Microsoft reverses Xbox One DRM

[0098386]

You are wrong it was confirmed by Microsoft that there was no time limit. People like you just cherry pick the bad stuff about DRM without even doing your research.

http://slumz.boxden.com/f13/aaron-greenberg-game-sharing-time-limit-not-true-1942432/

http://www.castleawesome.com/2013/0...en-confirms-family-sharing-had-no-time-limit/

http://au.ign.com/articles/2013/06/21/on-xbox-ones-social-network-canceled-family-share-demos

Looks like that game to light whilst I was asleep, my apologies.
And by the way I've done my research. If you read my post you'll know I work in the industry. I knew about, dissected and feared this before you (unless you're also in games too, of course!).

 

[roadbloc]

Have you seen how Steam works? It was expensive at first aswell but now there are great sales on all the time, they can do this due to the massive reduction in piracy. If you do the right thing and play your games legit you should be supporting the DRM model as it will only benefit you in the future.

I'm a big user of Steam. But I also buy disc copies of games from a local store. They also offer sales like Steam where you can save a lot of money. It isn't just DRM business models that offer discounts and sales.

 

[antman2x2]

I didnt see the big deal in the first place...

Am I the only person who wasnt bothered by all the policies?

 

[0098386]

I didnt see the big deal in the first place...

Am I the only person who wasnt bothered by all the policies?

It affected anyone outside of the green countries;

Not in so much that the console wasn't supported there, but even importing it wouldn't work.
It affected anyone who doesn't have a stable connection, or people in dorms who may have certain devices blocked, or people who are just moving house. It would have affected anyone who buys games second hand to save money. It was unnecessary and they're going to get a lot more sales now they've dropped it.

Sidenote: I find it interesting that consoles from a country with excellent connections chose to not go down the always-on or "checking in" route the Xbox does, from a nation with appalling connections for many.

 

[musicpenguy]

I didnt see the big deal in the first place...

Am I the only person who wasnt bothered by all the policies?

My biggest issue has to do with what happens when the console is 20 years old will the server still authenticate or is the game useless?

Retro gaming is big for me and that worries me.

 

[Liquorpuki]

yes but that works that way only in selected countries, here they can keep e-book prices high totally legally ...

Didn't the EU just complete an antitrust probe that concluded eBook prices WERE being kept illegally high?

in Austria:
Physical: for 16 bucks i can rent 13 blur rays or 20 dvds
Netflix: here i get nothing because, you Netflix isn't available...

If the equivalent of Netflix ever gets to Austria you'll know what I mean.

For $16 I get unlimited physical or streaming

obviously you simply don't understand the non-us digital market:

with blu rays there are 3 regions: north america, europe & australia, eastern markets ... but with digital stores i have 27 regions in europe alone !

for you in the US there is little difference between the disc region you live in and the digital stores ... can you imagine having 50 different live,psn,itunes,netflix digital stores, for each states a different one, in the US ? all with region locked content ?

That sucks then because your digital market is way too fragmented. Region lockout needs to mirror the physical market for it to work and if the content's the same, there's no reason why it shouldn't.

Anyway it doesn't matter any more because the console market is officially status quo for the next 7 years. Maybe in the 9th console generation we'll finally move into the digital age and save $$$

 

[0098386]

Anyway it doesn't matter any more because the console market is officially status quo for the next 7 years. Maybe in the 9th console generation we'll finally move into the digital age and save $$$

If this was the case, why did MS announce games would cost the same? I was holding out for half price games, but when they announced the £50 price tag all hopes of this being benefiticial to consumers was dropped.

And remember: we've had digital game downloads for years on consoles. Where are our lower prices?
It's rather naive to think Microsoft would lower prices for their games. What makes you think they would have done so?

 

[musicpenguy]

If this was the case, why did MS announce games would cost the same? I was holding out for half price games, but when they announced the £50 price tag all hopes of this being benefiticial to consumers was dropped.

And remember: we've had digital game downloads for years on consoles. Where are our lower prices?
It's rather naive to think Microsoft would lower prices for their games. What makes you think they would have done so?

Yea lower prices would be a big deal - I might consider a secondary console of a PS4 or X1 if they managed to lower prices somehow - as it is there are so many great games coming for Wii U that I couldn't afford to buy games for the other systems.

That is part of the reason I'm hopeful PS4/Vita has a killer Netflix for games in a few years.

 

[Liquorpuki]

If this was the case, why did MS announce games would cost the same? I was holding out for half price games, but when they announced the £50 price tag all hopes of this being benefiticial to consumers was dropped.

And remember: we've had digital game downloads for years on consoles. Where are our lower prices?
It's rather naive to think Microsoft would lower prices for their games. What makes you think they would have done so?

