How is the Ones and Steam's internet service different?

[Machiavellian]

I was about to put a similar thread so I am glad someone else has. Here is my take on the situation

First we have MS basically going the PC route with installing games on the X1. Because of this, the game disk is no longer needed for game play. The question would be why.

One scenario would be that having only one option mean you can optimized for that option and developers know exactly what to expect and code for their projects. For consumers, well we love having multiple options but for developers, its really a pain in the butt. In MS defense they can make their APIs tighter when streaming content from the HDD instead of the Blu-ray.

Since systems like Steam, Origin and Blizzard do the same thing and appears to be the way the market is going MS has probably looked at those platforms and feel they are the future. People talk about how great it is to have a game preloaded to their machine so they do not have to go to a mid night launch or have the game ready when it releases. These are probably things MS will also leverage as they go to a purely digital distribution.

If you think about it, the way that the X1 is setup, you can tell MS sees in the future a more digital distribution so they must feel loading from disk and have to rely on Disk checks for DRM just does not make sense. The first thing that is cracked is disk based checks so why even bother. I am not saying that MS online check will not be hacked but with the combination of Blu-ray, Online checks and basic hardware control, it should pose enough of a challenge to keep the script kiddies busy for a while.

In the end, I noticed people really do not have a problem with Online checks and losing their ability to trade games if they receive the Price benefit they get from Steam. The question is, if MS and publishers can always receive money from their game sells, will we see the great deals that we see on Steam. Most of the games that go on sale are from the same publishers and if they are willing to do it on steam, I see no reason they will not do it on the X1.  This could actually end up being an advantage for the X1 with publishers and developers willing to do great deals because you cannot resell their games without them getting some type of cut.  As for Trading, I am sure that will probably be limited to certain amount but I also hope they include gifting.  Even if I could gift my game once should not impact developers/publishers pockets and probably would increase sequels sells.