Microsoft Backtracks on DRM and takes all the good features with it!

[96marrs]

As Microsoft and Sony prepare for the first round of the next-gen console war, the two companies have begun to sound different notes on a key feature: the access gamers will have to their own digital game libraries.

Judging from Xbox One pre-orders, Microsoft had seemed to recover from the controversy over the console's stringent used-game sharing policies and required daily online check-ins, especially when it announced in the aftermath of E3 that it was removing the maligned features from the device. In the process, however, the company abandoned some of the Xbox One's most ambitious capabilities — something Microsoft itself ruefully admitted at the time of its 180.

In order to remove the always-online requirement that so many critics were reviling with a passion, Microsoft was also removing the ability to store and share games in the cloud — something that would have allowed gamers to access their digital content across different consoles, handy if they wanted to play a game at a friend's house, for instance.

"Your entire games collection will no longer be available from the cloud," the Microsoft spokesperson said. "Games on disc will require the disc for playback. Games you’ve downloaded from Xbox Live will still be accessible from the cloud. Also, we will no longer offer family game sharing from the cloud. The sharing of games will work as it does on Xbox 360, you’ll simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared.”

Apparently, losing access to an entire game collection via cloud storage was enough to start an online campaign — one that is trying to push Team Xbox to yet again reverse course, and go back to the original corporate vision, the one discussed before the original protesters launched the #XboxOneNoDRM movement. A petition appeared on Change.org this week asking Microsoft to "give us back the Xbox One we were promised at E3."

In the petition's mission statement, Xbox One fans deplore Microsoft for essentially giving into peer pressure from Sony and angry gamers.

What are your thoughts?

[Khronic]

I think that his is some bull. The PS4 has a similar feature like the family share plan, you are able to play any PS4 game on any PS4 so long as you are signed in and connected to the internet. You can also play games offline on the PS4 that you designate as your "home" PS4.

I think that Microsoft is in trouble, they are losing the pre-order race so far and it seems like everything that they ann