Microsoft Explains Digital Game Sharing On Xbox One
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You mean just like how you currently can do so on the PS3, and how you can do it on the 360 as well? The only difference in this is that you don't have to be signed into your friend's system for them to play it, and now you need to Gold in order to do it. Again, this isn't new, it's just the same thing but advertised as being "new".TomWiley said:
As I first read the article I could help but wonder if the word share was depicted in quotes, more out of irony than quoting from someone else. After reading the article I pretty much feel like it's ironic.
So anyone from my house can play my games while I'm away. I'm sorry but was I supposed to make cartwheels over this announcement?
Also if I pay an added fee I can take my game and be allowed to play it somewhere else. Sorry, but this just seems much easier.
So anyone from my house can play my games while I'm away. I'm sorry but was I supposed to make cartwheels over this announcement?
Also if I pay an added fee I can take my game and be allowed to play it somewhere else. Sorry, but this just seems much easier.
The reason why I'm not amazed about this is the fact that I was able to do the exact same thing back in 1983.TomWiley said:
Oh, thanks for all the responses. Does this mean that this was up in the air previously? Could other accounts on the same box not have played the games if they were members of the family?
so .... in order to use ANY of the advertised features, I'd have to KEEP, giving them money, on top of it costing more then both its competitors?
really?
Wow .... they must REALLY be counting on the Gear/CoD/Halo junkies ....
really?
Wow .... they must REALLY be counting on the Gear/CoD/Halo junkies ....
You got a link for that? Because to the best of my knowledge, the 360 only supported cloud based save games, meaning that if your friend owned the same game you own, you can use your cloud saves to start playing where you left off at home. You could also transfer or download your profile on another console, but then that'd be your main console and you can't be signed in anywhere else.squid5580 said:
With the Xbox One, you can reach your entire profile at your friends plays, download and play games that your friend doesn't own with your friend, even do things like co-op and multilayer, as well as "entertainment apps" - take your entire library with you, basically.
Sounds like a big difference to me.
To the people who don't understand this generation. You can share games on a current console, but when you port your gamertag over to another console, you lose the benefits of the first console. You can't just sign in on any other console and play. You have to xfer your gamertag.
So in other terms, right now you can sign into a console that is not yours, play your games and DLC (provided you download it all) but at home a person who has a separate account on your console cannot access your games while playing their gamertag on your machine because your gamertag has been moved to the console you're playing on.
So in other terms, right now you can sign into a console that is not yours, play your games and DLC (provided you download it all) but at home a person who has a separate account on your console cannot access your games while playing their gamertag on your machine because your gamertag has been moved to the console you're playing on.
You can download all your digital games onto your friends console without making it the main console. As long as your profile is signed in you can play all your games and I am pretty sure you can play co op and everything else. I know for sure you can play your DLC with your friend on theirs in split screen with both signed in. So other than the all gold on 1 box there is nothing else there that the 360 does that the 1 doesn't thanks to cloud saves.TomWiley said:
Then why won't it let me access my Worms game on my 360 when that's the one I bought and it's the home console if I were to go onto my second account? It tells me that I have to rebuy the game to access it. Happened to my friend too when he tried playing his copy of Banjo Kazooie when on his other account on his home console. I don't mean to sound condescending if I do, I'm just wondering why it is doing that.squid5580 said:
Microsoft has actually confirmed that most of these features DON'T require gold. The only one - to my knowledge - that does require gold is the gold sharing feature and that feature would make no sense if you didn't have gold. This means that if I have gold and someone comes over to play on my home console they could access gold features with their own account regardless of whether they themselves have a subscription. That sounds like a pretty awesome feature to me.
The other stuff is there in some capacity on the 360 already, but these features seem to expand on the existing ones for the better so I don't understand the complaints. For those that compare it to the way physical copies work, keep in mind that are certain titles (especially XBLA and XBLIG) that are digital only (XBLIG games especially cost probably the same amount as a game case so it would not even make sense to sell them as physical copies) and many platforms didn't allow digital game license transfer until fairly recently. From what I heard, for example, the Wii was a nightmare for transferring eShop licenses.
Digital is pretty young still and it will take time for systems to match certain perks of owning physical copies (if they ever will), but this is certainly a step forward. Adding valuable features to a system does not make them any less valuable if another system already implements them. Then again, I'm not sure that any certain system has the same features currently - Steam has the whole 'access library anywhere' perk, but it doesn't allow anyone else on my PC to play those games unless they're signed into my account. It might be an unnecessary luxury but it's still an added perk.
The other stuff is there in some capacity on the 360 already, but these features seem to expand on the existing ones for the better so I don't understand the complaints. For those that compare it to the way physical copies work, keep in mind that are certain titles (especially XBLA and XBLIG) that are digital only (XBLIG games especially cost probably the same amount as a game case so it would not even make sense to sell them as physical copies) and many platforms didn't allow digital game license transfer until fairly recently. From what I heard, for example, the Wii was a nightmare for transferring eShop licenses.
Digital is pretty young still and it will take time for systems to match certain perks of owning physical copies (if they ever will), but this is certainly a step forward. Adding valuable features to a system does not make them any less valuable if another system already implements them. Then again, I'm not sure that any certain system has the same features currently - Steam has the whole 'access library anywhere' perk, but it doesn't allow anyone else on my PC to play those games unless they're signed into my account. It might be an unnecessary luxury but it's still an added perk.
