
Your Feedback Matters – Update on Xbox One - owenwil
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update
======
ebbv
This takes care of the used games issue but it doesn't take care of:

\- $100 more expensive than PS4.

\- Kinect always included, always connected and always on. Cannot be removed,
disabled or turned off.

\- Netflix behind Xbox Live Gold paywall, available for free on PS4.

Plus other numerous functionality complaints such as it's supposed to be the
way you watch TV but it isn't a DVR, you still need a separate DVR. And it's
supposed to be the center of your home theater but only has a single HDMI
input.

~~~
alyx
Stop spreading privacy FUD.

Kinect can be controlled and disabled.

[http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy](http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy)

~~~
mikelat
This page says it's disabled by software - not by hardware. So it really
depends on how much you trust the software and the people making it. The
software is closed source and the people making it also happened to be the
first ones to sign onto PRISM.

~~~
amalcon
The aftermarket part to disable the Kinect without breaking warranty is not
very expensive:

[http://www.amazon.com/Post--3-Inches-Canary-
Yellow-12-Pads/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Post--3-Inches-Canary-
Yellow-12-Pads/dp/B00006JNNE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1371683713&sr=8-2&keywords=post-
it+note)

Though there are a number of reasons I don't like the Xbox One, the Kinect
isn't one of them.

~~~
mikelat
You could very well do that. You could also crack open the kinect as soon as
you buy it and change it so you can disable it by a switch or something like
that. Although permanent disconnection apparently isn't a good idea as saying
"xbox on" will I hear be the only way you turn the device on.

Really though I think it'd be easier for them to just give customers the
option not to plug it in, but my guess is that they're trying to make sure
everyone uses the kinect that they ship with the console (its not necessarily
being used for nefarious purposes), but with that being said I still don't
trust Microsoft.

~~~
jevinskie
> "xbox on" will I hear be the only way you turn the device on.

Really? What about mute people? Microsoft can't be that accessibility-
impaired!

~~~
mikelat
I'm just telling you what I've read. I don't agree with it, but it's
reasonable to assume they ship a kinect with every xbox one, they want people
to use it and they probably aren't thinking of mute people.

------
gfodor
I'm pretty sure short-sighted consumers/gamers shot themselves in the foot on
this one, big time. I would have liked to have seen if Microsoft's move would
have led to cheaper per game pricing like we see on PC. I guess we'll never
know. I actually respected them for making a ballsy change like this that may
have brought the console gaming industry into the Steam era.

Also, it now looks like you can no longer share/lend/give away your games
digitally to friends and family, you have to lug a stupid disc around. High
fives everyone, hooray!

~~~
jacquesc
I think the hidden gem there is that all games will be available digitally.
Once they figure out how lucrative their equivalent of Steam sales can be,
that should start driving the cost of games down and also really hurt the used
game market (which Microsoft and publishers are still eager to kill).

When you download a game, you can't lend it. You can resell it. Yet no one
seems to care (status quo and all). But I think it's the natural progression
of things, the next-next gen will be all download (well, we all said that last
time too..)

~~~
chc
> _Once they figure out how lucrative their equivalent of Steam sales can be,
> that should start driving the cost of games down_

This seems pretty unlikely. Microsoft already has a large slice of its
catalogue available for download on the 360 — and it's almost always cheaper
to buy the disc. To illustrate, I will look up a random game that I did not
know the price of before this. Saints Row: The Third costs $49 on the Xbox
Marketplace. On Amazon, a new copy costs $29.

Discounting lucrative titles just isn't how game companies work, and it
especially isn't how Microsoft works.

------
habitue
Someone on HN suggested the theory that Microsoft was only announcing all of
the digital restrictions because they were hoping Sony would do the same in
this generation (since they aren't allowed to collude directly, and it seems a
reasonable bet that _Sony_ would up the ante on DRM, as they have
historically). But, the theory was that if Sony didn't go that direction, they
could always back out before the device goes on sale, since it only matters
what the policy ends up being, not what it would have been.

If that was indeed Microsofts strategy, you can look at this press release as
saying "OK, well Sony didn't go the way we thought, so we're backing off. No
harm, no foul".

As evidence that they at least had this route as a contingency plan, you have
to think this kind of massive about face in the tech would only be possible if
they had built in a "TURN_OFF_CRAZY_DRM" flag or something, just in case.

------
programminggeek
The reason Microsoft is doing this is not what you think it is. The Xbox is a
subscription business. $50/year * 46 million subscribers. Microsoft can't
afford to lose those subscribers.

