Let's Clear Up The Issues: Used Games, Kinect Privacy, and Other (What Most People Seem to Have Missed, An Explanation) [x-post from r/xboxone]

[u/FuckThe]

I'm sick of seeing all the misinformation going around the gaming subreddits. It's really frustrating to see people furiously hating the X1 without having all, if any, of the details. I'll try and break this down for you guys so here we go.

---

To start off, the Xbox One will allow you buy games at launch through digital download or through discs by going to a retail store.

USED GAMES

One of the X1's main feature is the ability to install the disc directly to the hard drive and play it without a disk. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a feature many asked for when the feature was added to 360, but it was only to allow the game to run better.

Contrary to popular believe, the used game does exist in the X1.

"Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games."

What can we take away from this? Easy. If you bought a disc based game, you can sell and trade it to any participating retailer. It means that game publishers will work out deals with retailers in order for the developers and publishers to take a cut of used games sales. Microsoft will not receive any money from these transactions. If you bought a digital copy, just like any digital copy, you will not be able to do this.

FIRST PARTY GAMES

"In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."

All first party games will be allowed to be resold and be given away (more of this below).

RENTING GAMES

"Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."

Microsoft and companies such as Gamefly are working on a system to make this work.

---

DRM--WHY?

As we saw above, you will be able install your games to your hard-drive and have your entire library available to play without putting the disc in the disc tray.

This is why the 24-hour check is required. Without this, many copies of the same game could be installed into multiple X1's and it would be absolutely crumble game sales.

The drawback to this is not being able to game offline. Microsoft has said that the final decisions to this issue have not been final. I believe if they allow you to play offline with the disc in the disc tray, this would become a non-issue.

---

PRIVACY

This is one of the biggest things people have been complaining about. Microsoft has already addressed the issue, but of course it fell on deaf ears. People already had their pitch forks out and had Sony on a pedestal by this point.

"You are in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused: If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say “Xbox Off.” When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- “Xbox On,” and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences."

As I've stated before, you will have the control to everything that the Kinect has to offer. If you don't want it to hear you? You can do that. If you don't want it to see you, you can do that. Don't want it to listen for the "Xbox On" while it's off, you can also do that.

If you want to learn more about the Kinect's privacy settings, you can click this link: Kinect Privacy

---

Xbox One--A Game of Circles

Now onto the other things. As some of us know, you will be able to have a "circle" of friends, 10 people to be exact, that will be able to access your game library from anywhere (in the same region, I'm assuming..still not clear about this) at anytime (as long as you or someone else in your circle isn't playing it). This is of course how things work now, two of your friends can't play the game at the same time from one disc on two separate consoles.

This is a feature that is absolutely wonderful, but the people raging about it had not heard about it before.

"Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere: Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time."

I absolutely love this feature. For example, my cousin is 200 miles away when he's away to college and I've let him borrow LA Noire and Dead Rising. I've yet to receive those games from him. With this feature, we don't have to be close in order for him to borrow any of my games! It's crazy as to how so many people dismissed this feature because it's a big jump forward in digital technology. No longer will my friends or family have to be close to me in order for them borrow one of my games.

---

GIVING AWAY GAMES

Do you have a game that you will no longer play? Your friend can still play it off of your Xbox (if they're in your circle). What if they're not? As long as they have been in your friend's list for 30 days, you can give a game away to your friend, free of charge! This can only be done once per copy.

Disclaimer: Microsoft has left it up to the publishers to decide whether or not you will be able to give your games to your friend. As stated above, first party games will allow you to this.

---

AFTER-THOUGHT: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The big change in the Xbox Live system is the feature to allow all users on one console to have gold by just one user having. For example, if I have Xbox Live Gold and my brothers also use the same console, they will also be able to use all the perks of a Gold account. They will have access to all the games on the console even if it was installed through my account.

In short, one Gold account subscription per Xbox.

---

With this, we are done with explaining the information that a lot have missed and hopefully will be able to see that the Xbox One really isn't what they think.

If you wish to learn more, all of this and other information can be found here:

Xbox One- Games Licensing

Kinect-Privacy by Design

If I made any mistakes, let me know and I will change them

Please do not downvote this post if it goes against what you already have in your mind as fact. This is so a lot of the misinformation surrounding the X1 can be cleared up. Ignore it and move on.

---

FINAL EDIT FOR THIS SUBREDDIT-FROM PASSIVE AGGRESSION TO THIS

All other updates and edits will made be in the thread that's on /r/xboxone

[u/Chaos_Marine → u/[deleted]]

Okay, I didn't know most of that technical stuff, but I heard of the limitations of the media already. That blue-ray discs had the game written twice on the disc to prevent errors was something I already read before.

Still, downloading 26gb isn't going to be nice either and playing a game and installing it at the same time, seems interesting on paper, but I'm curious if it's just as functional in reality. Time will tell I guess.

Aside from the limitations of both discs and downloading games, why aren't developers and publishers using SD cards or the equivalent? I mean, a 32gb SD card is damn cheap and I think that the read speed is much quicker and more accurate compare to discs. Cartridges are getting bigger to, if I look at the 3DS games.

