Originally posted August 15th 2013
This one guy got angry at me when I compared the Wii motion controls to the kinect and said "history will repeat itself, all the kinect will bread is shovelware and tacked on motion controls." He was all "no the kinect has much better tracking and has voice recognition." I was ready to comment but someone beat me to it. Here's what I would have said if they didn't create a big conversation, "it doesn't matter how good the screw driver is, they're all kind of equally useless when trying to drive a nail." lol
Originally posted August 13th 2013
Now about kinect costing as much to manufacture as the xbox one, basically saying microsoft is selling the bundle at a loss, and then the countless millions of dollars spent in R&D. Then here's a kicker. I heard that kinect for PC costs $500 USD, so at that price, kinect for xbox would probably also cost $500, so you're buying a kinect and getting an xbox for free. eye roll
Now I really do feel kind of bad for them, wouldn't you after spending probably over a billion dollars on something people don't want, but then again, anyone could have told them the kinect wouldn't be well received. Microsoft do a little consumer research next time, and maybe see WHY people bought the Wii in droves, and notice that after 1 year, NO ONE was buying one for the motion controls. You would have also noticed that no one was buying the play station move. You could have been like both Sony and Nintendo and just let home motion controls die and then people wouldn't hate you to much, but no, let's shove motion controls down your throat because "that's what you want right?"
Originally posted August 8th 2013 with this article Every XBOX ONE includes a chat headset
Well what do you know, Microsoft decided that maybe we should screw the customer less than what they were doing. For those of you who don't know, microsoft was origionally not going to include a headset with the xbox one because "you could use the kinect because the kinect is such an amazing piece of technology and we don't see any reason why anyone would rather have private conversations with people instead of having everything come through the TV speakers." Everyday Microsoft changes their tune just a little bit. Next step, GET RID OF THE KINECT REQUIREMENT!!!! Honestly. I couldn't care less about specks, advanced technology, cloud gaming, and even being pro-indy. I don't need a headset because I don't talk to people anyways. But what is keeping me from buying your console is the requirement to use a stupid peripheral that I will never use, no good games will be made for it and utilize it, and will likely be unresponsive unless you're in this one sweet spot. I'll buy a wii before I buy an xbox one, cause at least with a wii I could play gamecube games, trauma center, and hulu plus without having to pay nintendo for the privilege of being able to access the app. And if you want to know why I hate the wii, just ask zeldamaster93. He knows all my arguments. And many of the arguments carry over to the kinect.
Originally uploaded August 3rd 2013, there was an article called "Microsoft to let game makers self publish on XBOX ONE," but the article is dead now.
So looks like microsoft changed their tune again, making it closer to the PS4. Every time I hear about that, I think about that dorkly picture where they talk about "giving gamers options." Every time I think about that, I think, "well if the option is a giant turd with some gold scraps in it or a block of silver just sitting there, well most everyone is going to chose the block of silver instead of digging through the turd to get some gold." Now all they need to do is get rid of the required kinect. Not only are you losing customers by requiring it, I will never buy an XBOX ONE so long as that stupid thing is required, but I've also heard that you lose money because the kinect 2.0 costs as much to make as an XBOX ONE, and I'm not talking R&D, that might be, but in raw parts.
Originally posted August 2nd 2013
Sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I find it funny when people compare the old xbox one to steam because of the DRM. If there are PC gamers out there, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the reason people do PC gaming because of the ability to have the most up to date hardware on the market, the ability to output the frame rate at insanely high numbers, like close to the refresh rate of the monitor or projector, the ability to mod your games, and lastly the steam summer sales, and with all those features, you put up with the DRM found in steam. Sure, the XBOX ONE had all the DRM, but they would surely lack every other feature PC gamers love. Update the hardware; the XBOX ONE doesn't even have a removable hard drive, so you wouldn't be able to upgrade the video cards, ram, hard drive, video out, etc. without modding the console and then getting banned from xbox live. Output at insanely high frame rates; max I heard was 60 fps from xbox one, and if this was the days of CRT TVs, that would be the refresh rate of the TV, but now we have TVs with 120, 240, even 600 frame refresh rate TVs, so sorry, lost out again on frame rate. MOD your games, you have just been banned from xbox live, you're screwed. Sales, ehhhh yeah right. Since I don't PC game, I'll need some fact checks on this one, but I'd imagine that most of the games in the sale are made by Valve and there aren't many 3rd party games. Microsoft, what do you have to bring to the table in the form of 1st party games? Halo, every kinect game ever made, I don't think that people are going to be biting at the bit to buy either of them sale or no sale. Sure, maybe halo, but everyone who will want to play it will likely have already bought it new for $60. I highly doubt EA or Activision would participate in a 75% off sale. Again, I might be wrong on the sales thing so don't take that as fact unless I get someone backing it up in the comments, but I highly doubt that the sales would happen on XBOX LIVE. And last time I checked, steam doesn't require you to have a web cam connected at all time.