The box, the DRM, media integration, etc. means nothing if they lose those
subscribers to the Wii U or PS4. So, don't piss off your core customers.

Anecdotally, a lot of my friends and family who are longtime Xbox gamers have
no intention of buying a $500 DRM laden Xbox 360. Removing a lot of the DRM
restrictions still doesn't fix the price and now Microsoft already looks a bit
foolish for not being very customer friendly in the first place.

The "console war" is a long game, but Xbox One didn't start out on the right
foot for sure.

~~~
habitue
> The reason Microsoft is doing this is not what you think it is.

I assumed they were succumbing to pressure from their customer base... what
was I supposed to think the reason was?

~~~
teamonkey
The people complaining are only a fraction of their total customer base.

~~~
shock-value
Pressure doesn't just mean vocal pressure. By now I assume they have preorder
data from Amazon, etc. (For Amazon, the PS4 has been a top seller in the
videogame category for most of the past week despite being split up into
multiple bundles.)

~~~
teamonkey
So has the Xbox One, although there's only one SKU so far.

~~~
shock-value
I should have said, _the_ top seller, ahead of the Xbox One.

------
JohnTHaller
The quick summary:

\+ No more needing to connect in every 24 hours to validate your game. It
connects once the first time you run it.

\+ You can now lend, share and sell disc-based games exactly as you can with
PS3 and Xbox 360 discs

\- All other advanced sharing features have been dropped (share with 10
friends/family, virtually lend to a friend, etc)

\- Discs will need to be in the tray to play

~~~
Makkhdyn
I really don't understand why they aren't trying to do something in between.

If you download/buy a game from xbox live you can virtually lend it and a
connection is require to lend the game (and temporary disable your access to
that game). If you own a physical copy you can lend it as you did before.
Everyone's happy and if the new system is that good and the consumers are
happy then maybe the next system could be through xbox live only.

~~~
TimJRobinson
That's what they are doing. Combining New and old.

------
sergiotapia
Doesn't matter to me in the slightest. I was a 360 owner this current gen
(coming off of the PS2) but I will leave Microsoft come end of year.

I don't want or need the vast majority of features they are offering. I live
in Bolivia - I don't care about the NFL, can't watch Netflix or even stream
Pandora. The PS4 has more features that I can use and want, is cheaper and
doesn't come with bullshit DRM.

Where's the choice?

~~~
wukkuan
What are the features the PS4 has that are missing on the Xbox One? Genuine
question.

~~~
sergiotapia
Free games with PS+, working online in my country, and more.

~~~
muyuu
In your country it really is an easy decision.

On top of all that, it's clearly the superior hardware for cheaper, without
the surveillance device bundled.

They are in for a rude awakening.

~~~
Livven
I guess every smartphone and every tablet is a surveillance device too eh?

~~~
muyuu
Mine isn't, I run an OSS system that lets me verify that the camera is indeed
off. It also works disconnected without sabotaging the functionality and
software that doesn't require a connection. The camera led is impossible to
disable without hardware tampering, too. And I can even tape it and it will
continue working.

The XBOX PRISM is a different creature altogether, and a very worrisome
precedent precisely because we already have smartphones and tablets that could
potentially follow that path.

------
imilligan
I'm a bit disappointed at this change - on one hand, it's nice to know that I
can share my disc games if I want to. On the other hand though, this
effectively means they're killing off their disk-less approach to
owning/installing games. This means that instead of having all my games tied
to my account on any device I own, I have to lug my games around with my
everywhere I go. This also means picking my vegetative self up off the couch
when I want to switch what I'm playing.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Sucks to be you. That's what happens when people shortsightedly complain about
things over and over again. It just goes back to the status quo.

