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

#291

Post by vaylian » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:04 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #227

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…

Microsoft stole my copy of Minecraft. I had bought Minecraft before Microsoft bought Mojang, and eventually I was forced to migrate my Minecraft license to a Microsoft account. After I had successfully created the account, logged in, and transferred the license, and ONLY after I had transferred the license, I was suddenly locked out of my account until I provided a phone number. I will never buy a Microsoft product a…

"Give us your phone number or we will hold your minecraft account ransom"

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

#292

Post by nicechianti » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:04 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…

[dead]

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

#293

Post by saghm » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:05 PM UTC

Grimburger wrote: post #157

saghm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious risk is that you don't have nearly as much budget to spend on lawyers if someone does come after you for it. The copyright system tends to disproportionately punish small players and not punish larger ones.

The lawyers cost a lot more than what you are going to get back from GP in a copyright lawsuit.

That doesn't seem to have stopped any prosecutions for piracy in the past

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

#294

Post by ankurdhama » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:07 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.

Product quality has nothing to do with ubiquity. Its all about shady business deals that locks you into products where the migration cost is much higher.

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

#295

Post by epistasis » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:07 PM UTC

bitmasher9 wrote: post #184

dartharva wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All problems with Microsoft products are design and intent problems, not engineering.

The design and intent are bad, but let’s not discount the large amount of bad engineering too.

If an engineer executes on bad intent and design goals and builds a bad bridge, that's also a bad engineer.

Engineers are not serfs, they have enough income and agency to be responsible for the fruits of their labor.

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

#296

Post by ShinyLeftPad » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:08 PM UTC

fouric wrote: post #227

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…

Microsoft stole my copy of Minecraft. I had bought Minecraft before Microsoft bought Mojang, and eventually I was forced to migrate my Minecraft license to a Microsoft account. After I had successfully created the account, logged in, and transferred the license, and ONLY after I had transferred the license, I was suddenly locked out of my account until I provided a phone number. I will never buy a Microsoft product a…

Happened to many people. The system claims it's because of some suspicious activity but everybody who gave in to this blackmail and submitted personal details said that after logging in there was no notice of anything suspicious.

since this is a game it's probably mostly kids whose identifying information Microsoft is hunting for. I can't believe it's legal and the company was not sued yet

me I just pirate it now, never played on servers anyway.

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

#297

Post by TacticalCoder » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:08 PM UTC

b3lvedere wrote: post #49

softwaredoug wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can buy and own legal copies of movies and music. But I often really can’t with games.

Not staying this to be pendantic or to annoy you, but you really do know that at the bottom line, the same sort of license applies to movies and music that as of games. It is just accepted with movies, music and books that people just 'have' them. The publishers seriously know what a huge outrage there would be when they did the same to those forms of media like they did with games, but they would if they could get a…

> Not staying this to be pendantic or to annoy you, but you really do know that at the bottom line, the same sort of license applies to movies and music that as of games.

You can not only buy music on physical medium (CDs or vinyls) but you can also buy, legally, DRM-free lossless music.

And once you own that music, your right to listen to it (privately) cannot be removed from you.

And for, say, a vinyl or a CD, both in the US and in the EU, your right, for example, to sell that CD at a garage sale cannot be removed from you.

And just as I can, today, boot a Commodore 64 from the 80s, I'll still be able, in 40 years, to boot a Raspberry Pi and play my music files from it. And play my CDs if I've still got a reader.

P.S: FWIW I rip my audio CDs to lossless files, in a bit-perfect way (which is automatically cross-checked with checksums of people who made the same rips, so we all know our rips are bit-perfect).

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

#298

Post by saghm » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

queenkjuul wrote: post #153

saghm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious risk is that you don't have nearly as much budget to spend on lawyers if someone does come after you for it. The copyright system tends to disproportionately punish small players and not punish larger ones.

Personal backup copies are fully legal, RIAA and MPA admit as much on their own websites; this was settled back in the VHS and cassette tape era

The part I was responding to was "with digital copies sourced from the high seas". The premise that they were responding to was if the only domestically available media playing devices required subscriptions. It's not clear why the assumption would be that getting content from arbitrary international online sources would be something that isn't also sanctioned in this scenario. That doesn't mean the entire scenario is likely, but if that's the objection, then why reply to me and not the original comment proposing it?

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

#299

Post by puelocesar » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

"When Sony announced that they were discontinuing physical discs for PlayStation, I was less outraged than many. The reason I felt this way wasn't because I loved what Sony was doing. I think it came from an understanding that physical media ain't what it used to be."

But you are mixing Sony and Microsoft here. Sure, both are bad, but many PS disks are totally playable without internet connection.

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

#300

Post by accrual » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 3:11 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…

Been there as well. You just want to play a game you own and end up making new accounts and sharing personal details, and even then might not even succeed.

This is a big reason I try to keep my old consoles alive. My OG Xbox is queued up ready for a clock capacitor replace so I can fire up real Halo CE any time I want!