And because I buy games to keep, I might have been able to over look the DRM a couple years down the line in case it isn't really all gloom and doom, but the kinect is a deal breaker, and always will be. I hate motion controls, I've done a rant on them. I see absolutely no use for it. Any feature is stupid and any kinect game is bad. But that's a different topic.
And though this has nothing to do with gaming, didn't want to lose this. Originally posted July 25th 2013
On a much brighter note, this actually happened. I'm watching Nicktoons Network, because I like cartoons, and they're doing this promo for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They're about to show a sneak preview for the upcoming season, and they do a 5 second count down, and right as they're about to show the preview, a test for the emergency broadcast system comes on. At first I thought "this is a joke, it's part of the funny," but then I see my county and city, and being a cable channel, there's no affiliate networks to make custom joke emergency tests. Then I thought "ok something is really happening," but then a lady says "this has been a test of the emergency broadcast system. Had this been a real emergency, further information would have been given." Then as it ends, the guys that were hosting it were all "wow that was amazing, I can't wait for the next season." That really happened. I've never heard of it happening in real life. I'm laughing uncontrollably and for 30 seconds I start talking to the camera's that had to have been there. I went on for a solid 10 minutes.
BR
Originally posted July 13th 2013
Did you know that someone actually complained about sony removing the new playstation camera from the PS4 and made it an optional accessory, saying that "while the kinect is very poorly received for gaming, it did do wonders with robotics when hacked and kinect 2.0 is quite a marvel of tracking capabilities, and now maybe gamers will miss out on multiplat features in some xbox one and ps4 games that utilize kinect." Lets break this down, very poorly received by gamers, so make it optional and lower the price since many gamers won't use it. Did wonders when hacked, well then people can just buy it if they want to hack it, it's an optional accessory. Amazing tracking capabilities, makes no difference if the games are stupid, which they will be. Miss out on features, like what? the ability to yell commands at your game or wave your arms like an idiot? spongebob rainbow nobody cares. If they manage to make it good, I doubt it, but lets assume for the moment that there is a game that utilizes the power of the kinect and move in a way that is fun and engaging, then gamers have the option to buy a move for the one game that utilizes it and isn't required to function instead of being forced to buy it for the console to work. But here's the thing, kinect being useful won't happen. Only tech demo games like just dance will use it. Unfortunately with the kinect being required, we might have another wii on our hands where developers feel compelled to tack on some form of motion controls or voice commands and it actually ends up hindering gameplay. Any wii fan feel compelled to try to tell me otherwise? And this isn't "there were good games for the wii." This is "the motion controls were an asset to the wii and many games utilized them in a way that made sense and immersed me in the game." I don't want someone telling me how great galaxy, monster hunter, metroid, DKCR, or brawl was and you could overlook the tacked on motion controls, I want someone to tell me why those games would have sucked without those "tacked on" motion controls.
Originally posted July 13th 2013
Stop the presses, I am actually having a rational discussion with someone on youtube about if requiring kinect is a good idea. There's no CAPSLOCK and no mention of a promiscuous mother or lack of sexual encounters. We're actually bringing vallid points to the table about if the kinect is a stupid gimmick and microsoft is wasting their time with it or if the mandatory adoption will lead to good games. I think my nail in the coffin was how the Wii required motion controls and only 2 first party games actually gave an in depth experience while fully utalizing the motion, trauma center and skyward sword. Everything else was just a tech demo like wii sports or had tacked on motion controls like DKCR. I'm interested to see what he has to say in response to that.
