Xbox preowned fee: The latest

[Adam91]

 

Here is an update on the latest about the fee on wanting to play preowned games on the Xbox One, and it's looking grim.

 

 Microsoft's Phil Harrison mentions that within one household only one XBOX can play any given game or you have to purchase it again. So in a house that has 4 XBOX One's for example, they would have to purchase the original game plus three more digital copies of it. Around $240.00 paid for one game in one house 

 

This article is from Eurogamer on their interview with Phil Harrison trying to explain this situation.

 

 

 

Thanks to AD for finding this article. 

 

 

Whether or not you agree with Microsoft's ideas and goals for Xbox One, at least they are generally pretty easy to understand. The one exception today has been how game ownership works and especially the Xbox One's attitude to sharing between friends and reselling games, which has resulted in conflicting and confusing reports.

 

The confusion is such that as I sat transcribing and making notes four hours after I interviewed Phil Harrison earlier today, a Microsoft PR tapped me on the shoulder and invited me back to the boardroom so that Harrison could take another swing at explaining this surprisingly complex issue.

 

"So, think about how you use a disc that you own of an Xbox 360 game," he began. "If I buy the disc from a store, I use that disc in my machine, I can give that disc to my son and he can play it on his 360 in his room. We both can't play at the same time, but the disc is the key to playing. I can go round to your house and give you that disc and you can play on that game as well."

 

"What we're doing with the digital permissions that we have for Xbox One is no different to that. If I am playing on that disc, which is installed to the hard drive on my Xbox One, everybody in my household who has permission to use my Xbox One can use that piece of content. [so] I can give that piece of content to my son and he can play it on the same system."

 

Harrison then explained what happens when you want to take that game beyond the borders of your own home and into a friend's place.

 

"I can come to your house and I can put the disc into your machine and I can sign in as me and we can play the game," he explained.

 

"The bits are on your hard drive. At the end of the play session, when I take my disc home - or even if I leave it with you - if you want to continue to play that game [on your profile] then you have to pay for it. The bits are already on your hard drive, so it's just a question of going to our [online] store and buying the game, and then it's instantly available to play."

 

"The bits that are on the disc, I can give to anybody else, but if we both want to play it at the same time, we both have to own it. That's no different to how discs operate today."

 

That makes the issue of game ownership a lot clearer than it has been at any point so far. Once you install a game, it is tied to your Xbox login, and in this way Microsoft can avoid scenarios where you buy a game, install it, then just give the disc to all your friends so they can install and play it without paying for it.

 

The next issue is what happens when you finish with a game and want either to trade it in at a store or sell it on in another way.

 

"We will have a system where you can take that digital content and trade a previously played game at a retail store," Harrison said. "We're not announcing the details of that today, but we will have announced in due course."

 

Harrison would not be drawn on how this worked, even as I suggested various scenarios. For example, I asked whether you would need to pay for the second-hand disc at a store and then pay a fee to Microsoft when you got home, a bit like an Online Pass. Harrison wouldn't be drawn.

 

"Our goal is to make it really customer-centric, really simple and really understandable and we will announce those details in due course."

 

I got the impression from speaking to him - entirely my inference - that this Online Pass-style scenario of paying twice for second-hand, once at retail and once at home, was not the plan. But Harrison's reluctance to pre-empt this mystery announcement means that it is still a possibility.

 

To me, the fact that Harrison was talking about a forthcoming announcement rather than just clarifying the detail suggests that whatever strategy Microsoft does have for this second-hand resale process may involve a specific partner. Perhaps Microsoft has done some sort of deal with GameStop or a similar retail entity.

 

Anyway, I took the opportunity of a second audience with Harrison to ask some follow-ups about Xbox One's always-online aspects as well.

 

"Some bits of the system will work offline," he said. "I think the key point to make is that Xbox One requires an internet connection, but it does not need to be connected all the time. We think that most of the biggest games on Xbox One and most of the games and experiences and services you want to use will be internet-connected."

 

Everybody got that? Xbox One requires an internet connection, but not all the time.

 

"I don't want to trivialise the issue because I know people are passionate about it, but I think most people will realise that the vast majority of content and experiences that they will want to enjoy on Xbox One will be the ones that have an online connectivity," he continued.

 

"I think where people have anxiety understandably is what happens when the internet connection goes down for a few minutes or a few hours. On our side, with the infrastructure investments that we as Microsoft have made in Azure and Xbox Live dedicated servers that we will have for Xbox One, we are very confident that we have the infrastructure to support all of the players and all of the connections. And although it's not directly an Xbox issue, it's something Microsoft is proven to be really good at with Office 365."

