This is talking specifically about disc-based games, which will return to operating as they always have. Good news for everyone. If you want to lend your game to a friend, give them your disc ("Lug" it around? For real?). Further when the inevitable system outage/hack attack happens, yay, those disc games still run. When Microsoft bans your Live account because your nephew trolled some people, yay, those disc games still run.
Game makers can choose to do other things, just as they can on the PS4. Specific downloaded games might have specific activation policies, and so on.
The outrage was that Microsoft seemed to make the baseline one that was very anti-consumer. They have done these sorts of things quite often, going above and beyond to serve interests other than their customers. Recall when Microsoft Media Center forcefully imposed completely irrelevant broadcast flags that no other DVR or cable box in the world listened to, deleting recordings after a prescribed period and so on.
How do I lend a game to my brother who lives on the other side of the U.S.? If you're going to make the argument that discs are "good enough" you sound a bit like people saying letters are "good enough" compared to e-mail. There are obvious advantages to digital content but it sounded like to get those advantages Microsoft decided it needed to add some "DRM-like" experiences. I'm not going to say it was the right tradeoff but them basically doing a 180 based upon nerd outrage about the used game market is disappointing.
I would agree that making games unplayable if you are banned from XBox Live is horrible, and I am skeptical that was actually going to be a real policy since it's obviously unfair and there's no real "DRMy" reason to do it.
As of earlier today the Xbox One was the number 1 product on Amazon, two spots ahead of the PS4. I'd say that's a decent indicator of actual consumer sentiment.
The PS4 has been number one on that chart for most of the past week, despite being split up into multiple launch bundles. (I think yesterday was the first time the Xbox had reached number one since E3.) I've been checking that list, and it's my main evidence for the fact that consumers have actually been favoring Sony so far.
Every electronics retailer in my area sold out of launch PS4s close to immediately. They still have launch Xbox Ones for sale, and indeed I got a pitch from Microsoft themselves for it today.
That doesn't say that much, as we don't know the actual numbers, but of course on Amazon the PS4 absolutely owned the charts, and the only reason they don't now is the sales "split" between a number of bundles.
Console gamers are used to having a physical totem of the game. When have you ever been able to easily loan a game to your brother who lives across the country?
Really, if you want to do that with a digitally-purchased game, you should just both be buying a copy, for a lot less than that disc would have cost. But MS wasn't willing to say "sorry, you're obsolete" to the game stores, so they weren't saying "hey now your games will cost half as much or even less if you buy them through us". Consumers have shown they don't care about all that DRM/licensing stuff on iOS if an expensive game is one that costs $10!
And when email didn't exist, people were used to having a physical totem of the message. When were they ever able to instantly communicate with their brother who lives across the country?
You're not really contradicting the grandparents point that If you're going to make the argument that discs are "good enough" you sound a bit like people saying letters are "good enough" compared to e-mail.
You can still share your digital library, but they are limiting the number of friends you can do that with. And that requires call-ins to their servers, but that should be expected.
The "family sharing" aspect of Xbox One has been compared to iTunes Home Sharing. If that's the case, you wouldn't have been able to share games with your brother anyway -- Home Sharing only works for systems that are on the same Wi-Fi network. I don't think Microsoft's original idea was as cool as you think it was.
Microsoft's "family sharing" (terrible name) allowed you to share games in your library with up to 10 people, regardless of where they were in the world[1]. It didn't just extend to people in the same house. With this announcement we lose that feature.
Game makers can choose to do other things, just as they can on the PS4. Specific downloaded games might have specific activation policies, and so on.
The outrage was that Microsoft seemed to make the baseline one that was very anti-consumer. They have done these sorts of things quite often, going above and beyond to serve interests other than their customers. Recall when Microsoft Media Center forcefully imposed completely irrelevant broadcast flags that no other DVR or cable box in the world listened to, deleting recordings after a prescribed period and so on.