Without the 24 hour check, there's no way to guarantee that the games tied to
disks are still owned by you and you didn't just give them to someone.

~~~
GVIrish
How was Microsoft's plan any better than the status quo. Having to take your
physical discs somewhere is not some huge burden that will break the backs of
people who want to play games at someone else's house. Fact of the matter is
that someone would have to sit there and wait for a multiply gigabyte download
to finish in order to play a game at someone else's house without the disc.
Forget trying to play more than one game unless you've got a couple of days to
burn downloading.

Meanwhile, with MSFT's old plan you couldn't lend a game to anyone, couldn't
rent a game from anyone, and it seems like you could only sell your game back
to a retailer.

People keep saying, "The games would've been cheaper" but there were no
indications that was going to happen. If games were going to be cheaper, don't
you think Microsoft would've touted that as a benefit at least ONCE since they
unveiled the Xbox One?

------
ChrisNorstrom
It doesn't matter they already showed me what kind of company they are over
and over again. The fact that they would try this in the first place says
something about them. After all these decades, nothing's changed about
Microsoft.

And don't even try to feed me that BS about "companies exist to make money".
No. They. Do. Not. A company exists to create a solution to a problem or
fulfill a need. In exchange for providing that to a consumer or user they are
rewarded with money. Money is not the goal, it's the result of achieving a
goal. People don't start companies thinking "I'm going to start a company to
make money" . They do however start them by saying "I'm going to start a
company that makes ______ for money".

I'm just glad this whole thing backfired and I hope they feel the wrath of the
gaming community for years. Their entire plan was to kiss the asses of
publishers who would in turn make more exclusives for Xbone and the players
would have no choice but to get an Xbone. Now that is a dick move.

~~~
nbouscal
> And don't even try to feed me that BS about "companies exist to make money".
> No. They. Do. Not.

Yes they do.

> People don't start companies thinking "I'm going to start a company to make
> money" .

Yes they do.

You've clearly never met any business majors.

------
pdknsk
I guess the massive cheering at the E3 press conference when Sony announced
their policy on this scared them pretty good. For me, it was one of the
saddest gaming related moments I witnessed. This should be expected, not
applauded.

------
revscat
So:

1) You still have to have the Kinect, and so long as the console is on it,
too, will always be on. (And apparently even when the console is off it will
still be listening for the "turn on" command. This has implications I'm not
comfortable with.)

2) Independent developers will still be prohibited from participating in the
Marketplace.

3) It will still be $100 more than the PS4.

I've been a 360 owner for several years now. At this time it doesn't look like
I'll be getting the next generation model.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
I really REALLY hate the Playstation controls compared to the Xbox controls,
but I'm willing to make that sacrifice to save a hundred bucks.

------
tpetrina
Finally! Let's hope that there is no firmware or update that will reverse this
policy. The only issue that now remains is that the console is limited to 21
countries.

This region-lock limitation prevents me from giving money to Microsoft, which
is something they should want actually, and from developing for the console.

------
eridius
The page is loading really slowly, so here's the text:

Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on
display for a global audience.

For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the
best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our
heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of
advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and
entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming,
family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits
of a connected, digital future.

Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from
many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to
take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to
reshape the future of Xbox One.

You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games
delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your
discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the
freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.

So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can
play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360.
Here is what that means:

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games –
After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc
based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour
connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and
play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today
– There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just
as it does today on Xbox 360.

In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from
Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be
able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be
playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions.

These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for
Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply
share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to
today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.

We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the
assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the
majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games
and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and
digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your
feedback that you want the best of both worlds.

Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to
listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this
year.

~~~
rocky1138
So much text for so little info. They should have just given us a TL;DR.

~~~
jlgreco
Unless I am missing something, the TL;DR seems to be "it will work like the
360".

~~~
rmrfrmrf
with the Kinect complaints notably absent. Considering how flimsy both the
Kinect _and_ the XBOX360 are, there's _no way_ I'm buying an Xbox One if I'm
required to have mics and cameras connected at all times, nevermind the
privacy issues!

------
Dirlewanger
Hopefully the gaming "journalism" industry will stop jerking off the PS4 after
this. Any pragmatic-minded individual saw this coming after their E3 fiasco.
Not doing so would have been akin to pouring money down the drain.

~~~
ikeepforgetting
The only reason they backed off of it was because of the bad press it gave
them in the first place.

------
dageshi
Personally I think Microsoft will have to drop the price of the xbox one to
match the PS4. I think people will look at the Kinect and ask if it's really
worth paying an extra $100 for. The answer will be a resounding no.

~~~
recursive
I think it's worth more than $100. I certainly can't see how the no would be
resounding.

------
meritt
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out given the immense amount of
damage done already by their out-of-touch policies. It's like the SimCity
debacle was just somehow ignored over there. Guessing the numerous PS4 pre-
orders and the telling Amazon poll finally convinced someone "Hey guys, turns
out that DRM policy is killing us, can we please disable it?"

An entity that only does the right thing after being publicly ousted is not an
entity deserving of the public's trust or business.

~~~
MartinCron
_An entity that only does the right thing after being publicly ousted is not
an entity deserving of the public 's trust or business_

That feels overly cynical. It's not like they were caught doing something
underhanded, they just announced policies that weren't as consumer-friendly.
There was a backlash, their competition took advantage of it, and they
switched to a better policy.