Originally posted July 11th 2013, not really xbox one specific, but "all digital" was definitely a thing of the pre-launch xbox one days.
I've been hearing a lot of people talking about how "digital distribution of games is the way of the future and the used game market as we know it will be a thing of the past." As a collector, I sure hope that isn't the case. 1: a picture of a full 1 tera hard drive is far less impressive than a wall of games. Another is that, of the 10 consoles I have, only 4 I bought new; the other 6 I bought used, mainly because they're old school and weren't supported anymore when I bought them, and now 2 of the new consoles are last gen and/or old school. So if I want to buy games for 8 of my consoles, and soon all 10, I need to buy used physical copies, because even if I could buy digital games on that console, I can't buy digital after the servers are off line, so all I can do is buy the digital. I could pay through the nose for a factory sealed copy of an old school game, but at that point, I'm just paying the reseller and none of the money is going to the publisher, so to save $200 on a game that's just for the collection, I buy it used. I've even ran into problems with wanting to get the full version of a demo I had on my xbox, mainly the teenage mutant ninja turtles arcade game remake, but it was off the marketplace when I finally had the microsoft points to buy it. It's an xbox arcade game so I can't get a physical copy anywhere, and it sucks because the demo is really fun. I'll make an in depth video on the subject explaining every aspect once I can get access to my nerd cave, but here's a little taste of my full feelings. Since many of you are gamers, what's your take on the matter?
Originally posted July 5th 2013
I know it's kind of died down since they released that xbox one won't be the always on DRM machine that we all hated, but lets look at another glaring problem, and that is the requirement for kinect. Lets get one thing strait, I am not a "they're going to watch us" conspiracy theorist like everyone else that hates this kinect requirement. Why this sucks, is because the kinect is garbage and I laugh every time I see someone with it. Sure, it can track motion much better than all the other motion controllers on the market, or so Microsoft asserts. But here's the problem, HOME MOTION CONTROLS SUCK AND ALMOST EVERY ATTEMPT TO MAKE IT WORK FAILS!!!! Kinect adventures, a couple of lame mini-games that show off what the kinect can do. All the Zumba games, it's just dancing, and while fun for a little while, gets old kind of quickly for me at least. Close to every wii game in existence, tacked on motion controles that add nothing to the game like in DKCR and Galaxy, or stupid mini-games that don't engage me, or racing games where steering controls are far to clunky to give good handling. 2 games are the exception in my experience, skyward sword with the 1:1 motion tracking with the weapons and trauma center with it's precision medical tools. "You can use voice commands to turn it on or go to things," or I could just turn it on with my controller and use my controller to select things. I hate kinect and all home motion controls since no one can consistently do them right and I'm so glad that Nintendo dropped that with the wii u. Microsoft, you still lost me as a customer, not because the sting of DRM always on left a huge scar, but because you still have the kinect knife lodged in my gaming hand. If I were to get an xbox one, I'd hack the kinect to mute the mic and have the kinect always stuck behind the console, and if that doesn't work, I'd hack the camera as well. Sell me a console without the kinect for $100 cheaper than with kinect and then we can talk. Again, I'm sorry Nintendo tricked you into thinking motion controls would catch on and everyone would get it, but get over it, admit they tricked you, and move on and get people back.
Originally posted July 4th 2013
I've heard someone complain that "without xbox one's DRM, I won't be able to play without having the game disk in the console." You want that, go back to PC and leave the good stuff to us console gamers. That or buy the digital copy, which is just about every game available. You want "no disk gaming," go to the DRM machine that is PC or get the digital. You want the ability to get it used, get the physical, that's why we have them.
Originally posted May 26th 2013
I've heard someone complain that "without xbox one's DRM, I won't be able to play without having the game disk in the console." You want that, go back to PC and leave the good stuff to us console gamers. That or buy the digital copy, which is just about every game available. You want "no disk gaming," go to the DRM machine that is PC or get the digital. You want the ability to get it used, get the physical, that's why we have them.
Showing posts with label drm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drm. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Saturday, February 2, 2019
The Most Popular Arguments for XBOX ONE's DRM and My Response To Them (google plus reupload 2013)
Originally posted August 9th 2013.
