Microsoft Details Xbox One Used Games, Always Online

Microsoft has explained its full policies on Xbox One’s internet requirements, used game policies, transfers to friends, Kinect functionality and much more.

Always Online
As explained by Microsoft, “Xbox One is designed to run in a low-powered, connected state. This means your system, games and apps are always current and ready to play—no more waiting for updates. While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.”

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You can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console.

“With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies."

Microsoft added "because every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection, developers can create massive, persistent worlds that evolve even when you’re not playing."


Used Games and Giving Games to Friends
Microsoft also spelled out its policies on game lending, trade-ins and rentals. "In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends."

“We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.”

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You can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

Microsoft says "your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games. Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you." The company added that “Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.”

It's worth noting that Microsoft allows you to gift games to friends but they can't borrow them. Microsoft added that "loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners."


However, anyone can play games using your console. "Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games," Microsoft says. "Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you."

Xbox One will also allow you to give up to 10 family members access to "log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One." Similar to Xbox 360, "a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time."

Game Installations and Digital Downloads
Microsoft says "you’ll be able to buy disc-based games at traditional retailers or online through Xbox Live, on day of release. Discs will continue to be a great way to install your games quickly."

Players will be able to access their library from other consoles. "After signing in and installing, you can play any of your games from any Xbox One because a digital copy of your game is stored on your console and in the cloud. So, for example, while you are logged in at your friend’s house, you can play your games."

Kinect Requirements
According to Xbox's official site, "at Microsoft, we prioritize your privacy. We understand that your personal data and privacy are important. Xbox One and Kinect will provide tools to put you in control of your data."

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At Microsoft, we prioritize your privacy. You are in control of what Kinect can see and hear.

Microsoft stresses that "you are in control of what Kinect can see and hear. By design, you will determine how responsive and personalized your Xbox One is to you and your family during setup. The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded."


Players will also control whether Kinect is on, off or paused. "If you don’t want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect. To turn off your Xbox One, just say 'Xbox Off.' When the system is off, it’s only listening for the single voice command -- 'Xbox On,' and you can even turn that feature off too. Some apps and games may require Kinect functionality to operate, so you’ll need to turn it back on for these experiences."

Your personal data will never be available to anyone outside of your console, Microsoft stressed. "You can play games or enjoy applications that use data, such as videos, photos, facial expressions, heart rate and more, but this data will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission."

After explaining these policies, Microsoft explained that "as we move into this new generation of games and entertainment, from time to time, Microsoft may change its policies, terms, products and services to reflect modifications and improvements to our services, feedback from customers and our business partners or changes in our business priorities and business models or for other reasons. We may also cease to offer certain services or products for similar reasons."

"In the months ahead, we will continue to listen to your feedback as we meet with our partners in the ecosystem to bring additional detail about our policies," Microsoft concluded. "We are excited about this new generation of games and entertainment and look forward to sharing more news with our fans."

S7 DROOPY wrote:Sounds good to me, sounds like we guys could share some games, single player games anyway

Mrmiller we just need 8 more people the each buy 1 totally different game and share all between each other

S7 Interseptor wrote:Most of the info seems pretty cool but I don't like the "no rentals, at least at launch" thing.

OneBadHuskerFan wrote:[but at the same time all the peer pressure from people here is going to get me to buy an XBone anyways, so why fight it!

S7 Interseptor wrote:Personally, I don't like it. the more I read, the less I like. Publishers have the right to let their games be sold "used". This means that you can only buy or sell used games IF the publisher allows it. And they are the ones who don't like used game sales. I see all sorts of bad situations coming from this.

XTV is "designed to allow the sale and purchase of used games" - Yeah right.

I'll be interested to see how the PS4 handles such things. It may be the same way and we will all have to get used to it.

S7 Interseptor wrote: It may be the same way and we will all have to get used to it.

Matt Peckham of Time.com wrote:
Will Xbox One allow you to trade in and resell disc-based games? Yes…sort of, says Microsoft in its fresh “How Games Licensing Works on Xbox One“ explainer, before winding up like some star NFL kicker and punting the ball downfield.

