MS can't catch a break
They announce the Steam system and even the Steam forums complain (they clearly don't see its same DRM systems as Steam)
They remove it and the Sony fanboys are still complaining
MS should just say "To hell with you all we are pulling the Xbox One, cancelling every game and focusing on Windows" but as a business they won't

You do not have to be online to play games on steam. You do not pay $500 to use steam. You do not have to use steam on PC if you don't want to. Yes officer, I stole this old lady's purse, but I gave it back, so we ok now, ya? I wish they did.

And you're blaiming steam for this? This is fud since the very beginning. There was one bug that didn't allow you to be offline if there was some update scheduled, but they fixed it long ago.

Yes, it has been years since that has been fixed... And I think it now also starts automatically in offline mode if no connection is found? I noticed it yesterday - it did not go through the whole "trying to connect" --> "No connection found, restart in offline mode?" --> "restarting Steam" thingy. It just booted up Steam offline straight away.

Playstation 3's Linux support is why I believe it's quite possible.

And that that is completely irrelevant. You stated that the removal of the "daily connection" means you lose the feature of discless play.

You're not. You're losing it because Microsoft are unimplementing one type of DRM (daily connection) and implementing another (disc presence check).

Besides, your stated scenario would be easily defeated by encrypting one key game file (like.. the executable) with the UUID of the console or something. Then simple copying wouldn't work as those files wouldn't decrypt, but you still retain discless play. In itself, it is easy to defeat (simply obtain a copy of the unencrypted file and encrypt it) but as I said, it prevents the situation you describe.

Though that was a niche thing, so cutting that is rather easy for them to do, because only a minority cares and is even affected.
Implementing always-on and DRM? Everybody will notice that and care about that.

I can confirm this. Steam defaults to offline mode when there's no connection now. At least it did to me (twice in a row last week).

Even if Steam is free, you aren't going to be playing modern AAA games on a cheap little netbook. You'll spend over $500 building a new PC or doing a complete overhaul to yours to upgrade it if you want to keep up at least once every console cycle.

They fixed it some time in the last 6 months or so I think, but that was also when they added the 2 week expiration limit to it where as before offline mode didn't have that if you were lucky and it kept working.

It has to be longer than 6 months ago? It has been years since I had any problems with offline mode

I thought the fix was more recent, but after checking it was August 20th last year.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/8691/

Fixed broken offline mode if Steam process didn't shutdown correctly

I knew it couldn't have been more than a year ago because last year around this time was when offline mode broke right after a storm hit this area and I was without internet for 5 days.

I was thinking it was around the same time the two week limit was put in place.

I don't get the raging hard-on some people are having about discless play and acting like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and a shame that it's gone, if you don't want to use your disc then why don't you just buy the digital version already?

Definitely one of the most shocking u-turns in history of video game industry.

The whingers are basically morons who get a hard-on out of feeling superior. They insist on having the latest technology so that they can look down on people who they accuse of being "stuck in the past", even though most wouldn't have used the supposed benefits. It's a psychosis, nothing more. They're not happy with people having different preferences.

In the specific case of the Xbox One, it's been getting a fair bit of support from PC fanatics who consider criticism of the console's (now former) business model an attack on the Steam model. Also, there's been a fair bit of support from those who find it too much of a chore to get up off their ass to change a disc, or who are incapable of looking after their stuff.

One of the most prominent examples is the Apple fanboy - looks down on anyone who doesn't have an iDevice, yet only uses it himself for Facebook and making phone calls.