Smalltalk with James Robertson

Wow:

Microsoft has announced an almost full reversal of the controversial digital rights management features built into the Xbox One. The console, launching later this year, will no longer require an online connection, or need to ping the Microsoft servers every 24 hours to hang on to life. It will also now play discs like any regular console and no longer place restrictions on trading games. There will also be no regional restrictions.

I guess Microsoft got tired of getting a PR beat down from all directions

Tags: xbox, microsoft

Update: Microsoft must have gotten tired of the constant beat down on this. They've done a 180 on the whole thing.

The "must connect regularly" part is bad enough - the new XBox One consoles are also region locked. So imagine you're a gamer who serves in the military:

"There are multiple problems with Microsoft’s new strategy. You can only play an Xbox One in an approved country. Writing for the Navy Times, Jon Anderson notes: “if you’re based in Japan, Kuwait or Afghanistan, you’re out of luck.” Games are region-locked and region-activated — you can’t buy a game in the US and activate it in Japan. That means no spouses sending games as part of a care package."

The most awesome part of that - MS' response when questioned:

“Fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360. If you have zero access to internet, that is an offline device.” He then independently raised the issue of whether or not Microsoft would support soldiers on deployment with the Xbox One — and stated that they wouldn’t.

You have to ask yourself - for this kind of PR crap storm, what win is Microsoft getting out the other end of this?

Tags: xbox, microsoft

Well, at E3, EA says that the next Dragon Age game will be released in 2014 on the next gen consoles. However - even if DA2 didn't put you off your BioWare feed, this game is not a reason to get a next gen console:

Yes Dragon Age Inquisition is coming to Xbox 360, XBox One, PS3, PS4, AND PC.

Chris Plante of Polygon nails it on the XBox One:

After a month of vague corporate comments from Microsoft executives, we now know the Xbox One's game licensing policy was written from the ground up for companies. It's aggressively anti-consumer and anti-middle class, and it outright ignores underprivileged gamers. It's gross, despicable, greedy, pathetic, cowardly and out of touch with a growing global resentment for corporations.

Yeah, a gaming PC hooked up to the TV to run Steam Big Picture is looking better and better....

Tags: xbox, microsoft

Back on the Microsoft side, someone enabled my account again - I'm finally able to download my XBox profile. Now I just need to install a bazillion things, since the original issue was the crash that corrupted the hard drive....

Tags: xbox, microsoft

The good news is, Microsoft support is talking to me, and has escalated my case. The bad news: All communication is via their support forums, which seem to have a 24 hour turn around on messages. The other bad news - the first set of suggestions were all of the things I've already tried that don't work. So... I wait for later today or tomorrow, and see if they have any other ideas. In the meantime, my XBox is still effectively a brick.

Tags: xbox, microsoft

Try on the word... Legendary:

Prima had to leave additional space at the inner edges of each page, because the length "tested the limits of what an actual binding can take," said Hodgson. The Legendary Edition's updates include all Dragonborn-related content and a new, more readable body font.

To use some old gaming terms, using the book as a weapon does 6d6 of damage :)

Tags: skyrim

It's been over 24 hours since my problems with the XBox started - I've spoken to some people from XBox support who have been helpful, but they can't really solve my problem. Why? For reasons that make no sense to me, your XBox Live account is associated with (but somewhat independent of) your Microsoft account. Mind you, I don't use a Microsoft account for anything - I've never used Hotmail, I haven't tried to use Outlook.com, I haven't set up Skydrive. Somehow, when I tried to download my XBox gamer profile, the Microsoft side of things locked me out.

The maddening part of all this is how little I can do about this. I've tried changing my password, filling in the form the website directs me to in order to unblock my account... none of it works. There's no phone number to call; apparently, I'd have to be a paying email customer to rate that level of service. So what can I do? Well, apparently nothing. I got a few helpful sounding tweets back from @MicrosoftHelps, but nothing has really happened.

So at this point, I'm thinking the XBox One sounds like a really, really bad idea. When things go wrong, there's basically no recourse other than "fill in a form, pray, and wait for an indeterminate period of time". For all intents and purposes, my XBox is bricked. I have no access to any of the games I've downloaded, or any of the DLC I've downloaded. I've paid for a Gold account, which is currently not accessible to me. I'm sure Steam has problems, but I've never been locked out of my account. I've had issues like this with my XBox more than once.

Tags: xbox, mixrosoft

This morning, I spoke to a helpful person at XBox support - unfortunately, they could not help me. This is where the whole Microsoft/XBox thing gets strange. I have an XBox live account. That's apparently different than my associated Microsoft account (which I do not use). The problem seems to be on the Microsoft side, and the XBox people tell me they can't do anything with that. Heck, I can't even get real support - I can go to a forum site (requiring an MS account login) to post a question. After setting up a new account in order to do that, I posted my problem and now... I wait.

Here's the bottom line - my Xbox crashed, and it somehow managed to lock out my account in the process. Have I ever seen anything like this from Apple, Google, or Steam? Nope. Something like this does happen to my XBox account every few months though. Let me tell you, @majornelson, this is not making me look at an XBox One as a good idea. I'm thinking gaming PC, Steam, and HDMI cable to the TV. At least Steam doesn't knock me offline when a game crashes, and then send me wandering in the desert to recover my account.

Tags: xbox, microsoft

Earlier this evening, I was off achievement hunting in Fallout New Vegas. As happens in that game from time to time, it locked up on a loading screen. No problem, I thought - I've had to do the unplug/reboot thing before with Bethesda games. However, when it came back, it wouldn't install an update, claiming a lack of space. Since I had 85 GB free, I figured that couldn't be right.

The bad news was, the drive apparently got corrupted. Reformatting it was harder than it should have been - the device tells you to look up the serial number on an info screen, which gives you a 16 digit number. Inputting that to format yielded... nothing. No error, no format, nothing. Turns out it wanted a 12 digit number on the box itself. Fine, that worked. Next up - download my gamer tag.

Well.

That failed with an error - the dreaded 8015D000. So, I went to the MS site, took the "change my password" option (since i had no idea what I had used as my password - the XBox does auto-login). Then the website took me to a "your account has been temporarily blocked" page. That's the point where I contacted support. Support was less than helpful. They couldn't unblock my account, and the best they could offer was that an "advocacy team" would contact me in 2-3 business days. My box is effectively a brick until then, because without my profile, I have no access to the DLC or downloaded games I've bought. Most of the disc games I've bought have DLC associated with them, so they're useless until this is dealt with.

To contrast this - a few years ago, I had a Macbook Pro die on a flight to London. I went to the Apple Store, and while I had lunch with friends, they replaced the motherboard - on a Saturday. Meanwhile, no one at XBox support can figure out how to help me unblock my account, or even explain to me why it's blocked.

Hey @majornelson - explain to me why I should get an XBox One later this year? Seems to me that a half decent PC with Steam would work a lot better at this point.

Tags: xbox, microsoft