Stop complaining about the loss of the shared-library feature. It was a smoke-screen.

[UnnDunn]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

Wrong. The 10-friend sharing feature was a core part of the licensing model. It was not in the hands of publishers. The restriction was that only one of those friends could play at once; the other 9 would have to wait their turn.

There is absolutely no way publishers were going to permit you to pass your game around to 10 other people directly through XBL completely free of charge. Take any modern AAA game from this generation without a notable multiplayer component (basically anything that isn't Gears, Halo, or CoD). How many of them are appreciably longer than 8-10 hours or feature robust replayability? Next to none. All of those games are fantastic targets for premeditated "group purchases". You must have seen the threads with people locking in their "10 friends" for game-buying purposes? Folks were lining up to take maximum advantage of this feature, and that "added value" doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from publishers.

So one of two things was going to happen: either Microsoft was going to plow ahead with the family share plan and the publishers were going to "opt out" (thereby relieving any criticism leveled at the Xbone), or Microsoft was going to pull the plug on the feature (or drastically alter it) in the months following the console launch. Instead, after Sony forced them to pull a 180 on all of the features no one was asking for, they seized on the opportunity to abort the one feature did want before anyone could figure out it wasn't remotely feasible.

You dont think Microsoft considered all this before designing the feature?

They made it quite clear; the 10-friend sharing was not subject to publisher restrictions. You are just making that up.

Just stop it. You got your way, congratulations.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't publisher-optional, although I haven't heard a really good explanation from Microsoft as to how it was going to work anyway and whether they'd distinguish between family and people who have been on your friends list for long enough. But it was a decent feature, apparently, and from the handful of people who were actually going to buy one, that was a largish factor.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's really quite hilarious that people actually thought it would be standardized. I mean, we know that publishers don't view this sort of thing as lost sales, right?

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Just stop it. You got your way, congratulations.

A rare victory for critical thinking and consumer rights. I will cherish it until they try it again in a year or two.

You dont think Microsoft considered all this before designing the feature?

Do you think Microsoft considers much of anything before they run their collective dumbass mouth?

 

[lacktheknack]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

Wrong. The 10-friend sharing feature was a core part of the licensing model. It was not in the hands of publishers. The restriction was that only one of those friends could play at once; the other 9 would have to wait their turn.

This is why I am disappointed with Microsoft's decision. The vast majority of the whiners didn't actually understand what Microsoft was trying to do, or the issues involved. Ultimately, that was due to Microsoft's PR failure. But their PR apparatus had little chance to succeed, faced with the mob-like idiocy of the Internet, endlessly spouting nonsense, egged on by Sony.

And so we're faced with another 8+ years of the status-quo in game distribution. No new ideas, no innovation. In 2020, I'm still going to have to carry a case full of discs to my friend's house if I want to play them on his console. We're still going to need one copy of the game for every player in the house who wants to go head to head in different rooms. Because people didn't take the time to try to understand what Microsoft was really trying to do.

How exactly was it going to allow people to go head-to-head in different rooms when only one person can play it at a time?

Also, it's hardly "innovative". Game-sharing has more or less the exact same function as a communal Steam account, except that, while technically only one person can access the account at any one time, each player can go into offline mode and they can all play the same game at the same time (as long as it's offline). Innovative would be something like what Gametap has done, ie. subscription service that allows you and five "child" accounts access to a huge pool of games. The only problem with Gametap is that it's kind of terrible, but that's how most experiments end up.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

It's really quite hilarious that people actually thought it would be standardized. I mean, we know that publishers don't view this sort of thing as lost sales, right?

Exactly, it seems like one of those too good to be true kind of things.

It wasn't a friend thing for you share a game with ten people, that was a family pass thing right? I'm sure the verification process for it would have been a pain in the ass, but we'll never know.

They were never too specific on the details, possibly because they had some kinks to work out so people wouldn't be able to abuse the system.

They made it quite clear; the 10-friend sharing was not subject to publisher restrictions. You are just making that up.

Just stop it. You got your way, congratulations.

