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[Archaix]

So it sounds like the game that's been played won't appear in your games library, but the rest of your games will and will be accessible to at least one other person...

I should add I'm pretty tired, so maybe I'm misinterpreting what is being said.

any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

I really don't think that's the case. The wording on that phrase seems very specific to say that only one person can play from your library, not that one person can play any given game from your library at one time. This is still better than I expected, assuming that you can edit your family group easily. Most real world scenarios where people aren't looking to scam a couple extra free copies of games would be covered. It also leaves the potential for you and a friend playing the same game, even though I really don't expect that.


Still, it would have been great if Microsoft used this as an incentive for people to buy digital versions of games, require online authentication for those games, and retain the ability to play disc based games offline as much as you want. But that's a bit too consumer friendly for this console.

 

[jmood88]

This seems really complicated...

Only because people want to make it seem complicated. Going strictly off of what was said and not coming up with hypothetical catches, you add 10 people to this family list and everyone can share libraries but only one person at a time can play a particular game. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

[SeanR1221]

So if you kept your family members to one person, you could split every game and play them all at the same time?

 

[LTWheels]

2 people can play at the same time
the owner + one of the family members

THe big question to that needs to be know is if the 9 other people who have access to your library are locked out from playing any of the other games, whilst the above is happening.

 

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

didn't read. was to busy looking at op's avatar.

 

[JohnsonUT]

So used games are ruining the industry, but MS is providing a way for games to be purchased once and shared among 10 people without getting additional payments? Does not make sense. I get that CoD will still need be bought by everyone, but a game like tomb raider or bioshock Infinite will get hit pretty bad.

 

[JaggedSac]

Did they rewrite this?

You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

Because it pretty clearly states that you and one of your family members can play from the library at the same time. That is nice actually.

 

[see5harp]

There has to be a catch. Imagine a game like Bioshock Infinite, people would just get together in groups of ten and finish the game one after the other. Publishers would never allow that.

It could be that they already assume that is what is happening with used games. Maybe this way at least they have metrics availible that could be used for marketing and developing DLC or microtransactions.

 

[Papercuts]

Question is, why didn't they talk about this feature on their reveal event or at e3?

They never talked about any of the policies at the reveal or E3.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

People buy live anyway?

Not that many. Only 20m odd out of a 45m+ online userbase (77m in total, I think).

This could be a way to push people into going gold and locking them into the service.

 

[EvB]

Maybe this is why the One has the DRM it does. You buy a disc from a store, it installs on your console and transfer the licence to your account, now the ten people you've chosen to be part of your family group has access to that game.

The 24hr check could in place to ensure that all ten people aren't playing the game at the same time. As in it locks access to whatever game you're playing for 24hr until the next licence refresh.

Some enterprising app developer should make an app that sends each of your 10 friends a message every 1 hour, prompting them to sign in and out. Each with a small interval to allow the others ones to go offline.

All so they can stick it to the man

 

[ThisWreckage]

Only on GAF will you find threads where posters are calling restrictive software practices "awesome" and "cool".

 

[Krilekk]

So instead of selling my games on eBay I can sell invites to my family list, I think that's great.

 

[Y2Kev]

This sounds like it would do way more damage to games sales than just not having drm. I lend to like one or two other people. This would cut our game purchases in third...

 

[joe2187]

So if you kept your family members to one person, you could split every game and play them all at the same time?

$35 a game isnt a bad deal

 

[Jarmel]

They might block online multiplayer games from this in that you can't do it playing the multiplayer for COD or Halo but two people can play the single player at once. Still would be a megaton though.

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

I'm past caring what Microsoft are doing for the xBone.

Microsoft has already burnt their consumer bridges with me and there's no going back.

 

[rakkadakka]

If true, it makes the Xbox One a much more attractive proposition.

Many SP games I wait for Steam sales on, this way I can split the cost with some buddies and play it earlier.

Bioshock.. Dishonored etc.

 

[TheDrowningMan]

Hahaha, yeah, imagine scheduling this, allocating time slots and so forth. I think I'd rather retain the ability to rent & sell games easily.

 

[herod]

Even without a catch, what happens when your 'family' buddy decides to trade up? I can't be arsed with that kind of frustration.

