Yesterday the internet scored a major victory: It caused so much of a ruckus that it made Microsoft repeal its all digital game management system. I however am not celebrating, no I am mourning the loss of the future.
Once people heard that the Xbox One would have to check in with its central servers every twenty-four hours in order to play their games they went ballistic. They cried about how Microsoft was changing ownership, and how that they only ever went on the internet to complain on forums and other than that they were always in their internetless mountain hideaways. How Microsoft was punching the poor in the face and spitting on our service members, but they forgot to stop and think about what they were gaining.
We were so close to being able to throw disks away, and not only that but than be able to trade in and share our digital content with our friends. Once we bought a game from a store we would have installed it and activated it with our accounts, and at that point if we ever lost the disk or scratched it we could just download it again, or with my favorite ten friends and family members I could digitally loan my games to them, or if I decided I didn’t want the game anymore I could give it to one of them, or go to the store and have them remove it from my account and than have them give me money for it, but to insure that you uninstalled it Microsoft would have to check once every twenty-four hours to see that you deleted it.
But “No!” the internet said, “Microsoft is going to use the Kinect to spy on you, and every twenty-four hours they are going to watch me playing video games, and yelling at my Kinect to pause.” Microsoft explained that the update would only include bytes of data, just an encrypted list of your game licenses and you can turn your Kinect off, but the internet wouldn’t listen, and now we are going to have to buy and manage our games the old fashioned way, and I am sad that we never made it to the future.
True Microsoft should have included an offline mode that let you disconnect and not share or add games to your account for like two weeks or something, and if you never connect to the internet than this wasn’t console for you. I wanted the future. But thanks to raging nerds, we can’t have nice things.
Boo! Missing so much more information. Too bad convenience is more important than privacy.
That is just it, they addressed all the privacy issues. The twenty-four hour check was only to insure that games were managed properly. Since they were up front about it you didn’t have to buy it.
I have mixed feelings, on the one hand their first model was callous to those who didn’t have reliable internet or simply wished to use the device offline yet on the other, like you pointed out, it pushed things forward. What they needed to do was a hybrid, like an opt-in digital with everything they had before, 24-Xbox-Phone-Home included to support that service. Then offline and troglodytes would still have their system and the more enlightened would have their future. Win-win.
The problem is trying to support both systems. Say I use my disk to install and activate my game, but than there is nothing stopping me from giving my disk to one of the offline people, and thus creating a two for one scenario.
I am not saying you can’t have it both ways, but it would get incredibly complicated to try and keep everyone happy, and keep people from abusing the system, and I am sure that is why they gave up just left things the way they are.
That’s where you have it ask you when you first load a disk if you want to install on the HDD (or as a system setting) and enjoy the wonders of the digital system as the system was intended. Those that choose not to then use the old system of disks and vacuum tubes without being able to run the game without discs.