Ahead of E3, Microsoft has released an official statement concerning some of the features of its upcoming Xbox One "all-in-one" entertainment system.
Of particular note to readers, Microsoft has clarified the console's treatment of game sharing and selling:
Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.
Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.
Critically, Microsoft says it has placed control over used game sales in the hands of publishers.
Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won't be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.
The designation "participating retailers" and acknowledgment of way for publishers to control used game policy individually may mean that an official Microsoft reauthorization system will exist alongside the console.
The same statement also includes clarification on Xbox One's online requirements and privacy concerns raised over the Kinect 2.0, which is packed in with the system.
Speaking of which, if publishers want to restrict used game sales, why would they be comfortable with 10 people simultaneously sharing a huge pool of titles?
I'd prepare yourself for a nice big clarification coming on that point. Anyone who seriously thinks that Microsoft and the publishers are going to be just fine with you giving 10 full, free copies of their games to anyone you want around the world, without restriction, is truly a fool.
Haha uh... yeah. Upon closer reading, its sounding like one member of your "family" at a time can play any game in your library that you are not playing at the same time.
In other words up to two Xboxs can play any of the games you buy at the same time. And no two Xboxs can play any single game you buy at the SAME time.
It's the same as what Sony's planning. You know that most publishers aren't going to allow the games to be re-sold. This will make it harder, if not impossible, for people like me to track down rare games that you'll only find used.
I don't really want to take the positive side to this discussion, but having digital downloads pretty much kills the need too, unless you are a collector or something... then yeah, you're screwed.
This also works into the plan to help you rebuy it next gen. We don't have enough money with the games we make now, so we need to keep charging for them every few years with a new delivery method.
Here's the thing, though: can Microsoft guarantee that EVERY game that gets released on disc will also be available digitally? That's the issue I have: availability. I don't care if it's digital or otherwise, I just want to be able to find it in some capacity.
If MS says to publishers that they have to deliver the game digitally to get on the Xbone, the publishers have no reason to be against that. MS will get the usual platform fee, but you can cut all the costs of producing physical copies and selling them at retail. Publishers should get at least as much money from digital sales as from retail.
We didn't extract this as part of our briefs but according to the documents we linked, yes, all disc-based games will be available as day-one downloadables. That is what Microsoft is forecasting, at least.
To be fair, publishers had that control all along. We only called it DRM till now. The main thing that changed is that Microsoft is providing a hopefully stable platform - which is great, as publishers seem to have problems providing enough servers at launch day. No doubt though that some publishers will take the opportunity to change their terms.
It's still called DRM actually. That hasn't changed. What has changed is now every game on the platform will have it.
(Sadly amusing that, for a long time now, PC gamers have been the only folks that have ever had to deal with DRM at all. Now the PC will be the only platform where you could possibly buy a DRM-free game.)
And publishers didn't have any control over my physical game library until now. Not sure where you came up with that idea.
It's going to be so fantastic when households without the ability to connect the console to the internet realize they've bought a Betamax player the week into release.
Yet people still rave about Steam which has had this problem since day one. Your internet goes offline for a day or two? Too bad you didn't the clairvoyance to tell Steam ahead of time that you want to play your games offline.
Actually Bob, maybe this is just me, but recently my experience has been that Steam just goes into offline mode automatically if it can't connect, whether you were logged in previously or not. I'm not sure when that change occurred, but I'm pretty sure it did?
Bob, if a PC game user knows he has poor internet connections, then he has options of getting pc games elsewhere other than steam, big difference from the xbone. You have NO choice nor options with the xbone.
Bob, you can play your Steam games even without an internet connection, I do that everytime. You can't access the store, obviously, but your entire game library is available to play.
And Steam has no problem with that since you can't resell a Steam game. You can't have both a used games market and independence from an internet connection, the potential for abuse would be to big.
"You can't have both a used games market and independence from an internet connection, the potential for abuse would be to big."
You mean like the way every other console has operated until today? Yeah I agree, the "abuse" of consumers exercising their right of first-sale has been a real problem.