 

[marc^o^]

Maybe this is why the One has the DRM it does. You buy a disc from a store, it installs on your console and transfer the licence to your account, now the ten people you've chosen to be part of your family group has access to that game.

The 24hr check could in place to ensure that all ten people aren't playing the game at the same time. As in it locks access to whatever game you're playing for 24hr until the next licence refresh.

This is non sense people, hello, do you believe you will play the game from the cloud?

 

[AndyD]

Remember WarHawk on PSN? The 24 hour thing. Wonder if there is a DRM delay here too.

Whoa, didn't think of that. Also I wonder if there are restritions on adding/removing family members to prevent "shopping" for a game.

 

[hal9001]

Can you sell it?

What's to stop people using this system as a way to sell games to each other (e.g using Paypal for payment) as third parties and thus circumnavigate xbox's official trade in retailers? This is assuming you can change the 10 people registered.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Uhh, this is an incredible feature wtf. Kind of unprecedented, actually not 'kind of', it is. It seems too good to be true but I keep reading those quotes over and over and it looks legit.

This is non sense people, hello, do you believe you will play the game from the cloud?

I think you just download the game and play.

 

[SeanR1221]

Hey CliffyB, can AAA games exist with this policy?

 

[BigDug13]

So now Xbox One is the most anti-consumer on one hand, but is also the most anti-publisher/developer on the other while throwing a nice bone to a segment of the gaming population who knows how to take advantage of this policy. It just doesn't seem like real life anymore.

 

[badb0y]

It could be that they already assume that is what is happening with used games. Maybe this way at least they have metrics availible that could be used for marketing and developing DLC or microtransactions.

DLC? Microtransactions?

What is the guy who shared the game decides to trade it in at Gamestop? All the people that bought additional DLC and microtransations suddenly have paper weight lol.

Why are game journalists so incompetent? Get the fucking facts straightened out man.

 

[test_account]

It's been 2 since 2011. And isn't that more account sharing than game sharing?

I can't just share my PSN game library with my friend without sharing my full account details. Unless I'm doing it wrong.

Yeah, you need to give out the account details indeed. The game sharing on PS3 is probably more intended to be used for personal reasons, like if you own two PS3 consoles. I think it is possible to give out the account, then download a game on another PS3 console, then change the password on the PSN account, and the game on the other PS3 console will still work. This way, the other person who owns the other PS3 wont be able to access your PSN account again, but he/she can still play the game.

 

[zeopower6]

Is it likely that 'family status' will be permanent? :/

Basically it sounds like one copy purchased is actually ~ten copies~ that people can take advantage of online and potentially never have to buy a game so long as they are in the family of someone who has a huge library. It has to be Gold only, right?

 

[kitch9]

If I was MS I'd be shouting this from the roof tops, why didn't they? Devs wouldn't let people share their PSN games with 5 people never mind 10.

 

[jmdajr]

More info please. Sounds promising.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Even without a catch, what happens when your 'family' buddy decides to trade up? I can't be arsed with that kind of frustration.

Do you mean what happens if someone trades in their game? It won't be available to the rest of your family anymore obviously, unless someone else owns it.

 

[TheDrowningMan]

What's to stop people using this system as a way to sell games to each other (e.g using Paypal for payment) as third parties and thus circumnavigate xbox's official trade in retailers? This is assuming you can change the 10 people registered.

The fact that you'd have to trust implicitly the original buyer to never, ever let any of his "family members" play the game?

 

[Kikujiro]

Hey CliffyB, can AAA games exist with this policy?

CliffyB on suicide watch.

 

[dragonelite]

this is a cool concept... however... given the nature of ONLINE MULTIPLAYER games... this "feature" is more of a "cover the bases" deal...

Sure u can share the games with your "family" but the thing is... if it's a game that you both wanna play online together (like CoD)... you're still gonna need to buy a copy for each person that want to play the game together since you can only have one instance of the game running per license in a family..

So maybe... the whole focus on online multiplayer for most, if not all games will be the thing to make it hard to just have one copy of a game per "family"...

If it were all just single player games... sure you can probably rotate that within the "family"...

