You win some and you lose some. I personally like the new policies over the old DRM and always online policy. I'm planning on joining the Military so having a brick in my living room just isn't an option. Thanks to this change in heart from Microsoft they probably just got hundreds of thousands of pre orders. (Not all in one day, obviously over time)

i just wonder, if we would have had an integrated ebay like store to sell and buy "used" games, would that have changed the opinion of people? i believe i read once that microsoft planned something like that and the used games market would have been great with that. developers would get a part of the fee and they could limit it to maybe 3 times or something like that to still get sales of new games.

so, let's say i sell bioshock inifinte in this store. you see that i am the first owner and you know you can resell it as well. you pay 35 bucks for it, i get 30 and the developers 5 (or something like that). then after a while, you sell it and the other people see you are already the second owner. they pay 25.....the last guy who will buy it knows he can't resell it. he will maybe only pay 10 but that is not so bad because the guy who sells it also had to pay less because it was already owned by few other gamers.

this would be only a small loss from sale to sale and wouldn't really hurt any gamer but would help developers. that option is still better as selling the game on gamestop where the difference between what you paid and what you get for this game is bigger or at least not smaller.

this option in combination with the games haring sounds awesome to me. well, yes 24h check would be still necessary but i think that there are really only a few percent who couldn't manage that. for them, xbox one would have been obviously no option.

1. True, can't argue about that. There's the thing that you still need access to the servers, though, and if after some long time servers go down, you're probably screwed. And of course it's more than likely that servers will be down for shorter periods occassionally. So overall: Convenient as long as things work but when things go wrong, you should expect to be screwed.

2. It's not about piracy, it's about used games. Piracy is a very small issue on consoles. And used games save consumers money, which will allow them to spend more money on games (and on other things, true, but also on games). And then there's the question: Is more games better or worse? Personally I've had enough with all those huge-budget games aimed at the mass market, they're pretty soulless generally. Variety and quality are what needs to be encouraged, not quantity. Besides, the amount of games is more than sufficient as it is. In fact, there's more games than I have time to play. I'd say more games isn't a plus if it means what I think it means. Either way, I don't see the benefit here.

3. I don't see how that benefits me at all.

4. I don't care. Also, I doubt tracking would get better. Why would it?

5. We could already get Steam-like sales, the technology is there. The fact is that we don't, and I don't see any reason at all why that would change. And being able to share the game with ten people is a good thing but I don't think we got to hear all the details just yet. As far as I understood the system, only one person at a time could play the game. Sounds like a mess to me if several of your friends wanted to play the game at the same time - a mess you wouldn't get with physical sharing. Overall, there's some benefit here but really it's hard to say how much without more details.

Where is the "All of the above" option in the poll?

You have to log in on 3 different machines and vote for each one. Just kidding vote for the one you find worst.

Sorry HappyD, but even if I was not getting a XBone, the very few cons outweighs all of the pros that they listed... And those could've leached to a console that I'm considering/interested.

I keep going in circles.  They are all equal amounts of destructive elements that, when combined, create a fatal reaction.  Sorry, I can't help but vote AotA ...

When top MS execs were unable to put together a coherent argument as to the benefits vs the cons of their digital system, I don't think we can blame the articles that were posted. Fact is, Microsoft were unable to convey any of the details that we needed to hear to make an informed decision. The articles simply reflected the hideously poor communication.

Even now we're hearing some of the policies were potentially different to what MS execs would have had us believe (e.g. game sharing). Consumers decide when and how the future happens; not a single corporation forcing the issue based on their vision of the future.

Anyway, I actually think some of these policies will indeed be rolled out gradually on digital titles but based on a much more robust study of the console market.

That Drm was wack and that's pretty much it..

@HappyDolphin, It's true of every single DD service I know of. Nintendo, Steam, Origin, etc all charge the same price as retail initially. It gets cheaper fast on those DD services because developers have better control over pricing but over all its the exact same price.

Developers have long promised "cheaper" games if we all went the DD route but as of yet, none of them want to lower prices.

On Steam even if you buy the retail disc, you are only buying a code to allow you to download the game. MS system was similar only it allowed for sharing and the resale of used games. It's likely that we will get DRM in the future from the big 3 but it will probably be more like Steam and not allow used games or sharing.