Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by eterm » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

r_lee wrote: post #210

epistasis wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my experience with all Microsoft software. The worst thought out, buggy, untested pile of crap. There's something seriously wrong in Redmond. At least with linux, you can search on the web and find a forum post telling you the magic incantation. With Microsoft, you will be forced to consume some second-rate engineer's unmanaged, barely workable, edge case until it might or might not work. Office on the web is…

Azure is also such a mess. 10 redirects to get to the portal, when creating an account/etc. if you do one thing wrong it might just disappear from a tenant or not bind properly or something and then you gotta do it all over again (happened last year) I just don't know how this is possible, why is everything so broken?

And the official auth URLs are always such random crap that I'm surprised people don't get phished left right and centre.

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

#272

Post by walrus01 » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #77

cautiouscat wrote: post #9

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…

In twenty years it doesn’t matter if Rockstar delists GTA6. The DRM will be cracked. You will be able to play and you WILL have a better experience playing a cracked DRM free version than any official version. You can play an emulated Mario Kart Double Dash on a Steam Machine (or any PC) today and get a better experience than playing it on a Game Cube. Digital only games sounds bad at first but preservation of video…

This assumes the game isn't designed from the beginning to be entirely reliant on the operation of servers. For instance there never has been and never will be any form of offline function for Destiny 1 or 2, even if all the person wants to do is play the single player campaigns.

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

#273

Post by diseasedyak » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

redwall_hp wrote: post #235

verall wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Optical media capped out at 4 layer blu-ray (~128gb) which I'm not even sure that consoles can reliably read. So my theory is that GTA 6 is somewhat larger and they really didn't want to invest into engineering a solution for multiple-disc or something when ~everyone downloads their games nowadays anyways. So in some sense, the true physical release "can't" exist. This doesn't apply to most anything but GTA 6 is the…

Baldur's Gate 3 is already there. It's over 120GB and IIRC PS5 games only use up to triple layer. There was no disc release. The current Gran Turismo is around 140GB. I think it has a disc, but it'll only have like half the game on it. Final Fantasy XIV is around 200GB now, and they're talking about dropping PS4 support because drive capacity is going to be too low during the patch cycle for the next expansion. Also,…

Hey just a correction, there was indeed a physical release of BG3 on PS5. It was released straight from Larian and came on 2 discs, dual-layer 100GB to be exact. Xbox Series as well, but it came on 4 discs due to capacity limits.

Your point stands, though. Games have grown so huge that downloading them isn't a hassle for most, but disc definitely is or has maxed out. That's not to mention how long it takes to install stuff, especially on PS5!

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

#274

Post by flohofwoe » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:51 PM UTC

mawadev wrote: post #151

I wanted to show my gf the halo 1 campaign, so I downloaded the 30GB Masterchief Collection via steam. When I launched it, I was greeted with a black box. After 1 Minute it was a microsoft login screen that looked eerily like a browser inside the game. Since I couldn't do anything else, the game was stuck at a sub 720p resolution. I said fine Ill just create an account. Yea so mail, firstname, lastname, birthday, cou…

> I don't want to know what life is like having xbox hardware

It was pretty great up to the 360, but with the Xbox One everything went to shit. Game consoles were meant to be plug-and-play, today they are more hassle to setup than a PC with Steam (ok, I guess Playstation isn't quite as terrible yet).

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

#275

Post by diseasedyak » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

vadansky wrote: post #255

dd8601fn wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Gog and use Heroic, but that has not been a smooth experience on Steam Deck. It’s slowly improving, though.

I might be crucified for saying this, but I actually have a Claude skill file for that. I have SSH turned on for the Steamdeck, I use Lutris so all the configs are in a database, so I just point Claude to the MD file and the game files and tell it to set it up for me. The main purpose of the skill file is really just to save the SSH, rsync instructions and give it lutris config examples like which version of proton w…

Wouldnt' crucify you for that at all, that's a clever setup and I'm gonna steal it :D

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

#276

Post by TacticalCoder » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

f6v wrote: post #258

keiferski wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is strange to me that people are re-discovering this today, in 2026. Microsoft has always been half-baked, even in the 80s and 90s. Heck, my parents basically raised me (20+ years ago) by running a business fixing problems with Microsoft products for their clients.

I guess it’s surprising because how ubiquitous their products are. You’d expect them to be of better quality considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

> ... considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

This used to be the case when Apple was in dire straits and MS abused their monopoly position to gain 95% of browsers market share. Grim days.

But those days are thankfully long done and there are plenty of people who are completely Microsoft-free.

The one thing people are using one way or another is Linux, because it's now in just about everything. Even those in the Apple ecosystem, with an iPhone and Mac computers, very probably have a Linux router and Linux TV at home.

The number of devices in the world running one version of Linux or another outnumber Windows devices by something like 10 to 1. Maybe more.

Microsoft is a despicable company producing turds since forever. I hate them and the crap they produce with a passion since the DOS days.

As the saying goes: the day Microsoft shall produce something that doesn't suck is the day they'll start selling vacuum cleaners.

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

#277

Post by keiferski » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

f6v wrote: post #258

keiferski wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is strange to me that people are re-discovering this today, in 2026. Microsoft has always been half-baked, even in the 80s and 90s. Heck, my parents basically raised me (20+ years ago) by running a business fixing problems with Microsoft products for their clients.

I guess it’s surprising because how ubiquitous their products are. You’d expect them to be of better quality considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

>considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

I don't think I've used a MS product in at least a decade. At least that I was aware of.

Edit: did some research and I have used LinkedIn. Other than that, nothing.

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

#278

Post by VeninVidiaVicii » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

f6v wrote: post #258

keiferski wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is strange to me that people are re-discovering this today, in 2026. Microsoft has always been half-baked, even in the 80s and 90s. Heck, my parents basically raised me (20+ years ago) by running a business fixing problems with Microsoft products for their clients.

I guess it’s surprising because how ubiquitous their products are. You’d expect them to be of better quality considering everyone is using MS software one way or another.

I suppose the argument is in reverse. They are so ubiquitous, they don’t really have to be good anymore to capture the market.

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

#279

Post by nottorp » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

mawadev wrote: post #151

I wanted to show my gf the halo 1 campaign, so I downloaded the 30GB Masterchief Collection via steam. When I launched it, I was greeted with a black box. After 1 Minute it was a microsoft login screen that looked eerily like a browser inside the game. Since I couldn't do anything else, the game was stuck at a sub 720p resolution. I said fine Ill just create an account. Yea so mail, firstname, lastname, birthday, cou…

Hope you didn't preorder GTA 6 then :)

Or any Rockstar game on PC since Max Payne 3, for that matter...

Or Ubisoft titles etc etc.

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

#280

Post by nkrisc » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

altmanaltman wrote: post #202

jerf wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

With the planned death of physical media for games, it will soon become impossible to do so. Like, Sony literally plans to stop making discs starting in 2028, and all games you buy will have to be digital only. GTA 6 is just giving a code in a box. It's really the end of times for physical media in a few years, maybe something can change if consumers push back but they likely will not if we are being realistic. https…

Then just stop playing games if that happens. They’re not necessary, it’s not worth getting fucked over by the corpos.

Or make your own games or play ones made by indies that you can actually own.