| nightsurge said: A potential hurdle: Customers buying the games on craigslist or locally direct from a private seller would not have a guarantee that the disc was not registered, unless MS has some way of marking the disc after being registered. What do you think? If MS gave you the choice of either a disc-based setup (which would always require the disc to play the game, would exclude the cloud benefits of sharing with friends and access anywhere) or the currently announced setup where everything requires a connection to the internet at least 24 hours, would that be acceptible to those of you opposed to their current strategy? |
i wanted to respond last night but it was getting too late.
..your potential hurdle is too big. or more specifically too confusing. if there is no customer confidence in buying/selling it is almost like the feature isn't there. it can just too easily be abused and for better or worse MS would take the bad PR for having a system that can be so easily abused.
instead the system should look like this.
Initial purchase:
When i put my brand new game into my let it automatically install to my hardrive regardless. makes things simple. at that point..
If (console logged into internet) Then (register game license to current account) else (do nothing).
Playing a game:
If (console offline) Then (disc required to be in cosole in order to play)
Else If ( console online and account licensed for game) Then (play game without disc)
Else (disc required to be in cosole in order to play)
Selling a game:
*when the buyer attempts to play the game*
If (buyers console logged into internet) Then (licensed automatically transfered from previous account to current account)
Required details: no fee applied to license transfer. Unlimited number of license transfered allowed.
this would not require a gamer to ever be online. for those that choose to go online you get all the benefits of an account based, digital system without the current limitation of downloading massive game files. games can still be loaned to a friend by transfering the license and later transfering it back. games can still be rented. no 24 hour checks.
Potential hurdles:
consumers would have to be educated that even though their games can be played without a disc they still can't throw it away or give it away without losing their game. people would have "bright ideas" that could result in bad PR. you won't educated everyone but as long as the media is well informed they won't report the exceptions.
publishers would have to be convinced that the "exploit" isn't anything to care about. the exploit being that a gamer that is totally 100% offline forever can take a friends game and play offline with the disc while the online friend can play it with the account license. The argument of why not to care is that it is a maximum of two players (not infinate), the offline player would not be able to be online while player which already eliminates any online portions of games from being exploited, and the online player would only be able to do this arrangement with someone highly trusted else they would risk losing their own game. i personally think the amount of exploitation would be quite minimal.
in short this very close to what MS already has,.. expect the part about license transfers only being allowed at "participating retailers".
imo, the biggest difference is that the details above has a goal of providing consumers an easy path to the benefits of a digital distribution model without the massive hurdle of downloading massive game files. MS's solutions is, imo, focused almost entirely at being able to charge license transfer fees for used game. HOWEVER,.. now that MS officially stated they aren't charging fees and EA officially backed out too that battle has been lost. if they are willing to conceed that point they have an opportunity to change the tide against sony by changing their policies to be more consumer friendly. i really hope MS is smart enough to change..
