Amazing what a bunch of angry basement dwellers on the internet can achieve.
Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
141–150 of 152 posts
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, so now it's just two-for-one. Now I get to buy and play Halo5 and then give the disc to my brother.
And? Some people will take advantage of it, most won't because it's too much of a hassle. Look at netflix back when it was just a disc-based service. Just get as many DVDs delivered as possible, rip them to your HD and then pop them back in the mail. Some people did that. Most didn't. Also, the Xbox One HD is only 500 GB, you can't install quite so many games (delivered on blu-ray) before it gets full.
The difference is that ripping a DVD continues to be a pain in the ass for most people, while "ripping" the game disk will presumably be something the XBox makes seamless.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#143If this is true, there isn't going to be the announced "Family Share plan" or the "Disc-less" operation. Also, the fact that a few consoles might not be connected to the Internet means, MS can't really do cloud processing as it claimed (since it would lead to variable experiences of the same game). I see this as a step-backward than a step ahead. Sure there will always be a vocal minority, but rather than provide the…
I'm not super technical but I've always been skeptical of "cloud processing," especially after the Sim City debacle. Are there any scenarios where actually processing information on a server instead of on the user's home Xbox make sense, aside from things like WoW and Diablo III where you need to do the calculations on the server to make the multiplayer aspect fair?
It makes sense for multiplayer games to not be hosted on arbitrary client boxes, but on some kind of neutral, low-latency "cloud" device (I know you said other than this, but I thought this was the biggest selling point for it in the first place).
It also makes sense for "complex" calculations. It's how stuff like Google search and Google maps works - you send the query, big machines chomp on the query and spit out a result, and your netbook doesn't have to go into overdrive trying to figure anything out. Basically anything that can take 100ms or so to complete could be moved off of the appliance and onto Microsoft servers. Why? Well, why not? Make some more room for rendering, I guess.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Used games IMHO are a menace. How many software companies give away transferable licenses? (apart from Open-source licenses) It isn't fair to the publisher/developer. I'd rather have seen a price change to facilitate more ownership rather than used games sales. EA's implementation sounded a bit practical to solve the used games market.
In the same way that used books and public libraries are a menace? There is no intrinsic social contract that stipulate media creators should/must be paid per-consumption.
There is if the content provider stipulates one as part of the terms of the consumption. That is, "If you consume this, you can't give out copies."
No one's making you agree to that.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#145I'm actually annoyed with these changes; they have reverted back to the Xbox 360 way of doings things; * Disk must be in the drive to play * Share games by lending the disk. The previous scheme, while it would not be befinical to some due to the 24 hour requirement, did allow for some exciting new ideas (which we've got used to with Steam); * Access my games anywhere without needing a disk * Share the game with my fa…
Don't buy discs! MS said that digital purchases will have same priority as retail discs. Why do you want a disc anyways, except for resale or slow connection? Everything I get for the 360 is via download, and I don't have to worry about discs. Still have to worry about license transfers, which is gonna be the same under any system where the publisher controls the terms.
My biggest issue with digital downloads is the cost.
My experience with Xbox live is that digital releases are launched at a price and stay there, apart from limited time promotions, for a long.
I can go on to Amazon or into HMV and get major releases from a couple of months ago for half the RRP, normally significantly cheaper than download. Plus i can give the disc to one of my friends when i'm done.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#146Another sad day where the indignant vocal minority have spoiled it all for the rest of us.
I don't think there was anything in the early schema that would have impacted the way I use the system (apart for multi day internet or server outages) but plenty of benefits
Game sharing was a huge positive step, even though I felt that most publishers would ignore or disable (like game sharing on the DS).
Not having to swap physical disks would have made life much easier and increased my playing time. I'm fairly lazy when I've settled down for an evening in front of the TV. A usual XBox session involves playing what ever game is in the drive till i get bored (anything from 15 minutes up) switching to something downloaded so i don;t need to get up (normally trials). Getting bored again and flipping to TV or a movie.
The ability to choose from my whole library with leaving my seat would have been a revelation.
Also, my two year old has lost my Forza disk, which really sold this idea.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish they coined another term for this rather then digital downloads. How can a download not be digital?
Provided you had an analog communication channel and storage medium you could have analog downloads -- it would be similar to recording per-digital TV on a VCR. But, yeah, "digital download" is mostly pointless noise.
They used to broadcast software via FM radio in the 80s :) One could record the transmitted "noise" with their tape drive, and, apparently, more often than not the recorded program would actually work.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#148During this whole fiasco, I was trying to put myself into their shoes on what they were trying to achieve. On the outside, it looks like a great idea. The ability to share games with family. No longer you need to carry discs to your friends house. You can lend them games to strangers on the Internet without worry about losing it. You can have an organized catalog on the cloud, and never have to get up to pop the disc…
My guess is that it started with the simple idea of "we want to move to digital so we can phase out retail and get more out of each sale like steam does" (pressure from shareholders and increases in development costs). Then they probably went through every worst case scenario possible, like a group of friends sharing a single licence of skyrim and just leaving their consoles offline, and made rules around them. It pr…
I think you're bang on. It really is just as simple as them wanting to do everything digitally ala Steam and then they walked through every possible scenario in which a person can cheat/game the system and built their checks, restrictions, requirements, etc. around those.
And in doing that, they created something truly quite terrible and very difficult to explain to the average person. I followed a lot of the Xbone coverage and have to admit I'm still confused as to how exactly their systems/checks, etc. would work. Based on what I did understand though, it sounded horrible.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, a PC with Steam, and XBox 360 controller, and an HDMI cable is all I really need. I've moved to doing that pretty exclusively and it works wonderfully. Bonus, I don't have to re-purchase games to play them on my laptop or in my office.
Most people didn't realize that MS was pushing the envelope with their purported "Cloud processing tech", which was supposed to be based on Remote processing of a few threads (A.I., Physics, etc) and even had a new programming paradigm for it (based on prioritized threads that could be processed either locally or remotely)
As someone who has done game development (no longer though), I can tell you absolutely nobody is going to do AI or Physics through Microsoft's cloud infrastructure. Absolutely nobody. Never was, and never will. It doesn't make sense.
Re: Microsoft reverses controversial game licensing policies
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty sure they would be limiting that to one IP address. There would be restrictions.
There was no IP limitation, as I understand it. Everyone on your console could always play all of your games. And you could designate 10 people that had access to your library from anywhere.
Only limit to family group was 10 members, no other limits.