Microsoft Drops Xbox One DRM Restrictions - UPDATED

[Atmos Duality]

Microsoft and especially the Publishers in your bed who undoubtedly pushed for the DRM, listen well.

Do not fuck with your market base lightly.
Some of us aren't the mindless raving game addicts you think we are.
Some of us can think. Some of us can talk and even convince.

So the next time you feel like yanking our chain for some sort of "effortless profit scheme" again remember this one simple fact: You need us more than we need you.

 

[search_rip]

WOW power to the people indeed now with that DRM shit gone I think I will be willing to be a "test dummy" for the "day one" console... of course Xbox can change back it's policies anytime in the near future tho :S

 

[mitchell271]

What happened to that whole, "Infinite power of the cloud" thing that they were going on about? Hey, Microsoft, you said that it required internet so that devs could use cloud processing to make the game even better! Wasn't that supposed to be one of your big selling points?

I jest of course, it's still going to be an overly expensive cable box that I won't be able to use because I'm not in the states.

Still not going to get one. Any one remember that god awful announcement press conference?

 

[Joseph Wallace]

I had really hoped that xbox one would release with all the restrictions it had cause I really wanted it to lose so big that it would bankrupt the console part of Microsoft. I can still pray that they fail from the vastly huge price differences and hopes that they try to do something dumb like go all digital sales to try and compensate for having to retract their trading and used policies, cause you know if they went all digital they wouldn't cut the prices on the games like other digital distributors do. Ah even as I have been a long time xbox 360 owner I do have visions of xbox one being heaped into giant holes in the Earth like the E.T. for Atari.

 

[ckam]

I'm still very weary about this. I mean Microsoft was ignoring most of the bitching until now... I'll just have to wait and see.

 

[ShakerSilver]

If it was so easy to turn these "features" off, then how easy do you reckon it will be to turn them back on at their pleasure? Nuh-uh, no sell, Microsoft.

You told us these features were necessary and that we needed them, but since you're so willing to remove them, they're obviously not so important and you just lied to us. And how the heck do you even expect to justify being $100 more expensive than the PS4 when you've removed almost all of your "features" and have worse specs than the PS4?

Obviously M$ doesn't care about gamers as much as Sony or Nintendo do, which is probably why the Xbox was a complete failure and the 360 barely managed to sell until later this gen.

 

[PhantomEcho]

What's that, you say?

Corporations lie to get you to buy their things, and this might just be another line of duplicitous coding in an already bullshit script of 'fuck the consumer, pillage the market for every cent its worth, and burn down all the Gamestops and rental joints'? Well golly! I'd have never guessed.



Meanwhile, the damage is already done here.

I've always preferred the Xbox over the Playstation. Not because the Playstation generations didn't have games I wanted, but because I liked the feel of the system. I liked the Xbox. I liked the Xbox 360. I was prepared to put my money down and buy an Xbox -Whatever- the moment it was announced they were working on it.

If you -handed- me one, now, sure... I'd probably play it and love my games on it and be glad to have it. But there's no way in hell I'll pay MONEY for a suped-up VCR that wants to be a Blu-ray but runs like an 8-Track. I'm glad to see you doing the right thing, even if it's only because everyone and their grandmother could see that what you were doing was nothing short of corporate suicide, but I'm one of those supposedly-rare individuals who doesn't just buy into a slogan and mindlessly do what I'm told.

From today until the day you get rid of the anti-consumerist half-wits in your ranks, Microsoft, my business will be done elsewhere. I suspect I'm not alone.

 

[RicoADF]

Am I the only one who's annoyed by this trade-off? Personally, two of the feature's I was most looking forward to were the ability to share games online with friends and family and the ability to play installed games without the disk, which have been removed along with always online requirement. I mean, the disk thing is just a matter of preference, but I live on the opposite side of the country to my family and quite a few of my gaming friends so just handing them the disk isn't really an option. This was going to mean I'd still be able to share games with my sisters and let my friends try out a game I've been raving about.

Now, instead of there being three fairly different consoles for three fairly different purposes (with Sony and Nintendo reprising their roles from the previous generation and MS having a more online-integrated approach) we're now back exactly where we were for the last two generation but just a little bit prettier; Nintendo is playing off in it's own little corner doing it's fun Nintendo stuff and PS and XB are both playing essentially the same kind of games with naught but a few exclusives separating them and trying to cater to the same audience.

If I wanted what the XBone is now providing, I'd have been planning to buy the PS4 as they're doing it cheaper and just as well (even if I dislike their controller). Now I'm just kinda left with a sour taste in my mouth at my ability to choose the kind of console I wanted taken away from me...

So that small niche ability is worth having a console that in 10-15yrs time will cease to function when the servers are shut down? Or when your net dies? As nice as the feature was, the price was too high and since Microsoft would be going by sales its clear that the majority of gamers (myself included) voted against it.

 

[Snowbell]

This is a good enough turnabout to be a Phoenix Wright case

 

[RicoADF]

Here's a phrase Pierce Brosnan taught me in the film Dante's Peak, and I'll never forget it.

"Put a frog into boiling water, and it'll jump right out. Put a frog into cold water, and slowly heat it, and it will boil to death."

"So, is that your recipe for frog soup?"

"It's my recipe for disaster."

That was going through my head the whole time, I love that movie, and the quote. Something I will always remember too.

 

[klaynexas3]

Still getting a PS4, but that's for me simply liking playstation better in general. However, good on Microsoft for finally listening, and Don not saying something simply was him speaking out of his ass.

I wouldn't really congratulate them for this. They didn't listen when people were speaking out. They tried to defend their awful policies or spin them into something positive. Change only happened because people were actually backing up their protest for once by not pre-ordering the the thing in the numbers they expected. Wallets forced them into this, not words.