As I stated above, it wasn't a ten friend thing, it was a family thing (Not 100% sure, but I don't recall the friend thing applying to more then one person) was it not? I don't recall hearing anything about publishers affecting it though, but you have to admit, a lot of them would view it as a big loss financially. Microsoft wouldn't have made it easy to add someone to these lists I would imagine, probably would have had to prove you were family in some way, not sure and we never will be by the look of it. That said, it was the one thing that was kinda innovative in a way, but the cons for most people outweighed the pros with this machine.

It's not a fact of this one person getting his way, a vast majority did. I'm sorry it annoys you, if it really did seem like the thing you wanted and were okay with all their things attached to the machine, then I understand your frustration, even if I don't agree with it as I will not get the machine myself.

Innovation really should lie with the games themselves, the online game share is a great idea in theory, but the world clearly isn't ready for it yet. A lot of people in a lot of countries don't have the kind of internet to have it run smoothly. All this cloud gaming stuff would chew up bandwidth if it does work like they say it will, so people with data caps would be affected and pay more for their net on top of other problems the machine would have presented had they not changed these things.

Like I said though, it sucks that something you were looking forward to has changed to something you're not as fond of, but think of the vast majority that it can benefit now.

 

[Olas]

I feel like this entire thread is directed at one person, the one person crazy enough to actually defend the XBone's previous plan. I don't want to name name's, but it's the one with the XBL avatar.

 

[UnnDunn]

How exactly was it going to allow people to go head-to-head in different rooms when only one person can play it at a time?

Two people could play simultaneously. The owner, and one other person.

 

[UnnDunn]

Just stop it. You got your way, congratulations.

A rare victory for critical thinking and consumer rights. I will cherish it until they try it again in a year or two.

You dont think Microsoft considered all this before designing the feature?

Do you think Microsoft considers much of anything before they run their collective dumbass mouth?

Do you think Microsoft got to their position without doing their due diligence on issues like this?

 

[UnnDunn]

Exactly, it seems like one of those too good to be true kind of things.

It wasn't a friend thing for you share a game with ten people, that was a family pass thing right? I'm sure the verification process for it would have been a pain in the ass, but we'll never know.

They were never too specific on the details, possibly because they had some kinks to work out so people wouldn't be able to abuse the system.

They were quite specific on the details. There was to be no verification; you could add anyone you wanted to your shared-game list. The restriction was that only one of those people could access the library at any given time.

As I stated above, it wasn't a ten friend thing, it was a family thing (Not 100% sure, but I don't recall the friend thing applying to more then one person) was it not? I don't recall hearing anything about publishers affecting it though, but you have to admit, a lot of them would view it as a big loss financially. Microsoft wouldn't have made it easy to add someone to these lists I would imagine, probably would have had to prove you were family in some way, not sure and we never will be by the look of it. That said, it was the one thing that was kinda innovative in a way, but the cons for most people outweighed the pros with this machine.

No. Again, they made it clear that there was to be no verification; you could add anyone you wanted.

 

[Savagezion]

You dont think Microsoft considered all this before designing the feature?

Actually, he is explaining they did - it was a premeditated tactic to use against consumers.

They made it quite clear; the 10-friend sharing was not subject to publisher restrictions. You are just making that up.

Then Microsofts website must have been making it up too.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2041718/xbox-one-pricing-paves-way-for-sony-ps4-success.html

Microsoft places much of the control over disc-based games in the hands of publishers. In the policy outlined on its website, Microsoft said, ?We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers.?

Regarding lending games to friends, the policy states, ?Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends.?

I was going to make a thread about this before the Xbone reversed their decision, but dammit Microsoft kept talking and it was always worth a laugh to see what lie they had been caught in or how they were the future and how dumb we consumers are. I honestly always got sidetracked by watching them that I never got around to the thread between that and The Last of Us. I am mostly posting in this thread to thank FieryTrainwreck for saying essentially what I wanted to post for about 2 weeks. Then I couldn't resist when I saw someone believed vehemently believed this web of lies and bullshit was the future and consumers are too stupid to "get it".

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Snip.

