Microsoft planning complete reversal of DRM policy for Xbox One
- Thread starter firehawk12
- Start date
Bleszinksi didn't even work on Judgement. That was developed by People Can Fly, rather than Epic Games proper - and he left Epic six months before it was released.
Yeah, the figures simply did not add up when you looked closely at this feature, and considering all the DRM to stop second hand games that was being pushed, you could tell there was a funny smell about this from the minute they mentioned it.
I mean if 10 people bought one X1 game each and shared those 10 games between them and completed said games, then that would mean a potential loss of 90 games sales.
Now i'm a big thicko and even i could work out publishers and game devs would never sign off on a feature that offered such a huge loss in sales, while with the other hand they are storking the X1 DRM and trying to control the second hand market.
Seems MS might be removing Kinect 2 mandatory requirements.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=599491
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=599491
No they're not.. they just figured that positioning themselves as the Anti-MS company and appearing as massively consumer friendly they stand to gain more than following in MS footsteps.. and on top of that you get the fun of pissing on MS's leg.
I honestly doubt there's a single exec at Sony who has the gamer at heart.. i bet most of them, if any, game at all so they have no real understanding of the culture. They base their decision on hard facts.. numbers they get from marketing research, production costs, projected sales with different methods etc. and they apparently came to the conclusion that going against MS was the best bet (and they were right).
Personally i don't trust both of them fully but for me the PS4 just is the better gaming package right now.. 100€ cheaper, no mandatory camera (and i don't need/want it) and i don't care much about exclusives because most games will be cross platform due to so few franchises being truly exclusive and i can live without them.
No one knows if these superawesome, Minority Report style commands really work like that (first Kinect promised so much and in the end people just looked like total idiots in front of the TV) and we also don't know what kind of TV offerings there will be in Europe (i really don't give a crap about the NFL).
All i want is a gaming machine and i'm not willing to pay for extras i don't want right now.. best deal is i can buy them after if some game or feature pops up i'd really like to try but apparently the XBO won't even work without Kinect 2.
So right now PS4 it still is but i love how fast the Internet brought down MS.. they must have become really scared and frightened by all the negative backlash but the damage is already done. They now have a negative image and them pulling back just reveals how utterly weak they really are and how abysmal their business plan was.
Just shows how the customer can break any company by targetting their most valuable point.. the bottom line. If enough customers bitch and in the end don't buy the product any company will change their mind.. MS is just learning this hard lesson.
Despite all the denials from Microsoft execs, this was confirmed by the insider on GAF.
Man, what a week for Microsoft. I wouldn't want to be working there. Morale has likely taken a huge dive.
Somebody's getting fired.
In my last post, I don't think I was clear enough. For me, the XBOX One is a continuation of Microsoft's vision to create a machine that is the one-in-all media center. Playing games is one aspect of this machine. Frankly, I don't need the other features that come with this machine. I want a machine that has as its chief focus gaming, and, as of now, that is the PS4.
Why can't Microsoft get their facts straight? Every time the PR department or a representative releases a statement, they seem to cock it up and create more headaches for the company. Where is the leadership in this company?
Why can't Microsoft get their facts straight? Every time the PR department or a representative releases a statement, they seem to cock it up and create more headaches for the company. Where is the leadership in this company?
Yeah, they must be running out of feet to put in their mouths by now 
Well, since they have twice as many feet as they have mouths, the only remaining logical course of action is take the rest of the feet and break them off in their own asses for destroying this product and its brand with their stunning lack of leadership.
MS may want it be a jack of all trades so to speak, but that means master of none. If I was buying an Xbox One it would be as a games machine only, I already have a DVR, a DVD-R which suit me just fine.
I don't quite trust CBOAT. I know he's supposed to have a long history of correct predictions on NeoGAF, but all I know him from is his E3 predictions and those were mixed at best. I'm not saying that I think he's wrong, I just don't take his word as truthfacts. At the same time, I don't trust MS in their denials as they have a vested interest in making family sharing look as good as possible, and since they're no longer going to implement it they can just lie about what it was. I really don't know what to believe.
