Digital Focus on Xbox One May Include Games Sharing

[roseofbattle]

Digital Focus on Xbox One May Include Games Sharing

Microsoft intends to focus on the digital future of the Xbox One and is strongly considering the ability to gift and loan games digitally.

Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer is focusing on digital for Xbox One, and with that he wants to expand the console's digital marketplace in ways that may include the sharing and gifting of games digitally.

Some gaming consumers have been resistant to buying digital games and DRM policies because of how restrictive they can be. Some companies have successfully introduced a digital marketplace for games that allows users to gift and loan games, such as Valve's Steam and the company's Family Sharing program. Spencer would like to do something similar for Xbox One, he told GameSpot.

"We totally believe in that future," Spencer said. "And any other marketplace you play in, these kind of mechanisms are out there."

Spencer was interested in this functionality when the Xbox One was announced; Microsoft planned on offering a Family Sharing plan for Xbox One. This was removed after Microsoft reversed several controversial Xbox One policies in June.

"We are now fully heads down on thinking about and building out the future of our digital marketplace to enable what people would expect, and hopefully some things that will delight them beyond their expectations," Spencer continued.

Microsoft's marketing for these sorts of Xbox One features was terrible, and Spencer now believes honesty with consumers is the best policy. Sugarcoating something that could potentially be controversial often makes matters worse. If the company approached a better digital marketplace for consumers, it could find itself interacting with much happier people.

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-on-loaning-and-gifting-digital-xbox-one-games-we-totally-believe-in-that-future/1100-6418534/]


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[tippy2k2]

Ho boy...

Microsoft, I'm going to say something controversial here but I don't want you to get the wrong idea because your Xbox One stuff WAS kind of terrible.

The original benefits with your first try were not bad. While there were drawbacks (like always having to be online), you could have pulled it off if you had just explained WHY it was such a good idea. Yeah, there would be people who would resist it anyone on principal but if Steam has taught us anything, it's that people will let a LOT slide for certain benefits.

Instead, you stumbled and did a face-plant at the end-zone with your PR work...after your pants fell down....and then you fumbled the ball right to the Sony player who ran it back for a touchdown....and then somehow your pants fell off again...

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this idea isn't bad but you're going to have one hell of a uphill battle to convince us otherwise after you bungled the initial setup so freaking badly. All I can say is "Good Luck" because you'll need a lot of it to convince us why this isn't the monster that we're all expecting.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Will this shut up those idiots demanding that MS switches back to the "We don't trust our paying customers at all and totally think we'd be crushing console piracy this way. (We won't even dent it in reality, though." DRM? It would be neat if you could loan someone a game across the world by leaving the disc it in the drive or doing it Steam style. Maybe, people would have embraced the xbone if they had this but no demonic daily DRM for games.

Still, this idea no where near convinces me to get a gimped midrange gaming pc with a mandatory $100 webcam. And for many others it's too late. They got a PS4, a newer PC, upgraded the old PC, or spent their money any other productive way that buying from a company that had mixed answers for months about important issues and made 180s one a ton of policies in the same time.(The DRM relaxing should have been done, though.)

 

[Arnoxthe1]

They only need to do one thing. Keep the ability to buy and use physical copies and to be able to play them offline.

After that, they can and SHOULD focus on expanding their digital distribution features.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

They only need to do one thing. Keep the ability to buy and use physical copies and to be able to play them offline.

After that, they can and SHOULD focus on expanding their digital distribution features.

This. Someone needs to tell ALL content providers that there are still rare new computer games that run off the disc and don't require the user to connect to the internet even once, there still exist collectors and average Joes that like the feel of an item in their hands, and that there are many financially successful digital distribution systems that have no DRM.

They should also support fiber and other high speed cables being installed in every town they can. There is also the little problem with the growing size of games and the joining of the Two Towers...I mean Comcast and Time Warner's possible merger(read: stagnation of internet speeds and yearly price hikes) that will cripple the growth of the digital markets in the US. Business execs think the average gamer has a 10 gig connection when that's a lucky few during down time. They'll change their minds when sales stagnate because few customers can actually wait to download 50 to 100 GB games.

I don't think or hope even the next gen will be disc less. I haven't even connected any of my console in 1 or 2 years because the services the offered are either crappy or overpriced and for 10 months my internet was dropping out for 15-30 seconds every 5-20 minutes thanks to the incompetence of Comcast and repeated visits before one guy had the brains to check all connections to find the one that was leaking signal. If that kind of company will be in charge of most of the nation's network and will lobby to stop fiber systems from being installed in areas that need the competition, then this country definitely isn't ready for an all download market.