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[alexandertnt]

If a person who would have bought a new copy buys a used copy instead, then the publishers/devs don't get any profit from it, that's basically the big deal here.

What is the big deal with this? Last time I checked, there was nothing at all wrong with bypassing devs/publishers/manufacturers and purchasing things second hand.

I know the manufacturers of my car did not get a cent from me.

[Knight of Fools]

There's quite a few differences, and he points them all out in the video.

I'd really recommend watching the entire thing.

[Mech#4]

I remember a video I saw (Jimquisition was it?) which made a point that any money saved from removing second hand sales would be kept by the publishers and not given to the developers. It's rather cynical but I would tend to agree with his point that if they're looking to remove second hand sales it would be to increase the publishers profits, not to shift the money gained elsewhere.

Second hand sales aren't as common now, but that's mostly because it's harder to swap a game around multiple people what with CD keys and installing with online verification. The games industry has survived for the last... 20~30 years with second hand sales existing, I don't see it as making that much of a difference if it exists.

[pilgrimboy]

In their attempt to profit off of secondhand sales, I think they may lose firsthand sales. The end result could be them making less money altogether.

[Azated]

Xbox one - You want to teach your kids about acronyms? Why not buy our new console today and get the FREE* and SUPER GOOD DLC DRM**!


*The fee for your optional*** DRM download is $200.
**By downloading, you agree that you and your descendants will be online from now until the end of time. Failing to do so is automatic conviction of piracy, terrorism, manslaughter, and beastiality.

***It isn't optional. By purchasing the Xbox One console, you agree that your soul now belongs to us. As such, any DLC avalable will be automatically charged to your account and downloaded. You have no choice in the matter. All your freedom are belong to us.

[Mistercheif]

So it seem they've either been lying to us about how the game licensing worked, or more likely, they changed their plans after seeing the backlash.

Here are the most relevant bullets:

-Share access to your games with everyone inside your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games.  Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you.
-Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere: Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games.  You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.
-Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license

I'm not an Xbox One hater, and I actually intend on buying one, but I enjoy reading all of your discussion nonetheless.

EDIT: And they still haven't released any updates on the required check-in every 24 hours.  I wouldn't be surprised if that changes as well.

EDIT2: Kinect Privacy Concerns! Now with extra pause!

You are in control of what Kinect can see and hear: By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded.

You are in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused: If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences.

You are in control of your personal data: You can play games or enjoy applications that use data, such as videos, photos, facial expressions, heart rate and more, but this data will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission. Here are a few examples of potential future scenarios:
A fitness game could measure heart rate data to provide you with improved feedback on your workout, allow you to track your progress, or even measure calories burned.
A card game could allow you to bluff your virtual opponent using your facial expressions.

You can use other inputs to control your games, TV and entertainment experiences: While it’s faster to find what you’re looking for using your voice and gesture commands with Kinect, you can use a controller, your remote controls or your smart devices instead. And you can use all of these devices when Kinect is paused.
We’ll have more information available as we get closer to product availability later this year.

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/privacy

That being said, who knows what will be in the Xbox Live contract, so you may be forced to give your explicit permission anyway.

Personally, I don't care if they spy on me, my gaming area at home is in my living room, with its large bay windows facing the street.  So even without a kinect, it's not exactly private.

[Alkhemia]

Oh nice so it not going to become a Dystopian nightmare with them monitoring my heartbeat and stuff.
Huh I wonder if they released the crazy outlandish things to drum up publicity for the new system and they never planned to do it in the first place since negative publicity is still better than none at all.
Like with say Sim City 5/7/20 w/e

[Meta]

I'm disappointed, especially because I thought Sony's presentation for PS4 was not impressing and I thought Microsoft would cash on that. With these confirmations, I'm more and more thinking about going back to Sony, after having been a XBox player for some years.

There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

I always bought consoles because I could borrow games from friends (and obviously, lend them some), and sometimes borrow games from unknown friends through known friends.

[...] game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends.

I don't think game publishers will actually go against game lending, but that's still another requirement for lending games.

So it seem they've either been lying to us about how the game licensing worked, or more likely, they changed their plans after seeing the backlash.

I don't think they lied to us or changed their plan. Everything they said during the X-Bone announcement day was hinting to such a license system. Let me quote myself:

As hemmingjay just stated, there will be no fee when buying a used games, but what he did not say is that games will surely be bound to account. It stands logical than in order to lend a game to a friend or to sell one of your games you'll have to unbind the game from your account. This also means that you'll have to create an account to play games on an X1, and also that you'll need an internet connection the first time you'll play a game (and actually, maybe each time you'll start one), because the console will have to check if the game is not already bound to another account.

My speculations may actually be wrong, but that's how I understood the whole thing. I hope I'll be proved wrong.

[Edit]
Some quotes from Phil Harrison, on Eurogamer:

We will have a system where you can take that digital content and trade a previously played game at a retail store. We're not announcing the details of that today, but we will have announced in due course.
Our goal is to make it really customer-centric, really simple and really understandable and we will announce those details in due course.

Xbox One requires an internet connection, but it does not need to be connected all the time

[Mistercheif]

I was more talking about when there was initially all the stuff about the fee, but yeah, it seems you were pretty much spot on.  Though I think where both companies will shine will be in their presentations at E3.

