Games Thirst – Amazing Life
Is there are way to do it without DRM, hence taking away ownership rights of the consumer?
Speaking to Gamespot at PAX Prime, Microsoft executive Albert Penello discussed a digital future for the gaming industry, stating that the digital future will one day be realized. He alluded to Steam, the music and movies industry as evidence of this, and said that one day consoles will follow.
In the interim, however, Xbox One will remain a disc-oriented console, but it’s digital capabilities will be more robust than that of Xbox 360′s, Penello made known.
Asked if Microsoft was contemplating allowing gamers to loan or resell their digital games, Penello said: “Well, actually I think if you go back and you look at some of the things we said, that was one of the places that we were actually trying to pioneer. We were trying to implement the ability to trade [and] loan digital games with your friends which is something that no one else was doing.
“I believe, in retrospect that people have calmed down and gone back and actually looked at what we said, people are starting to understand, ‘Wow, they did want actually to allow me to loan and trade’ which other digital ecosystems don’t want to do. And so, yeah, I think we need to do that. That has to be part of the experience. Right now, we’re focused on launch and we switched the program back to discs, because that’s what customers wanted.”
Penello added that he’s been receiving numerous mails from fans asking that the feature return, said feature being allowing gamers to share their games online with friends, to which he responded: “We’d love to figure out how to bring that back. I still think it was a good idea. Maybe it was a little too soon for some people, but I still think there were a lot of good ideas in there. And we’ll bring it back when the time is right.”
Xbox One DRM restrictions caused a big uproar amongst the gaming community, as you’d not be able to loan your physical discs to friends, the console demanded an internet connection for even offline games after 24hrs, and because of all the digital offerings, was also region-locked.
Microsoft reversed on every last one.
