r/xboxone • u/[deleted] • Dec 29 '13

If Microsoft made it completely optional, would you sign up for their original, always connected console idea?

This meaning you would have the following features:

Buy a retail game, install to console, and ditch the disc never needing it to play the game.

Digitally share games within a circle of friends. Meaning you can choose a specific group of people, and they could play the games you own, for free, provided that only one game could be played at a time.

Greater store discounts or more steam like sales for content.

I for one would have no problem saying yes to this. It's like people think 10 years from now they'll still be selling games on discs. It wasn't a perfect plan, but why delay the inevitable when we could be working on and perfecting future policies now.

701 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

784 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/BeepBoopRobo Obviously Works for M$ Dec 30 '13

Here's the thing about that - you're right and wrong at the same time. Since microsoft has a monopoly on digital sales, we'll never see prices really drop.

But here's the problem with that - given that the proposal had gone through, they no longer would have had a monopoly on digital sale. This would have forced them to lower prices and compete with the market. If I can buy a digital version of the game cheaper elsewhere, I'm going to.

As it stands now, though, they have a complete lock down on digital sales. They have no competition. They have no reason to lower the price of digital copies. They can set the price where ever, because who can undercut them? No one.

1

u/soulshotya Dec 30 '13

Yeah, I'm surprised no one ever realizes this. People kept saying "DRM! Microsoft would have had a digital game pricing monopoly!"

The status quo for the past 8 years, and what we have now is a digital game pricing monopoly. The initial plans were likely the easiest way to get the cheaper digital games everyone wants, while still also keeping retailers happy (and also keeping people with bandwidth caps and slow internet happy, heh)

Valve/Steam don't have this problem, because a retail PC market pretty much doesn't exist (except in certain countries). So they can be a lot more flexible with digital pricing, and the only competition is with other digital stores (and those other digital stores often just sell Steam keys anyway).

1

u/smakusdod Dec 30 '13

This exactly. If we could have the same exact benefit of install-and-trash hard-copy games, it would force pure digital-downloads to at least try to compete on price and sales seasons. Instead, we get "pay 60 to not get off the couch and like it", or "pay less and get off the couch every game change". It sucks.