Multiple sources inform me Microsoft will announce what amounts to a complete reversal on its DRM policies for Xbox One today.

What does this mean?

No more always online requirement
The console no longer has to check in every 24 hours
All game discs will work on Xbox One as they do on Xbox 360
An Internet connection is only required when initially setting up the console
All downloaded games will function the same when online or offline
No additional restrictions on trading games or loaning discs
Region locks have been dropped

purplerat wrote:

tuco wrote:/me pets purplerat

Gotta be vocal I guess .. remember Lenin.

Fuck it, I'll just stick with the PC. It took Sony and MS most of a decade to make the last gens financially viable enough to put out another gen and there was speculation early on that one or both might even drop out. If they continue to drag their feet it's inevitable that consoles as we know them will get technologically passed by and made obsolete. Most likely true cloud gaming will be here before the end of this gen of consoles and neither company seems to be position itself favorably for that shift, nevermind actually trying to usher it forward.

willhud9 wrote:However seeing how a buggy giantbomb link is the only verification of that source material, we shall see.

Ironclad wrote:

willhud9 wrote:However seeing how a buggy giantbomb link is the only verification of that source material, we shall see.

OK Will, here it is from the horse's mouth.

I removed that failed link above, ta.

Well, that didn't take long.

After weeks of standing staunchly behind a set of decisions and plans for their Xbox One console that were so bafflingly, brazenly, obtusely anti-consumer that it even stood out in the videogame industry and drew fire even from pretty much everyone, Microsoft has backed down. The Xbox One has dropped, among things, its draconian anti-used games restrictions, its various DRM schemes and - perhaps most egregious - it's de facto always online requirements.

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This is, for a change, not a victory of one soulless corporate machine over another. This is a victory for the gamers - for the consumers. Let's be perfectly clear about this. The draconian anti-consumer measures that were up until about two days ago encoded into the very DNA of the Xbox One are all measures that would be incredibly beneficial to both console manufacturers and the mainstream, big budget AAA publishing model that sustains them. It's not for nothing that a certain Gears of War honcho been all over social media and the gaming press stumping for it. Sony may have (correctly) intuited that gamers were going to revolt against Microsoft for actually pulling the trigger on this horror show, but make no mistake; if they thought they could get away with it, they'd have done the same thing (so would Nintendo, assuming they could bring themselves to acknowledge that The Internet exists).

[...]