Dave said:
2) That you have to physically carry around the memory card with the profile. I’m a member of the Rhapsody music service. If I log on to Rhapsody from one computer, then log on from a different computer, the first computer is automatically logged off and can no longer stream music. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that XBox Live could have a similar approach where you could associate the same profile with multiple XBoxes and it simply logs you off if you try to use it on more than one at the same time.
The problem there is that a computer has to be online to stream. An Xbox need not be online to play games.
And I still don’t get the people railing against the iPhone’s DRM. What DRM? It plays any song you can throw at it if it’s in the right format. If people are talking about the API access, that’s silly - and not DRM. If they’re talking about iTunes, that’s not Apple’s stance - they very clearly support selling songs without DRM - the record labels, however, are the ones who don’t (and who are trying to prop up Amazon).
I bought four or five songs from some Xbox game soundtracks that I’ve come to enjoy from iTunes yesterday and another 10 from Amazon. All without DRM. All will play on my iPhone, computer, car, burn to a CD… etc. I could even give copies to friends if I wanted (illegally), but I’m an honest guy and don’t do that.
Erik said: An Xbox need not be online to play games.
That’s not correct. Read my comment from above, wherein the games purchased and saved to my Xbox 360 will NOT play unless my profile is online. Further, they won’t play on my wife or daughter’s profile at all.
It’s been that way for months, due entirely to a hardware failure and replacement console.
At least with Apple, I can tell them my iPod died (or has been sold, given away, whatever) and they will update the account so that any DRM-controlled songs/videos no longer consider the old iPod a valid playback device. I’ve done this when my wife upgraded her iPod and they resolved the issue within 24 hours.
[Apple] will update the account so that any DRM-controlled songs/videos no longer consider the old iPod a valid playback device.
I really, really, REALLY wish Microsoft would adopt this policy for the Xbox. Not all your customers are filthy thieves, y’know.
I’m glad to hear MS now updates the server-side licenses to accept the new hardware signature when they repair your Xbox 360. They should go farther, though–
make this process brainlessly easy for customers to do on the web, not a weird “escalate to supervisor” 1-800 call
relax the restrictions so you can associate TWO Xbox 360s with your account.
Robert, I think your replacement XBOX 360 is a dud. Time to call up 1-800-4MY-XBOX, and brush up on your Spanish, since McAllen, TX is 90% Spanish/American.
FYI, complaining Major Nelson accomplishes nothing. It has been tried, over and over. You say anything negative about the Xbox 360 and you’re disregarded completely. Major Nelson and E aleady gave their response on the DRM issue. They said it basically isn’t a big deal and it really doesn’t affect that many people. They really don’t care that you have a new system and you can’t use your DRM without being logged into Live. All they care about is seeing how much content they can push out onto the Market place to generate more revenue, that is all that matters to them.
Just recently I found out about this when I decided to buy the newer elite for the hdmi hook up. I am amazed that I am punished by spending more money? I gave my old refurb to a friend so we could play xbox live games together, thus gaining them a new customer.
I was told nothing could be done to get my xbox live games to work offline on my elite “So sorry.”
Hi, Jeff, my name is Harry Shulman. I am a consumer class action lawyer and I am trying to get relief on this issue from Microsoft. I was engaged by a client who had the DRM problem you describe. After I wrote a letter, Microsoft solved the problem for him. My goal is to ensure that it gets solved for everyone, however. Based on your post, it seems that you are out $140. Microsoft has stated to me that it put in place a program which prevents players from puchasing Xbox LIVE Marketplace content twice with the same gamertag. Is this what you did? If so, when did you do it? Or, did you repurchase the games in some other away?
My goal is to find the facts here, and I would appreciate your response. If you would prefer to call, my number is 415-455-1326. Thanks.
If I understand you correctly, you’re confusing the iPod, the hands down winning music device, with the iTunes Music Store, the DRM-ed music store. iPods are here to stay. DRM is not. The canary in the coal mine is the Amazon Music Store. It’s the complete capitulation of the labels on the issue of DRM.
It’s also the inauguration of the MP3 price wars. iTMS sells DRM’ed AAC for a buck, and now non-DRM’ed for the same price (though not the whole catalog); Amazon sells non-DRM’ed for slightly less. Amazon is a no-brainer to me, the informed consumer. And because the cost of duplication is so low, the only thing preventing a race to the bottom is the Big 4 monopoly. And the labels are definitely wising up.
In 5 years, there won’t be any music DRM left.
Incidentally, if you have to buy tons of DRM’ed music from Apple, why not invest in a spindle of CDs and burn, then reimport your songs as MP3? You only have to do it once.
I plan to play my NES and skip all this headache until the industry gets the proper business models figured out.
I seem to recall that in order to play games on my NES, I had to have these big gray plastic dongles with me – and not just one, but a separate one for each game I wanted to play! What ridiculous DRM!
I think the iPhone and Xbox 360 are such compelling consumer
products that it’s actually a reasonable tradeoff to live with
their DRM lock-in limitations.
I think you’re a complete idiot.
And I thought the ‘spaghetti spined hypocrite’ comment was highly appropriate as well.
I just want to point out that I’ve never viewed the Xbox 360 as a particularly “compelling consumer product”, and my personal disinterest goes back to long before I ever knew about the DRM issues. Content restrictions or not, it’s just another way to waste time, and I’ve got more than enough of those already.
I understand the “pure joy” that you receive from playing Rock Band, but please don’t elevate that into a general trend, especially one that justifies the absurdities I’ve heard about with the X360.
Some of us would rather play an actual instrument. You pay once and you can take it anywhere you want - amazing! It does tend to be a little more difficult than just mashing buttons, but it’s also far more satisfying.
