With more details about the One's services from http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license we can now have a better picture of how it will handle. 

But at the moment I'm too lazy to look up how Steam's services are different. 

How are the two different?

They're not that much different at all. The only difference is Xbox one exist in the physical world why steam exist solely in digital space for now.

Both services require internet to activate and are very similar apart from these things:

- Steam does not need a check in every 24 hours. Once you install a game fully, you can play it offline. Unless you start a game update and don't finish it...in which case you can't play that game at all till you finish the update.

- Steam does not allow for game sharing with family, giving to "a friend" or re-selling (digital or retail). Whatever you buy, is tied to your Steam account forever and ever. Xbox One supposedly does allow for this.

Actually steam does have a retail presence and sells disks with games. Disks still need to be installed and activated and can't be resold once they are tied to an account.

• You can play most games on "offline mode" on Steam (that means no internet).
• Discounts, lots and lots of discounts

If MS does implement something similar like Steam with awesome deals then I don't think gamers will complain all that much. There's still the problem of trading games though, but that's something that hasn't affected me all that much as a PC gamer.

Aside from what was already stated:

Steam exists on an open platform and doesn't have a monopoly on the market it supplies games to.

was not aware of that. Sounds much worse then MS policies. Why arn't people complaining about this?

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.

I don't know about that... Both of those should have an astreix next to them.

What do you mean? Steam is not the only providor in the PC space, and it's possible for other competitors to rise. On the Xbone, there is no possible alternative to Microsoft. They hold the system with an iron grip. "Monopoly" was the incorrect word to use, I suppose, since they kinda do own a great deal of the space. What I meant was they cannot stop other platforms from thriving (GOG, Origin, etc.).

And how is PC not an open platform?