Rumor About Xbox One Family-Sharing's Downsides Has Flaws of Its Own

Kotaku - We prefer to report on rumors that we can prove are true or outright debunk, but sometimes we get the ones we have to address without being able to say with certainty one way or the other. Enough of you ask about it; we need to tell you what's up, as best we can.

[PopRocks359]

Since day one, this console just cannot catch a break.

[-Mezzo-]

It's only their own fault.

[MiloGarret]

So you're just not going to post the update to the article (which was available even when you posted this to N4G), are you? N4G approval system lol.

Since no one seems to actually be reading the article, here you go:

UPDATE: Spare yourself the tedium of reading any more of the words written here. Just read these Tweets and consider the Pastebin rumor demolished by these two top Xbox execs.

Tweets by Aaron Greenberg and Marc Whitten follow, stating the obvious, that this is basically anonymously posted BS.

[abzdine]

this console is broken from day one reveal!
they change policy like they change shirts and i know it's all about Halo and Kinect! even the games they showed at E3 are only CG trailers and nothing impressive cause i've seen better CG quality before. Add to that a weak hardware and a DRM that can come back at any time when they see that they've got enough pigeons on board. I also read that they are having manufacture issues so expect some nice RROD at launch!
Capitalist bastards, that's what they are..

[Gazondaily]

The inevitable

[BluEx610]

@B-radical they did?? And this whole time I thought I was getting plus bubbles... =*(

I got to agree though, ever since May 21 st. There were bad news coming left and right from MS. Their PR was straight up horrible. So bad, that after 1 week of pre-orders they couldn't take enough.

[abzdine]

i lose bubbles for giving my opinion? no problem! i'm not losing my sleep because of this don't worry

[dantesparda]

There is no reason why MS cant still do this now. This just goes to shows you how they are. Sony lets you share your games with 2 PS3 systems and s PSP & PSvita, (and you used to be able to do it with 5 PS3s couple of years ago!) and has done this since the beginning, and lets you both play the game at the same time, heck you's can play each other. Not to mention Cross Buy where you only have to buy one version of the game (either the PS3 ver or the Vita ver) and get both versions. Yet i didnt hear or see any MS fanboys talking or acting like it was such a great feature then

[B-radical]

The games at e3 were awesome tho

[fei-hung]

Well lets look at the facts:

1) cancelled XBOX support early to move onto 360
2) released 360 early although they knew it had issues, just to get a jump on Sony regardless of what it would mean to consumer.
3) denied point 2 until legally proven wrong which led to 3year extended warranty. Until then, they made customers jump through hoops.
4) charged customers to access third party subscription services whilst competitor offered it free.
5) once they had the consumer base, they stopped investing them and put their resources into Kinect
6) at launch of new gen, chose to force feed DRM onto their costumer base.
7) when customers spoke up, they laughed it off or claimed they knew better although they were flat out talking crap (said console was built group up with DRM structure and not possible to just switch it off or remove it)
8) only started working on XBOX ONE 3 years ago and with growing rumours of yield problems and down clocking, there is a good chance it can be true, considering they done this all before rushing the console to market.
9) spent more time doing PR rambling then being transparent due to fear of backlash and hoping people are thick enough not to read between the lines
10) still trying to fool people into thinking they have more powerful hardware with the cloud when every developer has said it is only good for offloading smaller tasks such as AI not graphic intense computing.
11) with cheaper hardware, still releasing the console at a $100 more than competitor
12) when caught with their pants down about DRM and sharing, they back track and remove restrictions which they said was not possible
13) just because they can, they remove sharing facilities too although they could have kept them for digitally purchased content.
14) wonder why they are still getting flack?! MS is the only console manufacturer to have done this over 3 generations of gaming and got worse with every generation as they grew more powerful. Constantly trying to pull the wool over consumers eyes at every given opportunity. They are getting what they are since for over a decade they have proved gamers that they are not about the gamers. They can't just expect people to change their minds overnight because they had to eat crow after being caught out. Human behaviour in regards to trust doesn't work that way. You keep cheating on a person, eventually they will start ignoring you.

[fattyuk]

Wow I don't have the time to read all that crap.

[stuna1]

@fattyuk

That's the thing about the truth it hurts! Everything he said is true, and has been proven by Microsoft themselves.

Microsoft can't catch a break, because they aren't willing to give others a break.

