Xbox: Hold On Microsoft, There’s a Baby in that Bathwater!

(Update: It looks like Steam may scoop Microsoft on game sharing thanks to Microsoft’s waffling)

(Editor’s update: Microsoft has now confirmed that the Xbox One does NOT require the Kinect in order for the console to perform.)

So, yesterday, just a few hours after my article on the Xbone was published, Microsoft announced a complete reversal of two of it’s DRM policies for the console.  The new Xbox will no longer require an internet connection to play, and you will be able to trade discs with other people and play the games on them without purchase.  It’s a definitive answer to the huge number of complaints that have been generated, and it’s also, in my opinion, the wrong move to make.   

The system no longer requires an active internet connection to function.  The problem here was not that Microsoft was trying to push a console into the next generation of internet connectivity too early.  The problem was that consumers were getting no benefit from the strategy they were employing.  They were requiring a transfer of a few kilobytes every so often in order for Microsoft to verify that all of your software was legal.  If your console couldn’t communicate with home base, you couldn’t use it.  All that does is hamper the ability of a decent portion of the market to actually use their product, while offering nothing in return.  This needed to go away, and removing it was a good choice.  But…

You can now trade your Xbox discs to your friends and they can play them without needing to purchase the game themselves.  My assumption then, is that Xbox games are no longer going to be a “you install the whole game from the disc” situation.  We’re looking at going back to loading times and changing discs while media is read.  Yay.  We may also need to have the disc in the tray again, which is something that the PC moved on from years ago as a DRM strategy.  If this is the case, I say this change did NOT need to happen, and is a HUGE step backward for the console.

Part in parcel of being able to use the physical media for the Xbox to play games is the fact that, in my opinion, the best part of the new console was cancelled because of it.  We’re not going to be able create an Xbox “family” with whom to share our games.  We’re not going to be able to resell our games online, or give them to others – we’re stuck needing to pass around Blue-ray discs. As a friend put it, “This is holding back to the automobile so that the horse doesn’t feel bad.”  In other words, this console now has very little next-gen about it except for the graphics (and the enhanced ability for the NSA to spy on us. The always listening Kinect, which is what I think people should ACTUALLY be concerned about, still remains part of the console).

The terrible PR for the initial Xbox announcements, the debacle at E3, the snarky and sometimes downright rude answers that marketing executives have been giving, and now this complete reversal in response to complaints indicates to me that the people driving the ship at Microsoft’s Xbox division are out of touch.  Their first announcements showed me they were out of touch with gamers.  Their PR and snarkiness showed me they were out of touch with the Internet.  And this step back into the past shows me that they’re out of touch with technology.

(Update:  Gamestop President Tony Bartel hilariously praises Microsoft’s decision as “brave”.  I guess it is brave to boldly keep his business from going under for the next six years. )