To me, it seems that everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
Capitalism still works.

------
pvnick
It's interesting to see how the massive backlash elicited such a fast
response. I'm curious as to how such a task is being undertaken at MS
headquarters, with developers working overnights, dropping current work to
support this pivot, etc. Personally I think it's very encouraging and a step
in the right direction.

~~~
jacquesc
Status quo is fine and all, but I don't think it's really a step in any
direction.

Though the fact that they're still giving me what I want (digital downloads on
all games) means I really have nothing to complain about. Digital lending /
sharing features might have been cool though.

------
sjmulder
> Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold.

They’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. This sort of flexible
licensing doesn’t make sense for disc-based games, but would have worked very
well for downloads.

------
l0c0b0x
Nice try Microsoft, but you're still not getting my money. Not until you do
something about your Xbox live ripoff(s).

------
jamesdelaneyie
I wouldn't be surprised if this flip-flop was planned for some time ago. Same
with the iOS7 icons.

------
ssag
Your feedback matters so much we have disabled comments on this page.

------
locusm
I see a Kickstarter opp here - the Xbox Kinect sleep mask.

------
conradfr
Weren't games supposed to run partly on the cloud ?

~~~
shock-value
I think that was just PR nonsense from the beginning. Besides the fact that
very few gaming related tasks (except multiplayer support) would benefit from
remote servers, they couldn't assume an internet connection anyway, since the
check-in was only once per 24 hours.

~~~
skeletonjelly
PS4 has this as well. I'm assuming it's possible to direct a calculation to
either the local or remote servers.

------
seivan
Our money matters.

------
sivam
Reposting my earlier comment on the other thread that went off front page:

They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be a perfect name!

On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how
the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal,
Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off
the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM"
and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and posts pointing out the
facts(forget about posts taking the opposing view or opinion) were downvoted
into oblivion by the angry mob.

And then there was the bad timing on the NSA leaks, which didn't help at all.
Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets with cameras and mics which
could be watching and listening and Apple/Google were part of the leak, but it
was Microsoft that was singled out for proposing a device that could turn on
itself, and had numerous safeguards to configure privacy if you wanted to.

All this doesn't excuse the fact that Microsoft utterly and totally failed in
communicating their message in a proper manner in E3 and handed Sony an easy
victory on a silver platter. For example, they failed to highlight how it
fixes the problem of scratched and lost discs and how inconvenient it is to
change discs to switch between games. I know a lot of people with huge DVD
collections who watch the same movie on Netflix because they can't be bothered
to put in a disc into the player.

They were touting the ability to play another game while waiting for people to
join another multiplayer game, now that will be inconvenient with having to
switch disks.

I guess it was easy to roll this back because it was not Microsoft but
publishers and game developers that were going to reap the benefits of
diskless gaming because Gamestop etc. skim off the value of older games and
leave publishers with not much value. Once the public failed to see the
advantages and blamed Microsoft for a power grab that was not going to really
benefit them all that much, it was game over.

~~~
chez17
>On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how
the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked.

It seems like you haven't considered that the echo chamber is right on this
one. DRM is a cancer on the industry and every attempt to fight it back is
worth it. You make points that the DRM could lead to potential benefits, no
one is disputing that. Simply put, with the way it was, I was never going to
buy an Xbox, now I might consider it. I can't stand the trend these days where
the consumer owns nothing and controls nothing. This is capitalism at work,
nothing else. It seems like a win for consumer rights and a win for Microsoft.
Your post seems like a reactionary post lambasting the reactionary posts on
reddit.

~~~
zamalek
In certain cases the "landscape" of a feature means that what we would see as
DRM is simply just a part of that feature. Steam is effectively a DRM
platform, but the convenience of my games being backed up for me (and being
able to transfer those games across machines when e.g. upgrading) means that
the DRM becomes a feature that actually helps me (a good example of DRM being
a feature is MMOs). I guess that's where I draw the line - some types of DRM
protect the rights of both the consumer and the developer.

Let me put it to you this way, if I were to ever buy a console, I might have
considered the XBox One. Microsoft has a history of being partly a benefactor
(especially with the 360 and XNA); and things can be changed and improved over
time (just like Steam was). We might not have liked the first iteration of the
DRM, but it could have been changed (require both devices to be connected to
the internet when changing ownership? The horde would have still torn them
apart for that).