[Kyur4ThePain]

@Fattyuk

And that attitude is exactly why the XBOX One will still sell - people just don't have a clue.

[user5575708]

microsoft's original intention for getting into the gaming industry was to beat sony.

So yea basically they did it for all the wrong reasons right from the beginning. It's like it was bill gates own little science experiment

http://www.ign.com/articles...

[Sam Fisher]

Ok this pissed me off, he said that the ps3 had a horrendous game sharing, ok ill admit the 5 people one but the 2 people one was perfect, how bout 2 brothers or room mates or dad and son, im sorry there has to be catch to this, b/c if there is no limit to the family sharing and you can have 10 people in this plan wouldnt they lose money more than sony with the 5 people game sharing???

[badz149]

this is M$ that we're talking about, remember? the 10 whoever-can-be-your-family sharing plan is AWESOMENESS on another level even if only 2 people can play a single copy at once because you can hate on the DRM all you want but THAT is just too awesome to pass!

I was skeptical at 1st but then they said that there's really no restriction on who can be in your family and I was left thinking that THIS might be THE KEY for M$ winning the next gen WITH their initial DRM plan!

what so strange was, they were not emphasizing on this AWESOME feature at all to promote the Xbone but instead, keep trying to justify their DRM things. they mentioned it ONCE on stage and that was it and only talk about it later on when asked and there were still uncertainties. it's like they are treating this AWESOME feature like a stepchild while it's actually a pretty huge gun to bring in this war against the PS4!

after reading this article, everything starts to make sense. IMO the 60-min trial is actually true from the beginning as simply letting 10 people share a copy of a game will drive the publishers mad! Sony had it with 5 and they reverted to 2, I think because publishers voiced their opinion on the matter and who in their right mind would think that somehow M$ can get away with 10??

in the article, the writer was asking;

"why would they limit a demo to only 10 person"

the don't, because this is not a demo, it's full game trials like the PS+ offering!

[Gh05t]

Why is this here! Before this was posted it was already debunked!

[Godmars290]

Whatever posting deal going on with Kotaku, which also keeps them from being down graded, is likely why this got approved.

Not like its not like anything MS says is actually creditable at this point though. They were not only defending but talking up DRM from E3 to right up until they canceled it.

[Gh05t]

"Not like its not like anything MS says is actually creditable at this point though."

This is a legitimate question and please take it as one.

What did M$ lie about? You say they are not credible... I haven't felt lied too by them. I have felt betrayed, let down, and pissed but they have seemed to be honest. They have dodged all the tough questions at the beginning and even now but again what they have said isn't really lies, just not saying a whole lot (Minus after the reveal when a few people made some contradictory statements but that has been cleared up and it did not seem to be INTENTIONAL to hide the truth).

Honestly I am more worried about the credibility of Sony, look at their PS3 reveal and all the features they said it would have and look what they actually delivered and look how much they removed after you bought it. Want to talk about credibility. I at least KNOW M$ is trying to rape me because they tell me upfront. Sony pretended to be my friend and turned into the largest (warning politically incorrect terms ahead) indian giver of a system out there.

"They were not only defending but talking up DRM from E3 to right up until they canceled it."

Not all gamers minded the DRM because some of us wargamed the possibilities of what it could mean. When I first heard about it I thought yeah that sucks... but then I thought it through and decided it could lead to some potentially good things albeit MS played all their cards wrong and completely failed trying to market the system and everything that goes with it.

[Godmars290]

Lack of credibility comes from showing and talking about Kinect two years before releasing it, then it failing on delivering on its implied promises. Of presentation videos being obviously faked. And then with the XB1's DRM its seeing the obvious benefits for MS and publishers, while anything in regards to gamers is implied with no actual examples.

And its not that to some people DRM is a non issue which they're more than ready for, its that it completely bars others. Its that MS would have potentially cut off a third of their user base going by the current number of Xbox 360 users. Likewise with what internet costs a month, people without it could buy a console and games within a year. If they managed to save what they might spend on internet or cell phone access.

Console are/were suppose to be a cheap/easy alternative to PC gaming. MS and a lot of PC/current gen gamers seem very much oblivious of that fact.

As far as Sony's credibility, you'll likely have to give better example than the removal of BC and Other OS.