 

After the tape was off, we chatted some more about the anxieties that have come to light today and over the last few months of speculation. I suggested that one of the reasons that our concerns about second-hand blocking, always-online and other related issues are so acute is that we don't have any real-world Xbox One examples yet to judge it. Our touchstones are things like Diablo 3 and SimCity, which were appallingly botched launches.

 

Time will tell whether Microsoft can get the balance right with this stuff. Personally, I just want purely single-player games to work offline and the internet to enhance our games in transparent ways. We will have to wait and see whether Xbox One's use of cloud computation and online services muddies this situation or if the platform holder can succeed where Blizzard and EA failed.

 

This post has been promoted to an article

[SternuS]

Well, to sum up, Xbox One doesn't need always-online connection, but many of the biggest games you want to play will need an internet connection to play. Which means Halo will be always online. And wether it doesn't mean you'll experience lag during your single player games, if internet connection is off, you can't play.

 

They had one job to do: give us more "power" to run better games. They had one job.

[Caboose The Ace]

I don't mind this at all the fee might even be cheaper than some than preowned games from GameStop for example 

[DocSpartanO07]

I didn't read anywhere in that article that you would have to buy a second copy of the game so your son can play it in his room....nor your example of buying 4 copies of one game for all your Xboxes...

[Adam91]

I didn't read anywhere in that article that you would have to buy a second copy of the game so your son can play it in his room....nor your example of buying 4 copies of one game for all your Xboxes...

It says in the article if someone wants to play a game that was previously used on another xbox they will have to pay for it. For example I play a game on my xbox and my brother wanted to play that same game when I'm not using it on his xbox he will have to pay for it.

[DocSpartanO07]

Um, Mr. harrison said himself in that article that moving a game throughout your household will be no different than the 360. I read that you will only need to purchase more copies of a title if you want to play it on more than one Xbox at the same time, and that's just like it is now. If i own lets say Halo 5, I don't see how it wouldn't work on two Xbox ones in my house, because the authorized profile would be on both xboxes, remember, its tied to a profile, not a console. The only pain i see here is that i may have to sign in on the other console to get the game to work. But, that's what i do now on three xboxes and one purchased copy of minecraft. Everyone seems to be stuck on taking a disk to a friends house, but guess what, I download my profile there anyway before I play, so this is still not an issue, after I leave if they still wanna play, they have to buy the game, still the same, cause I would leave with my disk. I see one positive thing here tho, if they like the game and want it after me and my disk depart, a quick purchase of usage rights and they are good, way faster then traveling to the store. If this wasn't done, people would buy a disk and it would be installed in countless consoles for free, that's not cool either.

[Absolute Dog]

Um, Mr. harrison said himself in that article that moving a game throughout your household will be no different than the 360. I read that you will only need to purchase more copies of a title if you want to play it on more than one Xbox at the same time, and that's just like it is now. If i own lets say Halo 5, I don't see how it wouldn't work on two Xbox ones in my house, because the authorized profile would be on both xboxes, remember, its tied to a profile, not a console. The only pain i see here is that i may have to sign in on the other console to get the game to work. But, that's what i do now on three xboxes and one purchased copy of minecraft. Everyone seems to be stuck on taking a disk to a friends house, but guess what, I download my profile there anyway before I play, so this is still not an issue, after I leave if they still wanna play, they have to buy the game, still the same, cause I would leave with my disk. I see one positive thing here tho, if they like the game and want it after me and my disk depart, a quick purchase of usage rights and they are good, way faster then traveling to the store. If this wasn't done, people would buy a disk and it would be installed in countless consoles for free, that's not cool either.

 

That is incorrect and the misleading statement he apparently used to do it. The statement was:

 

"So, think about how you use a disc that you own of an Xbox 360 game," he began. "If I buy the disc from a store, I use that disc in my machine, I can give that disc to my son and he can play it on his 360 in his room. We both can't play at the same time, but the disc is the key to playing. I can go round to your house and give you that disc and you can play on that game as well."

 

"What we're doing with the digital permissions that we have for Xbox One is no different to that. If I am playing on that disc, which is installed to the hard drive on my Xbox One, everybody in my household who has permission to use my Xbox One can use that piece of content. [so] I can give that piece of content to my son and he can play it on the same system."

 

It is clearly a misdirecting statement intended to confuse people, yet the truth is right there.

[DocSpartanO07]

They are walking a fine line trying to explain what its really going to be like. If you have to buy a copy of the game for every Xbox one in your house, then that conflicts with what he stated about taking a game to your friends house and playing it there. Taking a game to another room is no different than going to a buddy's house. If your profile is on the console, you're ok., that's what I gather overall, nothing says a game will be tied to a console, and having to buy a copy of a game for every Xbox one would require that.

 

 

But for real's, could you imagine the amount of misuse there would be if it wasn't tied to a profile when the game was installed on the HDD? Even Gamestop would feel the pain.

