I was talking about DEVELOPERS and PUBLISHERS doing this, not Sony.

I never said it worked. I never said it doesn't matter. I never said I agree with it, I certainly do not as any perusal of my post history would show.

What I said is consumers don't care, and what I explained I meant by that is that they choose playing the game they want to play over DRM every day of the week. Microsoft has some other hurdles in front of them right now (bad press, $100 more expensive) so a direct sales comparison won't tell us much, but I stand by my assertion: if people want the game a lot the DRM becomes completely invisible to them. Half Life 2 and Diablo 3 are all the evidence I need... endless negative articles, endless complaining, MASSIVE sales.

I hope Xbox One goes down in flames, I really do. With Halo 5, Titanfall and who knows how many other exclusives in the pipeline though, and people wanting to keep their friends and achievements and such, I think it is WAY to early to count the system out based on DRM consumers have shown time and time again they will accept.

And Sony is saying the same thing. The only way to restrict on the PS4 is online passes or an always online requirement (i.e Multiplayer Only Games). Still puts the PS4 miles ahead of the Xbox One in terms of consumer rights and freedoms.

Yes, I am talking about consumers in general and their behavior as a whole. If you understood that, as I think anyone with any sense would, I am not sure why it's confusing or wrong.

Another thing I haven't seen addressed yet about the Xbox One is Military personnel. Video Gaming has obviously become extremely popular in recent years, and especially in a high stress job people need something to unwind. The Xbox One with its internet requirements make it a poor choice for deployed soldiers.

They did address it, Matrick said "tough shit buy a 360."

Did not know that, that's cold. Funny then how a Japanese company is more "American" than an American one.

Obviously he didn't say tough shit, but yes it was a cold and awkward answer. He said stuff like "I don't know what it's like to be on a nuclear sub" and kind of rambled. It was not a question he expected. The he reiterated the XBONE is a connected device and the 360 is not.

This actually hits the nail on the head and is the central issue I think. I bet publishers don't use DRM on singleplayer, they will keep using DLC as a second revenue source there to combat used and piracy. However I would guess we are slowly building toward a future where every game is multiplayer or solo at all times and always online because of that.

How many times did we hear "blurring the lines between singleplayer and multiplayer" in those conferences? Even the campaign in Assassin's Creed now has coop and other players interacting with you?

The future is always online either way, DRM on singleplayer or no DRM, sadly.

It means that it will not be available unless Microsoft somehow magically changes it's stance on it's DRM policy. For now, it will not be available. On the PS4 everything will work on launch day. I don't have to wait till Sony says it's ok for me to loan games, i'll be able to do it.

Microsoft stated that loading and renting will not be available at launch "but they're looking into expanding the possibilities in the future", which is just some default PR crap.
Every Ubisoft title shown at E3 except Division and that racing game are offline singleplayer games with some multiplayer features.

Not going to do a count but I know this isn't true. The driving one is always online for sure. They haven't said one way or the other on most others but kept talking about them all being connected in singleplayer. We shall see.

Edit: Oh you edited in the racing one, or I missed it. Anyway the point stands... both Ubi and EA made a big deal about always online and singleplayer merging into multi. I think EA said that Need for Speed is always online. It's just the future whether we like it or not.

I read through a bit of this thread before coming to this post. Yep, in the hands of gamers, we are good and proper fucked.

I can see myself spending more at GOG and less elsewhere in the near future....

You're comparing situations that are completely different. Diablo 3 and HL2 are just games, the Xbox One is a platform. On the PC you have some games that are always-online but the vast majority isn't. The platform itself doesn't restrict you. Look at this forum, there are many people who buy from Steam and there are also many people who avoid Steam. We can choose. On the Xbox One it's different, it's not just a few games that are always-online, it's the fucking platform.

If my internet goes out, i can't play Diablo 3, but i can play Torchlight. If my internet goes out my Xbox One turns into a big black brick. Just a brick. My apps on my cellphone work when i'm out of range (and believe me, this happens a lot here in Brazil, there are many smaller cities still not covered by mobile phones). I would never buy a cellphone that forces me to be online on 3G for my apps to work.

You're comparing single games to a platform. It's not a fair comparison by any means. My guess is that people are willing to risk U$59 on an always-online game, but i'm not sure if they'll risk buying a U$499 platform and U$59 games on something as restrictive. And who knows how long the servers will last? Will my new shiny console turn into a fucking brick after 10 years? My Atari 2600 still works, for fuck's sake. Microsoft has shut down Live for the first Xbox after only 8 years. I'm not so sure people are willing to trust Microsoft.

A similar comparison would be if the new Windows required always-online connection to work.

And even in the case of Diablo 3 i'm not sure if it worked so well for Blizzard. Yes, it sold a lot, but there was also a huge backlash because of the connection issues on launch. I'm not so sure if as many people would buy Diablo 4 on launch day after that fiasco. When DRM works and isn't annoying, most people won't complain. But in the case of Simcity and Diablo 3 it didn't really work as expected. I'm not even sure if EA is happy about Simcity. The backlash because of the connectivity issues was huge, they even had to apologize by giving users a free game. I'm pretty sure this costed them some money.

It will be interesting to see just how functional these games are for players that don't have Gold/PSN+.