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

birchtree.me

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

#451
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a downloaded file buffer? That sounds more like streaming sites, which yeah are bad. But if you download a movie or season of a show in advance I don't think you'll have the same issues. Language ones or missing subtitles maybe - you gotta check those as the download finishes and before you put it on a media server.

> How would a downloaded file buffer I've no idea. It happens sometimes and only seems to happen with certain fils. In this case I'm sure it's a jellyfin issue, but this just comes down to having to debug while someone is waiting to watch - which is exactly the time I don't want to. As for language/subtitles it's true if it happens from the start (which I agree, is usually true) but occasionally the downloads get wei…

At that point you’re not playing the downloaded file. You’re either playing a transcoded version of it which will buffer as a computer tries to convert on the fly. Or you’re dealing with a network throughput issue related to the bitrate of the file you’re trying to remotely play.

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

#452
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same effect of wanting to watch an old film... If you want to do it the legit way, you will have to face all kind of hurdles, starting from finding a service provider that might have the film, then forget about all the modern audience "edits" they put on these things, at times the quality isn't even good, the audio tracks are messed up... So you either give these jackals at least 30 to 60 minutes of your…

I don't know if I agree with you with this example. Sure it's annoying to find a streaming service but once done it generally works. Usually true with a film or TV show through the "forums" too, but not always. Sometimes it's the wrong episode, sometimes it's the wrong language, sometimes one particular show keeps buffering even for no obvious reason. And even though it's quite rare, you never know until you're sat w…

> Sure it's annoying to find a streaming service but once done it generally works.

On streaming services shows get silently censored or edited, or episodes are just outright removed (and get re-numbered so you don't even realize what was removed), and episodes get put out in the wrong order, or they aren't released at all in the right language, and there are no subtitles, only closed captions. Neither streaming or piracy are perfect, but only one them allows you to save a show to your hard drive so you know it will be there the next time you want to watch it unlike streaming where they constantly pull shows offline

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

#453
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I agree with you with this example. Sure it's annoying to find a streaming service but once done it generally works. Usually true with a film or TV show through the "forums" too, but not always. Sometimes it's the wrong episode, sometimes it's the wrong language, sometimes one particular show keeps buffering even for no obvious reason. And even though it's quite rare, you never know until you're sat w…

> Sure it's annoying to find a streaming service but once done it generally works. Well that's hilariously untrue. Movies getting pulled out of streaming services is why I started to buy physical DVDs again. > Sometimes it's the wrong episode, sometimes it's the wrong language, sometimes one particular show keeps buffering even for no obvious reason. And even though it's quite rare, you never know until you're sat wi…

> Movies getting pulled out of streaming services is why I started to buy physical DVDs again

Me too, but sadly more and more shows aren't getting physical releases at all anymore.

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

#454
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deck and machine are not going to delete your account if it breaks? Theyre just PCs what are you on about? I don't buy games that require third party launchers ever. Been burned losing my Ubisoft account or w/e a few times. The warnings are helpful and steam doesn't have to say anything at all.

If steam shuts down and all your games are on a valve device. I only addressed that because it seemed it was being used as an example in the prior comment, as if that protects them more than an Xbox does.

[deleted]

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

#455
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deck and machine are not going to delete your account if it breaks? Theyre just PCs what are you on about? I don't buy games that require third party launchers ever. Been burned losing my Ubisoft account or w/e a few times. The warnings are helpful and steam doesn't have to say anything at all.

If steam shuts down and all your games are on a valve device. I only addressed that because it seemed it was being used as an example in the prior comment, as if that protects them more than an Xbox does.

Well, the device works fine if valve shuts down. It's a PC. The games are gone, sure.

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

#456
I encourage folks with a PlayStation 5 (or 4) to participate in the blackout by unplugging their console for the week of August 23 at 7:00 PM your local time and run to August 31 at 7:00 PM your local time. Hopefully that helps send a message. We should irrevocably own our games, not rent a revokable license. And we should have price competition from multiple store fronts.

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

#457

Gaming is heading in the same direction that TV, movies and music are. It’s a shame. I can invite my friends over, boot up my GameCube to play some Mario Kart Double Dash. As long as the console and disc are okay, I can (hopefully) do that until I pass away. These days? Not so much. I’ll never be able to be sure I can play GTA VI in twenty years. It just sucks not owning anything anymore. I know why they do it, it’s…

The Steam DRM is trivially bypassed and they don't seem to be interested in playing the cat/mouse game with it at all. It's not a great argument that you can crack things you already legally purchased, but I'm conflicted. If digital software could be reasonably/legally transferred, then it'd probably put most software companies out of business simply because the digital domain would enable efficient reselling of 'used' copies with an exponential decline in price.

This isn't a problem with physical copies because there's a lot of friction to selling stuff, and there's also something quite nice about having a physical collection of games, music, or whatever else. But with digital stuff there's no friction, and much less incentive to collect. The efficiency of the digital domain really messes with a lot of things we take for granted in the real world.

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

#458

Every modern media disk since DVD has had revocable DRM . That means you have never owned the disks. (Only Audio CDs and laser disks were owned digital media). With games, a synchronous right’s check is made every time you insert the disk, and if you haven’t played recently, the entire game installation is downloaded. The disk is only used for rights, not for playback. With movies, thankfully the rights check is done…

Not sure why I’m getting downvoted. It’s true, and on topic? It’s also relevant, with all the discussions about owning your own media. Weird.

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

#459
post #309

thats why i never bought a game in my life and never intend to... if i want to see how a game works, i could download an emulator and run it via the emulator from a public rom under linux. If I am really interested, i could download a 512GB retropie torrent/magnet and then copy it to a microsd card and run 70k games on a raspberry pi 4... historically, at least for me, games never worked... i spent more time fixing w…

I appreciate your experience/take on gaming.

If you where to start gaming again (at least, as the current vendors intend) you'd find that the bugs you had to account for in the 80s have been (generally speaking) resolved as a byproduct of the DRM/Cloud streaming propagation we're all complaining about.

IE; consolidation of vendors, locking down the way a game propagates, restricting the lifetime of a game, made it "easier" to play games the absolute one way the vendor intends. This gives them the excuse of "Well, we designed the game to be played via perpetual license through only this platform, we can't support or claim responsibility anywhere else".

Which is to say, your comment made me think that the reason the industry is the way it is isn't because money/lawyers, but more because some product managers decades ago began pushing for consolidating/defining video game lifecycles.

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

#460

Gaming is heading in the same direction that TV, movies and music are. It’s a shame. I can invite my friends over, boot up my GameCube to play some Mario Kart Double Dash. As long as the console and disc are okay, I can (hopefully) do that until I pass away. These days? Not so much. I’ll never be able to be sure I can play GTA VI in twenty years. It just sucks not owning anything anymore. I know why they do it, it’s…

Again. We need a storage medium that is reliable, has roughly 200GB of capacity, small in size, relatively affordable to press.

Otherwise, there is only one option left, make it illegal to do certain things and ensure the ownership belongs to customers.

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