather than prompts alone. For users well-versed with the AI harness, a native mobile app makes it easier to approve an automation, share a link, use voice, or let an agent react to phone-side context.
    • Google pitches Spanner as one database for all AI agents with these new featues by Karthik Mudaliar Google Cloud is introducing new features within Spanner, its distributed database, as a place where enterprises should keep their data, using which AI agents could make smarter and better decisions. In a detailed blog post, Google highlighted quite a few features coming to Spanner, including relational data, graph relationships, vector search, key-value access, full-text search, and operational analytics together in one database architecture. Google says that today's systems aren't well-made for AI agents. There could be data that is present in one system, search indexes in another, embeddings in a vector database, and relationship data in a graph database. This fragmentation isn't great for AI agents to do their jobs because they don't have access to all of this data in one place. This is where Google is positioning Spanner as a solution. Spanner is already a globally distributed relational database with strong consistency, and Google wants its customers to see it as a broader data layer for AI applications. The company introduced something called Spanner Graph, along with integrated vector search, full-text search, a Cassandra-compatible key-value endpoint, and a columnar engine for analytical queries on operational data. Google also added that its ScaNN-powered vector search can support indexes with more than 10 billion vectors, while the columnar engine can make some analytical scans up to 200 times faster. All of this isn't just exclusive to the Google Cloud Platform, and there's support for multi-cloud as well. This comes via Spanner Omni, which Google says is a downloadable, containerized version of Spanner that can run on Kubernetes and in environments outside Google Cloud, including Microsoft Azure and AWS, and even on-premises infrastructure as well as edge deployments. Google says that customers who are interested in the full-featured edition should contact the company, and there's no word on commercial availability or separate pricing. Those interested can read the full blog by Google Cloud, which details these features individually.
    • Kalmuri 4.2.5 by Razvan Serea Kalmuri is your all-in-one, portable screen capture and recording solution designed for speed, simplicity, and flexibility. Whether you need a full-screen snapshot, a custom area, a scrolling webpage, or smooth video recording, Kalmuri delivers with ease. Capture text instantly from images with built-in OCR, keep floating images on top for quick reference, and use the precise color picker for perfect design matching. Customize hotkeys to work your way and share results instantly with built-in upload options. Kalmuri runs without installation, making it ideal for USB use, and offers an intuitive interface that’s easy to learn. Kalmuri key features: Video recording support (designation of whole screen and area) Whole screen, active program, window control, area application Extract text from images using optical character recognition (OCR). Support for PNG, JPG, WEBP, BMP, GIF file formats MP4 video recording powered by FFmpeg for high-quality results Full web page capture Share the captured image on the web Color extraction function Printer output Hotkey settings Adjustable via keyboard for area capture (Arrow key, Ctrl+Arrow key, Shift+Arrow key) File name format (sequential, datetime) Free to use it at work, at home, in government offices, at school, etc. Using Kalmuri portable for video recording Kalmuri’s portable version doesn’t include FFmpeg, which is required for video recording. Without it, you’ll get an “error FFmpeg.exe not found” message. To fix this, download FFmpeg from the provided link, extract it, and place FFmpeg.exe in Kalmuri’s folder. Kalmuri will then recognize it automatically, allowing you to start recording in high quality instantly. Kalmuri 4.2.5 changelog: Fixed an intermittent crash when using Area Capture Improved stability for Area Capture and screen recording Resolved a capture issue that could occur right after startup Download: Kalmuri 4.2.5 | 24.2 MB (Freeware) Download: Kalmuri Portable 4.2.5 | 2.1 MB View: Kalmuri Website | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      rosiecharles earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      Juan Dela earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      Collagen Project earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Reacting Well
      Wakeen1966 earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Rookie
      Almohandis went up a rank
      Rookie
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      516
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      273
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      143
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      98
    5. 5
      macoman
      54
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!