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

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

#361

Post by bilekas »

epistasis wrote: post #159
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…

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…

I don't have much to add except that people have the idea that this is a new low from microslop thanks to vibe coded Devs but it's really not. There has been for so long a culture of contractors being treated as printers. Then never given a long enough contract to receive any benefits because it is cheaper. Way and repeat. Nothing is fully understood and nobody knows where the focus needs to be. No wonder everything is in a state that it is. Garbage.

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

#363

Post by fwip »

inigyou wrote: post #348
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost count of the times my buddy and I wanted to play coop, and I was forced to log in to my ms account for a split screen game. I remember back on the original xbox, and x360, using 'guest' just worked . Forcing people to login for couch coop is asinine.

I wonder if this one is actually deliberate as a slop-pushing thing, or if it's actually a developer level thing where some devs assumed every player has an account.

It definitely depends on the game. Some allow second (or third or fourth) players to play as "guests" (not signed in to any particular account), and some don't. Party games, or games designed primarily for co-op, are definitely more likely to allow guests.

Weirdly, in my limited experience it seems that 'premium' / AAA games are more likely to require an account - I suspect it's because they want to be able to save unlocks/progress for those players. Perhaps they think it will incentivize those players to buy a copy of their own.

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

#364

Post by paxys »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #270
paxys wrote: post #224

The fight should never have been about physical vs digital, but about ownership. If I buy a game/movie/book/song, regardless of where or in what format, I should be able to: 1. Keep it forever without the risk of remote deletion. 2. Use it while offline, unless internet connectivity is strictly required for the experience. 3. Move it between my devices. 4. Backup and archive it. 5. Resell it. 6. Pass it on to my chil…

I mean can't you see why 4 and 5 are irreconcilable? I am all for 1-4 and 6. But reselling digital copies is silly.

> I mean can't you see why 4 and 5 are irreconcilable?

I really can't. The only argument I see is "we can't allow it because every customer is a potential thief". What will enabling resale cause? Piracy? Well piracy is happening regardless. People who want to illegally download games can do it today in one click. Instead the piracy excuse is being used to restrict legal resale so you have no option but to pay the publisher's inflated sale price.

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

#365

Post by ventana »

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 have a 10 years old Xbox One, and every fucking time my family and I want to play a game, maybe once in a few months or so, it's always a struggle. Oh, let me download a few gigs of a system update. Oh, and the game you want to play needs an update too. Oh, and you are now logged out so go remember your password and type it using the controller. It's never a seamless experience that you would expect of a game console, which has one job: let the users play games.

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

#366

Post by sph »

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 tried to login to Microsoft's account this week to play Sea of Thieves, and I literally couldn't log in for 30 minutes because it kept going on a redirect loop. Enter email, enter password, "we're checking your information", logged into into the account dashboard, but as soon as I clicked any button [1], got sent back to the login screen.

Tried two browsers to no avail. Found someone on Reddit that suggested resetting the password and finally managed to make progress. Utterly loathsome software, how the hell does a tech company exist when they can't even get their login system working properly?

1: all because I needed to change the country, now that I'm not in UK any more, as the game required age verification just to allow access to the multiplayer functionality. Thanks, Starmer.

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

#367

Post by inigyou »

ux266478 wrote: post #236
grumbel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM-free was a nice idea 20 years ago, the problem is that it doesn't scale. There is just way to much media out there to keep track of and especially with games you are looking at frequent updates and patches, that your DRM-free backup won't get, unless you turn backup up a full time job to keep track of it all. If GOG went down tomorrow, those games would be gone just the same as the Steam ones, since I gave up try…

DRM is a software layer that restricts your ability to run a given program, in this context it's specifically a form of access control. It has nothing to do with anything you just said.

DRM-free gets confused with wrapper-free or launcher-free in games. This is probably triggered by the observation that many Steam games won't run if Steam isn't running. However, this is a basic check in steamapi.dll which can be easily replaced.

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

#368

Post by fryanyway_swe »

thewebguyd wrote: post #313
f6v wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Their products/services are ubiquitous not because they are good but because they got where they are today by abusing monopoly power and shady tactics. On the business side, with M365, they use lock-in tactics and extremely aggressive bundle pricing. The only competitor is Google Workspace, and it's missing features you get bundled with something like an E5 license. So your choice becomes: just pay Microsoft $60/user…

>extremely aggressive bundle pricing

I mean it's a good deal. As you say, when a company goes above a certain size, it does not make sense to pay for GSuite + Slack + Zoom + RMM/MDM + Zscaler

Windows is still good for gaming PCs, and it will now handle and update itself reliably. No I don't need to hear anecdotes, I work in the IT desktop space. IT janitor monkey if you will. There is no way an enterprise will convert laptops to linux or chromebook.

You see it as malicious, but well, even Google have trouble in this space. Because it is hard.

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

#369

Post by david_allison »

sd9 wrote: post #195
unfocso wrote: post #173

The absurdity is that back in gen-7 we had everything figured out: PS3 used the (free) servers only for matchmaking and all online games were hosted on the consoles themselves. The matchmaking servers are still up and working, and everybody plays with better latency thanks to the prominence of fast fiber. No internet? Games work offline and support LAN if you have a switch and a couple of consoles. In 2026 I can stil…

I wanted to play an old call of duty game to reminisce about my childhood. I tried Modern Warfare II and Black Ops, but it’s impossible. You get into a game fine, but every single game is just full of cheaters - not just cheaters with fairly benign (yet unfair) things like wall hacks, cheaters that literally change the physics of the server for all users in a completely unworkable way. I’m not sure whether this is be…

Worse: there's unpatched RCEs for Modern Warfare II: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-10718

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

#370

Post by criddell »

ventana wrote: post #365
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 have a 10 years old Xbox One, and every fucking time my family and I want to play a game, maybe once in a few months or so, it's always a struggle. Oh, let me download a few gigs of a system update. Oh, and the game you want to play needs an update too. Oh, and you are now logged out so go remember your password and type it using the controller. It's never a seamless experience that you would expect of a game conso…

Does the XBox not have an option for doing those updates in the background or when you aren't playing?
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