I didn't, but it will be fun to play with for an hour or so

I'm listening to yesterday's "Weekend Confirmed", and they are having a great discussion about the X1 and everything that's gone down the past few months.

I recommend listing to the show every week, because it's probably the best gaming podcast out there, but this week's show is particularly salient to this thread.

Direct link to web player below or you can get it on iTunes etc.

http://player.podtrac.com/player?but...dconfirmed.xml

I had Sega Channel. That was brilliant for its time but given how technology has changed in nearly 20 years since then I don't think we'll ever see a subscription model like that anymore. Money drives everything and I'm sure not many developers would get behind that kind of service.

I had Sega Channel as well. It was not only ahead of its time, but also paved the way for high speed cable Internet as well. I don't see why developers wouldn't get behind it. Especially for games that are one or two console generations old and are no longer selling.

Also, as I've seen this brought up numerous times. The 360 edition of Titanfall WILL NOT be from Respawn. Respawn is having another developer make the port for them.

Dude, the guy is a verified Microsoft insider by the mods of NeoGAF. They don't let any average joe blow smoke about a bunch of BS, he is VERIFIED. If he wasn't, he would've been banned from the site long ago.

He talks in his own code to avoid having his writing recognized & to avoid being quoted by media outlets as a legitimate source.

Verified, damn you. He's been VERIFIED!

I look at it this way: family sharing could've been what Microsoft needed to win the battle against Sony, but failed to advertise it because their messaging sucks OR it could've been the final straw consumers had with the console that caused everyone to flee to Sony. Either way, we'll never know the true story for what Microsoft had planned.

Microsoft can spin this for all they want as it's a feature that no longer exists. It may exist years from now in a future policy change or software update, but consumers demanded no digital rights management of any kind. Microsoft over delivered on that concern by removing the region locks as well.

People are still going to bitch because at the end of the day everyone hates Microsoft.

What I would love to see is a poll, conducted by a third-party, on the average/uninformed consumer to see where their preferences lies. While Microsoft may have shot their entire foot off at this point, everything may change once an exclusive like Halo 5 is released.

How is this "over delivering"?

Would they have done it if the PS4 weren't region free, or did they just feel like being super nice?

If game sharing was really what the optimists wanted it to be, why on earth wouldn't Microsoft say that? It would be way cheaper than scrapping a major component of the system, and would have been a big selling point. The fact they chose to do a complete about face and then say, "Oh, but it COULD have been so great, if you hadn't FORCED us to change" makes me think that the time limit was true (because why would developers and publishers agree to a system that would immediately be abused far more than used games ever were?) and that Microsoft knew it had to take drastic action in order to avoid the chopping off their own heads.

I'll say it again just to hopefully end the discussion. I am 99% positive that the family sharing was not some sort of timed demo. It does not make sense, as this is barely a feature and EVERY PS4 game will do that anyways. Why limit a family plan member to random demos of whatever their friends happen to own? I'm assuming the Xbox will do just as the PS4 does, and allow demos of all digital games.

Of course the family plan was going to be timed. Otherwise, the "trade once for 30 days" thing wouldn't really need to exist at all.

I find your unwavering faith in Microsoft disturbing.

yah, its way more likely MS was going to allow you to share your full games with 10 friends at no added cost.

Especially when they had taken a hard line on physical disc sharing.

It could have been timed, or it could have been 1 person able to play from your library at a time. But, it doesn't matter because it isn't going to be either of those things now.

Sure, but I think we can all be assured to the 99th percentile that Microsoft had the best of intentions, and all they wanted to do was give us free games.

I assume it was a half baked idea. Why ascribe evil intentions, when ineptitude is an option?

I agree that ineptitude is a better option, and I'm not saying they are evil at all.

What I'm saying is that it's incredibly asenine to assume that protecting their margins and third party publisher's margins wasn't going to be a part of their thought process and that they were going to let people share their software at will and at no cost.

Some people seem to be projecting a benevolence and lack of savvy onto Microsoft that has never been supported by any evidence in any market.

You're right, we'll never know for sure now. But I'm pretty certain that even one "family member" wasn't going to be able to hop on this One and play another person's shared game to completion without interruption if he so chose to. Who would ever buy another XBLA title or quirky single player game like Catherine or Shadow of the Damned or Katamari Damacy or Lollypop Chainsaw if they had the option to play someone else's copy from their own home console for free? That wasn't going to happen. No way. Remember that fan-made graphic "This is the BEST THING about the One! Why aren't they talking about it????!!!???". There was a good reason they weren't -- they didn't have it all figured out yet and they didn't want to promise anything they weren't going to deliver, which was a lot.

This is a serious question: if it "makes no sense" for Microsoft to do a timed demo, how does it "make sense" for them to allow you to never have to pay for a game again instead? If you have one friend who buys all the big releases and doesn't care if you mooch, you could theoretically buy a system (which Microsoft makes little money on, breaks even on, or takes a loss on) and no games at all...ever

That "makes sense" to you? The only person who benefits is the moocher. Microsoft and the developers get nothing at all...there is literally no profit for them (and if the system is sold at a loss, it actually costs Microsoft money). I'm really trying to wrap my brain around where you are coming from.

Well, they didn't expect everyone to use it. Oh wait. They were targeting consumers who were willing to be online all the time, who wanted to game with friends, and who were ok with digital downloads. Yeah, an unlimited sharing system with one or more people would be woefully underused with that demographic.

We were all suspicious from the start, so I can see why we'd assume the demo thing is true. Heck, I suspected it when they first announced the "feature":

A demo/timed mode does make some sense, though it's not a killer feature by any means. If you look at a friend's library and see something that catches your eye, you may be more willing to try it out because you know your friend's tastes align with your own. Also, at least in the past it's been very hard to navigate these digital stores, for both consoles (the WiiU doesn't have this problem only because you can scroll through all the content in a few pages). So there might be a new game that you missed that you see someone else playing, or something that someone else recommends, or even you just want to jump into multiplayer and try it out. The concept is sound, and it introduces a level of interactivity that straight downloading a demo doesn't give you.

Plus a demo isn't always the first level. Giving a player an hour or two to give the game a spin would be a decent, free alternative to rentals and better way to hook you on a story than a demo. Just enough to whet your appetite.

It's not a bad concept, it's just far from the utopia of *free games for all!* that people expected.

I actually think the better application would have been for multiplayer games. You could join your buddy in the new Halo (or whatever) and give the full multiplayer a spin for an hour to see if you want to buy it.

For single player stuff, I don't see how it would be any better than the current demo system.

For all we know discostu1337 works for Microsoft down off Towne Centre Dr.

Though I don't know how he'd be able to confirm the family sharing when even the higher ups seemed clueless about.