2 
Just like Sony’s rumoured to be looking into, a report from gaming mag Edge Online has it that Microsoft’s going to require you to have a persistent internet connection on your next-gen Xbox to play games, just like some really crap PC DRM. It’s also going to block you playing used games too. Thanks Microsoft.
Take this with a massive pinch of salt, of course, as we can’t verify the report, but it does make horrifying sense. Sony’s got a patent going the same way, and if you think about it, console manufacturers actually make their money from the software sold. That means games, and every time someone buys a used game over a new one, that essentially cuts Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo out of it. In fact, the only people who benefit from used game sales are the high street stores, or you, if you’re flogging your old crap on eBay.
It all comes down to what you’re actually buying. When you buy a disc, you’re not actually buying the game outright, you’re buying a licence to play that game. Yes, it comes on a physical disc, but that’s only the delivery mechanism. What the Edge report indicates is that Xbox games will ship with a one-time activation code, essentially bestowing the first person who buys the game a licence bound to their account forever more.
That might be difficult to swallow for many — we like the idea that we own something outright and can sell it on if we’re done with it — but that’s exactly how digital downloads work. It’s not like you can turn round and resell your downloaded game once you’re done. If Game’s still in business by the time the Durango gets released, surely this’ll be the nail in the coffin?
Edge Online also has it that the next-gen Xbox will pack an eight-core AMD CPU clocked at 1.6GHz, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, as well as a Blu-ray player and a new version of Kinect, which lines up well with what we’ve previously heard. [Edge via Kotaku]
Sony Planning PS4's Arrival to Coincide With Next-Gen Xbox
Rumour: Next-Gen Xbox to be Revealed on May 21st
Apparently the Next-Gen Xbox Will Be Called "Infinity", Or Maybe Not?
Sony and Microsoft are probably shooting themselves in the foot with this one (or more appropriately, in the face). Undoubtably they will not reduce prices at all thinking that if they stop game used game sales people will just buy new games. This is of course idiotic since…
1. Often gamers buy new games using the money generated from the sale of an old game.
2. Gamers are willing to pay the high price tag of a new game in the knowledge that they can sell it after they are finished and recover some of the cost.
3. Gamers will see this as a slap in the face and will simply move to PC or steam box or WiiU
If your interested on seeing gamers Unanimous opinion on this I suggest you check out the article on Gamespot…
http://www.gamespot.com/news/xbox-720-to-require-internet-connection-6403498
Gamers are (rightly) starting to see themselves as being treated as a cash cow and I think if this happens it might be the straw that broke the cash cow’s back.
I should have said ‘ Check out the COMMENT SECTION on this article on gamespot”
PC gamers cant exactly play used games either. In fact, PC gamers haven’t been able to play used games since long before now.
Exactly.
I don’t see a problem with this development.
PC games are normally cheaper than their console counter-parts, especially at launch.
That is a massively good point.
They need to bring console game prices down to a reasonable price. Part of that might mean they (Sony and MS) need to stop having absurdly different architectures requiring complete code re-writes when porting games.
I imagine Sony must be starting to realise all their custom shit is not helping anyone.
Yeah, would be so bad if games were £20 not £50 a time..
Yes you can. Just not Steam or Origin games. Which admittedly is basically PC gaming.
Though Steam game prices are significantly cheaper than console game prices! If console game prices went down to that of steam’s (including the sales) then thats’s perfectly fine.
But over here in Germany, when I look on the playstation store and see FIFA 2013 for 80 euros, it doesn’t exactly give me much hope.
Yeah I can’t really think of any games I’ve played in recent memory where this wasn’t applicable.
If you know of any, please share which ones they are for my own curiosity.
except pc games are so much cheaper than console games it’s not even funny
Can they just sell them all from an ‘app store’ kind of thing then instead of selling them on medieval discs?
Also… I hope this means that they’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper. No individuals made much money from ‘selling’ their used games but someone buying used games on the high street could get a lot of bang for their buck.