@Michael Pianta, as a huge fan of Steam, your statements aren't even remotely true. You still need a computer for Steam which will cost you as much as a console in many cases, but probably more. And sure there are a lot of indie games or older games for $5-10, but a lot of games -- especially newer ones -- are definitely above that price point.
"You still need a computer for Steam which will cost you as much as a console in many cases, but probably more."
If you are someone who has subscribed to Xbox live Gold since the beginning (a little over 10 years at around $50 per year), and also purchased a single Xbox and Xbox 360 console (let's say for about $300 a piece), you have spent $1,100 just for the *possibility* of playing multiplayer games on Microsoft's service, without having purchased a single game.
A high-end gaming PC, one that would outclass even the next-gen consoles in capability, could certainly be assembled for less than that.
@Mike - sure the games are above that price point. But you just have to wait for a discount day, they even notify you if you add the games to your wish list ;) None of my friends buys the game for these every day prices. We spend 100-200$ on summer or new year sales and thats enough to play for a year.
@Bob Allen - Uh, you might want to verify your facts before talking smack online, because you are 100% wrong there. Steam automatically enters offline mode if there is no connection, and I can play all of my single-player games (including Borderlands 2, I just play alone obviously) without any trouble whatsoever.
I'm taking it for granted that anyone affluent enough to buy an Xboxone has already got a computer. If not, and a consumer is choosing between an Xboxone OR a computer, then clearly a computer is the better choice. But most of us have a computer already - in fact most people like myself have more than one. A console is a purchase IN ADDITION to the computer you already have.
Meanwhile, regarding the price point comment, I was referring to the heavy sales Steam offers. Certainly there is no reason to pay more than $10 for a game on Steam - even a $40 game will eventually be 75% off.
A single GPU already costs more than that. See GTX TITAN. It might MSRP for $999, but good luck finding a retailer that won't charge you an extra $200 for the privilege of getting one sometime while it's still relevant. The other alternative would be a pair of GTX 780's at $650 a piece... $1300 on *just* the graphics horsepower necessary to compete. That doesn't include motherboard ($200~450 in some cases), CPU ($330 for an i7 "K" series), RAM ($300~1100 depending on speed and capacity), monitor(s) ($100~2800 depending on tech, resolution, inputs, EACH), and that's not even counting a copy of an OS to make it all work ($140 for Win7 Pro).
And that you'll have to basically throw everything out and upgrade all over again within 2 years or less to compete.
Consoles are known to get better over time, while PC's get steadily worse. Or did you forget that Crytek can't even be bothered to make a single piece of software that can be run on a computer fluidly sometime THIS DECADE yet?
And did you forget that a lot of this non-sensical DRM started with the PC?
- CD keys
- "install the entire game on hard disk, but still require the disk in the drive to play" ?
- mandatory/periodic CD/DVD checks
- DRM as device drivers
- rootkit DRM
- Need I seriously bring up Origin?
PC never had the advantage of being able to trade/share games either in any shape or form, or even being able to return them when the game would be unplayable, or worse, brick your system because of some glitch that the dev/publisher can't be arsed to have fixed and expected you to have a patch that required the game to be installed in the first place before you can fix it... but you can't fix it because installing it kills your entire system in the process!
It's pretty depressing that publishers and console manufacturers are basically choosing to adopt the WORST practices of PC gaming rather than the BEST practices. :(
Everyone remembers the Windows 95 campaign and launch and everyone was full of hope. America was great. The stock market was on the rise.
Now... it's a lot harder to get excited about electronic devices and software. I hope Microsoft starts thinking more about getting people hopeful and excited. I hope they start thinking about market share more than margins, and start getting people excited about the platform and create a feeling of hope. It can work. It is so simple and obvious. Why can't mega corporations do the obvious is I guess subject for another day...
It just doesn't have to be this difficult. Respect people if you want them to be with you for the long haul.
It's a bit surreal to think that Microsoft may not be interested in doing the things that will truly give them mass appeal. They have tons of cash in the bank and they are still worried about maintaining control over "their" device.