I found this article on the most popular arguments for XBOX ONE'S DRM. Here are my responses.
post
Anyone looking for a good laugh? Well you'll probably get more of a chuckle, but still rich. Google "xbox one drm arguments" and you will read some of the stupidest reasons ever that you can't help but laugh at. Here's one article, and quick reasons why it's wrong.
"Xbox One would have solved the problem of buying a game on disc and then not being able to store it digitally or download it from the cloud."
1. I don't trust the cloud in the long run, especially long after the console has lost support from the developers. Also, it's not a problem. We've been swapping physical media for years and aside from super lazy lard butts, no one actually thinks it's a problem. And there is a reason why we buy physical. If we didn't want to swap the cartridge or disk, we'd buy the digital.
2019 thoughts, cloud gaming and digital only is a problem. The wii shop channel closed down, and now there are many games that can no longer be purchased.
"Publishers could charge less for games."
2. Uhhhh, yeah right. Physical and digital copies of the same game on the same console cost EXACTLY THE SAME, despite how there isn't the middle man and physical production costs.
"You could make more money from your trade-ins."
3. Or you could make even more selling it yourself through eBay. I sell things all the time on eBay, and things in DVD cases or cartridges are one of the easiest things to ship since all you need to do is put it in a bubble wrap shipping envelope. Never sell your games to gamestop or any other retailer. Digital licenses probably wouldn't be much better.
"Everyone used to hate Steam, but everyone loves it now. Xbox One could have been the same."
4. HAHAHAHAH Now that's rich. PC gamers like steam because of the sales, the ability to MOD the game, have the best hardware available, and output at maximum possible frame rate. Price, see #2, MOD the game, you've been banned from XBOX Live, best hardware available, you can't even remove the hard drive on the xbox one, so upgrading would count as modding, and then get banned from xbox live, max possible frame rate, no they boasted 60 fps at E3 and PC can get up to 100+ fps.
"Sharing games with your 10-person family plan would have been so much better than the total lack of digital sharing we have now."
5. Yes that's cool, if your family has more than 2 XBOX ONEs. My has one shared console between the entire family. Now what if 11+ people use the XBOX? Without the DRM, there's no problem, just 11+ profiles on the console, but everyone could use it, physical or digital. With the DRM, well then only 10 people could use it, meaning 1+ people are out of luck.
"The 24-hour online check-in was a necessary evil because it allows games to run entirely off the hard disk and be shared digitally."
6. Are you stupid? Like really stupid? We didn't need 24-hour check-ins with the physical or digital games before. We didn't need them to share our physical games before. It's been convention that you don't share digital games or DLC, but always share your physical, and physical is superior because it's unlimited storage limited only to your available shelf space.
"DRM makes stuff more affordable." 7. Since when? DRM only means you CAN'T buy affordable used games that you want only for a dust collector in your collection. Yes, I do buy games to further increase my collection and don't have much intention of playing much. I can get them for cheap at garage sales and through ebay and amazon. Can't do that any more with DRM.
"Now all we have is Xbox 360 2.0. How is this progress?"
8. And screwing the customer IS? Yes, people tend to generally not like change, but sometimes that change is just a bad idea, like deciding you're going to "improve" your life by "changing" your daily intake of cigarettes from 0 (not smoking) to a pack a day. The xbox 360 is a nice console. Sure the PS3 is better, but it's still good. Why take a step backwards?
I found this article on the most popular arguments for XBOX ONE'S DRM. Here are my responses.
post
Anyone looking for a good laugh? Well you'll probably get more of a chuckle, but still rich. Google "xbox one drm arguments" and you will read some of the stupidest reasons ever that you can't help but laugh at. Here's one article, and quick reasons why it's wrong.
"Xbox One would have solved the problem of buying a game on disc and then not being able to store it digitally or download it from the cloud."
1. I don't trust the cloud in the long run, especially long after the console has lost support from the developers. Also, it's not a problem. We've been swapping physical media for years and aside from super lazy lard butts, no one actually thinks it's a problem. And there is a reason why we buy physical. If we didn't want to swap the cartridge or disk, we'd buy the digital.
2019 thoughts, cloud gaming and digital only is a problem. The wii shop channel closed down, and now there are many games that can no longer be purchased.
"Publishers could charge less for games."
