Microsoft has caved in to consumer outrage over its plans to force owners of its forthcoming Xbox One console to connect every 24 hours in order to keep playing their games. The always-on DRM requirement has been dropped, and Xbox One owners who purchase games on disc will be able to sell and swap those discs just as they can now.
In a post on the Xbox site, Microsoft VP Don Mattrick explains the change of heart:
While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.
One downside of the new policy? You’ll no longer be able to resell digitally-downloaded games, which had been part of Microsoft’s plans, and games running from disc will require the disc in the drive at all times. Nonetheless, it seems a sensible move given the general perception that Sony’s PS4 represented a more compelling next-gen console option.
Comments
11 responses to “Microsoft Xbox One Backflip: No More Always-On DRM, Disc Swapping Allowed”
Pretty sure this was always the plan, they just pretended to be a$$holes before so they could then come back and say “Look we listen and changed for you, doesn’t that make us better?”
I don’t think it was so much the whole asshole thing, just looking forward to all-digital distribution, potentially even later in the xbox one lifecycle.
Remember, all you can do now is swap cd’s. The now defunct plan would also allow lending of digital games, something that you know won’t be able to do, xbone or ps4.
“More compelling”? “Far less repugnant” would be more accurate. I don’t think the PS4 offered much to draw people in – Sony just pointed out they weren’t making the toxic changes that Microsoft were. Other than that, a PS4 is an upgraded PS3, with in-built price-gouging for non-US customers, that takes away free multiplayer – unless you live (or import from) the US, the changes were all bad, really, but nowhere near as bad as Microsoft’s.
Great news – region free too…. about time!
I think it is a major over-correction from MS
They need to have some kind of combined system that lets you take your system offline while still letting you play games, all they need to do is require the disc when playing offline, and disable your shared library until you check in again.
I was looking forward to the shared library and “family” sharing
To me some of the drawbacks really suck.. Welcome back to the bad old days of disc changing.
to me they could have just gotten rid of te weird 24 hour bullshit and kept the ability to just sell digital games..
but I guess it would appear many of the people involved in the console wars can only fathom physically handing a disc to someone.. How sad 🙁
Great news! I didn’t think they’d do this. I think they clearly misread the market here, to Sony’s gain.
Also there’s no reason why they shouldn’t stick with their policies on downloaded games. Family sharing on downloaded games vs standard disc games could have been an interesting experiment.
By far the smartest move they could have made at this point.
Why are people so resistant to progress?
The XBOne was designed for the future, but because of the uninformed outcry, the best features of XBOne have now been removed. 10 “family” license, not needing physical disks, digital downloads on day of release – now all gone 🙁
We have moved on from CDs to MP3 for our music, we have moved on to digital distribution for PC games via Steam, all MSFT was doing with the XBOne was attempting to do the same with console gaming. Sorry future, looks like console gamers aren’t ready for you yet!
It’s not enough. The whole Kinect system is still capable of spying on us, and locking up the system purely because there are more than a set number of people in the room. That needs to go.
My internet speed isn’t the greatest so I’m happy I don’t have to download games. Would take me a month to get one! Also what would’ve happened with this connecting every 24 hours if your internet went down or you went away for holidays? Sounds weird to me.