This is cool, now instead of publishers complaining about how it affects them, they can make the choice and show some numbers without drm and passcodes hopefully.
This is probably the only thing positive to come out of it... hopefully next gen doesn't have the "used is killing us" scapegoat. It will finally be a clear indicator that the masses have moved on and just don't bother playing anymore.
I like how straight forward MS is being here and telling us exactly what we get without using PR speak or other wishy-washy language. They even come out and say "Yo, we may change any of this at some time in the future, so ...keep that in mind." That said, I'm still disappointed you can't borrow games --not from a rental service, not from a friend, not from a library. You can give or sell games, but you can't borrow. Bummer.
In case you have less than 10 interested family members, you can just configure your best buddy as a family member. Than you automatically share all games with him. Doesn't that sound even better than borrowing a disk? I am sure MS won't ask for your birth certificate as proof that somebody is in your bloodline.
Now we just have to hope that this really works out like that.
This is only the beginning. I can't wait for Sony to show us their version of this plan. I do have one question what will this do to places like GameFly are the done?
This whole idea of digital ownership is fleeting. Even if you own a $60 disk copy of a game, just look at the 30 page EULA stating everything you cannot do with what you just purchased, and all the rights they have to drop support at any time. The idea of fighting for ownership of game media is stupid IMO. You are fighting for an idea of ownership.
I suggest everything just be subscription. You want to play a game, charge a per hour rate. Amazing new single player game - $5ph (example), then lower the price as interest drops or have deals on it. Replayable MP games should have their own rates $1ph (for example).
F2P option should be there too.
This is a much better model for pricing products based on their quality so that the mid and low budget games get some revenue too (as no one is going to pay $60 for mid/low quality). But there might be some fun in there worth $0.5 per hour.
As for the brick and mortar retailers, sorry guys, my loyalty is with the developers who create the game, not the middle men marking up the price.
Subscriptions only last for as long as the service you're subscribed to operates. Since no service lasts forever, that's not a solution that's viable in the long term and even in the short term can be affected by the economic condition of the companies involved and all sorts legal hoo-hah (losing licenses, getting sued for releasing a game with "offensive" content and losing in court etc.). And that's putting aside that "Thou shalt not develop an application that's fully dependent on an external service unless that dependency is necessary for the functioning of said application." is a commandment in like every system of ethics conceivable. Well, it ought to be, anyway.
Besides, no EULA or TOS can (or at least, should be able to) override someone's rights, so it's fight worth fighting even if only out of principle.
I wonder if this still can motivate consumers to support the Wii U. Would be interesting to see what happens when companies would support PS4/XboxOne and players the Wii U ;)
I'm not a console gamer so this doesn't effect me, though I would not buy it on principle anyway at this point.
As a PC gamer though I see a lot of comparisons to Steam, which I think is faulty for several reasons:
1) Steam has a very good offline mode. I once worked overseas for a year and for each 5+ month semester I kept Steam in offline mode the whole time and it never gave me problems. Quite the difference from needing a check every 24 hours.
2) I don't trust MS to be as competitive price-wise as Valve are on software, and perhaps more importantly I don't think the competition for online purchases will be there to drive prices low enough to consider it a rented license "but that's okay."
3) The PC gamer community has proven they will do what it takes to keep classics playable in the future. I'm not shouting "go piracy!" at all here, but the fact is if Steam shuts down someday without an offline patch I still trust Skyrim will work, because PC gamers will make it work. A closed platform with 24 hour internet checks tied to Microsoft servers, however? Every game I bought would feel temporary and not long for this world.
IF the games are great at a price that is right then you're going to buy an Xbox One or a PS4 to play those games regardless of the various minor details of these company policies which are always subject to change.
If some smart dev would create a Paypal like service that allowed me to transfer payment to Microsoft in such a way that I could place restrictions on how Microsoft might later exchange the money I gave them for goods and services, I would sign up.