I thought that was just for the one on one sharing feature. Any links on how the other one worked then? There's a lot of info floating about so it's hard to pin this one thing down.

 

[Savagezion]

Exactly, it seems like one of those too good to be true kind of things.

It wasn't a friend thing for you share a game with ten people, that was a family pass thing right? I'm sure the verification process for it would have been a pain in the ass, but we'll never know.

They were never too specific on the details, possibly because they had some kinks to work out so people wouldn't be able to abuse the system.

They were quite specific on the details. There was to be no verification; you could add anyone you wanted to your shared-game list. The restriction was that only one of those people could access the library at any time.

I think I see where you are confused. If you have a PC, if you go to Network Places (XP) or simply Network (Win7) you can see a folder for thing you wish to share with a LAN. This basically how your "family library" would work. All games that had publisher permission would go here. Games where publishers denied permission would not and would be held out of that 'folder'. However, your "family" is a buddy list that is just software on the Xbone. You can indeed add anyone to your shared game list. However you could not add any game to your shared game library. The publisher of each game decides if they will allow you to add their game to the shared game library.

 

[Shpongled]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

Wrong. The 10-friend sharing feature was a core part of the licensing model. It was not in the hands of publishers. The restriction was that only one of those friends could play at once; the other 9 would have to wait their turn.

There is absolutely no way publishers were going to permit you to pass your game around to 10 other people directly through XBL completely free of charge. Take any modern AAA game from this generation without a notable multiplayer component (basically anything that isn't Gears, Halo, or CoD). How many of them are appreciably longer than 8-10 hours or feature robust replayability? Next to none. All of those games are fantastic targets for premeditated "group purchases". You must have seen the threads with people locking in their "10 friends" for game-buying purposes? Folks were lining up to take maximum advantage of this feature, and that "added value" doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from publishers.

Bolded line right there puts a bit of a spanner in the works of your argument, don't you think? Perhaps they looked at the figures and decided that even if some people did share their games, the added exposure to their games might be more beneficial in the long run than the few lost sales? Maybe less people than you think tend to share games without ever buying them? I mean, friends have been sharing discs for decades. Back in the old days we were trading games all the time at school and many developers still managed success.

There're studies that have shown the exposure from piracy often BOOSTS sales, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think Microsoft/the publishers did their research, ran the numbers and came to the conclusion this Famly sharing feature would be overall beneficial for everyone.

Basically, your argument seems to be based entirely in conjecture. I've read all your posts right through and not seen anything based in solid evidence. You've assumed that the sharing system is automatically not financially viable, which goes against quite a bit of research out there, and ignores the fact that these large corporations invest huge amounts of money into this sort of research, whereas you've invested a whole lump of fuck-all into it. You've made the assumption that the sharing system is an opt-in/out system, which is the opposite of that which has been put forward by Microsoft, albeit fairly vaguely. And you're assuming that, if it indeed is optional, all publishers will choose to opt out, despite the potential benefits of opting in.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things wrong with the Xbone, but this incessant bitching from lots of you gamers, even when you get what you want, is seriously getting on my tits. Especially when most of the arguments just boil down to assumptions and conjecture.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I mean, friends have been sharing discs for decades. Back in the old days we were trading games all the time at school and many developers still managed success.

But there's a huge difference between the two methods of sharing: accessibility. When you trade a physical copy, you're limited to your direct environment, meaning it limits how out of hand that system gets. With digital sharing, that limitation is gone.

And this is definitely not the same kind of world as back then, either, especially considering the cost of games nowadays. They can't afford to bet on sharing being the same as back then.

 

[lacktheknack]

The shared-library feature (aka the *only* good thing about the XB1 before today) is gone, and people are mad about it.

They shouldn't be. Because it was never a real thing.

Watch the language carefully. Microsoft was "enabling" publishers to provide sharing for Xbone owners. There was no mechanism or requirement compelling publishers to participate in the program. There was, of course, good reason NOT to participate: potential sales loss.

Wrong. The 10-friend sharing feature was a core part of the licensing model. It was not in the hands of publishers. The restriction was that only one of those friends could play at once; the other 9 would have to wait their turn.

