Xbox One: Devastating For Consumer Rights

Being passionate about video games means this music blog will take a brief detour today as I round-up the opinion from MS’ Xbox One bombshell. This is the sound of love turning sour.

Covering the Scottish music scene through this blog is always my main focus.

From time to time there will be deviations best described as other nonsense. Not much point having a blog if you can’t vent when you need to. Words shall now rain down and at the end I’ll see if any of it makes sense. This is not so much of a ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ type of thing as the need to get gut feelings off my chest as a lifelong gamer. When I start blogging about my exercise bike cycling and gym habits then you’ll know it’s time to move on.

In case video gaming isn’t really your thing, there’s a backdrop to be aware of if you do decide to keep reading.

WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING

The signs were there when EA games fell out of love with Nintendo in 2012.

Further indicators appeared as the gaming world excitedly watched Sony officially announce its plans for Playstation 4.

At the time details regarding DRM (digital rights management) security measures for games were not discussed so we as gamers had to wait for more details. I was suspicious at the lack of detail.

During this time I read up on the epic fallout between EA games (voted America’s most evil corporation 2 years in a row) and Nintendo.

Rumour and wild speculation has it that EA wanted Nintendo to use its Origin platform for online game management. As that would potentially anger and compromise data of other games companies looking to release games on the Wii U, the suggestion is Nintendo turned the idea down. The fact that Ninty worked with EA up to 2011 to build their own Nintendo online game system for the Wii U makes the situation ever stranger.

Two years ago they were the best of friends. Fast forward to today and EA is no longer releasing games for the Wii U. Not only that but EA staffers are publicly slagging off the console. Bizarre, right? This is teen romance gone wrong behaviour – except with millions of pounds and people’s careers on the line. This is proper drama, never mind your reality tv shows!

Here’s what EA were saying when they were in love at the Nintendo Press Conference E3 2011. Skip to the 1 hour, 4 minute mark to witness EA announce their “unprecedented partnership” with Nintendo and Wii U:

E3 being the big industry event where companies reveal their plans for the next 12 months. Fast forward to E3 2012 and except for a few ports of old games from other consoles, very little is said about new EA games coming to Wii U.

So far we’ve got (1) EA stops making games for Nintendo, and (2) Sony says very little about its new console which launches as physical media is being replaced by streamed content. OK? Keep up. This is where the road gets bumpy.

Last month Microsoft revealed their new console, Xbox One. Or Xbone as the internet has christened it. Here’s a brief clip to round up that showcase event:

TV, Sports, and Call of Duty jokes kept everyone entertained for the next week or so. But many important questions remained unanswered. That is until yesterday when Microsoft finally plucked up the courage to tell its global customer base what they were in store for. This handy graphic sums it up. Answers on a postcard why EA suddenly did the U-turn on Nintendo.

Could it be because Ninty wouldn’t agree to what Microsoft (and Sony?) have agreed to with game publishers?

My reaction was to share this graphic with my friends on Facebook along with the following points off the top of my head.

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Interesting graphic doing the rounds. If your blu-ray player had the same restrictions, wonder if people would be OK with it?

It’s hard to see this as anything other than anti-consumer and pro-greed, driven by shareholder interests. Is it why Nintendo disagreed to have similar DRM on Wii U?

Physical entertainment media, especially movies, has always had license restrictions appear on-screen which we could wilfully ignore. Streamed media and DRM at device level means sharing will become a thing of the past.

Isn’t sharing important as a human value beyond a profit-only approach? Isn’t there already a huge amount of money generated in the sale of new games? Are the CEOs of EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc in danger of not getting their next Ferrari? Isn’t there a better way of supporting smaller game developers without the removal of choice?

How strange that in 2013, bands are creating music and putting it up for free streaming online at the same time media companies are saying all digital content will be controlled. Up until now we’ve always had choice. You could accept Steam on PC or go with consoles. It’s the removal of choice that concerns me.

The only choice left will be to not buy hardware with these types of DRM restrictions. But when the most read newspaper is The Sun and the most watched tv shows include Xfactor, I’m not pinning much hope on people putting up a fight.

Removal of choice bothers me.

I like knowing I can lend books, movies and games to friends because I paid for them.

I accept my restricted PC experience because I have other ways of sharing. Removing sharing of our entertainment options cannot be a good thing.

This is completely at odds with the web, social media, and how human behaviour is evolving. As information is becoming free, entertainment is being locked up? No fucking chance.

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To recap, here’s those points as listed by NowGamer:

The Death Of Games Ownership

So here’s the breakdown of exactly what Microsoft announced:

You don’t own the games you buy, only the license to play them

Physical discs are used to install games on your machine, at which point they will fall under the same restrictions and DRM measures as games bought digitally

Publishers decide whether games can be traded in or not and even then, it will only be possible with “participating retailers”

You can’t loan or rent games at launch, though Microsoft is working on this

You have to connect online every 24 hours – fail to do so and you can’t play your games at all

This is reduced to one hour if you’re accessing your content from another console

You can sell games to those on your Friends List but only if you’ve been friends with them for 30 days

Up to 10 people in your Xbox One ‘family’ can use your licensed content, regardless of what console they access it from