@Zuljaras To be fair, the Xbox One/Series is just a lower-end PC. With EVERY exclusive Microsoft IP on PC now it makes no sense to own one if you already own a gaming PC. I have zero plans to ever buy a Series X.
It's like Don Mattrick said back in 2013, if you want to play games offline "buy an Xbox 360", lol. Lets face facts, all gaming consoles are going to be always-online devices...eventually. Sony and Nintendo will be there soon. MS are just pushing the all-digital future agenda harder (better?) than the rest of the platform holders.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,251 games (as of April 24th, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
@Magician This is a maybe ... but IF this happens it will be in 20 years or so. Even the Steam Deck which is digital only console has better Offline features than the PaperWeightBox.
Also its whole OS is terrible and 90% of the time when I want to view my screenshots it crashes and tells me to "tRy lAtEr PlEaSe".
Actually I am little optimistic of the future because the Limited Physical companies are getting more and more every year. That means that we will have some kind of niche market in the future for stuff like that
As a Nintendo fan who's also a PC gamer, I think digital games work best when they're DRM-free. DRM, for those who may not be familiar with the term, means Digital Rights Management. A game with DRM might require an account to play, or needs to be activated online and sometimes "phone home" to a publisher's server, or may need an always online connection to play, even for single player.
A DRM-free game is opposite. The game has no DRM, can be installed and played without Internet, and even backed up. In event the Internet is down, or the download servers go offline, you can still keep playing your game, forever.
Console manufacturers use DRM as a way to stop piracy, but in the end, it hurts the players. If only console manufacturers adopted the DRM-free model, similar to some PC games have, it would be the best for players. The fact DRM exists on consoles is why many do not trust an all digital only future. Even myself as someone who plays both physical and digital games on my Switch.
One thing I do know, every game I've bought from GOG, I can install and play them on my PC, or any future PC, without worry. If GOG were to ever close (hope not, it's my favorite digital store), I can still play every game I've bought from them. If only consoles had that option too, sadly they don't.
Just some thoughts on the subject, hope someone learned something to why digital is hard to trust. This was hard for me to type, as I was trying to explain it as best as I possibly could so others can understand it.
Personal note, I have full confidence in DRM-free games, so far the only store that only does that is GOG, which is on PC and Mac.
The resident Trolls superfan! Saw Trolls Band Together via early access and absolutely loved it!
The problem is that most publishers won't put their games on GOG precisely because it doesn't have DRM. They're also known to be losing money quite badly and it seems likely that they'll pivot back to mostly just being a platform for retro titles modded to run on modern operating systems.
Humble Store also provides some games DRM free, I suppose. However, for the most part, they're a reseller for Steam keys.
In the end it comes down to companies keeping each other in check. If it wasn't for Sony's E3 2013 press conference (1:57:10 in the first video below) and the used game video highlighting very clearly the issues with Don Mattrick's vision of the XB1, it likely would've stayed.
That side of Sony is completely gone and has been for about 3 years which has allowed Microsoft to gradually bring back Don Mattrick's XB1 vision.
@Matt_Barber That's a sad reality too. When a major publisher adds their game to GOG, it's usually much much later after release. Bethesda and EA have games on GOG, and they're added much later than their original release, or are classic titles from their back catalog.
Though, I made the post with intent to inform others on the concept of DRM, in event someone isn't familiar with the concept of it. I still feel having no DRM on digital games would be the most pro-consumer thing game companies would do, but knowing console manufacturers, they most likely won't, so DRM-free digital games are still something exclusive on PC.
The resident Trolls superfan! Saw Trolls Band Together via early access and absolutely loved it!
I sold my Xbox One X and Series X because of this and used the money to get a new gaming PC built with Windows 11. At least on Steam when you get hiccups which is rare btw you can still play your Single Player games because what happened on Xbox is just ridiculous and there is no excuse for it. If they remove this DRM from the Platform I will consider going back otherwise no not interested. Switch and PC are my main gaming devices now, I sometimes game on Playstation too but even that I'm starting to lose interest in. After Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart there hasn't really been anything else that got my attention and most of the games can also be played on PS4 as well. Unless things improve soon I can see myself ditching Playstation altogether just like Xbox.
@Matt_Barber That's a sad reality too. When a major publisher adds their game to GOG, it's usually much much later after release. Bethesda and EA have games on GOG, and they're added much later than their original release, or are classic titles from their back catalog.
Though, I made the post with intent to inform others on the concept of DRM, in event someone isn't familiar with the concept of it. I still feel having no DRM on digital games would be the most pro-consumer thing game companies would do, but knowing console manufacturers, they most likely won't, so DRM-free digital games are still something exclusive on PC.
Oh, absolutely. Buy DRM-free games wherever you can. I've got several hundred myself.
Unfortunately, it's only really indie publishers that could survive in a DRM-free world though. The bigger ones believe that their sales would be utterly gutted by piracy if they went down that route and they're probably not wrong. DRM-free downloads for consoles in particular just isn't going to happen.
That's not to say that every game has to be an always-online live service though, which is the route Microsoft are heading down. For the vast majority of single player games it ought to be enough to check once after you've installed it and you'd only need to go online after that if you want to download an update or it detects a hardware change.
Minimal DRM might not be as good as no DRM but it's still a considerable improvement over losing access to all your games due to a server outage, and that's about as pro-consumer as you could hope for the big publishers to get.
Funny that one of Taito's arcade boards, the F3 I think?, was reportedly originally designed as a digital-only console, the WowoW.
And idea that was thankfully WAY too far ahead of its time, in 1992, to make it to market.
Though one of the games that only turned up in recent years in MAME, Recalhorn, I think it was, a platformer that was designed as a console game, and I guess Taito couldn't fit it enough to make it an arcade game. Surprised they didn't try to bring it back out on PS1 or Saturn.
No. It’s the foreseeable future at best, and even then, you have situations like this, which is absolutely laughable.
And to echo @BinaryMessiah I really don’t see a place for Xbox in the home console space. The Xbox Series X/S situation is so laughably convoluted, and the revised artwork so hideous, even I’m confused as to what is compatible with what.
We already have PCs for high performance gaming, PS4/5 for dedicated home console experiences, and the Switch for a premium handheld experience (and a lower end home console experience). The Xbox family brings virtually nothing to the table.
@Matt_Barber That's a sad reality too. When a major publisher adds their game to GOG, it's usually much much later after release. Bethesda and EA have games on GOG, and they're added much later than their original release, or are classic titles from their back catalog.
Though, I made the post with intent to inform others on the concept of DRM, in event someone isn't familiar with the concept of it. I still feel having no DRM on digital games would be the most pro-consumer thing game companies would do, but knowing console manufacturers, they most likely won't, so DRM-free digital games are still something exclusive on PC.
I have to agree DRM hurts players, but it's not black and white either. it's a very complicated issue, though I would preferably like to see more DRM free games going forward.
also, the hopefully the steam deck may never become a paperweight. maybe only a temporary paperwight to keep your papers flying off the table. 😉😅
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