The X-box One is for Publishers, not You.

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I think I understand Microsoft's business thinking in regards to their new business plan. I am going to provide an example and acknowledge most numbers are pulled out of my ass, but still explains the reasoning. So I hope I don't bore most of you with my math.

Let's take a sample of 100,000 gamers playing on current generation consoles. Now lets say 50k only buy new games, 30k sometimes buy new and sometimes buy used, and 20k buy only used games. Now we say on average a gamer spends $300 per year on video games, then break it down to new and used game sales:
50k always new - $300 new / $0 used
30k 50/50 new/used - $150 new / $150 used
20k always used - $0 new / $300 new

So doing the math, there is a total sales of $19.5 million new games and $10.5 million. In the current market, Microsoft and publishers get absolutely nothing from used game sales.

Now here is where the incentive comes in. I am sure Microsoft acknowledges that they will lose customers with these more restrictive measures. Lets say only 10% (or 5000) gamers drop out from the "buy only new" category since it doesn't affect them much, 20% (or 6000) gamers from the 50/50 category, and 50% (or 10,000) from the "only used" category. Lets say gamers still spend $300 per year and Microsoft gets a 50% cut from used game sales. Let's look at the numbers:
45k always new - $300 new / $0 used ($0 MS cut)
24k 50/50 new/used - $150 new / $150 used ($75 MS cut)
10k always used - $0 new / $300 used ($150 MS cut)

Lets run the number for revenue that Microsoft receives. Keep in mind that they received $19.5 million from the previous sample. Math: 45k x (300) + 24k x (150 + 75) + 10k (150) = $20.4 million. Multiply that 100,000 gamer sample size and expand it to the global gaming population, and you make considerably more money. Granted there are so many other variables not taken into account such as development and distribution costs, but the logic remains the same.

I am sure Microsoft has run numbers similar to this and have accepted the risk. It just remains to be seen if their estimate for the percentage of customers that drop out is underestimated or not.

You skipped a demographic, the people who sell games. I feel like we always forget about those guys. All the games they buy are new and they make the money back by selling their games for $20 at Game Stop. This is the segment of dude-bros that us "hard core gamers" usually leave out. They're the people who buy the new COD and turn around and sell it after they beat the campaign or get bored with the multiplayer while we'll hang onto a copy of a game for years. I don't think these people would stick with a console they can't sell games for

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Steam kinda does that unless you leave your computer running 24/7 (bad idea).

I haven't clocked how long it takes Steam to punt you out of a session and demand a reconnect, but I do know that at least on Windows, Steam-Offline Mode is on a per-session basis. That is, if you turn your computer off, you cannot use Offline Mode until you log onto Steam again.

Which in practice, is much shorter than 24 hours.

I don't know for sure, but I've had people telling me that they've been offline for months on end, so maybe it is the case? Not that it matters here, as the question was about what would happen to XBone games if the servers are turned off, and how Steam said they'd remove all DRM from the games if it happened to them.

 

[Fox12]

This is a risky proposition for Microsoft. I knew from the beginning that Microsoft would target publishers, and Sony would, for now, target consumers. The true balance of power is being tested, and it's going to change the way games are made. Does the power lie with the publishers, or the consumers? Microsoft is taking a gamble with the publishers.

At the end of the day, the publishers want to make make money, and they can make more money on two consoles then on one. We've already seen more games, like the witcher 3, final fsntasy 13, and mass effect move towards multi-platform releases. Not to mention that Sony still has plenty of exclusives.

Microsoft could be right, and they may even win, but it's not set in stone. If nobody purchases an xbox 360 then the publishers won't release their titles exclusively for a console that nobody owns. It could go either way.

 

[nevarran]

If MS allow me to share my library with 10 "family members", and even allow one of them to play the same game simultaneously with me, I'm day-one buyer!

So what happens when Microsoft stops support for the Xbox One? Are all of the games you purchased over the years instantly worthless?

They can always release a patch to remove the DRM, just like Ubi did with AC2.
I'm not saying they will, but it's possible.

 

[Requia]

Thank goodness someone else sees this.
There's no doubt in my mind that it was the AAA Publishers who demanded this of Microsoft and there's no reason why they wouldn't have proposed the same thing to Sony.

This would also explain why both M$ and Sony have been curiously silent about the gaming aspects of their game consoles.
They've been weighing the consumer backlash against the publisher backlash.

So what happens when Microsoft stops support for the Xbox One? Are all of the games you purchased over the years instantly worthless?

Unless they go the Steam route and make it so the console doesn't need the once a day check-up, then yes, they'll be worthless within 24 hours. Unless the next Xbox is backwards compatible, but then, that'd be backwards.

