Microsoft’s Xbox One policies might be ‘anti-consumer’, but they’re pro-industry

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...e1-610x343.jpgGame ownership is a last generation feature, then. Microsoft’s messy messaging over what it will (and will not) allow Xbox One owners to do with the games they buy has been painful to watch, and last week it got excruciating – Microsoft’s trio of attempted clarifications required concerted effort to decode. Strip away all of the ‘benefits’ and corporate doublespeak, and one can catch sight of the facts, and what they reveal about the next Xbox.Never has a console come with more caveats. You can lend a game to a friend for free, but only if they’ve been on your friends list for thirty days or more; Trade-ins will be allowed, but only if game publishers enable them; Xbox One doesn’t require a persistent internet connection, but does require a connection at least once every 24 hours; Kinect isn’t technically always on and listening, but, well, it is always on and listening – for the words ‘Xbox on’.We noted before the console was finally revealed last month that Microsoft’s silence had been damaging; by talking in riddles around the more controversial aspects of its next console, it has confused and angered a considerable proportion of the faithful games players it has built its business on.Perhaps the biggest problem has been Microsoft merely explaining what its policies are, without detailing why they exist. In short, always-on will help protect Xbox One from piracy, and game licensing will ensure that trade-in revenues return to developers and publishers, rather than retailers like GameStop and Game.This is indeed ‘consistent with the way the world works now’, as Phil Harrison put it to our colleagues atCVG recently. The shift from physical to digital media is turning the entertainment industry into a service, and the likes of Spotify and Netflix have capitalised on that. But videogames are different, and that’s the reason Xbox One is causing such a fuss.The high-end blockbuster videogames central to Xbox One are big, expensive, data-heavy things, best delivered by disc. We’re not ready to switch from disc to digital-only just yet – but when we are, you can absolutely guarantee that Xbox One’s Blu-Ray drive will be the first thing to disappear in the inevitable Xbox One Slim. It’ll remove any lingering complaints over second-hand games, as well as make the console far cheaper.

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