2. Uhhhh, yeah right. Physical and digital copies of the same game on the same console cost EXACTLY THE SAME, despite how there isn't the middle man and physical production costs.
"You could make more money from your trade-ins."
3. Or you could make even more selling it yourself through eBay. I sell things all the time on eBay, and things in DVD cases or cartridges are one of the easiest things to ship since all you need to do is put it in a bubble wrap shipping envelope. Never sell your games to gamestop or any other retailer. Digital licenses probably wouldn't be much better.
"Everyone used to hate Steam, but everyone loves it now. Xbox One could have been the same."
4. HAHAHAHAH Now that's rich. PC gamers like steam because of the sales, the ability to MOD the game, have the best hardware available, and output at maximum possible frame rate. Price, see #2, MOD the game, you've been banned from XBOX Live, best hardware available, you can't even remove the hard drive on the xbox one, so upgrading would count as modding, and then get banned from xbox live, max possible frame rate, no they boasted 60 fps at E3 and PC can get up to 100+ fps.
"Sharing games with your 10-person family plan would have been so much better than the total lack of digital sharing we have now."
5. Yes that's cool, if your family has more than 2 XBOX ONEs. My has one shared console between the entire family. Now what if 11+ people use the XBOX? Without the DRM, there's no problem, just 11+ profiles on the console, but everyone could use it, physical or digital. With the DRM, well then only 10 people could use it, meaning 1+ people are out of luck.
"The 24-hour online check-in was a necessary evil because it allows games to run entirely off the hard disk and be shared digitally."
6. Are you stupid? Like really stupid? We didn't need 24-hour check-ins with the physical or digital games before. We didn't need them to share our physical games before. It's been convention that you don't share digital games or DLC, but always share your physical, and physical is superior because it's unlimited storage limited only to your available shelf space.
"DRM makes stuff more affordable." 7. Since when? DRM only means you CAN'T buy affordable used games that you want only for a dust collector in your collection. Yes, I do buy games to further increase my collection and don't have much intention of playing much. I can get them for cheap at garage sales and through ebay and amazon. Can't do that any more with DRM.
"Now all we have is Xbox 360 2.0. How is this progress?"
8. And screwing the customer IS? Yes, people tend to generally not like change, but sometimes that change is just a bad idea, like deciding you're going to "improve" your life by "changing" your daily intake of cigarettes from 0 (not smoking) to a pack a day. The xbox 360 is a nice console. Sure the PS3 is better, but it's still good. Why take a step backwards?
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Hapy Gamer Rambles, a look at XBOX ONE's used game DRM
OK, so welcome to part 2 of the XBOX ONE original design look. Last time I talked about the always online aspect. Today I'll talk about the used game DRM. Next time, I'll talk about the kinect. Now with the used game DRM, I believe Microsoft was trying to accomplish 2 things, control over the market and no more used games, and make the XBOX ONE an all digital machine.
Now like always online, you can't sell me on only digital and no used games. I'm a collector, I like my physical copies for display reasons. I also hate digital only since I've missed some digital only releases and now I can't get them anywhere. There have been launch titles that are no longer produced, and if not for used physical copies, I would be out of luck. Not only that, with physical I don't have to worry about my console running out of space. I'm only limited to how much shelf space I have. Also, as a collector, I refuse to sell games. Even if the game is utter crap, it is now part of my collection and I will not sell it. Again, I'm not the norm, but this time there are more people who would agree with me. There are a lot of people that like physical copies.
So, where did Microsoft go wrong? Well here's how they treated physical copies. "If you buy the game physically, the game is then installed onto your hard drive and is locked to your account. With this, you don't need to have the disc in the tray and you've got family share. You can't sell it unless at a specified retailer. You can only loan the game to 1 friend, and now the game is tied to their account forever. Basically, you can't simply sell or loan your games." So what's the problem here? Well Microsoft basically missed the entire point why people buy physical copies. You don't buy a physical copy to have it treated exactly like a digital copy. If you buy a physical copy, you buy it so you could easily trade with with friends, easily sell it, and play the game off the disc. If you wanted disc-less play, no way to sell your game, and no way to trade your game, you buy it digitally. Whether you wanted to control used game sales or wanted to go all digital, this was not the way to do it.