Steam kinda does that unless you leave your computer running 24/7 (bad idea).

I haven't clocked how long it takes Steam to punt you out of a session and demand a reconnect, but I do know that at least on Windows, Steam-Offline Mode is on a per-session basis. That is, if you turn your computer off, you cannot use Offline Mode until you log onto Steam again.

Which in practice, is much shorter than 24 hours.

Huh?

11:44:46 up 8 days, 21:20, 3 users, load average: 0.25, 0.27, 0.25

And I sometimes open steam before putting in teh password for the wireless after reboots, never had a problem.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Huh?

11:44:46 up 8 days, 21:20, 3 users, load average: 0.25, 0.27, 0.25

Well if you're running a server, keep it going 24/7, obviously. Caveats are caveats.
But for general home usage, leaving your computer on does more harm than good.

And I sometimes open steam before putting in teh password for the wireless after reboots, never had a problem.

Since 2010, Steam has NEVER, EVER, let me start Offline Mode from a cold boot. Not once.
I'd love to learn how it works for you, since Steam has bit me in the ass more than a few times on account of this.

 

[CrystalShadow]

So what happens when Microsoft stops support for the Xbox One? Are all of the games you purchased over the years instantly worthless?

Unless they go the Steam route and make it so the console doesn't need the once a day check-up, then yes, they'll be worthless within 24 hours. Unless the next Xbox is backwards compatible, but then, that'd be backwards.

I'm thinking of contacting my legislator, not just about the One, but all "Check-in" DRM (steam included)

After a few years or after a AAA title ceases to bring in 6 figures worth of gross revenue in a year, whichever is first, a publisher should cease _all_ regular check-ins.

I agree. And I know of one publisher that agrees with a similar principle (but only the one). - That being the publisher of X3...

Because the new, full-price versions of that game when just released, contained a considerable amount of DRM, yet by the time it was available in the bargain bin, the bargain version contained no DRM whatsoever, and the original release had all of it's DRM patched out...

So... Someone in that company clearly thinks that DRM is necessary, but has also come to the conclusion that it's benefit is short-term, and after a while continuing to use it becomes a liability rather than a benefit.

Given the assumption that DRM does protect against launch-day piracy, this seems like a reasonably fair trade-off.

I'd prefer no DRM at all, but at least knowing it'll probably be patched out at some point, I won't have to worry about the technical problems it could cause 10 years from now...

 

[The Funslinger]

Xbox1 is now the posterboy of wanting to enslave it's consumer base due to fear.

So basically, it's Lord Frieza, and we're the Saiyans.

That means the NEXT gen Xbox is going to kill us all, with the exception of my infant son who will grow up and found a rival company destined to destroy Microsoft once and for all.

Better get procreating.

 

[Woodsey]

Which honestly seems kind of fair to me.

Until you realise no one else does it.

Since 2010, Steam has NEVER, EVER, let me start Offline Mode from a cold boot. Not once.
I'd love to learn how it works for you, since Steam has bit me in the ass more than a few times on account of this.

Well, have you ever looked into it? I find it hard to believe that over the course of 3 years and XYZ amount of updates you have that exact issue.

In terms of settings all you need is for your credentials to save on your machine. (Bottom of the Account tab.) If that's done, does it give you an error message or what?

I boot my machine and go straight into offline mode all the time.

OT: Had a 360 last gen, meh. Have a PS3 now, meh. Seems I'll continue to be living la vida loca on the PC.

 

[Faraja]

They are not marketing the Xbox One to consumers, they are marketing it to publishers.

If Sony doesn't, the publishers may give more exclusives to Microsoft, giving them the edge in the console war. The exclusives will always win console wars.

The biggest problems with your (and theirs, if true) theory.

1: If you aren't marketing to consumers, or your marketing is blatantly anti-consumer, you're going to turn people off of your product. On top of that, someone else will swoop with their 'we're pro-consumer, yay us!' product. Not only does your product look bad in general, but you make the other guy's product look even better.

2: Publishers are going to watch sales and trends. Unless Microsoft is willing to shell out huge amounts of money, the publishers themselves will go where the buyers money is.

3: There's already a console that allows this. Well, I say console. They call it a PC. Now, yes, it is easier to pirate on PC, one must also remember that publishers have had the ability to have direct control over their sales on PC starting pretty much once high-speed internet was available.

4: Exclusives will decide which console gets the stronger edge, but we aren't likely to see the biggest titles in the world go exclusive. Games like CoD: Fillet...er, Ghosts, will likely never really go exclusive. Yes, it may come out on a Xbone first, but it'll be available both on the PC and PS4 eventually. Maybe even the WiiU.

