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SvennoJ on 15 May 2014
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Machiavellian said:
SvennoJ said:
Machiavellian said:
soulfly666 said:

Sony was more arrogant in 06, but what MS tried to do this current gen was much more stupid. The pre-180 plans that they wanted to force on gamers were unethical. They would have totally and completely tanked if they had gone forward with it. I seriously think they would maybe be hitting 1/3 their current sales had they not 180'd. And that is a maybe.

I am actually interest to understand what was unethical about MS pre-release plans.  Are you taking about the DRM part.  If so could you explain what was unethical about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
MS tried to eliminate the right of first sale by turning physical copies into install discs that automatically get tied to an account.
Then they promised you could still sell your physical game discs, yet only through select approved retailers.

MS did not try to eliminate first sales rights because they were the only company that would allow you to sell, trade, gift and loan your digital copy of a game.  Currently right now, No digital retailer allows you to do any of those things with a digital game.  I do not see people calling any of the digital retails as being unetical.  The approved retailer part was there because things would need to be authenticated over MS network to make it happen which means installing such capability with the retail market.

The whole 24 hour checkin was put in place because of MS trying to allow all of the things I mentioned at retail.  You would not need a 24 hour check in for digital distribution.  You do need something in place where a consumer will purchase the digital game from lets say GameStop.  Install the game on their X1, then take the same game back to the shop for trade in or sell while still able to play the game.

MS big problem with their original goal was their message and not having everything already setup for launch.  I believe this is where Sony caught MS with their pants down when they announce the PS4.  MS did not have all of the agreements and software ready.  All of this stuff did not come out until well after their reveal and it was clouded by to many half assed reports from different blogs.  MS never had a consistant place to get info nor did they release that info in a structured way to make sure everyone understood their plan.  I am not saying that they would not have had to reverse those plans as I believe they would, its just that they did not communicate it right and the net rage was to strong to overcome anyway.

They wanted to turn physical discs, into digital copies. Yes digital has always been on the wrong side of first sale doctrine.
But now they wanted to eliminate the freedom to lend, sell, give away your physical copies at your own disgression.

The whole, ok we'll allow you to sell / share digital copies came after the initial shit storm. Btw why can't you do that now? What's holding that back exactly? The 24h check in was only required to prevent content from physical discs to be used in multiple places at the same time. Through an online service you can still de-activate your digital copy and then transfer it to another account to be activated there. That only requires you to be online at the time of transfer, nothing difficult about it, online auction houses in MMO's have been doing it for years.
That would be the carrot approach to promoting digital over physical, instead MS choose the stick approach.