Change Petition For The Xbox One80 To Do A 360

 

Since before E3, gamers shouted and raged against Microsoft’s policies regarding the Xbox One. Therefore, Microsoft did a 180 this week and reversed them all. Everyone should be happy now, right? Not so! As this is being written, a change.org petition is being composed stating that Microsoft should have remained stubborn, and gamers should not have demanded what they did.

Brief Summary: When the Xbox One was unveiled before E3, they wanted to revolutionise console gaming. The Xbox One was a console designed to be constantly online. If a user wanted to maintain their Xbox Live account and play their games, the Xbox would have to check in to the internet at least once daily. All games would be digital downloads. Like Steam is for PCs, gamers bought the licenses for Xbox games and not the actual game itself. Therefore, they could only share it with their 30+ days friends on Xbox Live.

These changes were big and got a lot of anger from gamers a like, as the used game market is the backbone of the console market. Furthermore, not everyone has access to the internet. Coupled with Sony’s Play Station 4 (PS4) not having any of these restrictions and requirements, as well as encouraging used games, put Microsoft in a bit of pickle. Therefore, they reversed their original plans.

Well, now the once silent gamers that were for Xbox One’s original vision want Microsoft to do a 360. Their change. org petition states “It was ushering in the future of gaming but its been stifled by the uninformed and the media.” User comments on the petition included “Xbox One promised to usher in a new generation of console gaming. Now that the innovation has been striped away all we are left with is a PS4 with slower RAM. Please keep the next gen promise,”  and “Next generation systems should change how we approach gaming. Removing the DRM and the features that it brought is a step back. It’s two steps back. I expect[ed] more from Microsoft.“

Meanwhile, there are still some people who are still overtly critical of Microsoft’s original position. Tom Branwell of Eurogamer.net wrote in an editorial:

This raises an excellent question: Was Microsoft’s original vision completely a bad idea all around, or did gamers overreact? Who is right in this debate?

I think in some ways both sides are: Whether we like it or not, western society as we know it is becoming dominated by the internet. Therefore, it is not a stretch to say it is only a matter of time before all games are digital. In fact, I’m afraid Tom, that a lot of the old games you cherish are already digital! For example, I can download an N64, SNES, and Gameboy Advance as an emulator for free and get the ROMs for my favourite games, and play them on the computer. This eliminates the need for me to have a physical copy of say, Legend of Zelda, for example, as I can just get it online. Why can’t that in one way or another be true of all console games? Whether I have to pay for them or not, it is a lot easier to keep a digital copy of a game as opposed to a physical one.

That being said, is it really unfair for Microsoft to lock out a good chunk of its supporters because they have little to no internet access? Yes. In fact, I think they tried to get across a river in one jump without noticing the rocks above the water bridging the gap. They should have used baby steps, such as combining the option for digital copies in a Steam-like system that doesn’t impede on how physical copies of games are purchased today, in order to usher in next generation consoles. If I buy a physical Xbox One game, it’s mine, however if I choose to get a digital copy, as Tom Bramwell said in his article, then I choose to buy the license in sacrifice to ownership.

If they simply crossed the river via the rocks, instead of taking one big jump and hoping for the best, they could have avoided all of this. Now, they have people yelling at them from both sides of the river that are ready to pounce on whatever they do.

What do you think? Who is right in this debate? Is it time for video games to become completely digital? Should the used game market still be maintained? Is there a way to compromise between the two sides? Please discuss in the comments section below.