Blu-Ray games are 50gb. With UK broadband speeds it would take a week to download 1 game. It already takes long enough just to get the constant stream of updates.
Also the british broadband infrastructure is simply not up to it.
Plus the ISP’s will start using there TC’s to throttle the speeds down.
It’s just not possible yet.
Speak for yourself. According to the nifty calculator at http://www.numion.com/calculators/time.html, it would take about 03:16:04 on my connection. While it’s true that some parts of the UK are still seeing a mediocre (or even poor) connection, a lot of us actually have it pretty good in terms of download speed.
Go Virgin (I know some have horror stories, I’ve found them to be all kinds of awesome from the get go)!
Not really, as you could only max download 20gb before the throttling kicks in and you end up on half speed. And that’s assuming that the server at Microsoft will let you download at full speed, which they won’t.
A whole lot of people on FTTC products can get 40Mbit or 80Mbit down. On my 40mbit connection it would take ~3 hrs to download a 50Gb game. the other week I d/l a 17Gb zip from a colleague via dropbox and it took ~1hr 20 mins (maxing my connection at about 4.4 mbytes/sec). Usenet does the same. I would think that any CDN for xbox/ps4 will be up to maxing out your connection…
The problem is that very few people have these kind of speeds in the UK. Where my family live, the average for the county is 10Mb/s which is actual download speed of 1MB/s and they don’t even get that.
It’s not possible for microsoft or sony to provide such vast differents in service.
I can walk to and from my local game shop and pick the disc up in less time than that, and it’s a 6 mile round trip.
Point well made.
Eeeeee that’s harsh dude (or dudette?). Didn’t mean to rub salt in the wound! My speeds are genuinely amazing though, no complaints with the service… I write music for a living so am constantly uploading & downloading large files, plus I’m a tv series fiend meaning I’m torrenting every day…. and haven’t noticed any throttling despite guzzling bandwidth. Fwiw I live in a city centre…
My speeds are awful :’(
Glad I only PC game! Where I can patch out the DRM if I want
If these rumours are true, this console is going to be a miserable failure. People are starting to realise how DRM restricts their rights as consumers.
Also, console manufacturers may make their money from game sales but you cannot sell games if people refuse to buy the console.
No it won’t, people will just only buy new games.
I’m not entirely sure this would be legal in Europe
European law states that you can sell software licenses like hardware when you are done with them. You see people like Steam having to implement a mechanism for you to sell on games to other steam users… Not because they wanted to, I can assure you.
There’s also a big ongoing battle between M$ and Europe over OEM licensing, which Europe thinks we should be allowed to sell on after we’ve finished with.
It’ll be interesting indeed. I wonder where this leaves things like iOS and Android app store purchases?
You can sell games on steam??
Been a while since I used steam but you could a year or so ago. They didn’t make it obvious or easy though.
I sold a game to my Brother-in-law for a fiver
Ooh, I have a load of games I could get rid of if that’s true! Damn Steam sales!
It seems idiotic that they would do this at a time when they face their biggest competition from mobile devices, It is seriously typical and they will drive many kids and teenagers out of a market that they help hold up.
What’s this going to do for those of us who can’t shell out £40 a pop every time something comes out and so have to rely on LoveFilm rentals? What about those of us who’s internet is intermittently rubbish?
I think it’ll probably block rentals of games.
With the new Office 360 rental license at £7.95 a month, maybe rather than buying games they’ll start making you rent games from them?
It’s get around the EU software sales laws but I can’t see the likes of LoveFilm being too happy about it.
i would be totally up for a game rental service on xbox. i already have spotify and lovefilm, so why not! i would happily pay £9.99 a month for such a service, i spend nowhere near that on xbox games currently (only ever buy 2ndhand anyway!!!!). they could still sell games to hardcore gamers who want to play it online all the time and people who want to play a game for extended periods.
You won’t get to buy every new game that comes out and have to choose one that you want, in the end the publisher and microsoft will get more money out of it that way.
I would have no problem with this if MS and Sony made all the games £25 on day one and swiftly discounted everything to £10 after a few months.
