You would also, as it happens, have been able to share and resell your digitally purchased games. That's a REALLY BIG DEAL. We won't be able to do that now, though. We still have to use the disc for games we buy physically. This is the loss of some of the most future-facing features of the system, things that changed and challenged the traditional limitations of console gaming. We are literally standing in stasis, refusing to move forward, at the behest of those who are loudest and not ready for the future.
The DRM Boogey Man Is So Last Decade
More than anything, the outcry over the Xbox One was a reaction to buzzwords that are easy to distance ourselves from. "Censorship," "retcon," "person who disagrees with Joss Whedon." DRM is right there with any of those for Microsoft's core gaming audience.
The real fear behind DRM on games is the idea that at some point in the future, you'll be told that you are no longer allowed to use the content you'e paid for. It's that you're "allowed" to use anything at all, instead of outright "owning" it. And in the past, shitty DRM has absolutely worked like that. Walmart MP3s and the like have taken their servers offline, stranding file formats and leaving them to die, forgotten.
That is not how DRM, by and large, works today. There is very little risk of any particular format dying off. The dangers, as such, lie in a dropoff of support, or at worst, confiscation. That for whatever reason, Microsoft would tell us to screw ourselves and stop supporting Xbox One games, or kick you, specifically, out.
Fair enough. But compare that to the benefits of DRM. It helps build an ecosystem that is easy and convenient and, most of all, affordable enough to draw customers. That's what Apple did with iTunes and music, and it's what Amazon did with books. The content was just too easy to get and too cheap to bother with pirating it. We could have had that with the Xbox One and games.
Here's a video game example of effective DRM in practice: World of Warcraft, more or less the most popular game of the past decade. WoW, a Massively Multiplayer RPG by Blizzard, is played entirely online—always online, even. Your account is not your property, Blizzard can ban it, or remove items from it at its pleasure. Everything is within its right.
And yet, all Blizzard does is run customer support to users who have been hacked (oh, so many are hacked) or who accidentally deleted something or any number of other problems for their accounts. They were even years ahead of the two-factor authentication push, basically giving away authenticators at a loss, with in-game bonuses, just to keep customers from being hacked. Because Blizzard knows that its whole job is keeping its customers coming back for more. And it works. And no one complains.
Our Capacity
Today's news proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the internet has a voice. You're heard, and you can effect change in the things that you care about deeply. It's oddly fitting that the news comes as fan-saved Futurama gets ready to go off the air again. But today also proves how widely that nerd-influence can swing an entire generation of hardware, based solely on the whims of internet jokes based on information that isn't even accurate, and tinfoil fears about worst-case scenarios.
Cheaper games. Easier sharing. The end of discs. The Xbox One would have been just fine despite the chorus of haters, would have been a better system for ignoring them. Microsoft losing its nerve on this isn't just disappointing for the features we lose. It's unfortunate because it shows just how heavy an anchor we can be.