For the lending, it seems a bit ambiguous about what they mean about a game only being able to be given once.  I'm reading it more as you can't give it out to multiple people at once, not it can only ever be given once.  So you could theoretically ask a friend if they know someone willing to lend them a game, and then they lend it to your friend who lends it to you, and you send it back down the chain when you're done.

Either way, I'm gonna stick with Xbox for a bunch of reasons, including the controller.  I could never get used the the PS controllers, with the sticks at the horizontal position.  It felt unnatural after a couple of years playing saxophone, where my right thumb is sort of straight out from the wrist, and the left is more upward for the octave key.

[jhxmt]

-Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license

My emphasis.

First thought is: surely having resale requirements (and a one-sale-only limit) completely goes against the First-sale Doctrine?  Given the European Court of Justice already ruled that First-sale Doctrine still applies even for digital-only copies, I can't see limiting the selling rights for physical (disc) copies holding up legally - in the EU at least, surely?

[Leonon]

Used PC game sales were once a thing but the industry killed that shit pretty quickly, and that's been the reality since I was a kid. (Instead it has piracy, yay.)

If a person who would have bought a new copy buys a used copy instead, then the publishers/devs don't get any profit from it, that's basically the big deal here.

Yeah, they aren't hurting for money, but that's not the issue.

This is why I like the no used game thing. For the publishers and developers used games are financially the same as piracy, with the resellers being the only ones who profit. If you don't want to pay for a new game you can just pirate it and bypass the used games market while hardly affecting the rest of the games industry.

It seems that Microsoft is actively herding consumers away from used games and towards piracy.

[itisnotlogical]

With used games, Microsoft at least has made a profit from the game's original sale. If the user base chooses to turn to piracy, then Microsoft will be losing a lot more money than if they had just let used games be.

[Mistercheif]

-Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license

My emphasis.

First thought is: surely having resale requirements (and a one-sale-only limit) completely goes against the First-sale Doctrine?  Given the European Court of Justice already ruled that First-sale Doctrine still applies even for digital-only copies, I can't see limiting the selling rights for physical (disc) copies holding up legally - in the EU at least, surely?

It seems to me that that quote only applies to giving the game to others, as opposed to selling it.  And I'm afraid I don't really enough about the case to be able to comment - I didn't really take much notice of it as I generally dislike getting a game with the intention of reselling it later, and I generally by new games when their on sale as opposed to used, after far too much bad luck with getting scratched used games.

Used PC game sales were once a thing but the industry killed that shit pretty quickly, and that's been the reality since I was a kid. (Instead it has piracy, yay.)

If a person who would have bought a new copy buys a used copy instead, then the publishers/devs don't get any profit from it, that's basically the big deal here.

Yeah, they aren't hurting for money, but that's not the issue.

This is why I like the no used game thing. For the publishers and developers used games are financially the same as piracy, with the resellers being the only ones who profit. If you don't want to pay for a new game you can just pirate it and bypass the used games market while hardly affecting the rest of the games industry.

It seems that Microsoft is actively herding consumers away from used games and towards piracy.

Then it'll be 'OMG! PIRATZ AR EVULZ! WE MUST AD SHITTY DRM TO STOP THIS SELF INFLICTED PROBLEM!'

Except piracy on consoles is not as much of a problem, especially since (from what I've seen, please correct me if I'm wrong) piracy generally requires modification of the console, which could easily be detected if you need to connect to the internet once every 24 hours.  And though I'm sure it would be possible to get around that as well, I'd think the people willing to do that sort of modification aren't necessarily in Microsoft's target demographic, as they would not be looking for online play if they are using Xbones modified to play pirated games and avoid the online check.

[Leonon]

please correct me if I'm wrong) piracy generally requires modification of the console, which could easily be detected if you need to connect to the internet once every 24 hours.

Yes and no. They require modification but the amount varies from system to system.

Wii just needs a special firmware that can be loaded from a SD card using one of a couple legitimate games that can be used to force the firmware to install. Xbox 360 needs opening (which voids its warranty) and either loading new firmware onto its DVD drive or installing a mod chip that plugs in between the DVD drive and the rest of the console. NDS needs a special game cartridge and a microSD card to go in the cartridge. PS3 needs a special firmware that can be installed via a USB drive (requires a single legit game also). 3DS can play NDS games using newer versions of the cartridge mentioned above but 3DS games are still not able to be played if pirated. WiiU seems to be able to be modded the same way as Wii.

I'm not sure which of those methods is detectable. I'm almost certain that the modchip mentioned for Xbox 360 is undetectable though.

Even if the modification is detectable it should be easy to set up something that tells the console "Yeah, you're connected to the Microsoft network". Assassin's Creed 2 had something like that less than a week after it launched. This won't work for multiplayer games but single player would be unaffected.

Assuming they have a unique code on each disk (or unique code packaged with each copy, like on PC) it will likely be difficult to use pirated games for multiplayer. There will probably still be private servers for pirated games though. If the codes are easy to generate or guess there will be a whole new batch of problems too, but that's pretty unlikely.

[timferius]

Annnnd the launch price is set at $499... *snorts coffee through nose* That is rather steep for attempting to bring it in to every home ....