5: Korea. Not every country is it. The US alone is a very broad country, with a good chunk of it's population still spread out, and connection speeds varying. People are going to be turned off if they even think they might have to keep a connection for a set period of time. Probably the smallest concern, but there you go.

 

[Requia]

Huh?

11:44:46 up 8 days, 21:20, 3 users, load average: 0.25, 0.27, 0.25

Well if you're running a server, keep it going 24/7, obviously. Caveats are caveats.
But for general home usage, leaving your computer on does more harm than good.

And I sometimes open steam before putting in teh password for the wireless after reboots, never had a problem.

Since 2010, Steam has NEVER, EVER, let me start Offline Mode from a cold boot. Not once.
I'd love to learn how it works for you, since Steam has bit me in the ass more than a few times on account of this.

It is a home PC, the idea of leaving it running doing harm is frankly deranged (I built and fixed PCs for 3 years as my job, don't try to tell me otherwise). If something is going wrong with your PC in less than a week of uptime something is broken.

It's not exactly a cold boot, but steam hasn't been up since last reboot. Just disabled networking and booted it, it came up just fine, asked if I wanted to do offline mode and I said yes. It's possible they're nicer to Linux users? I think I'll leave it in offline mode until it shuts down (or I actually want to buy something), see how long it takes.

 

[C2Ultima]

If I were to summarize my reaction, it'd be that The Xbox One event gave me no incentive to buy it.

Everything I've heard since then has given me incentive not too.

 

[antigodoflife]

Also it's 4$ a month , you can find that kinda change on the streets . Hell i spend 4$ a day on energy drinks ...

I don't know where you're from but it's a lot more than $4 a month where I am. It's like $12 a month here.

 

[krazykidd]

Also it's 4$ a month , you can find that kinda change on the streets . Hell i spend 4$ a day on energy drinks ...

I don't know where you're from but it's a lot more than $4 a month where I am. It's like $12 a month here.

Canada . The xbl cards are 49$ ( plus tax ) for 12 months . So it comes to between 4$ and 5$ a month .

 

[Atmos Duality]

It is a home PC, the idea of leaving it running doing harm is frankly deranged (I built and fixed PCs for 3 years as my job, don't try to tell me otherwise).

So what? I've built and repaired PCs since 1999 as a hobby, professionally since 2003.
So cut the sass and just answer my question or keep it to yourself.

If something is going wrong with your PC in less than a week of uptime something is broken.

Outside of hosting services or handling large downloads (or processing, if you're into the heavy-science), there is literally no benefit to leaving your computer on all the time outside of cutting a little startup. And if your startup time is long enough that you would rather it stay running all the time, you've got bigger problems.

No matter how good your setup is, the best defense is always prevention; you can't overload or brown-out a machine that isn't plugged in, nor can you "hack" one.

It's not exactly a cold boot, but steam hasn't been up since last reboot. Just disabled networking and booted it, it came up just fine, asked if I wanted to do offline mode and I said yes. It's possible they're nicer to Linux users? I think I'll leave it in offline mode until it shuts down (or I actually want to buy something), see how long it takes.

Ahh, so it's a Linux system.
I haven't run Linux in about a year on account of moving between machines, and my research software being Windows-based thus far; but I'll give Steam a whirl when I get around to locating a good distro.

 

[zidine100]

um, im no marketing expert but wouldn't this have the opposite effect, minus a few publishers. Aka we can be seen as the great monolith soul sucking company, or we can tout the fact that we don't do this and get the free gamer pussy that comes with it, just sayin.

 

[WeepingAngels]

The case for my PC build arrived this morning .

Gonna put Windows on it?

 

[DSP_Zulu]

I haven't clocked how long it takes Steam to punt you out of a session and demand a reconnect, but I do know that at least on Windows, Steam-Offline Mode is on a per-session basis. That is, if you turn your computer off, you cannot use Offline Mode until you log onto Steam again.

Which in practice, is much shorter than 24 hours.

I sometimes have to take my PC to venues where we dont have internet access. I always set my Steam to Offline mode before we go, and i've played it that way for days without having to re-check.

Both of my brother in laws are Marines and are deployed. Both have Steam set to Offline mode and have played all their games for *months* with no access to internet.

So, yeah, not sure why your Steam client behaves differently than everyone elses, but it isn't true.

And, if you need to, you can call Valve and get them to validate offline mode over the phone, which is something you can do when you dont have internet, more often than not.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Xbox1 is now the posterboy of wanting to enslave it's consumer base due to fear.

So basically, it's Lord Frieza, and we're the Saiyans.

That means the NEXT gen Xbox is going to kill us all, with the exception of my infant son who will grow up and found a rival company destined to destroy Microsoft once and for all.

Better get procreating.

That comparison seems a tad unfair to Frieza, wouldn't you say?