@Nick - lol best answer to the whole used game topic that I ever read. Great! It could be called the "used money" issue. The money was already used to buy their games, its not fair that they can use it again ;)
Obviously this will be the norm of the future, unless if people dont buy this console in droves. I am not exactly hopeful with regards to this console generation.
I love how Microsoft gives all these bullet points on their Xbox One site, like they are great new features that are all great for the customer, while in actuality, the customer will be rimmed even harder then before.
One of the greatest bullet points must be this one:
" *) Share acces to your games with everyone in your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited acces to all of your games. "
Hahah, wtf. What, customers should be glad the Kinect isn't picking up that you passed the controller to your friend, and Isn't asking for a couple of $'s when doing so?
All in all, this generation will be the death of one, if not All the consoles. In times of economic downturns and decreasing retail sales, all the console market can come up with is slightly better hardware, price increases for hardware & games, more DRM like systems and the destruction of 2nd hand games, share buttons & touchpads.
IMO, only way to maintain the console market would be to keep the consoles at Least cheaper then a decent gaming PC, decrease the price for games, and make it easier for customers to buy & play the games. I'd say a steam-like digital distribution system, and a seperate disc-based retail option, where you pay a bit more, but have the physical product itself, which you can then re-sell, lend, do whatever you want with it. Keep your digital downloads priced cheap enough to compete with the 2nd-hand retail market.
And, offer new games / gameplay. You don't even have to think of "new" ones, maybe start with trying to get the most popular MMO's on consoles, and think of some way of controlling those games (touchpad anyone?)..
All in all I think it's evident that this money grab they call the new generation is one, made by the market big-wigs, as a last death-stutter to try and squeeze as much money out of it as possible..
Yea. I laughed too at this one. I wonder if this even was the initial plan or just a result of the outcry. The console market is already in decline, and it may already be due to high prices and DLCs. Could very well be that you are right and this generation will be the end of all consoles. It will be very interesting to watch the sales numbers next year. I think everything can happen. That users switch to pc/mobil or stay with their PS3/Xbox360 and the DRM consoles don't sell at all. Or that they sell like hell and all the concerns that a lot of people mention are not important at all.
But the game market has shown that it does not just except everything. The consumers forced price cuts on the Xbox1, PS3 and 3DS and the WiiU and Vita are in a position were you can see that the consumers are not excited by what is offered.
"One of the greatest bullet points must be this one:
" *) Share acces to your games with everyone in your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited acces to all of your games. "
Hahah, wtf. What, customers should be glad the Kinect isn't picking up that you passed the controller to your friend, and Isn't asking for a couple of $'s when doing so?
Actually, you forgot this:
"We may also cease to offer certain services or products"
They have a patent that would prevent non-buyers to play a game.
This is pure trash, I refuse to buy something that I cant trade to someone for a few days. I will never purchase another Xbox console. I will enjoy watching the new MS/xbox go down in flames.
This system reads like a checklist of all the corporate corner offices in entertainment. It is designed for maximum control of content and user data retrieval, including the ability to take snapshots with the camera to see who is playing (demographically) Banjo-Kazooie or who is watching the NFL.
I hope the top down design doesn't create a system that is frustrating for the end user, but I'm not holding my breath.
2) They are able to negotiate some sort of deal with publishers to continue to allow rentals and share the revenue. (Similar to what happened with Redbox/Netflix and certain movie studios)
GAmers are weak. Fast forward 6 months to the release of a super well reviewed must play game and you will see all these complaints slide off the collective backs of gamers like water slides off a duck's feathers.
They aren't asking anyone to kill their first born. It's just a price increase.
I'd prepare yourself for a nice big clarification coming on that point. Anyone who seriously thinks that Microsoft and the publishers are going to be just fine with you giving 10 full, free copies of their games to anyone you want around the world, without restriction, is truly a fool.
In other words up to two Xboxs can play any of the games you buy at the same time. And no two Xboxs can play any single game you buy at the SAME time.