Noone in their right mind is going to pay £45 for a day one game that they can’t sell. And sadly, based on PSN store prices, Sony haven’t any intention of going for that model
try dat. they would have to come out with a new pricing structure for sure.
Yes they are, they do it now, they’ll do it then, some people don’t trade in their games
This will only backfire.
Give it a few months and someone will be able to hack it.
They ban from online, that’s the problem. Happened to one of my friend on xbox 360
It will be interesting if this will actually work and whether it would effect day 1 sales. Without significant price drops on launch titles (£40/£50 will have to come down to £25/£30) or reduce prices better a few months down the line.
I have an 360, but mainly game on PC, and all my Xbox games are 2nd hand. A new Xbox would not appeal to me if I couldn’t buy 2nd hand.
Also wouldn’t they lose the licensing money that they charge companies to provide rentals of games using a system like this (could rentals be provided with a code every time it gets rented?)
Interesting points I was thinking about the price of games coming down too, on the basis you can’t sell on iPhone apps but they are digital copies and priced significantly lower, but you have to factor in the cost of the console is subsidised by the cost of the games and the development costs for console games is significantly higher than say Angry Birds.
Also I think with companies like Microsoft and Sony edging towards their own walled garden digital download services and the death of the high street, I don’t think game rentals from 3rd parties will last much longer, altho having said that 50gb is a lot to download, Having spoke to someone in the know our present fibre optic network couldn’t handle that on mass.
I could believe this was purposefully leaked just to gauge reactions, because it would be a monumentally stupid thing for MS to do.
However, I’m all for it if it hurts console sales – the 360 is probably the worst thing ever to have happened to gaming. Gaming quality has been a race to the bottom since the 360 (& and PS3 to a lesser extent) came out, and the consoles have won. Anything that might harm their future success is great news in my book.
You can also torrent on PC or wait for 75% off Steam sales.
PC gaming is cheaper, you buy a PC anyways, why not just take your old one, spend like £400 on upgrading it and it’ll last you like 3-4 years.
looks like GAME in the UK will once again go BANKRUPT they make most money from used games lol
also if they think by doin this they will sell more full priced games they are wrong lol
if people dnt have the money too buy full priced game THEN THEY DONT HAVE THE MONEY lol
they they will have to save up and just buy one full priced game instead of 2 pre-owned ones, Mircosoft and the developer will both get more money from that, so they’re happier with you having less games
Thanks Obama.
I would highly suspect that may do something similar to what many games on consoles already do with online passes. Such as when you buy a second hand game, you have to pay a fiver etc to be able to play online.
This would make much more sense, as you would still be able to buy second hand games for say half retail price, but sony and/or the developer would get a second payment for each new user (essentially a licensing payment).
I personally think this would make much more sense! That way you could still take a game round to a friends place, login with your own account and play it there. Best of both worlds then , customers are still able to get second hand games cheaper, and each time it changes hands the publisher/console company get money too.
Not being able to play a single player game when you’re router decides to have a tantrum and cut your connection off would be not be good!
What about people who still live in the last century and don’t have internet?
And maybe, just maybe, people wouldn’t buy used if brand new ones weren’t horrifically overpriced for what passes as a “game” now days.
Also, preowned are how the kids and young teenagers buy games and form a favourite dev and know they like their games when they are old enough to afford them brand new, so any dev that agrees to this is just screwing themselves over in the long run.
I personally never sell my games. i look at them as a collection. I’m Playstation to the core but if MS are going this way then why wouldn’t Sony?
“Such as when you buy a second hand game, you have to pay a fiver etc to be able to play online.”
I totally agree with this. it would be the lesser of 2 evils. if a mate had brought a game round to play, i wouldn’t think twice about paying a few quid for a license so I could play/borrow it.
Also the always connected to the internet thing is complete bullshit. It’s not always possible.
basically, not matter whoever makes the best console on paper, whichever one, if any, decides not to go ahead with blocking used games will win the next console war