This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
So now comes Xbox One with its new policies. I look at it this way: If the day-one digital downloads work as planned, I’ll never buy another disc again. Let’s see ya steal that, Douchey McStickyfiingers. If a console is stolen, it’s only going to be useful if it checks in once per day, at which time Microsoft can brick it. The way things are now, thieves can easily resell or pawn any hot items they may have. Once the new system is in place, word will get around fast that a stolen Xbox One and its games are unusable. So for me, this is a great thing.
As far as theft goes, there is another kind: piracy. The day a game goes on sale (and in some cases before), there are thousands of illegal downloads of that game. Right now, there is no check in place to prevent people from running these titles on a console that is modified and offline. Yes, eventually people will crack the new system to get around it, but at least for a while piracy will slow.
In short, if you are a “gamer” and love playing games like I do, then the really smart thing to do is embrace the new policies. Seriously, in the end, they will only benefit us as gamers. Think about it. You can still share your games with your friends and family. In fact, unless I’m mistaken, you can now share your games library with friends or family without signing in or even using the same box. So if I buy Minecraft and my daughter, who is away at college (yep, I’m that old), wants to give it a try, all she has to do is log in and have at it. As far as I know, that’s unique for any system, including PC.
As far as selling and buying used games goes, that is up to the publisher. Believe me, this will be the same on both systems. If not, then in the end, I believe the advantage goes to the system that offers the best chance for a publisher to profit. Whichever system prevents profit loss will in the end be more attractive to developers and publishers, and that is where you will see the better exclusive third-party games. Renting games is a touchy issue. One thing that this does that needs to be curtailed is it props up poorly made games and developers. Yes, I believe that. Like movies, there are good ones and bad ones. Right now, you can pay full price for those titles you know you want, or you can rent the ones you are iffy on. This creates a niche market of low-budget, poorly made games that probably should never have been created– much like the Syfy channel movie on my TV right now. What we have right now is an environment that allows for and actually encourages mediocrity. What we need is an environment that gets the really great gamemakers paid and the mediocre to die off.
Extras: OK, here we go. This is where I think Microsoft went awry with the way it announced the reveal and then hit E3 with everything else. It should have led its reveal with games, games, and more games. Then people would have been wowed with what they saw and been blown away with all of the other things they would have learned about at E3, such as Skype, multiwindow functioning, and HDMI passthrough. Instead, it was like biting into scrambled eggs and getting a mouthful of shell. From that point on, either you just don’t want anymore or every single bite after is taken with trepidation and negativity. No matter what anyone in marketing thinks, it really is the games that are going to sell this thing at first. The best advertising is word of mouth — that always has been and always will be. And it will only happen through gamers.