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Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

birchtree.me

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Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#121
post #112
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not an actual Steam Deck? You can install any software you want on it.

You can but having to hook it up to a mouse and keyboard and monitor every time I want to install new games from not-Steam would be a pain.

Not saying this is a great solution either, though it beats the trackpad + on screen keyboard. I like to VNC into the deck and do these things.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#122
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General principle: It is way easier to avoid lock in by not being locked in in the first place then to extricate yourself later. It's easy for me not to be locked in to a streaming video service because I had a DVD collection that predates them, and I maintained it instead of being on a streaming service, so I've got a personal collection. It's easy for me not to be locked in to a streaming music service because I ha…

>and I maintained it How do you plan on maintaining your CD and DVD players when the new ones will be sold with a subscription plan like printers?

You don't get in the locked box in the first place. That's the whole point.

A day may come where it is the only option. In which case, personally, I will still advocate for not getting in the box. If they're going to hold "music" and "movies" hostage tell them to go fuck themselves. It's your money they're using to lock you in. And the day that I have nothing left that can play MP3 files is too far in the future to be sure about anyhow.

If you're really concerned that that is a likely future, you need to be joining with me now, not trying to discourage me about the hopelessness of the task. The only reason it's hopeless is your apparent willingness to pay other people to lock you in. If you don't accept that bargain, you won't be locked in.

Further helping is that these closed ecosystems tend to collapse anyhow. If you're locked in, why spend money on giving you good content? Even if they are appealing today, they won't be tomorrow.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Gog made a Steam Deck.

Me too. It’s coming to Linux though. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/07/gog-confirm-they-are-w...

Meh I don't want another store app, I want an API that I can use from my store-agnostic open source game launcher / library. They should just officially support efforts like Heroic instead.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#124
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be possibly illegal, requires someone highly specialized to care about each and every one of your games, and assumes there won’t be a crackdown on the openness and anonymity of the Internet that currently allows the distribution of pirate software. We need to have this right codified into law before we lose it.

Not just possibly, the DMCA makes it a felony to remove or bypass any copy protection measure, even if it doesn't work very well.

Not every jurisdiction has the DMCA, so that’s why I said possibly. It’s definitely illegal in the US.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#125

Gaming is heading in the same direction that TV, movies and music are. It’s a shame. I can invite my friends over, boot up my GameCube to play some Mario Kart Double Dash. As long as the console and disc are okay, I can (hopefully) do that until I pass away. These days? Not so much. I’ll never be able to be sure I can play GTA VI in twenty years. It just sucks not owning anything anymore. I know why they do it, it’s…

I wish Gog made a Steam Deck.

They haven’t even made a Linux client yet. They are about 13 years behind steam

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#127
post #3

Yea, but there are bigger problems coming, this outage is just a temporary preview of the future. What happens to game preservation in 20 or 10 years when the authentication servers for this generation are permanently shut down? Millions of physical discs will instantly turn into e-waste.

Hasn't Microsoft had a good track record of enabling playing old generation games on new hardware?

Not really. They left games broken when they shut down Games for Windows Live.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#128
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If steam goes down you can play offline. They have a portable game console that doesn't need to be connected to play. They have big warnings on the store page of games that require online drm.

They don’t let you resell games, if you die your library is gone, if said steamdeck (or steam machine) breaks those games are gone, the list goes on. It is a digital store with the exact same limitations of any video game console full of digital purchases. I use Steam but I also know I’m vulnerable to a rug pull. We all are. That’s why I’ve been shifting over to GOG and making sure to back up my library in an organiz…

Seeing the little DRM note kills my joy entirely. I have used steam, but the runtime anti-tamper malware has no place on my system. I don't use the word malware lightly. I trust it about as much as a random "overdue" invoice pdf from my spam folder. Maybe less.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#130
post #7

> All I'm saying is it's all digital on the PC side of things, and has been for ages, but we have means of maintaining access to the games we love over here, and it's one of the reasons I've gravitated to the PC for quite a while now. It all depends on where you buy your games of course; GOG will let you download DRM-free installers, but if Steam goes down, your libraries goes down with it. They have made a vague pro…

Even if you get all of your games via Steam, provided you have them downloaded, you can still run them without Steam if you know where to look. Obviously GOG is far better in this regard, but preservation is not a concern on PC, outside of games that are reliant on a server. Starting next generation when prices are going to be obscenely high, I'm really struggling to see why anyone should invest in a console as oppos…

Depends. Steam is not DRM itself, you can open the game folder and copy the game to another computer and steam doesn’t care. The game often has its own DRM though which will stop you.

GOG is different in that they ban DRM outright.

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