This also works into the plan to help you rebuy it next gen. We don't have enough money with the games we make now, so we need to keep charging for them every few years with a new delivery method.
We didn't extract this as part of our briefs but according to the documents we linked, yes, all disc-based games will be available as day-one downloadables. That is what Microsoft is forecasting, at least.
(Sadly amusing that, for a long time now, PC gamers have been the only folks that have ever had to deal with DRM at all. Now the PC will be the only platform where you could possibly buy a DRM-free game.)
And publishers didn't have any control over my physical game library until now. Not sure where you came up with that idea.
This is going to be amazing.
Like, consumer's have a responsbility to actually read the requirements for the things that they buy.
"You can't have both a used games market and independence from an internet connection, the potential for abuse would be to big."
You mean like the way every other console has operated until today? Yeah I agree, the "abuse" of consumers exercising their right of first-sale has been a real problem.
The difference is Steam is a free service rather than a $500 machine, and all the games on there can be bought for $5.
"You still need a computer for Steam which will cost you as much as a console in many cases, but probably more."
If you are someone who has subscribed to Xbox live Gold since the beginning (a little over 10 years at around $50 per year), and also purchased a single Xbox and Xbox 360 console (let's say for about $300 a piece), you have spent $1,100 just for the *possibility* of playing multiplayer games on Microsoft's service, without having purchased a single game.
A high-end gaming PC, one that would outclass even the next-gen consoles in capability, could certainly be assembled for less than that.
Thanks for the laugh, though.
I'm taking it for granted that anyone affluent enough to buy an Xboxone has already got a computer. If not, and a consumer is choosing between an Xboxone OR a computer, then clearly a computer is the better choice. But most of us have a computer already - in fact most people like myself have more than one. A console is a purchase IN ADDITION to the computer you already have.
Meanwhile, regarding the price point comment, I was referring to the heavy sales Steam offers. Certainly there is no reason to pay more than $10 for a game on Steam - even a $40 game will eventually be 75% off.
A single GPU already costs more than that. See GTX TITAN. It might MSRP for $999, but good luck finding a retailer that won't charge you an extra $200 for the privilege of getting one sometime while it's still relevant. The other alternative would be a pair of GTX 780's at $650 a piece... $1300 on *just* the graphics horsepower necessary to compete. That doesn't include motherboard ($200~450 in some cases), CPU ($330 for an i7 "K" series), RAM ($300~1100 depending on speed and capacity), monitor(s) ($100~2800 depending on tech, resolution, inputs, EACH), and that's not even counting a copy of an OS to make it all work ($140 for Win7 Pro).
And that you'll have to basically throw everything out and upgrade all over again within 2 years or less to compete.
Consoles are known to get better over time, while PC's get steadily worse. Or did you forget that Crytek can't even be bothered to make a single piece of software that can be run on a computer fluidly sometime THIS DECADE yet?
And did you forget that a lot of this non-sensical DRM started with the PC?
- CD keys
- "install the entire game on hard disk, but still require the disk in the drive to play" ?
- mandatory/periodic CD/DVD checks
- DRM as device drivers
- rootkit DRM
- Need I seriously bring up Origin?
PC never had the advantage of being able to trade/share games either in any shape or form, or even being able to return them when the game would be unplayable, or worse, brick your system because of some glitch that the dev/publisher can't be arsed to have fixed and expected you to have a patch that required the game to be installed in the first place before you can fix it... but you can't fix it because installing it kills your entire system in the process!
It's pretty depressing that publishers and console manufacturers are basically choosing to adopt the WORST practices of PC gaming rather than the BEST practices. :(
Now... it's a lot harder to get excited about electronic devices and software. I hope Microsoft starts thinking more about getting people hopeful and excited. I hope they start thinking about market share more than margins, and start getting people excited about the platform and create a feeling of hope. It can work. It is so simple and obvious. Why can't mega corporations do the obvious is I guess subject for another day...
It just doesn't have to be this difficult. Respect people if you want them to be with you for the long haul.
