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S.T.A.G.E. on 14 June 2013
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czecherychestnut said:
EncodedNybble said:
So, basically, you and up to 10 people (or is it yourself + 9 others) can basically share any game anyone in the group purchases. But, a restriction is put in place that none of the 10 people can ever play the same game twice if only copy of the game was purchased.

If there objective was to give publishers more money by eliminating used games, how is this any better? You basically took potentially 10 sales and made 1 out of it. Sure, they could also just lend the disc to the friends in the status quo, but in that scenario, one friend has to be "done" with the game. The family share means all 10 people, if played in an interleaved fashion, can all beat a game in less than a week. Seems weird and confusing.

Also, remember when the PS3 launched and you could "game share" with 4 other people. That's gone. I'm sure this will go the way of the dodo too.

I think this is the crux of the whole issue and why a lot of people are confused. MS has made quite a few statements over the past few months talking about how used games hurt the industry and how publishers are missing out on revenue on these sales which is leading to an unsustainable situation for the industry. However this family sharing feature, if interpreted as favourably as some here are, who have a far greater negative impact to sales than the used game market ever did. If I can play any game from my families library, remotely, and others in my family can also play the same games remotely on different consoles at the same time, then why on earth would a family group of 10 buy more than one copy of a game between them? Why would I buy forza if my mate 500 clicks away has it already, why would anyone  else in the family of 10 buy forza? You've just cut your potential sales down by a factor of 10, which is far more damaging to the publishers than used game sales ever were.

With physical disks, only one person can play a game at a time, and for someone else to play it you need to bring or send the disk to them. This creates a soft barrier to this type of behaviour where one person buys a game and just continually shares it with all his mates/family, as you have to wait for your friend to be finished with the game before you can play, and eventually people get sick of waiting for their turn and go out and buy the game themselves. With how some people are interpreting ms' policy, this soft barrier doesn't exist as the need to wait and the resources/time required to hand the game across are removed. 

I just can't see how this marries up with ms' original intent of having a fairer system of revenue share with publishers for used games. And in my experience if something is too good to be true then it usually isn't, and I guess this is why a lot of people are scratching their heads as well.


Exactly. MS is back peddling and stumbling on their words. The problem is people cannot see the hypocrisy in it. They are doing this to save their collective asses.