Everytime they send Phil Harrison to speak, he seems to make matters worse. MS believes that their second hand purchasing plan is "consistent with the way the world works."

The exec said Microsoft "will always take a customer centric view" on the subject and pointed out that the planned measure will not prevent players from sharing retail games with their own household or when visiting friends.

"Our plans are very consistent with the way the world works today, which is if I buy a disc I can install it on my machine, I can play it and anyone associated with my machine can play it as well," Harrison told CVG.

"I can give that disc to somebody else - maybe my son who has his own Xbox One somewhere else in the house - and he can install and play it on his machine. I can come to your house with that disc, I can install it on your machine and we can play it and while I'm with you we can have all of the capabilities of that game.

"The moment I go home and notionally take that disc with me, you no longer have the ability to play that game. But the 'bits' are on your hard drive, so if you want to play that game you can buy it - you can go to the online store, buy it and it's instantly unlocked and playable on your machine. All of the privileges I just described in my house would now apply in yours as well."

The former Sony figurehead insisted that the Xbox One system is "exactly the same as owning a physical disc", adding that it's "just the method of distributing the 'bits' [that] slightly changes".

Microsoft has held high level meetings with its international retail partners on the subject, Harrison said, and Microsoft will later discuss plans for a system that will allow players to trade game ownership via Xbox Live.

Pushed to elaborate on his comments earlier today that Xbox One will require an internet connection once every 24 hours, Harrison said Microsoft "has not made a specific announcement on the details of that".

He commented: "Xbox One is designed to have an internet connection - it does notrequire an internet connection to be on at all times, but many of the great features and capabilities of the system are unlocked via a connection to Xbox Live or the cloud so that all of the things you expect become unlocked.

"If your internet connection is interrupted because of a local outage many, but not all of the features of the game content you own you will be able to use, but not all because some of them are uniquely online experiences. BBC iPlayer of Netflix won't work if your internet connection goes down, as you would expect.

"Blu-ray movies and other single-player games that don't require an internet connection to Xbox Live will work. I think it is pretty rare of an outage of local internet connectivity to be more than a few seconds or minutes, so I don't expect it will ever impact on somebody's ability to use the system."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/408116/microsoft-xbox-one-pre-owned-plans-consistent-with-way-the-world-works/

Total BS. What if I want to lend the game to my friend? MS is robbing gamers and its clear as day...

Sounds like Gamestop wasn't part of the process.

LOL. It is unbelieveable that they got Phil Harrison saying stuff like this then. This is by far the worst damage control I have ever witnessed by a company.

He is still working for Sony. B_E_L_I_E_V_E.

So is it disc based? account based? console based? Will there be no fee, some fee or full retail fee for used game selling? Will publishers be allowed to extend that system to impose additional restrictions? Will an internet connection be required never or every so often for single-player content? Does a Phil Harrison statement constitute official confirmation or not?

NONE of these questions have been answered by the Phil Harrison interviews.

Do MS not understand that the lack of clarity allows damaging rumours to propagate further and faster?

I believe what requires the 24 hour Internet connection is the guide. If anyone here has used a Mediaroom-based cable TV box knows well that every 24 hours it phones home and updates the guide information. I doubt this will be different with Xbox One.

Also, I'm fairly certain the Xbox One will be checking for system, game, and application updates on a fairly regular basis. So an always on/always connected Xbox One will likely phone home, request updates, and go from there.

I always said that MS worked together with industry - it's a multi-million dollar business for everyone except customers and all want to make money as much as possible. No one can dare to do something completely on his own.

I'm as confused as everyone else about this and why they keep giving Harrison the greenlight  to say these things. They might as well be honest about it, at this point spewing out more confusing interviews and statements is only going to make it worse.

inb4 he gets fired as a loose cannon