Before we proceed, give this a quick read — the relevant text:

Microsoft wrote:Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.

Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends. Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.

First things first: Contrary to some of the alarmist rumors kicked around by the gossip blogs last month, Microsoft’s confirming it won’t charge a fee if you hand a game off to someone else with an Xbox One. It also won’t charge a fee if you choose to trade-in your used disc-based games. In fact, the company’s basically saying it and fees are like celebrity news sites and responsible reporting — just not happening.

But, and get ready because here comes the ball on that punt, notice all this language about “third party publishers.” Third party publishers — some of used gaming’s fiercest critics, mind you — are accorded final say when it comes to whether you’ll be able to resell a disc-based game or not (and whether you’ll have to pay a fee to do so) or hand game over to your friends.

That means precisely what it seems to: Your right to do any of this stuff with disc-based games just took a serious nosedive with the Xbox One. Instead of making the Xbox One the arbiter, Microsoft’s leaving us in the hands of third parties. “We’re just the messenger!” might as well be the Xbox One’s theme song.

Let’s talk about choices. Microsoft had several here as the middleman. It could have chosen to stand for consumer rights and forced game publishers to lay down on, for instance, disc-based trade-ins. Instead, presumably under pressure from these publishers, it’s choosing to externalize those responsibilities. If EA decides it doesn’t want you trading in Madden NFL or wants to impose a transfer fee on the transaction, that’s EA’s business. If Activision wants to prevent you from giving a friend a copy of Call of Duty to anyone, that’s Activision’s affair.

There is a potential upside to this approach: By shifting the responsibility to third parties, consumers can lobby (or, say, boycott) a third party interpreting these policies toward the draconian end of the scale. While we sometimes choose poorly as consumers (hello Mass Effect 3), aiming us directly at third party publishers gives us at least some recourse (as opposed to boycotting the entire console), though given what we’re losing in the bargain, it’s a bit like celebrating the right to paddle around in a pool after being yanked out of the ocean.

What bugs me the most, however, is Microsoft’s new approach to game lending (or should we call it “gifting”?). Physical game lending, like borrowing a physical movie, a physical book, or or any other sort of reusable physical good, is a time-honored practice reaching back millennia. That’s all about to change with Xbox One.

Microsoft grants that third parties can choose to allow you to give games to others, but — assuming third parties don’t outlaw the practice — these recipients have to be on your friends list (in Xbox LIVE) for at least 30 days. In addition to being arbitrary, that’s simply bizarre. How, in any conceivable sense, legal or otherwise, is it any of Microsoft’s business who I want to give a game to, or under what circumstances of “friendship”? And it gets worse: You can only give someone a game once. I’m reading that as once period, not once per friend, and — this isn’t crystal clear — I gather you can’t have the game back. So gifting, in other words, and R.I.P. sharing.

In addition to being a generally terrible idea, this notion of restricting disc-based games is also inconsistent: Xbox One doesn’t prevent giving (or lending) of disc-based movies or TV shows. Like Xbox One’s inconsistent Internet connectivity requirements, Microsoft’s singling out games, doubtless to squeeze more blood from the stone. Why, as disc-based games are in their twilight days, couldn’t the company have just endorsed the status quo?

There’s a sidebar here about digital, non-disc-based games and the resale of digital content — something we can’t currently do. If you believe, as many do (via the First-sale doctrine, and most of history) that you have a right to resell a good you’ve paid for — digital or otherwise — then Microsoft’s entire Xbox One licensing philosophy collapses (as, to be fair, does everyone else’s). I mention it only to make you aware, if you’re not, that the legal debate over our ability to resell digital content (still very much a physical good) is ongoing.

Microsoft marketing department is keen to remind us that the Xbox One’s architecture is “modern.” You’ll note the word is used prominently in two of the company’s three Xbox One explainer pages. “We’re making these choices because it’s the “modern” thing to do” — that’s the implication, anyway. But some of these choices aren’t questions of modern versus legacy thinking. They’re about deploying modern technology to enable (and excuse) what amounts to pure and simple protectionism, and that’s never been a positive development from the vantage of consumer rights.