I really don't know what MS's pricing strategy was. Maybe they wanted to capitalize on being a first mover and let the market fix itself. Maybe they were staving off that $70 next-gen pricepoint. Maybe they were hedging themselves in case their digital model failed.

But if it didn't fail, competition would have eventually dropped prices.

And yeah we've had digital downloads for years but the best analog I can think of is the smartphone app market. Back in 2005 if you wanted an app, you could go to a brick and mortar and buy an app in a physical box. You could also get it distributed digitally - go to Handango or whatever. In both cases the prices were the same - around $15-20 an app.

Then Apple came in and exploited the hell out of digital distribution at value to the consumer, competition dropped app prices, boxed copies of apps disappeared from stores, and Apple used its position as a first mover to own the smartphone market. This was also the second time they did this - first time was using digital distribution to disrupt music and own the MP3 player market. (I was hoping they'd do it a third time with television but it looks like they'd rather make watches and computers that look like trashcans).

Nobody's done this with console games yet. We're still in the Handango stage

 

[0098386]

Nobody's done this with console games yet. We're still in the Handango stage

I think we're slowly settling into the Steam stage.
In Europe we had The Last of Us for £39 on both PSN and in stores, big titles like that are normally £49 on PSN. We also get very frequent, very steep sales. They're learning.

But I think Steam is the one to gun for;
A handful of F2P titles
Very healthy mix of AAA and indie
Constant sales
Pre-order bonuses
Cheaper than boxed copies

Europe PSN has all those barring the last one.

 

[Liquorpuki]

I think we're slowly settling into the Steam stage.
In Europe we had The Last of Us for £39 on both PSN and in stores, big titles like that are normally £49 on PSN. We also get very frequent, very steep sales. They're learning.

But I think Steam is the one to gun for;
A handful of F2P titles
Very healthy mix of AAA and indie
Constant sales
Pre-order bonuses
Cheaper than boxed copies

Europe PSN has all those barring the last one.

I think this is why a lot of people were waiting for the Steambox to disrupt consoles. They already had a working model on PC. Only thing is consoles are differentiated by exclusive IP so they'd have less leverage.

One thing I thought was interesting is that MS is an incumbent. Incumbents are vested in the status quo and usually don't want to screw with the business model they've been profiting from for the last X years. Which is why it normally takes a newcomer like Valve or Apple or Netflix to come in and disrupt the market. In this case, MS was proactively trying to disrupt the console business model and hopefully gain first mover advantage. At least until the backlash changed their mind. That's kinda rare.

 

[LethalWolfe]

You can easily knock $10 off the price of a $60 game by going digital. You don't have to deal with returns and the cost of distribution gets minimized.

There is certainly some saving to be had, my points was just that no one should expect monumental price drops. I mean, some people seem to think that the fair price to buy anything is 99 cents. I remember when DVD burners were mainstream and cheap and people would say things like, "Why do DVDs cost $19.99 when blank DVDs are only $1?" Some have a hard time seeing that the IP, not the medium, is what's expensive and valuable.

 

[0098386]

There is certainly some saving to be had, my points was just that no one should expect monumental price drops. I mean, some people seem to think that the fair price to buy anything is 99 cents. I remember when DVD burners were mainstream and cheap and people would say things like, "Why do DVDs cost $19.99 when blank DVDs are only $1?" Some have a hard time seeing that the IP, not the medium, is what's expensive and valuable.

If its the IP that you're paying for, why is the same IP on a more expensive medium cheaper?

 

[Liquorpuki]

There is certainly some saving to be had, my points was just that no one should expect monumental price drops. I mean, some people seem to think that the fair price to buy anything is 99 cents. I remember when DVD burners were mainstream and cheap and people would say things like, "Why do DVDs cost $19.99 when blank DVDs are only $1?" Some have a hard time seeing that the IP, not the medium, is what's expensive and valuable.

I don't expect monumental price drops either, but I think over time savings from digital distribution should show up. IE Nintendo price dropping the digital version of AC:New Leaf.

The way I see it, the price of console games hasn't kept up with inflation and publishers are getting squeezed to maintain profit margins on AAA games, to the point they're now using DLC and other tricks to monetize alternate revenue streams. So in the future it's either blow up the current business model and reroute reseller revenue to keep costs down, or we're on the road to $100 games.

If its the IP that you're paying for, why is the same IP on a more expensive medium cheaper?

I'd say it's because the market for a lot of these digital mediums hasn't settled yet. I think the music market and the mobile app market are examples of cost savings successfully passed down to the consumer through digital distribution. eBook market is one where digital distribution is being tampered with so eBook vs mass paperback pricing isn't competitive. Each market is different and competitors have different ways to exploit these differences and incumbents are able to leverage differences hold digital hostage. It typically takes a newcomer to disrupt the market and it's always been a newcomer that's disrupted other mediums through digital distribution (Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc).