So, controlling used game sales. I can see where they come from, developers don't get money from used sales, they need to keep the servers running, and they might not have gone under if more people bought it new. Here's one thing though that I think developers forget; used games are far different than pirated games. With pirated games, one once legal license can be used entertain an infinite amount of people. With a used game however, only one person can enjoy it, and the original owner forfeits all rights to enjoying it later. With used games, people do experience seller's remorse, because now they can't enjoy that game ever again unless they buy another copy. I will save the details on my explanation of why people sell their games and how to avoid that for a later date, but here's the gist; people sell their games because they're board with them and don't want them anymore and would rather have some money. If you don't want people to sell their game, make a game they won't want to sell. Xenoblade Chronicle was going for $70 used, because that's the price it took to get people away from it. Bear in mind, new it cost $40. It was so good, people considered it worth more than the new price. If those developers released more copies at $40, they would have sold so many more. In fact, GameStop got into some trouble because they got some new copies and they opened them and called them used because it would make more money due to used costing $30 more. If you don't want people to sell your game, make a game they won't want to sell.
So I addressed preventing used games, what about going all digital. Well that's a very simple answer that developers don't seem to grasp; pass the savings in shipping and production onto the customer. When a game is physical, there's far more costs than just digital; shipping, packaging, printing, disc writing, the middle mans cut, and things like that. All in all, the developer and Microsoft might only get like $45 together after all the other costs of doing physical. So without all these added costs, how much do digital games cost? Exactly the same as if you bought it physically. Sure, developers now make more per game and financially it's the same for the consumer, but then that means that the consumer has to deal with all the draw backs to digital, aka, no flexibility on sharing or selling and hard drive space. Sure they get the perks of disc-less play, but that doesn't necessarily make up for the drawbacks. If you want people to buy digitally, make it financially advantageous. "OK physical copy costs $60, if you're going to buy digitally, we'll subtract the cost of printing the disc, making the packaging, shipping the game to the retailer, the retailer's cut, let's round that down to the nearest dollar, so now your final price is $45." That's 25% off physical. Do you know why Steam can do all those sales? It's because it's an all digital platform without any middle men or production costs, and they pass the savings onto the consumer. They did do some physical releases, but they made it better financially to buy it digitally. You make digital cheaper than physical, people will then buy digital, and you can naturally phase out physical. I fear the day when that happens, but that's how you do it.
So, when Microsoft got rid of the DRM, they got rid of the "features" like disc-less play and family share. I already addressed disc-less play and if people want that feature they'll just buy it digitally, but what about family share? Well, we really don't know what we lost with that one. The details were kind of hazy as to what that would actually do. There was something about being able to share your entire game collection with 10 people in your family, and those 10 people could use the same license. An example they gave was a dad and his 2 college sons playing CoD together off the same license with the dad at home and the sons off at their respective colleges. The way it sounds is that you could have shared your entire game collection with 10 "family members," aka friends. How would this have worked, we don't know. Would there have been 10 permanent people you call family that could use it? Would that mean you could be logged onto 10 different consoles? Would it have meant that you could call 10 consoles your "console" and everyone on that console had access to your games? No one really knows. Microsoft did try to advertize the DRM as a good thing, and to that I must give them some credit, but it ultimately failed because people still hated it and DRM is almost never the way to go. People expect a certain level of DRM with digital games. If you want to get rid of physical games, you need to make digital more appealing than physical, not destroy the whole reason people buy physical in the first place.
OK, that's enough for today. Next time, the kinect. Well this has been happy gamer, and if you want to get rid of physical copies and used games, DRM is not the way to go.
Now like always online, you can't sell me on only digital and no used games. I'm a collector, I like my physical copies for display reasons. I also hate digital only since I've missed some digital only releases and now I can't get them anywhere. There have been launch titles that are no longer produced, and if not for used physical copies, I would be out of luck. Not only that, with physical I don't have to worry about my console running out of space. I'm only limited to how much shelf space I have. Also, as a collector, I refuse to sell games. Even if the game is utter crap, it is now part of my collection and I will not sell it. Again, I'm not the norm, but this time there are more people who would agree with me. There are a lot of people that like physical copies.