Are we seeing the start of the death of single player-only games.. solely because they will have reduced revenue because of "sharing"?

I find this an excellent way to split a game bill with my little brother or some of poorer student friends. I can get the game we can play the game and he/she can get it when its cheaper like sub $30. If you have a friends group of say 8 you just make 4 seperate libraries get 4 cod copies and play online with 8 man.

It does sounds a bit to good would not be surprised if you have to buy parts of the like online pass. But then again EA and Ubisoft both said they hate DRM.

 

[Phawx]

LOL @ anyone who's buying this.

It's in their official docs.

 

[gofreak]

Maybe this is why the One has the DRM it does. You buy a disc from a store, it installs on your console and transfer the licence to your account, now the ten people you've chosen to be part of your family group has access to that game.

The 24hr check could in place to ensure that all ten people aren't playing the game at the same time. As in it locks access to whatever game you're playing for 24hr until the next licence refresh.

Checking content in and out of a shared library could be done on demand over the network without this permission refresh being enforced across everything.

 

[TheGreyHulk]

Sounds too good to be true. Why would any publisher allow this to occur?
There has to be a catch.

 

[prwxv3]

I am not buying it cboat said that the drm is even worse then it seems now so there must be a crazy catch

 

[dreamer3kx]

Im calling bs, definitely a catch, why would they do this, not to be nice thats for sure.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I'm not sure how this is a win. Especially for devs. It's cool if you're willing to take MSFT's Xbone policies without asking question but for the rest of us, forget it.

 

[Alx]

Did they rewrite this?



Because it pretty clearly states that you and one of your family members can play from the library at the same time. That is nice actually.

Oh, so it also means that if one of your friends is playing a shared game, he's locking out all other members of the "family". It makes sense, as a way to limit abuse.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

If I was MS I'd be shouting this from the roof tops, why didn't they? Devs wouldn't let people share their PSN games with 5 people never mind 10.

Probably because it would make the pubs mad knowing you can basically get free games by sharing with your friends.

 

[szaromir]

And all you have to do is find 10 people to agree on a game. And then work out a schedule to play it, since it looks like only one person at a time can play a certain game in a shared library.

I can't wait to pull up a spreadsheet to see if Tuesdays at 8pm is my designated playing hour.

Yup, it's inconvenient as hell. It's not a bad system, but I think it's sort of to check out a game you're on a fence about before buying. Otherwise someone else stopping your progress because he/she uses your friend's library would be annoying as hell.

At this point the most customer and retailer friendly is to allow retailers sell digital purchases (just like Steam games can be sold anywhere). It would create a nice network of competition between websites like Amazon, Greenmansgaming etc. that would keep the prices down (and temporary sales more frequent). Xbox.com having 100% control over pricing is not an exciting prospect.

Checking content in and out of a shared library could be done on demand over the network without this permission refresh being enforced across everything.

You would have people cockblocking other people from playing games, probably not the best idea.

 

[Minions]

If I was MS I'd be shouting this from the roof tops, why didn't they? Devs wouldn't let people share their PSN games with 5 people never mind 10.

Probably because it is not one of their finalized policies.... remember the last time Harrison leaked all that information they refused to confirm... (It did end up being true)

 

[SoulPlaya]

If I share a game with someone, can I play it too? Does the other person have to have the disc, or can he or she just download the game digitally?

 

[Phreaker]

So you can buy a game once and share is with 10 people? How does this help stop used games money being ripped from their hands? This whole thing is so freaking STOOOPID

 

[FlyFaster]

- Some of my family lives in the countries not authorized to play xbone

- Some of my friends/family live in rural areas (farmers) and don't have internet because they don't want to pay 100+ a month for satellite internet.

 

[jmood88]

Only on GAF will you find threads where posters are calling restrictive software practices "awesome" and "cool".

It's better than what we can currently do with any other digital distribution service.

 

[Freki]

If I was MS I'd be shouting this from the roof tops, why didn't they? Devs wouldn't let people share their PSN games with 5 people never mind 10.

There's two options:

a) there's a catch

b) every game costs 6$ now

and as b) makes zero sense given their stance on used games I'd go with a)


And how does adding your family members work? Can they be removed or are you stuck with them forever?