Report: Microsoft to remove DRM/Always Online for the Xbox1
 

This could be the biggest backtrack in gaming history: Microsoft will reverse course on their DRM policies for Xbox One, dropping their Internet requirements and all restrictions on used games, according to the websites WhatHiFi and GiantBomb.

According to both reports, the announcement will be made today.

Citing multiple sources, GiantBomb says Microsoft has decided to remove a laundry list of Xbox One restrictions that customers considered negative:

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
Authentication is no longer necessary
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



Since they revealed the Xbox One in May, Microsoft has faced non-stop criticism for announced policies that could drastically change the way we play games in the future. The Xbox One, they said, would require players to connect to the Internet once every 24 hours in order to keep the box playing games. You would have to activate each game by registering it on the web before playing. The console would also restrict the way that game discs are traded, borrowed, and shared, limiting the number of people who could own and play each game, and restricting trade-ins on a publisher-by-publisher basis.

Microsoft has justified these policies by saying that these moves are consistent with a shift to digital seen on Steam, iTunes and other digital platforms.


By reversing on those policies, Microsoft calls a lot of things into question: what will become of the Xbox One's family sharing plan? Will publishers find other ways to block used games? And what of all the rhetoric of how "the bits"—the data on each game disc, rather than the discs themselves—are the future?

We've reached out to Microsoft for comment but have not heard back yet.

http://kotaku.com/microsoft-is-remov...ium=Socialflow

Must have been all the

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LMAO.... so speaketh the peoples....

If it's true, smartest thing they could've done. Wait, not having those stupid restrictions in the first place would've been the smartest thing to do.

People will eventually realize that it doesn't matter, and that Sony long-term is aimed every bit as much towards the cycling out of physical media as Microsoft.

Awesome! They actually listened to the people.

This is true, but ultimately you let the market move that way progressively and naturally. You don't force it's hand.

Now, if only they could get the Spy out of the living room...

ROFL

Yep. Make that kinect optional.

Now maybe they will sell some consoles.
Reports are gamestop stores have no more xbox ones left for preorder.
Only can do it online now they are told.

source gamespot.com

...or duct-tape the lens

ROFL **** you Microsoft. I'm sticking with Sony. If I was the guy on a submarine I'd shit on a 360 and mail it to that asshole. Arrogant asswhipes

Yes lets pay $100 extra for something most don't need nor want.

This will be good long term for them, but as far as the launch is concerned, I think the damage has already been done. The PS4 will blow it out of the water when they launch.

That's nice, but the mere fact that this even needed to be suggested to Microsoft is appalling. It's ridiculous that they could not see how offensive these ideas would be to their potential customers, but it also illuminates how little they think of them.