You lost me at "xbox live gold membership" I'm afraid.
Now that publishers have caught on that offering their titles as exclusives is just cheating themselves out of entire demographics, consoles can't rely on them too much anymore, so while you're still trying to convince us that we shouldn't roll out eyes with irritation while what is essentially a standardised format remains artificially split into three camps, you need to offer the best console capabilities outside what games they can play, and this is just one more area where the 180 is nipping at the heals of the PS4.
Now that publishers have caught on that offering their titles as exclusives is just cheating themselves out of entire demographics, consoles can't rely on them too much anymore, so while you're still trying to convince us that we shouldn't roll out eyes with irritation while what is essentially a standardised format remains artificially split into three camps, you need to offer the best console capabilities outside what games they can play, and this is just one more area where the 180 is nipping at the heals of the PS4.
The ability to share games would be nice, I mean that's the carrot they tried to offer in exchange for killing the used market. With a physical game I can lend the disc to my friend, he can play it then I can get the disc back (well, in theory). Here I can play it at my friends house... yay?TomWiley said:
Now I can see why letting people trade and lend games digitally could be more problematic than people physically passing discs about. But if that's what we give up when we go digital then there needs to be a better carrot than "you can pay us to let you play your game at your friends house."
See Rex's post above. Seems like most of these features do not require gold, although I'm not gonna read that two-page long article to find out what requires gold and what doesn't. Not going to buy this console after all, you're trying to understand the hate.Do4600 said:
Oh and Steam is way more restrictive than Xbox One's system so it's not even a relevant comparison.
That's not entirely true, is it? Microsoft never planned to "kill" the used market. Quite the opposite, they planned to give players the right to sell any game they bough, but they would offer this service digitally as well, and make sure a small percentage of each sell goes to the developer.Rack said:
This in turn would convince developers to stop messing around with online passes, DLC, micro-transactions and their own on-disc DRM to stop used games. Why would they when they can actually make money on used games as well? I wouldn't call that "killing" the used market. If anything, that's saving it.
Oh, did I mention that Microsoft would enable the system for developers, retailers and consumers, without adding any fees of their own?
Seems like few people knew how Microsoft's original policies actually worked. I admit they are complicated and Microsoft did a piss-poor job of communicating the advantages, but most of their policies weren't anywhere near as restrictive as gamers seemed to assume they were.
Tom, I'm legitimately curious about the first point you made, do you have a link to where they discussed their plans to create a used digital marketplace? The last time I had found any details about their plans, it has mostly been some nonspecific hints about how, sometime eventually in the future, The transfer to fully digital could lead to different forms of liscencing. But the interviews I found that even mentioned it never really went into anything specific, nothing about selling used digital titles at least, and any remote possibilities about what could be done weren't mentioned by Microsoft, but were suggestions by whatever media outlet was reporting at the time. I do grant, though, most of the interviews I found where directly in the wake of all the backlash, before they made the reversals.TomWiley said:
You are probably right about that actually. I remember watching an interview where they spoke about a digital used games hub with participating retailers, but now I can't even find it. It's not factual to say it was planned to be digital, but I certainly think that Microsoft would have, and might still, want to implement some kind of online-based used games system.SeventhSigil said:
Anyway, everything else I said about it is indeed true; Microsoft's Xbox One did allow for used games via official platforms such as Gamestop, without adding any fees of their own. It just wouldn't be digital.
Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license
It's understandable, there was a whole bunch of reports, rumors, so on and so forth zipping about left and right. I still occasionally get the urge to throttle people when they bring up steam sales, considering the nature of the source that brought them up was literally the same as the one that's discussed family sharing being a timed demo. Anyway, while I agree there is definitely potential for a used digital market, I am admittedly uncertain as to whether it would be, or perhaps more accurately when it would be, implemented. I suppose if they determined that the number of people swayed to digital distribution would outweigh the base loss of revenue that comes from not having everyone using sent distribution method purchasing full price new copies. Which strikes me as the kind of analysis that would need an army of accountants and enough coffee to sink the Titanic.TomWiley said:
That being said, I found some very interesting information while I was looking for any articles about what you had mentioned. Apparently that European union has ruled that individuals have the same right to sell used digital licenses as they would disk-based media. If this sort of declaration ever spreads as far as North America, Then used digital games may indeed be on the horizon, Regardless of what any company would plan to do about it. Here's a link to the story if you're interested.
http://m.digitaltrends.com/gaming/eu-court-decision-on-sales-of-used-digital-games-means-big-changes-for-steam-origin/
Anyway, the thing is that there was actually a fair market for the sale of used games over such things as eBay, and other relatively unofficial channels. Now, while the disc games had a user-based 'transfer liscence' code would allow an individual to make an unofficial sale, or gift their game to a friend outright, the last I heard that code could only be used once for a game copy, and then never again. At one point I even heard that a game that was given using the code could not then be sold to an official retailer, though that was awhile ago, it could have been either mistaken or even changed before the outright reversal. I'll see if I can find any corroborating links, and if I do I'll put them in a fresh reply.