It's a bit surreal to think that Microsoft may not be interested in doing the things that will truly give them mass appeal. They have tons of cash in the bank and they are still worried about maintaining control over "their" device.
Are they completely losing touch?
Now we just have to hope that this really works out like that.
I suggest everything just be subscription. You want to play a game, charge a per hour rate. Amazing new single player game - $5ph (example), then lower the price as interest drops or have deals on it. Replayable MP games should have their own rates $1ph (for example).
F2P option should be there too.
This is a much better model for pricing products based on their quality so that the mid and low budget games get some revenue too (as no one is going to pay $60 for mid/low quality). But there might be some fun in there worth $0.5 per hour.
As for the brick and mortar retailers, sorry guys, my loyalty is with the developers who create the game, not the middle men marking up the price.
Besides, no EULA or TOS can (or at least, should be able to) override someone's rights, so it's fight worth fighting even if only out of principle.
As a PC gamer though I see a lot of comparisons to Steam, which I think is faulty for several reasons:
1) Steam has a very good offline mode. I once worked overseas for a year and for each 5+ month semester I kept Steam in offline mode the whole time and it never gave me problems. Quite the difference from needing a check every 24 hours.
2) I don't trust MS to be as competitive price-wise as Valve are on software, and perhaps more importantly I don't think the competition for online purchases will be there to drive prices low enough to consider it a rented license "but that's okay."
3) The PC gamer community has proven they will do what it takes to keep classics playable in the future. I'm not shouting "go piracy!" at all here, but the fact is if Steam shuts down someday without an offline patch I still trust Skyrim will work, because PC gamers will make it work. A closed platform with 24 hour internet checks tied to Microsoft servers, however? Every game I bought would feel temporary and not long for this world.
IF the games are great at a price that is right then you're going to buy an Xbox One or a PS4 to play those games regardless of the various minor details of these company policies which are always subject to change.
The relatively few exceptions notwithstanding.
One of the greatest bullet points must be this one:
" *) Share acces to your games with everyone in your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited acces to all of your games. "
Hahah, wtf. What, customers should be glad the Kinect isn't picking up that you passed the controller to your friend, and Isn't asking for a couple of $'s when doing so?
All in all, this generation will be the death of one, if not All the consoles. In times of economic downturns and decreasing retail sales, all the console market can come up with is slightly better hardware, price increases for hardware & games, more DRM like systems and the destruction of 2nd hand games, share buttons & touchpads.
IMO, only way to maintain the console market would be to keep the consoles at Least cheaper then a decent gaming PC, decrease the price for games, and make it easier for customers to buy & play the games. I'd say a steam-like digital distribution system, and a seperate disc-based retail option, where you pay a bit more, but have the physical product itself, which you can then re-sell, lend, do whatever you want with it. Keep your digital downloads priced cheap enough to compete with the 2nd-hand retail market.
And, offer new games / gameplay. You don't even have to think of "new" ones, maybe start with trying to get the most popular MMO's on consoles, and think of some way of controlling those games (touchpad anyone?)..
All in all I think it's evident that this money grab they call the new generation is one, made by the market big-wigs, as a last death-stutter to try and squeeze as much money out of it as possible..
But the game market has shown that it does not just except everything. The consumers forced price cuts on the Xbox1, PS3 and 3DS and the WiiU and Vita are in a position were you can see that the consumers are not excited by what is offered.
" *) Share acces to your games with everyone in your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited acces to all of your games. "
Hahah, wtf. What, customers should be glad the Kinect isn't picking up that you passed the controller to your friend, and Isn't asking for a couple of $'s when doing so?
Actually, you forgot this:
"We may also cease to offer certain services or products"
They have a patent that would prevent non-buyers to play a game.
I hope the top down design doesn't create a system that is frustrating for the end user, but I'm not holding my breath.
1) They're dead Jim.
2) They are able to negotiate some sort of deal with publishers to continue to allow rentals and share the revenue. (Similar to what happened with Redbox/Netflix and certain movie studios)
They aren't asking anyone to kill their first born. It's just a price increase.