So, where did Microsoft go wrong? Well here's how they treated physical copies. "If you buy the game physically, the game is then installed onto your hard drive and is locked to your account. With this, you don't need to have the disc in the tray and you've got family share. You can't sell it unless at a specified retailer. You can only loan the game to 1 friend, and now the game is tied to their account forever. Basically, you can't simply sell or loan your games." So what's the problem here? Well Microsoft basically missed the entire point why people buy physical copies. You don't buy a physical copy to have it treated exactly like a digital copy. If you buy a physical copy, you buy it so you could easily trade with with friends, easily sell it, and play the game off the disc. If you wanted disc-less play, no way to sell your game, and no way to trade your game, you buy it digitally. Whether you wanted to control used game sales or wanted to go all digital, this was not the way to do it.
So, controlling used game sales. I can see where they come from, developers don't get money from used sales, they need to keep the servers running, and they might not have gone under if more people bought it new. Here's one thing though that I think developers forget; used games are far different than pirated games. With pirated games, one once legal license can be used entertain an infinite amount of people. With a used game however, only one person can enjoy it, and the original owner forfeits all rights to enjoying it later. With used games, people do experience seller's remorse, because now they can't enjoy that game ever again unless they buy another copy. I will save the details on my explanation of why people sell their games and how to avoid that for a later date, but here's the gist; people sell their games because they're board with them and don't want them anymore and would rather have some money. If you don't want people to sell their game, make a game they won't want to sell. Xenoblade Chronicle was going for $70 used, because that's the price it took to get people away from it. Bear in mind, new it cost $40. It was so good, people considered it worth more than the new price. If those developers released more copies at $40, they would have sold so many more. In fact, GameStop got into some trouble because they got some new copies and they opened them and called them used because it would make more money due to used costing $30 more. If you don't want people to sell your game, make a game they won't want to sell.
So I addressed preventing used games, what about going all digital. Well that's a very simple answer that developers don't seem to grasp; pass the savings in shipping and production onto the customer. When a game is physical, there's far more costs than just digital; shipping, packaging, printing, disc writing, the middle mans cut, and things like that. All in all, the developer and Microsoft might only get like $45 together after all the other costs of doing physical. So without all these added costs, how much do digital games cost? Exactly the same as if you bought it physically. Sure, developers now make more per game and financially it's the same for the consumer, but then that means that the consumer has to deal with all the draw backs to digital, aka, no flexibility on sharing or selling and hard drive space. Sure they get the perks of disc-less play, but that doesn't necessarily make up for the drawbacks. If you want people to buy digitally, make it financially advantageous. "OK physical copy costs $60, if you're going to buy digitally, we'll subtract the cost of printing the disc, making the packaging, shipping the game to the retailer, the retailer's cut, let's round that down to the nearest dollar, so now your final price is $45." That's 25% off physical. Do you know why Steam can do all those sales? It's because it's an all digital platform without any middle men or production costs, and they pass the savings onto the consumer. They did do some physical releases, but they made it better financially to buy it digitally. You make digital cheaper than physical, people will then buy digital, and you can naturally phase out physical. I fear the day when that happens, but that's how you do it.
So, when Microsoft got rid of the DRM, they got rid of the "features" like disc-less play and family share. I already addressed disc-less play and if people want that feature they'll just buy it digitally, but what about family share? Well, we really don't know what we lost with that one. The details were kind of hazy as to what that would actually do. There was something about being able to share your entire game collection with 10 people in your family, and those 10 people could use the same license. An example they gave was a dad and his 2 college sons playing CoD together off the same license with the dad at home and the sons off at their respective colleges. The way it sounds is that you could have shared your entire game collection with 10 "family members," aka friends. How would this have worked, we don't know. Would there have been 10 permanent people you call family that could use it? Would that mean you could be logged onto 10 different consoles? Would it have meant that you could call 10 consoles your "console" and everyone on that console had access to your games? No one really knows. Microsoft did try to advertize the DRM as a good thing, and to that I must give them some credit, but it ultimately failed because people still hated it and DRM is almost never the way to go. People expect a certain level of DRM with digital games. If you want to get rid of physical games, you need to make digital more appealing than physical, not destroy the whole reason people buy physical in the first place.
OK, that's enough for today. Next time, the kinect. Well this has been happy gamer, and if you want to get rid of physical copies and used games, DRM is not the way to go.
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