Xbox One’s DRM is necessary
The brilliance of unlurkftw
I can’t think of a moment in recent history in which someone on the internet actually posted something with such civility, clarity, and outright intelligence in a two-sided war. At one end, we’ve got the group of gamers who are quickly, and infamously, on their way to being known as the “poor half”, versus the other half who either a) respect that developers need to eat, too, and/or b) have cash to blow and nowhere to go - if the sides aren’t clear, they are PS4 and Xbox One, respectively.
In his post, unlurkftw notes how Microsoft doesn’t really have a choice with their online DRM requirements, at least, not unless they want to willingly just lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars due to people sharing games. The fact of the matter is, games were never designed to be shared - publishers and console-creators just never seemed to care before. However, we’ve reached a day and age where rebound profiters like Redbox, GameFly, and, of course the worst of the worst, GameStop profit from people’s empty pockets; because of this, developers lose out on a ton of money they have rightfully earned for sitting day in and day out for months in creating games. I say they were never designed to be shared because were this the case, then we’d have one copy of a game available at Walmart for the whole town to share - dramatic example, I know, but hopefully it made sense enough.
It’s in Xbox One’s design
Xbox One is really taking a more obvious move towards cloud-based everything, especially with installation of a game from a disc copying the files to both the HDD and the linked account’s cloud storage. Doing this is what lets you play games at your friend’s house, as long as you’re logged into your profile. Due to this design, Xbox One has to do licensing checks every 24 hours to make sure you’re playing legit copies of games. Were this not present, I could buy one copy of the upcoming Ryse: Son of Rome game, install it, and have everyone I play with in living distance of me do the same - the developers get a fraction of my $60 and zilch from the ten or twenty people who got the game from me.
If you can’t afford to do something - don’t
So many, many people make the argument that the PS4 is more consumer-friendly because it allows the use of borrowed games and easy trade-in’s at stores like GameStop. If you have to make the argument that you don’t have enough cash to buy this brand new game for $60 and then another brand new game for $60 next month, playing video games should be the very least of your concerns. What I truly can’t understand is how people can support the console creators with forking over $400 for the box itself, and then gripe about $60 for the content that they bought the box for anyway.
Scroll down through the comments and you read a user say quite blatantly, and truthfully:
“No more scum bag friends who won’t pay for the new game.”
Sell a product, you don’t have to be my friend
Businesses should run as businesses, supporting legitimate concerns (bugs/glitches) and not preference concerns. I would like to genuinely applaud Sony for using direct attacks on everything the general populous hated about Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal to sell their console, but I am also saddened for those developers who won’t see a penny of their earnings on porting or developing exclusive PS4 titles.
I personally hope, and believe, that Microsoft will stick with their current model for the Xbox One and its DRM use, because the console will find a market of developer-respecting gamers just fine. On top of gaming itself, with a handful of delightfully promising exclusives just recently announced, the Xbox One aims to become the entertainment source in the living room. Also, are we really going to gripe about the extra $100 on the Xbox One price tag? Let me say this simply, since it’s apparently too complicated for people to grab hold of:
PS4 - $400 - gaming
Xbox One - $500 - gaming + a whole enchilada of other features
I giggle at all the talk of how the PS4 even looks sleeker versus the Xbox One’s “old VCR box” look - it’s hardly the outside that matters when the device itself can do quite a lot. Plus, it’s called the Xbox, folks - brilliant job insulting that.