I think most of us would agree that MS weren't being entirely honest with that feature and that there were some major caveats MS didn't reveal. If it had really worked the way they wanted us to believe it did, it would have been given a 5-minute slot during the reveal or E3 presentation. Instead it was revealed in a text dump, the wording of which was so vague as to be impossible to fully decipher. When asked about it at E3, the MS execs gave out a little more info but refused to go into too much detail. They never acted like it was the killer feature the hardcore Xbox fanboys proclaimed it as.
I don't mind MS adding to Xbox's media features, but if they want to advertise their device as an all-in-one media centre then they have to stop putting the media features behind the XBL paywall. If you're buying a device to be a game console and media centre, the PS4 looks like a better proposition because it's cheaper and you don't have to pay a monthly fee to access the media functions. It lacks voice control and that NFL stuff, but those really aren't worth the premium cost of the console.
CBOAT was right about pretty much everything though. The Prince of Persia thing was off because that Halo trailer was a bit of a fake-out. If you saw the first 10 seconds of that, you could probably make the case that it was a PoP game too.
But yeah, it's more that I have absolutely no reason to trust a MS exec. Of course they will try to tell us that we lost something amazing.
But yeah, it's more that I have absolutely no reason to trust a MS exec. Of course they will try to tell us that we lost something amazing.
Oh, MS has leadership. However they clearly misjudged the reaction to their product.
They surely anticipated some negative reaction but it was almost unversally negative due to its absolute strict anti-consumer direction. MS apparently expected the backlash to last only a short time and then be forgotten as it usually worked like that in ages past.
However Sony made the most clever move in ages and positioned themselves as the anti-MS which put the final nail in the MS coffin (Sony has such a positive image now that the plans to charge people for their online service has received barely any criticism much less any outcry).
So MS has made a huge error in judgement.. they thought that all the new gizmos, bells and whistles would be distraction enough so the customers wouldn't mind being ripped off and dictated how they can use their products they bought.
So i watch the news with a huge grin on my face.. it's not often that customers turn the tables on huge companies and make them cry uncle
It might come back as the stick to get people to purchase digital instead of disc, now that they've made like the PS3 and will have day-one downloads for all titles.
Or that may just be wishful thinking on my part.
Gears of Wars Cliff Bleszinski throwing his toys out of his pram over MS u-turn on DRM.
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...and-not-the-internet-whining-says-bleszinski/
Oh dear.Gears of War designer and former Epic Games man Cliff Bleszinski has said it was Sony - and not "the internet whining" - that pushed Microsoft to withdraw its strict Xbox One used game DRM policies.
Microsoft today announced the complete withdrawal of the Xbox One's controversial used game restrictions and internet requirement for online license checks once every 24 hours - policies which Bleszinski bullishly defended on multiple occasions.
The platform holder said the changes came "as a result of feedback from the Xbox community," handing vocal internet communities a victory of sorts in their backlash against the corporation's original plans. But Bleszinski says it was Sony's largely DRM-free PS4 - and not the voice of the community - which forced Microsoft into the policy changes.
"Sony forced Microsoft's hand, not the internet whining," said Bleszinski via Twitter.
The designer also commented, "At the end of the day many hardcore dislike what was attempted. You can't do well in that space with many of your core unhappy. Especially when users have a choice. The nature of capitalism encourages competition and Sony played into that."
The original DRM proposals would have brought with them the infrastructure for Microsoft to channel some of the money made from used game sales back to publishers. But with that prospect now seemingly gone, Bleszinski believes publishers will only accelerate their efforts to maximize profits using DLC, micro transactions and "tacked on multiplayer".
"Brace yourselves. More tacked on multiplayer and DLC are coming," he said. "You're also about to see available microtransactions skyrocket.
"You're going to see digital versions of your favorite games with added 'features' and content to lure you to digital over disc based. 'Do whatever it takes to keep that disc in that tray' is the mantra of developers in a disc based world," Bleszinski went on.
"I want *developers* who worked their asses off to see money on every copy of their game that is sold instead of Gamestop. Fuck me, right?" he commented.
If publishers really want to curb second hand games sales, they'd release digital downloads 2 weeks to a month early and for $40-$50.... and then a disc release for a full $60. I swear I'd download everything. Bring it on, CliffyB!
The main reason I haven't embraced digital downloads like I would've is due to the publisher inflexibility on pricing. It's obviously a cheaper distribution model, yet they refuse to pass those savings on to the consumers.
