I think people bring up internet outages just to complain more. Check ins every 24 hours wouldn't have been a concern if they weren't there to enforce DRM and stop rentals. Check-in is the least of xbone problems, there are other several issues that still need more clarifications, more than what's mentioned on xbox wire.

Games Industry

Microsoft's Phil Spencer says even phone tethering will be sufficient to meet requirement.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer has shed some light on the severity of the Xbox One's online check-in, and it may not be as severe as many have feared.

Speaking to Game Informer, the corporate VP of Microsoft Studios said that the check-in requirements are low enough for mobile tethering to be a valid option for meeting them.

"It's kilobytes, not megabytes," he said. "You can also set your console to always have the latest bits in a standby state."

Spencer reiterated that those with absolutely no access to the internet were not the right audience for the Xbox One. However, the check-in will be forgiving enough for even those with unreliable online connections.

"We've all had 360s for quite a while. If you look at what the box was capable of doing when we launched it versus what it's doing it now, we listened. We're part of the community," Spencer said.

"We listen to the community and we will respond to where the business, the creators, and the gamers are going. But I don't want to people to take that wrong. Our policy is our policy, and we've stated it. We wanted to put it up [on Xbox Wire] in unambiguous terms. 'Here's what our policy is.'"

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-13-xbox-one-check-in-will-need-kilobytes-not-megabytes

I would go for special discs that need to be in the drive to function. Still fully install but not need registration. If you like the game enough to buy it then you can pay to activate the installed copy. Do game rental places just buy normal retail copies at the moment? I know in the 80s video rental shops used to pay up to £100 per copy for films. Perhaps the could charge $150$200 per rental copy.

I believe if Microsoft wants to, it can allow a disc to be in the drive for offline play.  The functionality exists already, but I think a part of the reason they're trying to ensure people move away from the reliance on discs as well as not require the disc so it can be archived. 

The reason I believe special discs would be necessary is because a retail key has to have certain functionality.  Microsoft has the capability, based on recent patents, to determine what functionality exists based on a key used to install the software.  So, a retail disc's functionality might be different than a rental disc's.

Right.  My thoughts would be when you purchase the disc from the rental service, you get a code that changes the installed game from a rental to retail disc.

Yeah, the tapes were a different quality, they were thicker mylar so they lasted longer, but I believe there was a lawsuit over the cost differential and not to mention normal tapes seemed to last just as long.  Since Microsoft really isn't changing the disc, but rather the license key on the disc, it wouldn't be a major process to press rental specific discs.

Well, at least they are listening and adapting their measures accordingly.

I would expect it to depend on your contract. Mine is included, although I only have 500mb data.

This was stated at launch, actually.

The only clarification cited is that the data is just kilobytes of data, which people should have figured that one out.