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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

#571

Post by robotnikman »

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've always felt the elimination of their QA department once the current CEO came in is what really started the decline in quality. Now they are being called Microslop for good reason.

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

#572

Post by ColdStream »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #551
inigyou wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft in the 90s was doing things that hadn't been done before with Windows. And the NT line, converging to consumers at XP, solved many of them, and by now they don't have an excuse any more.

I’m genuinely confused about exactly what Microsoft was doing for the first time. Not the first gui. Not the first web browser. Not the first spreadsheet/word processor/slideshow. Edit: I’ll give credit, NT is good kernel, and had some novel qualities.

I would argue that they where tge first to try and do all that at once while on non-specified hardware systems. Yes Apple, Amiga etc will similar stuff but they at least had set target hardware.

Microsoft tried to do everything for better and worse on wildly varied commodity hardware.

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

#573

Post by wao0uuno »

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 hope you refunded it.

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

#574

Post by ColdStream »

walrus01 wrote: post #262
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 and email verification code later I had to do captcha which is clicking and holding down a button. "Help us against the bots" it said. I unironically spent 5 minutes clicking that button, then being stuck in a loop with "please try again" while my gf just sat there watching me. From 2013 PLEASE DRINK A VERIFICATION CAN https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/6…

Yep... It gets a little less funny by the year.

I think some of the most prophetic writing in terms of specifics came from Richard Stallman that basically called it all out in the late 1980s, including social media.

You may not always like what he has to say but he did think through how this stuff can be leveraged against the users.

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

#575

Post by p91paul »

inigyou wrote: post #558
philistine wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it mostly right. It's Android, then iOS, then Windows. It is still the number one PC OS, in terms of active users and sales. MacOS is a distant second. Of course in 2026, if you want to make money as a developer selling directly to consumers, your best targets are probably iOS and macOS. Android and Windows are rife with users who'll never buy anything and pirates.

Everyone I see who doesn't use Linux uses a Mac.

well that only means there's a lot of people you do not see. The large majority, according to every available stat.

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

#576

Post by CrimsonCape »

mvdtnz wrote: post #521
Orygin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are DLLs that remove any check of Steam running. Just keep a copy of one and use that on other games. Regarding the download, it's the same issue with physical media. If I don't have the DVD, how can I acquire the game?

This is just piracy. This is no different than downloading a crack. This is not some great service offered by Valve/Steam, it's just a cracked binary.

Yeah pretty clearly falls under 'bypassing a digital lock' according to the DMCA. they got you when you clicked ok on the license agreement. Movies and music is a different thing: you don't need to agree to a license when you buy a disk but I'd be surprised if we don't start seeing little pamplets thrown in there saying "by keeping this disk you agree to _____..."

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

#578

Post by Thlom »

epistasis wrote: post #302
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 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…

I started writing a long rant about my experience with Microsoft accounts, Minecraft and Microsoft Family whatever they call it. Parental controls and stuff. But I think I'll just agree with you. It sucks, it's confusing and is designed to suck as much money out of you as possible.

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

#579

Post by robotnikman »

mikrl wrote: post #492
sumtechguy wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'always online' has created a whole new set of buggy from a lot of companies. For example cyberpunk is NOW a playable game. Launch date was a very mixed bag. 'fix it after launch' ugh.

> cyberpunk is NOW a playable game I never had problems with cyberpunk but I think I know why: I built a new PC right around its release and it was good enough to play it smoothly on 4K medium or HD ultra. When I checked to see what 4K ultra looked like, the graphics latency caused a bunch of scripting to fall apart and the game glitched really bad. IIRC the console release was notorious for bugs, so I assume console…

I encountered bugs when it first released even with a decent PC. IIRC there was a mission where you were running away in a truck, and it would crash every time at a certain point so I could never complete it. Also the whole save file size limit debacle, where they never actually removed deleted items from your inventory and the save file would reach a certain size that the game could no longer read (10mb or something like that)

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

#580

Post by jedmeyers »

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.

Their PM motto is "quality is a feature", and obviously not everybody needs all the features.

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