[Adam91]

"Um, Mr. harrison said himself in that article that moving a game throughout your household will be no different than the 360. I read that you will only need to purchase more copies of a title if you want to play it on more than one Xbox at the same time, and that's just like it is now. If i own lets say Halo 5, I don't see how it wouldn't work on two Xbox ones in my house, because the authorized profile would be on both xboxes, remember, its tied to a profile, not a console. The only pain i see here is that i may have to sign in on the other console to get the game to work. But, that's what i do now on three xboxes and one purchased copy of minecraft. Everyone seems to be stuck on taking a disk to a friends house, but guess what, I download my profile there anyway before I play, so this is still not an issue, after I leave if they still wanna play, they have to buy the game, still the same, cause I would leave with my disk. I see one positive thing here tho, if they like the game and want it after me and my disk depart, a quick purchase of usage rights and they are good, way faster then traveling to the store. If this wasn't done, people would buy a disk and it would be installed in countless consoles for free, that's not cool either."

 

 

Sorry bare with me because ever since this situation came about I have been confused by some things despite reading over the articles lol. As the article says there is no fee as long it is played through the original owners profile, but what if my brother wanted to play one of my games on his xbox in a different room while I'm currently on my profile on my xbox? He will not be able to play it until I stop playing on my profile if he doesn't want to be charged because a profile cannot be signed in on more than one console at the same time. Yes it's just like the way it is now if we wanted to play each other as we would need to purchase our own copies but we never do, we do our own things on our own console. But to share a game throughout a household that has multiple xbox's this tends to force certian people in certain households to basically pay more than once for the same game. 

[DocSpartanO07]

It is confusing, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, you're doing great work.

 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

 

My wife purchased minecraft, she downloaded it onto 3 consoles at my house. We have 5 gold accounts, me, the wife, and 3 kids. We can play minecraft on all the xboxes, and its tied to the wife's profile, she owns it. On the Xbox she purchased it from, anyone can play it at any time, now the other consoles, the kids sign in as her, then start the game then sign her out and they play, as long as they don't shut the game down they are fine. Then she can sign in down stairs and play something else no problem. I see it working something like this. Now if they sign in as her upstairs and she is playing something downstairs, she gets booted off of live. Yeah, it sucks, but not a huge problem.

 

I don't see it being able to work any other way, unless they do something even dirtier they aren't telling us.

 

Overall, I'm just trying to make the best out of what we have so far, and to be honest, its not easy

[Sikslik7]

I see it as this:

 

I buy the disc for game A. I download the disc onto my Xbox, and the game becomes registered to my profile. As long as I my profile is on my Xbox, I can play game A now, and any other game connected to my profile, as long as that game is also downloaded to the Xbox. So, if I bought a new Xbox, and signed in, I could not play any of my games unless I downloaded those games onto the new Xbox. I can now download game A to any Xbox as long as my profile is signed in, as it becomes attached to my profile.

 

Now, say I went to my friends house across the street, "do do do do do...," walk through the door,into his basement and turn on his Xbox, which only has his profile and his game, game B on it. I sign in, and can't play game B even if his profile is also playing it. I would have to sign in as his guest to play it (if guests are allowed on the Xbox One) or, I would have to purchase a copy of game B.

 

If I bought game B from the marketplace, I would be able to download the game onto any console, and play it on any console, as long as it was my profile playing it. If I bought a disc for game B, I could register the disc on his Xbox, but to my profile, so when I return home, I can download it from the disc free of charge.

 

Now,I put my game A disc into his Xbox, which only has game B on it. I have already registered the disc to my profile, and downloaded it to my own Xbox. I download game A to his Xbox, under my profile, and my profile can play it, but his cannot. But if I had  tried to download it under his profile, a message appears saying he must either purchase a copy of the game,or not play it. He must either get his own copy from the local store or from the marketplace.

 

Now, I walk back home, and try to play game A, without signing in on my profile. I can not play it until I sign in as my profile.

 

 

So to summarize:

 

Whenever my profile is signed in on any Xbox that has a game I purchased downloaded to it, my profile can play it. 

 

I assume guests of a profile can play the game with the profile.

 

I am not sure whether or not if when my profile is signed in and has bought game A, and downloaded game A to an Xbox, whether my friend's profile, which does not have game A attached to it, can play game A. 

 

I assume that once a game is registered to my profile, I can download it on any Xbox as long as my profile is signed in.

 

 

Thoughts?

[PuRe PoNy]

I think even a fee is pretty lame. There will be no point in buying pre-owned games anymore and so the pre-owned games industry will be destroyed.

[Sly the Prodigy]

Everyone is going to be affected with this issue, the only one unhurt will be of course Microsoft, but I don't know, even though we will hate it for the first couple months, we will get used to it soon or later..