Microsoft Is Removing Xbox One DRM
kotaku.com
kotaku.com
Looks like they're still going to struggle with the Kinect privacy concerns, but that's more of a PR battle than an actual privacy one. You can turn off Kinect, but you couldn't turn off the Xbox DRM system.
I can't help but wonder. Of all of the issues with the XB1, that one seems like my candidate for biggest disconnect between what people say online and what popular perception actually is. I know I don't care, nor do any of my gamer friends, nor my brother.
Which may not be completely accurate, the XB1 mic is on all the time by default, but I'm not sure about the camera. The benefit of my laptop webcam though is the hardware light built in to indicate when it's active.
"Instead what we saw was our gross revenue increased by a factor of 40. Not 40 percent, but a factor of 40." http://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economic...
MS might be too wedded to old norms to understand that being able to lower prices can actually dramatically increase total revenue in a digital world but Valve very much does.
Here, read this: http://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economic...
That's some background about Valve's early experiments with Steam sales. Early on their preliminary research indicated that sales would pretty much leave total revenue unchanged, with the increase in purchases balanced by the reduced per-game revenue. However, they found out quickly they were very wrong. What they found was that with a 75% reduction in price their total revenue increased by 40 times. Not 40%, a factor of 40, 4000%. And not sales volume, total revenue. Which translates to much higher profit in the digital realm where per-sale overhead is small.
Game makers and publishers who actually understand economics, instead of companies like MS who merely pretend to, have the opportunity to greatly advantage both consumers and game makers. Cheaper games means more people can play them, but it turns out it also means more money in the hands of people who make games. Which helps those companies survive and makes it that much more possible for them to make more games.
Looking at similar markets, movies cost about the same for a physical copy as they do on Google Play, books tend to cost the same digitally as they do physically, CDs cost about $11, which is what albums tend to cost on Play.
Basically I don't buy that argument. I wish I could, it's a great idea - and only fair considering the lack of transferability and the fact that there is no truck driving goods cross country to get them to me.
Your comparison to similar markets may be valid, however if you're familiar with Steam (a far more direct comparison) and their sales, you'd know that radical pricing changes are possible. It's fairly common for major titles to go on sale for $2.50 - $5.00. I just got an email last week that said The Witcher 2 was on sale for $6.79.
I don't know for sure that Microsoft would have gone down this route, but deprecating physical media would have been a step in the right direction.
How so? I don't see the difference. Most of the games in my Steam library I could also have purchased on Amazon and received a disc within 2 days.
If the price is the same, I prefer physical media on the PC as well. I still feel cheated that Skyrim required a Steam activation.
No need to lug anything to your friend's house. It all happens in the cloud.
Or, consider a LAN party. 5 people each bring their consoles, and 3 games per person. Using disks, you put whatever disk into whatever console, and start playing. Using download-only games, you need to wait until the correct console is available to use.
http://cdn.leviathyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/steam_sa...
Translated: "Please stop telling us to burn in the 9 circles of Hell. Our team would also like it if you stopped threatening their families."
These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously
announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today,
you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared
or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will
require that the disc be in the tray
i.e. it won't boot without the Kinect plugged in.
If anything it shows a more consumer responsive Microsoft, which can't be a bad thing.
this is pretty big
Deleted comment
> After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.