Just a quick thought for today: maybe Microsoft shouldn’t have caved. Maybe they should’ve continued with the DRM. I know, crazy right? ‘I bought that game, so it should be mine to play offline.’ And that’s a good point. But by backtracking, Microsoft have moved their new Xbox from the future and put it firmly in the current-gen. The old, boring current generation where you still have to find a disc and put it in a big box before it’ll actually do anything. The hope of a Steam experience, where all your games are right there, is dead.
Discs suck. Sure, audiophiles still love a CD or even a vinyl, but the iPod was massive for a reason. The thought of pirating a movie online rather than buying a disc is slowly killing that market too.
Sure, it’s sometimes quicker to get a disc than to download that content from the internet, but Microsoft’s concept of using the old and mixing it with the new, and offering people the ability to install full games to their Xbone to play later, without putting the disc in again, is a great idea. It’s honestly been a dream of mine. Sure, it’s something stupid, so simple to just do that small act of clicking that button and putting in a fragile disc, but it should be a relic of the past. Something to look back on with nostalgia, but also to look forward. The whole idea of using the Xbox One without touching it, through Kinect, is now dead. If you want to play a game, you’d better grab that disc.
DRM is bad, and people should fight against it. But like Spotify, sometimes the benefits outweigh the negatives. How many of you will seriously be playing your Xbox offline forever? I’ve never used my PS3 offline. And while I might be a minority, I might have a good connection, the checking, which is only every 24 hours, should work with anyone.
It’s a shame they caved. But it’s more of a shame that we’re all too conservative to consider the possibility of a disc-free future.
Will anyone ever dare to change the status quo again?