Actually, they sold out all the pre-orders they allocated to plenty of Gamestops, and while it was a much smaller number, Microsoft themselves make the allocation, so even they predicted a lesser turn out, meaning that it couldn't have been the pre-orders themselves that made Microsoft changer their minds. Maybe they planned it all along, simply to pull the "listening and caring company" card, but it'd be a bold and dick move. If that weren't the case, and maybe it was the voice of the masses that reached them, then even if they were considering it, they wouldn't publicly back peddle until necessary. All in all, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that it was the internet shit storm that changed their minds, as it worked on multiple companies before them. But we can all take it in whatever way we choose.

 

[loa]

Now drop the kinect requirement, make the darn thing backwards compatible, drop the price, make all my downloadable titles carry over from my 360 and maybe we can talk.

 

[RicoADF]

Sorry Sony, I was with you for all of 1 week. But I can't be dealing with your controller. The only thing that put me off Xbox One was the online every 24 hours, now they've done away with it, I'll buy one.

Also, do you think they did this just so they could watch a Jimquistion on it? Granted it will still be scathing, but it'll be a u-turn nonetheless.

You could, you know, use another controller on the Playstation. The PS3 supports any controller that runs via USB, and I believe even any blutooth one too.

 

[Terramax]

The damage has already been done though.

Many people have already spent their saved money on Wii Us, and others others have turned away from MS because of this, along with the NSA fiasco. I was also looking forward to the continuous beatings and news that MS was losing money left, right, and center because of their plans. How what am I going to do with all this pop-corn?

Well, at least I can play Crimson Dragon now.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Damn, and here I was hoping they would let sony run away with it. Unfortunately, I think this is aprobably enough to make people forgive them and buy an XB1.

 

[Callate]

Am I the only one who's annoyed by this trade-off? Personally, two of the feature's I was most looking forward to were the ability to share games online with friends and family and the ability to play installed games without the disk, which have been removed along with always online requirement. I mean, the disk thing is just a matter of preference, but I live on the opposite side of the country to my family and quite a few of my gaming friends so just handing them the disk isn't really an option. This was going to mean I'd still be able to share games with my sisters and let my friends try out a game I've been raving about.

Now, instead of there being three fairly different consoles for three fairly different purposes (with Sony and Nintendo reprising their roles from the previous generation and MS having a more online-integrated approach) we're now back exactly where we were for the last two generation but just a little bit prettier; Nintendo is playing off in it's own little corner doing it's fun Nintendo stuff and PS and XB are both playing essentially the same kind of games with naught but a few exclusives separating them and trying to cater to the same audience.

If I wanted what the XBone is now providing, I'd have been planning to buy the PS4 as they're doing it cheaper and just as well (even if I dislike their controller). Now I'm just kinda left with a sour taste in my mouth at my ability to choose the kind of console I wanted taken away from me...

So that small niche ability is worth having a console that in 10-15yrs time will cease to function when the servers are shut down? Or when your net dies? As nice as the feature was, the price was too high and since Microsoft would be going by sales its clear that the majority of gamers (myself included) voted against it.

Things like losing content in the long term were always cause for concern, but frankly, that wasn't the big one for me. Even the XBox One itself wasn't the major problem, for me; as I've already seen a fair number of short-sighted people sneer, "But you could have just bought one of the other options! Why ruin it for us?"

The major problem was the message allowing the XBox One to go forward as written would have said to everyone else. Every media company connected to the RIAA, MPAA, or the ESA would have gotten the word that punitive, invasive DRM and TOS were something consumers were ready and willing to put up with. Put a camera into our living room to make sure we don't have eight people watching HBO's latest? Sure, we'll put up with that. Turn our phone into a brick for installing an app we don't approve of? Okey-dokey. Mind if we record some data about which commercials best hold your attention? 'Course, that's part of the "service". Think that disc you're holding is some kind of "product"? Sucks to be you.

The power that Microsoft wanted- and let's be honest, wants- isn't the kind that might be abused. It's the kind that would be abused, sooner or later, and if their customers were lucky they might dress it up with a song-and-dance about how it was about providing convenience. If you didn't have reliable, high throughput broadband, an HDTV, money to put into an ongoing subscription, and residency in one of the small number of countries they were willing to cover, you failed to qualify for membership in the club where lucky people got to have MS watch them like a hawk.

Cloud gaming may come when it's ready to be sold as a service rather than forced down customers' throats as a requirement. Netflix didn't ban anyone from going to Blockbuster; they sold themselves as a superior service. Steam didn't demand we think about the poor struggling publishers; they lured people with good prices, smart organization, and an attitude that suggested that customers were more than a commodity. (Both still have their detractors, some of whom have good points of their own, but that's not what I'm here to argue.) Microsoft said: "This is the way we want to do it. This is the way you will all do it now."

We said "No." And by God, that's the only appropriate response.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The console race has just opened up.

I still doubt the Xbone will win it although, the old DRM system pushed allot of customers away and some will not return whatever MS will say.

The extra $100 for Kinect is another point of contention.

 

[Gormech]

I wouldn't say it's over just yet.
Really at this point, everything is screaming that they're gonna let a good bit of people buy the console and then flip that switch back on.
Calling it.

 

[Nazulu]

With the Kinnect still bound it's still evil. It's basically adding all these little things over time till it builds up again for their view of the 'future'.

I will be amazed if this turns out to be true though because that is a very big and expensive change they have to make.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Nothing short of Microsoft adding mandatory support of mods on the Xbone would change my mind on the Xbone.