While was a dick move which was wholly their own problem, was done to save on production costs when by all counts they were losing $200 per system at the time, the other was akin to bolting a door to keep out the crazed knife wielding manic. That people know why - should damn well know why if they're going to bring it up - Other OS was removed and bitch about it is just asinine.

[badz149]

but this is about a policy that is not there anymore. M$ can say what they want and deny it all they want as it will not make any difference.

the truth? I guess we will never find out!

[Gh05t]

You say that like a posting on Pastebin is a credible source.

This should not be here because its not anywhere close to journalism, even for a RUMOR.

I read on the bathroom wall that Xbox One is a hooker and got her phone number for a good time... I should write an article.

Adding to the false information just makes it harder to find the truth and we have no reason to believe that the share plan wasn't exactly what they said it was.

[M-M]

That picture is priceless.

[fegam2]

It gets me angry that now MS are trying to said that all that is lost because of the 180 u-turn is because of the bad press of consumers. who are they kidding, the family share thing wasn't to work like they are trying to say it will. You will have to be very naive to think that you will be able to share 1 game with 10 other people, because the reason they put the DRM in the first place was to block selling and lending games, and thus sell more copies, and they will let share 1 game with 10 other people common! even with disc based games i do not lend them to that many people.
Each Microsoft conference of the last 3 years have been BS, all about kinect and nothing about games and you now what, kinect is a piece of crap when it comes down to play games. If you want motion in your games buy a nintendo system because in adition to the motion sensors you actually have a control that goes with it with enoughs buttons, triggers and joystics to input info, while with kinect the only real input is you! moving your arms and body like a crazy person. what kind of gameplay or level of depth and challange can you achieve from flapping arms and jumping?.
The xo reveal was even more fuck up, revealing all the things that you can do with the console, but lo and behold gaming wasn't big part of it, just TV,TV, TV, TV, and giving voice comands to kinect. Fuck MS and their gimmicks, is just like samsung's gesture control tvs, just a lot of PR crap, using the remote control is faster that open and closing my hand to change the volume!
And do not kid yourselves, the 180 u-turn was not done for the outcry of consumers, it was made just after they got the proyection numbers of the preorders and see that sony just kill them a head of time of the launch, the xbox one was DOA that is why they change it DRM policy.

[MasterCornholio]

If they didnt do a 180 and the details of the family plan were released imagine how angry consumers would be?

The situation for Microsoft would be a lot worse which is why they stripped their DRM policies from the console and eliminated the family plan as well.

And i do agree with you that you would have to be a moron to think that the family plan didnt have any kind of limitation. Honestly why would developers support a console that allows the purchaser of their game to give it away (digitally) to 9 other people? It would ruin them if they allowed that to happen.

[Double_O_Revan]

Well imagine how rage inducing it would be trying to share a game with 10 people with only one being able to play at a time. It makes sense if its just you and a friend splitting the cost at $30 each and one keeps the game and the other streams it.

But trying to share with 10 people, if those 10 didn't make some kind of play schedule, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

But does it really matter at this point? Its done and gone.

[MasterCornholio]

"But does it really matter at this point? Its done and gone."

Agreed but it does show what Microsoft thinks of consumers though because they justified their DRM system because it allowed to have the family plan system.

[GenericNameHere]

I'm gonna go off-topic

That teenage girl in the top left (forgot her name) came to our school 2 years ago. She and someone else from the show (I think it was the producer and director and the brother). It was like a presentation for something (which I forgot about again). She still looks pretty. Didn't look that old. Anyways, after the presentation, we were able to get their signatures. As I was getting closer, she just sat there frozen for a few moments. Headache or jetlag? She did say she to visit her real brother or something, who was sick. So anyways, that probably went on for less than a minute, and it was my turn, she signed it, and nothing else after that. I lost that signature, and I felt bad for her that day (maybe she was sick).

So, thanks for making me remember that, Xbone in the middle!

[InTheLab]

Major Nelson said you can't just flip a switch and turn off the baked in drm and restrictions....then flips a switch a few days later.

I dont believe in MS, and I don't believe anything they say.

Especially since they've pulled the program fo no reason. They should allow the fools that want the checkin to game share at the expense of used games and other drm.

[squallcloud9]

In the Angry Joe interview he says he buys the new halo and calls his kid at college and tells him that he can download it and "try it out"......Try it out, the way we try out a demo. If it was a full game he would "play" it. Right?