@mourne: Again what the heck does loading a game digitally without the need for discs has anything to do with a system-wide DRM policy. Sony and Microsoft have already set this up currently on the current generation of consoles and they will be even more evident on the PS4 and Xbox One. Why does Microsoft HAVE to have this DRM policy in place for ALL forms of gameplay if they believe so heavily in digital gaming? Again, if you set up your digital marketplace so that it is easy to use, very convenient for the consumer, and the consumer finds value above buying a disc copy, they WILL buy it digitally. Why force them to do it? Sony knows this....Sony is banking on digital sales too, however, they do not have to shove it down people's throats. You think if digital sales take off that Xbox has an edge over Sony? How? The PS4 has the same digital playing ability and cloud gaming service as Xbox. You don't think that Sony can't institute their marketplace to also take advantage of digital sharing too? Those restrictions/benefits can be instituted on Sony's end (that is how Steam does it).
Noone knows what the future holds. It is about being flexible to what your consumers want.
Digital is the future. Optical discs are backwards. There's no arguing the inevitable. From this post of yours, it is abundantly clear that you are completely oblivious and the exact person I was describing in my original post as being simply unable to discern information due to being swallowed by outrage. You need to understand that, for the Xbox One, it is not a question of which end (physical or digital) will sale more or less at the onset. Right now, people are conditioned to get games in physical form. What Microsoft is doing is allowing that to still happen while having those physical games become digital copies as well when you buy them.
Your strawman here is bending over backwards for itself. I explained all of this in my original post. Right now, Microsoft is creating a system that allows for a transition between physical and digital. The physical media still has a purpose for this system, but the digital side is obviously being prepared as the successor. There is no feasible way to have both digital games and all of its benefits (see other posts) as well as being able to trade in, sell, or exchange those games at a retailer like GameStop without a regular online check-in so that the service may disable content that you have elected to remove from your account in exchange for money/trade-in value/whatever. This is the simple fact of the matter. If gamers want trade-ins, they have to accept that there is going to be a checking system of some sort. The reason it is 24 hours is so that you can't trade-in a game and still play it for a week, since at that point, you would no longer own the game but would still have it for a week. Digital offers plenty of advantages over physical so long as the service stays online, and judging from Microsoft's track record, that's unlikely to be a problem. If people didn't want any sort of trade-in functionality, there would be no need for online checks. However, knowing people would demand it, they implemented it in the only way that it can really be done.
The PS4 is not nearly as well-equipped when it comes to its digital infrastructure as far as what they have shown thus far. All indications show that it will be very close to the PS3, which was not as well-equipped as the Xbox 360 at digital content (believe me, I own tons of games on both as well as DLC, and it's obvious that the 360 is far better at managing digital content of all sorts). Microsoft's digital infrastructure is better and it's better prepared. The entire next system is based around it being digital-ready as more and more people prefer to consume their content in that manner. Sony will be playing catch-up the entire next generation if your hypothetical scenario came true, which again I point out isn't even the point. Microsoft is equipping themselves so that you can trade not just physical games but digital games as well. That's an unprecedented prospect, and if the future is indeed digital, that is a huge get and headstart on what's to come.
The future is digital. When the 360 launched in 2005, how many people were buying TV shows digitally versus buying them on DVD? How many were streaming on services like Netflix? How are CD sales doing these days compared to iTunes? All the fickle and whiny gamers in the world won't be able to change the direction things are going. Ask anyone in the business. Ask any analyst. Ask anyone on Giant Bomb's staff. The optical drive days are done after this generation.
@mourne: Why'd I need to trust them? If that's all there is to it, I don't see why I wouldn't add whoever has the games I want to play.
What I'm interested in is this: can I add you as a family member? Is it easy to remove you afterwards? If yes, that's fantastic and insane (and will absolutely hurt sales), but why am I hearing this on a forum thread? If not, what are the restrictions they're not talking about? They don't go into how adding accounts works at all, so it's not specific enough.
It's good that there's a solution for multiple Xbones on a single household, I don't think anyone's disputing that, the argument is in how it works outside of that single household.
With Microsoft being in control of the marketplace ala Steam, it will be feasible to have discount sales that they otherwise couldn't because the publishers had no control over the used game market before. They were creating competition for themselves with each new copy sold that re-entered the market as a used game. Like with Steam, they will now have much more control over the discounts to their games, and that will benefit everyone (apart from GameStop).
Since when does less competition equal better pricing? If Steam stops sales, people will (and many already do) instead buy from Amazon, GMG, GOG, GG, etc. Since currently you cannot trade away digital copies, shouldn't that be a big incentive to offer more competitive pricing on the XBLA? When they get rid of lower priced options, why would anyone suddenly start offering their products for less?
Adding a family member will likely be semi-permanent. You will need to trust the people you add to your family plan. I wouldn't count on being to cheat the system at large like that, as you'll not be able to. You'll need to be selective in how you (ab)"use" it.
For the latter point: Publishers are in control of those games, and directly benefit from every single sale. That isn't the case right now on consoles. On PC, the publishers get their cut of every sale. It's not about just Steam--Steam is just used as the hallmark because it's #1. All of the others are tied to the same situation. Right now, for consoles, every time the publisher lowers the price on a physical copy, they are immediately competing with themselves because the used game market that they have no hand in whatsoever is also dropped to 10% of the price they reduce to. Every new copy they sell has the potential to take away business from them in the future as a used game in GameStop's cache. This is why publishers want a piece of that pie, and they're going to get it on Xbox One. This will be good for gamers and publishers in the end, and especially for single player games that get tossed about left and right without the publishers or studios getting any of it.
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