It's harder to disrupt console media distribution because it consists of 3 incumbents who don't want to wreck a business model that makes them money, it's driven by decades of IP which newcomers can't duplicate, and business models are set in stone for 6-7 years.

 

[musicpenguy]

Not sure why everyone thinks ACNL is cheaper digitally? It is $35 for the physical version too - they decided to be aggressive both places. The big push was that midnight release that I stayed up to download and play.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Animal+...73&skuId=8628065&st=animal crossing&lp=1&cp=1

 

[Liquorpuki]

Not sure why everyone thinks ACNL is cheaper digitally? It is $35 for the physical version too - they decided to be aggressive both places. The big push was that midnight release that I stayed up to download and play.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Animal+...73&skuId=8628065&st=animal crossing&lp=1&cp=1

You're right, the list price was dropped to match the $34.99 digital price, I didn't realize that

Nintendo seems to be price dropping the MSRP ($39.99 to $34.99) of a lot of first party games. Looks like it might be to grow the player base

 

[musicpenguy]

You're right, the list price was dropped to match the $34.99 digital price, I didn't realize that

Nintendo seems to be price dropping the MSRP ($39.99 to $34.99) of a lot of first party games. Looks like it might be to grow the player base

Yea Donkey Kong 3D was also $35 - picked that up as well - that $5 feels like a lot more for some reason ...

 

[MRU]

I think we're slowly settling into the Steam stage.
In Europe we had The Last of Us for £39 on both PSN and in stores, big titles like that are normally £49 on PSN. We also get very frequent, very steep sales. They're learning.
.

Its €59.99 here on PSN. I paid €49.99 in gamestop store for retail copy.
They aren't learning in many places clearly....

Steam here is always more expensive for new PC titles €49.99 compared to €34.99 retail price most new titles sell for here too....

Seriously its annoying that buying digital here often equates to more cost and less benefit.

 

[Taustin Powers]

Don Mattrick is leaving MS for Zynga.

I was wondering when heads would start rolling after this year's E3 disaster...

I think the "if you don't have internet, just buy a 360" comment may have been the final nail on his proverbial coffin.

 

[gkarris]

Don Mattrick is leaving MS for Zynga.

I was wondering when heads would start rolling after this year's E3 disaster...

I think the "if you don't have internet, just buy a 360" comment may have been the final nail on his proverbial coffin.

Thanks for the heads-up. Here's a great article on it:

http://hothardware.com/News/Xbox-One-Fallout-Don-Mattrick-Leaving-Microsoft-For-Zynga/

The problem with the Xbox One isn't that Mattrick had bad ideas, but that he clung to them as unilateral concepts rather than flexible implementations. When your product message, at any point, boils down to "Buy an Xbox 360!" you've failed. When your message is "Buy an Xbox 360" when your competition is rolling out a new console with none of the same restrictions, you've blown your legs off with a shotgun.

yep.... especially when a lot of people who would buy a new console would already have a 360...

 

[takao]

Don Mattrick is leaving MS for Zynga.

I was wondering when heads would start rolling after this year's E3 disaster...

I think the "if you don't have internet, just buy a 360" comment may have been the final nail on his proverbial coffin.

called it

he isn't jumping off a sinking ship to be fair: more like a cruise ship with no power where everybody has PR diarrhea
his rescue boat Zygna though is is leaky _and_ engulfed in flames

though after this fiasco Don Mattrick will very likely be leaving his post rather sooner than later "to re-align his work life balance" or whatever the 'official' wording will be when getting reassigned to the Microsoft Siberia Research & Development Group

 

[gkarris]

I think the problem is that the XBox is TOO SUCCESSFUL for Microsoft, so all the different MS Groups/Execs want a piece of it.

I worked for a "high tech" company in the 90's, and when I project I was working on was successful and made money, all of a sudden, all these other execs and groups wanted to be involved and add "features".

I was an Engineer on the project and personally went from reporting to 1 manager to 3...

I love the XBox compared to the PS. But the XBOne seemed like a lot of groups/execs/shareholders/large developers want a piece of it, hence the total drama with MS's console right now.

Sony and Nintendo have been around longer and learned from their mistakes (Sony with their over-priced/powered PS3, and Nintendo with the Virtual Boy, or sticking with carts with the N64), not to mention being around when other consoles failed (3DO, Saturn) and learning from that.

Now there's this "petition" to bring back the DRM, and MS is saying that they simply didn't get the message out properly for such a "forward thinking" concept:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/12/microsoft-shame-on-us-for-xbox-one-messaging

IMHO, I think the XBox is becoming a victim of the mega-large company that has produced it (a computer company, nonetheless). At least competition from Sony (electronic entertainment) and Nintendo (gaming) are able to keep it in check (for now).