There is absolutely no way publishers were going to permit you to pass your game around to 10 other people directly through XBL completely free of charge. Take any modern AAA game from this generation without a notable multiplayer component (basically anything that isn't Gears, Halo, or CoD). How many of them are appreciably longer than 8-10 hours or feature robust replayability? Next to none. All of those games are fantastic targets for premeditated "group purchases". You must have seen the threads with people locking in their "10 friends" for game-buying purposes? Folks were lining up to take maximum advantage of this feature, and that "added value" doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from publishers.

Bolded line right there puts a bit of a spanner in the works of your argument, don't you think? Perhaps they looked at the figures and decided that even if some people did share their games, the added exposure to their games might be more beneficial in the long run than the few lost sales? Maybe less people than you think tend to share games without ever buying them? I mean, friends have been sharing discs for decades. Back in the old days we were trading games all the time at school and many developers still managed success.

There're studies that have shown the exposure from piracy often BOOSTS sales, it's not a stretch of the imagination to think Microsoft/the publishers did their research, ran the numbers and came to the conclusion this Famly sharing feature would be overall beneficial for everyone.

Basically, your argument seems to be based entirely in conjecture. I've read all your posts right through and not seen anything based in solid evidence. You've assumed that the sharing system is automatically not financially viable, which goes against quite a bit of research out there, and ignores the fact that these large corporations invest huge amounts of money into this sort of research, whereas you've invested a whole lump of fuck-all into it. You've made the assumption that the sharing system is an opt-in/out system, which is the opposite of that which has been put forward by Microsoft, albeit fairly vaguely. And you're assuming that, if it indeed is optional, all publishers will choose to opt out, despite the potential benefits of opting in.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things wrong with the Xbone, but this incessant bitching from lots of you gamers, even when you get what you want, is seriously getting on my tits. Especially when most of the arguments just boil down to assumptions and conjecture.

All that research is irrelevant when you remember how publishers react to piracy regardless, even to this day.

Sometimes, people try to predict the actions of people/collectives/corporate entities based on their previous actions. You do it, too. PETA will keep doing crazy publicity stunts "for the animals", American government will continue growing more and more bipartisian, and game publishers will continue not indulging in behaviour that fosters piracy/copy sharing. Surely you can see that all of these are reasonable if not inevitable predictions.

 

[seditary]

Microsoft were going to use the Kinect for verification. Person you want to add to your shared games list whatever had to be scanned in by the Kinect with you next to them on your machine. Then their Kinect would be able to tell it was them and had permission to use the library.

PS I'm just having fun with all that because I agree the whole thing was pants.

 

[UnnDunn]

You dont think Microsoft considered all this before designing the feature?

Actually, he is explaining they did - it was a premeditated tactic to use against consumers.

They made it quite clear; the 10-friend sharing was not subject to publisher restrictions. You are just making that up.

Then Microsofts website must have been making it up too.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2041718/xbox-one-pricing-paves-way-for-sony-ps4-success.html

Microsoft places much of the control over disc-based games in the hands of publishers. In the policy outlined on its website, Microsoft said, ?We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers.?

Regarding lending games to friends, the policy states, ?Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends.?

I was going to make a thread about this before the Xbone reversed their decision, but dammit Microsoft kept talking and it was always worth a laugh to see what lie they had been caught in or how they were the future and how dumb we consumers are. I honestly always got sidetracked by watching them that I never got around to the thread between that and The Last of Us. I am mostly posting in this thread to thank FieryTrainwreck for saying essentially what I wanted to post for about 2 weeks. Then I couldn't resist when I saw someone believed vehemently believed this web of lies and bullshit was the future and consumers are too stupid to "get it".

This doesn't refer to the 10-friend library sharing feature. This refers to a completely different feature that lets you give one of your games to one of your friends--meaning that friend now owns that game, and you no longer own it. Publishers could restrict that functionality if they wanted.

The 10-friend sharing feature let you share all of your games with up to 10 friends. You would still own the games, but up to 10 of your friends could access them, one friend at a time. This was not to be controlled by publishers; it was to be enabled globally for all games.