Though much of this was kind of available and speculated upon for weeks now it seems Microsoft have released some hard information on what the state of play is and the online components. For those more used to the traditional "online is but a nice perk" and "get a cart/disc by any way you like and swap it with your friends" type arrangements with the previous consoles it makes for some grim reading.
As speculated online is a major focus of the console and it plays out as follows
A whole lot of downsides for a few kind of perks, by and large the reaction of GBAtemp's user's has been quite negative to this as it seems like a very unwelcome power grab. Some of the features might be kind of useful but most of it was solved years ago by lending a disc or tottering off to a friend's with disc in hand.
*for those unaware it is a phrase that has been attributed to various computer oriented people over the years concerning the transfer of data and runs something like "the latency sucks but never underestimate the bandwidth of a trunkload of hard drives/discs barreling down the freeway".
Thanks to sjones900 and ShadowSoldier (we co-opted his original post for this article) for the news.
As speculated online is a major focus of the console and it plays out as follows
- The games on demand service is being expanded to allow and seemingly mandate simultaneous releases of games as physical discs and online games.
- Discs will be available but for the most part they are the "boot-load of hard drives"* approach to bandwidth.
- The steam approach of everything everywhere is being adopted.
- For your actual xbone any local user/guest has access to everything. How this will play out with xbox live remains to be seen (as it stands the 360 has some interesting things for some games).
- Family play -- up to 10 people can use games remotely from a single account.
- "game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers" -- MS does not charge but presumably the publishers can.
- However there does seem to be the option to give games to your friends (friends = being on your friends list for 30 days) though it is limited to one trade for a given licence/instance of a game.
- Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch
Online requirements.
The one most people were hugely concerned with was the online requirement
- "With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies."
A whole lot of downsides for a few kind of perks, by and large the reaction of GBAtemp's user's has been quite negative to this as it seems like a very unwelcome power grab. Some of the features might be kind of useful but most of it was solved years ago by lending a disc or tottering off to a friend's with disc in hand.
*for those unaware it is a phrase that has been attributed to various computer oriented people over the years concerning the transfer of data and runs something like "the latency sucks but never underestimate the bandwidth of a trunkload of hard drives/discs barreling down the freeway".
Thanks to sjones900 and ShadowSoldier (we co-opted his original post for this article) for the news.