Forcing Microsoft to reverse DRM will harm the games industry
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If anything, it was entirely a step in the opposite direction. We would have had to relinquish control of our physical purchases to Microsoft's 24-hour scrutiny. They would have unfairly taken a cut of used game sales, in direct violation of First Sale Doctrine.
They would like to try to convince you that all of the great features related to their DRM were completely dependent upon the DRM scheme, but there are still alternatives. Games sharing can still work, if they concede that a small amount of so-called abuse is acceptable.
I've also seen absolutely nothing from Microsoft that would lead me to believe that any of their plans would reduce the costs of games. Every time they mention DRM it's in the context of preventing piracy, which they say drives game prices up. If they had unleashed a DRM scheme and had enough confidence in its efficacy, they could also have announced new pricing schemes as a result, which would have placated the majority of gamers.
Publishers would never allow this.
It's been well-proven by Steam et al. that if you price correctly and use an unobtrusive (or even nonexistent in the case of GOG) DRM scheme, people would much rather buy and support their favorite games developers (and publishers) than go through the effort of pirating a title.
That's why games sharing would work with only minimal abuse. Not because it wouldn't be technically feasible for the consumer to abuse the system, but because the barrier to actually owning the games they want to play would be so low that it would become the new path of least resistance.
The sky's the limit if the industry can learn to treat their customers with respect.
Edit: By the way, a version of games sharing already exists on the PS3. If you purchase a game digitally on PSN you can install and play it simultaneously on multiple PS3s as long as your account is on each of them, I believe up to a limit of 5 PS3s.
Fucking shame it is then that the customers do not extend the same courtesy.
Are you familiar with the phrase "pearls before swine"?
As for this particular instance, the DRM scheme proposed was clearly anti-consumer in nature. The disrespect the gaming community showed Microsoft as a result of it was entirely justified.
It will be some time before Microsoft regains the respect of the majority of gamers, if at all.
First, consider how many gamers can articulate the difference between developers and publishers, and who they get angry at when games don't go according to plan.
In my own home town, Timegate Studios just shuddered from the debacle of Aliens: Colonial Marines--and was widely blamed by ignorant gamers despite a history of solid games and expansions.
Gamers bitched to no end about Steam when it was required for CS 1.6, even though it was the future. Look at all the complaints about CS:GO from the hardcore players (one memorable thread involved a HUD tweak driving some clan rabid because it screwed up their grenade-throwing technique). Others complain about Valve doing nothing since Episode 2, ignoring Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 and DOTA and whatnot.
Look at the way gamers and reviewers panned Duke Nukem Forever, ignoring the fact that dozens of people poured over a decade of their lives into that thing.
Look at the flooding of gamers over to free-to-play and ad-driven titles, pushing the race-to-the-bottom of devs only to then give angry reviews on the app store.
Look at how every online game reviewer and game poster crows and white knights about the portrayl of women and gender roles in games, and yet look at how they actually spend their dollar vote.
Look at how the gamers mocked Doom3 for having a pretty solid and amazing lighting engine and pushing shadow tech to the limits of its time.
Look how gamers today complain about older titles that don't hold their hands with navigation and lots of simple mission objectives--and then bitch about how games today are too linear.
Gamers are the worst sort of customer after dollar web-hosting ones.
The second violators of this are what I'd call the `On-the-Go` gamers - People who play games that don't take a ton of involvement or time to get going into them. Their library typically includes games like Angry Birds, Bejeweled, Sim City, and Nintendoland.
Coincidentally, it seems to be that the biggest names out there seem to focus their marketing on these two archetypes the most. I partially think it is because they're the least interested in all the crap and drama that goes on in the games industry, and secondly, they're the most impressionable when it comes to marketing. Make things big, gritty, and loud to attract `en masse` gamers - Make things colorful, shiny, and quick for `On-the-Go` gamers. Easy money.
It is quite a bit more difficult to reach the `core` gamers (of which there are many sub-types). These people care less about games being easy to consume, and more about the quality and depth of a title. These gamers have no problem with voting with their dollar and will often prefer games they know and love if the newest game doesn't look up to par. Unfortunately these types have been slowly getting outnumbered as easy to consume games bring in new customers that don't really care about the differences between developers or publishers.
Regular gamers can be great customers, but slowly it seems like games are being marketed toward gamers who don't care about the games they're consuming and who won't complain when 50kg of DRM and ads are tacked onto their game.
There is no way 24-hour DRM or not that they would allow that. Microsoft themselves never clarified how game sharing would work, which means it was just marketing/PR to get people to accept the need for daily online check-ins.
If you think they would actually allow people to share games with 10 friends (with no clear plans or proof of game sharing actually working) I have some snake oil I would like to sell you :p
If the article attempted to justify this statement, and then attempted to demonstrate that those policies would have the effects they were designed to have, and then finally shown how these effects would benefit the games industry, it would have fulfilled the promise of its title.
If you want the more modern terms with their conveniences and downsides, buy it online through the console and have it tied to your account.
If you want to buy a disc, you follow the old rules. You must have the disc to play, but you can also loan it to friends or play it offline.
It has worked that way with the existing Xbox 360, except you can't find the newest games online.
Also I dont think that "the future of video games" is a future anyone would want where consumers have to ask Microsoft's permission to play our games, or where developers must go by Microsofts rules (such as indies can't self publish, or microsoft taking a cut of used game sales).
Giving Microsoft that much power and control over peoples digital libraries is foolish, and I dont see in any way possible that the game sharing feature (which is the only standout one) would be allowed at all by publishers, or that it would work as they led people to believe. Do you really think publishers or microsoft themselves would allow friend networks to share games with everyone? That would harm profits for them and publishers much more than piracy ever would.
If I had an xbox one, I wouldn't be able to play my single player games after at most 24 hours.