Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

birchtree.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 800 posts

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

#511

Post by still_grokking »

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…

> This is my experience with all Microsoft software. The worst thought out, buggy, untested pile of crap.

> There's something seriously wrong in Redmond.

I'd say: There is something seriously wrong with the people buying this shit since over 40 years.

It's not like Microslop products weren't pure utter trash already decades ago. They got worse over time, especially lately with "AI", that's true, but nothing ever changed substantially.

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

#512

Post by ndriscoll »

inigyou wrote: post #96
spicymaki wrote: post #82

First, we need to make it illegal to say you are buying something when you are actually renting. Words mean something.

They did this in California. Solution: stores don't use any of the words now. Now the buttons say "add to cart" and "proceed to payment". Sometimes the button just says the price. I wonder if it's legal to build a completely scam store like this. You pick a game, you click on "$7", you pay $7, you don't get anything at all, and if you try to sue them, they point out they never actually sold you anything, you just vol…

One obvious way to tighten such loopholes would be to ban indefinite licenses. It is either permanent or has a fixed, stated term. A permanent license must either entail no DRM or the entity must have a trust/endowment in place to ensure availability until copyright expiration. Copyright is contingent on a DRM-less version being placed into escrow for copyright expiration. Failure to ensure availability of a permanent licence allows access to escrow as recourse.

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

#513

Post by platevoltage »

This is why I don't really understand the outrage with Sony getting rid of physical discs. I guess the argument is you can sell you disc later, but at the end of the day, owning a the disc isn't the same as owning an NES cartridge. Once the servers are down, that's it.

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

#514

Post by somat »

inigyou wrote: post #319
epistasis wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was able to take a 25 year break from Microsoft, from 2000 to 2025. Yet I was drawn back in because my son wanted to play Minecraft. This was the worst account process of any system ever invented, as far as I can tell. Plus in 2025 I had some interesting clients that are large corporations that use Microsoft as their core IT practice. The escape to the relative simplicity and consistency of AWS interfaces, from MS…

Just pirate it. Minecraft is really easy to pirate if you don't want to play multiplayer, or want to play on pirate-compatible servers (which is one boolean flag in the official server configuration file and doesn't require a pirated server). Make sure to get Java Edition. The other one is just an ad-riddden slopfest where they also ban you if you say swear words.

That is my plan, I have (had, you have to let it go) an old account from when it was a just username, never bothered "updating" it to the email account, I tried to convert when Microsoft said they were dumping all the old accounts, but the process was not working and I quickly decided I don't actually want a Microsoft account. At which point I decided that if I ever wanted to play again I would just do so sans account.

Which raises an interesting question, If I legally have a license for the game but they shut off the license servers, is it actually copyright infringement? (or piracy as people like to call it because copyright infringement sounds lame)

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

#515

Post by [deleted] »

fryanyway_swe wrote: post #482
inigyou wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NT kernel was actually an IBM project, which got divorced from IBM because of contract stuff and Microsoft got to keep a copy. It grew out of VMS which was a heavyweight OS for DEC VAXen, which IBM acquired.

Well, somewhat. It has been a while since I read a book on NT kernel - "Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" NT kernel was "supposed" to run OS/2 apps and Windows apps. But the NT kernel is of MS making, NOT IBM. The connection to VAX/VMS is due to MS hiring Dave Cutler, who worked there before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler

[deleted]

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

#516

Post by izzydata »

This is why I only purchase digital games at high discounts. It might be worth $60 to own a piece of physical media that can be played at any time without internet. However, to me the value of a DRM license that can possibly be taken away at any moment is very little. It is ridiculous that they attempt to sell digital games at the same price as a physical game.

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

#517

Post by DonHopkins »

drnick1 wrote: post #347
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…

> Yea so mail, firstname, lastname, birthday, country, email Does anyone even provide real information? What is the point of even asking for a name?

Don't be such a racist troll.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171881

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

#518

Post by gozucito »

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…

Nintendo Gamekeys check all of these boxes save one. Namely 1,2,3,5 and 6.

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.

5. Resell it.

6. Pass it on to my children.

No backup and archive is the exception. I can live with that. We'll see if Sony and Microsoft follow Nintendo or not.

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

#519

Post by pipes »

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…

Ha! This is pretty much what happened to me on my steamdeck the night before last. Login via GitHub or something nonsense. I was too tired, I turned it off. I tried a few years ago and I ended up in and endless loop of login redirects. Totally broken.

Why on earth does this it require a login in to play!? I'd prefer to emulated the OG box version, but that is one emulator I've never got working.

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

#520

Post by tmtvl »

mawadev wrote: post #222
franze wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the hardware is good but it is so hard to give them money on it i dread buying new games as it is a game of chance what way might work this time

I don't know and let me spice this up with another story: I have a ps4 and I undusted it a couple of weeks ago, then after a couple of os and game updates that took 2h to finish, they asked me to subscribe to playstation plus to play online and to basically use my internet. What exactly is the point of a console at this point?

> What exactly is the point of a console at this point?

Anti-cheat. Knowing that if you get into a match with other people they won't be running software on their system that gives them an unfair advantage.

Post reply on HN