Well, no... the main reason was that:
a) The system did not apply to your entire platform like the X1 was supposed to, so you could still have games with and without online activation on the same machine.
b) The introduction of massive sales policy, which rendered many of the shortcoming of Steam much more tollerable.

Thing is it's the DRM system that let those extra functions work since people complained about the DRM they had to drop the features it allows. For example the check in ensured you hadn't traded the game on another console it also verified nobody else was playing your shared games etc

Actually, that's not true. Games were region locked, even digital ones, and with separate regions within Europe, meaning that it was highly unlikely that games could be shared with people in different countries.
Right, so why was it applied to the physical games as well? What was so wrong about giving people a choice?

Sony is known to have rewritten it's show in the hours after the xbox one e3 show including changing the price from it's original planned one.

Source?

Word.
I won't touch the Xbox One since the console series is horrible.

No they weren't. They were the Xbox LIVE regions. That's why a game released in Germany or the UK (Witcher 3) couldn't be played in Poland. The UK, Germany and Poland share the same Bluray region, not to mention that regionalisation is optional and only applies to the Bluray video standard.

I get the feeling that you're starting to pull stories out of your arse here now, especially with this idea that Sony spontaneously rewrote their E3 show within hours...

oh dear lord NO NO NO that was NEVER STATED they stated they would be region locked to single countries they just stated that the individual countries would require local xbox live server centres (this is to lower lag btw since they intend for some code to be offloaded to said servers) the only thing they stated about individual countries was the game had to be passed by your local ratings board to activate. This is mostly bad for germany where your ratings board is annoying and overly sensitive. you know the good old status quo

not the whole freaking show just the price and DRM sections, oh and the stupid "we have TV stuff too" section at the start.

posts such as http://www.geek.com/games/sony-decided-on-the-ps4-price-just-before-its-e3-event-1558517/ agree with me

Being able to connect at least once every 24 hours has nothing at all to do with discless play. There is no technical reason why the game cannot be fully run from the HDD.

It is an arbitrary limitation that they have added.

I still stand by what I said :)

I think the Xbox One is pretty safe as any kind of DRM added, even at a later date, is something Sony is going to jump on. For the next Xbox, however, i'm absolutely certain they'll try something nefarious. It IS Microsoft, after all :)

And, they also can't 'add it' at a later date or that's selling something under false pretences and would set them up for a massive amount of lawsuits. (Wonder if they're still including the clause 'you agree not to sign up for a class action lawsuit'?) :)

Because a person could just install it on the hard drive, give it to a friend and have them do the same, and then it can just be passed around to all your friends to install.
From memory, a similar thing happened with X360 DLC discs for certain games.

And? Pirates will do the same day 1 or 2. This DRM is only precaution to show game pubs - see, we block piracy / abuse!

Truth is, pirates will be sharing their games like you described, and people who are just annoyed by disc checks (aka people paying for games) will be punished.

I think this is fantastic news. They could have taken the approach Steam took, ignored the feedback and waited to see how many people actually would put their money where their mouth was, but they made the smart decision and didn't introduce something horrible.

It will be interesting to see how many people continue to claim that anti-DRM "fanatics" are the extreme minority. :p

I've never been interested in seeing anyone lose their job. That is a cliched phrase that people tend to drop over the smallest of issues... but having seen the price difference, the stance on indie games, the initial DRM fiasco... all under the same release. I'm expecting someone won't keep their job for long as Microsoft.

I still heavily lean towards Sony, even though I'm not happy with either company since the last round of consoles, but its great to see DRM getting such a great spotlight. Its in the top 5 of every kickstarter FAQ I've seen, and now Microsoft caving on the issue... I think this will bring more good news in a reactionary affect for other DRM issues in the future.

Yeah, and I don't support it either, but the basic idea is that casuals will not draw the same conclusion and will purchase the game themselves.