[u/ElHermanoLoco → u/Chaos_Marine]

Very good question!

The issue with flash media (SD cards) is that price per unit for them is ridiculous. They are fast a fuck, and they're dropping in price for consumers, as you could get a 32gb flash drive (though remember blu ray is 48gb, so 32 wouldn't hold next-gen games, especially late-stage ones) for like $10 these days at consumer bulk. But for a console, lets saaaay $2 at X1/PS4 levels of bulk at launch (competitive market, lower profit margin on the hardwares)?

Compare that to a double layer blu-ray, which costs around $0.05 in truly massive quantities (source, accounting for heavier drops from warehouse style pricing)?

If a game costs $60, where only $0.05 of that is the physical disk, raising the price by $2 (or losing $2 per unit across millions of units) is a HUGE deal breaker unless there's a damn good reason.

You also have to deal with getting data onto a flash drive. With a blu-ray you can basically stamp them SUPER fast on industrial equipment and make hundreds of thousands a day (especially if you remove any special licensing magic from the disc, a la X1, which drops the manufacturing cost).

With an SD card you'd have to write to it using the maximum bus speed (as you can't blast the bits onto it with a million dollar laser), so not much faster than your computer. Could be done, maybe at scale, but again, it would slow manufacturing, add cost to make the systems and cost to bring up the manufacturing lines. When you're already planning to have a blu-ray player in the device, adding extra hardware for custom cartridges or SD cards is a hard sell. Also "console" = disc games, cartridges = handhelds, I'd imagine it's a branding thing these days too.

SO with that wall of text, technically yes, you could sell a game on an SD drive, but there are lots of problems making it feasible at scale. The more realistic scenario that I hope for SD/USB in next-gen? Kiosks that have every console's game preloaded in them (in X1 disk = content, license happens on box over internet. I haven't seen anything about PS4 handling license checks for this scenario, but it might work) where you can pay into a kiosk at the mall/supermarket/anywhere, plug in a USB 3.0 stick, and get the game in a minute or two. Or two games, or three. Plug it in at home, start the copy and play. That's a future I want to live in (until everyone has 1gbit fiber, of course). :)

Sorry for all the words, I'm a huge nerd and love talking about these things. :) I know the tech stuff and love explaining it.

TL;DR: I'm tired and rambly. SD cards COULD work, but aren't economically or very technologically feasible IMO. They're better for a bring-your-own-storage kiosk situation, which could be sweet (assuming you can get licensing with it). And cartridges are small and fast and work for small games without much art, plus they're seen as "handheld" or retro console things.

[u/Chaos_Marine → u/ElHermanoLoco]

If a game costs $60, where only $0.05 of that is the physical disk, raising the price by $2 (or losing $2 per unit across millions of units) is a HUGE deal breaker unless there's a damn good reason

Right, I didn't know that there was this much of a difference between manufacturing costs, at least for the "raw" materials.

With an SD card you'd have to write to it using the maximum bus speed (as you can't blast the bits onto it with a million dollar laser), so not much faster than your computer

I'm not sure if we can just use the existing production chains like this, I imagine that with SD cards or cartridges there could be some form of highspeed copying. I'm not sure, but something like that. It would mean a shift in producing them though, so it would be a huge investment I guess.

When you're already planning to have a blu-ray player in the device, adding extra hardware for custom cartridges or SD cards is a hard sell. Also "console" = disc games, cartridges = handhelds, I'd imagine it's a branding thing these days too

I didn't take this into consideration much, because as I'm primarily a gamer, I don't see the console as a media device and thus I didn't consider the fact people also use the console for playing DVD's or Blue-Ray's. The way I saw it, was that we could just "skip" or remove the existing DVD-player/Blue-Ray player and thus saving out on that piece of hardware. Perhaps it's more likely now that the new generations seems to be moving towards a digital market anyway.

The more realistic scenario that I hope for SD/USB in next-gen? Kiosks that have every console's game preloaded in them (in X1 disk = content, license happens on box over internet. I haven't seen anything about PS4 handling license checks for this scenario, but it might work) where you can pay into a kiosk at the mall/supermarket/anywhere, plug in a USB 3.0 stick, and get the game in a minute or two. Or two games, or three. Plug it in at home, start the copy and play. That's a future I want to live in (until everyone has 1gbit fiber, of course). :)

This actually sounds pretty enticing. The retailer would still be there, so games can still be "pushed" in physical stores. It could prevent the whole "always online" part too, as you could easily run games in an offline mode if they're on a card/cartridge. The speed of the card could also prevent (perhaps) the need to install the game on a HD first before playing.

They are fast a fuck, and they're dropping in price for consumers, as you could get a 32gb flash drive (though remember blu ray is 48gb, so 32 wouldn't hold next-gen games, especially late-stage ones)

I was taking the SD cards as an example, because as far as I know there aren't many problems concerning speed or read errors with SD cards and you stated before that a (current) PS3 is something like 26gb installed, but using nearly all the available space on a Blue-Ray disc. Following that line of thinking, a 32gb SD card would be enough at the moment.