Microsoft Reveals Xbox One Connectivity Requirements
By Paul Thomson :: 12:24 PM
Yesterday, Microsoft revealed details about its new console offering, the Xbox One. The announcement confirmed what many Microsoft fans and critics alike had feared – far-reaching digital rights management (DRM) technologies and mandatory Internet connectivity will be a part of the Xbox One experience.
Microsoft will allow users to trade, sell, or lend their physical discs of Xbox Games, but game publishers decide whether or not they will allow their titles to be resold or used on a console different from the one it was originally registered to. However, trading or selling games via marketplaces like Ebay or Craigslist will be more difficult now, as Microsoft will only allow someone who has been on your friends list for 30 days to active a game you give or sell to them. Only one additional sale or trade past the original registrant’s purchase is allowed.
As far as Internet connectivity, the requirements are not quite “always on,” but some level of regular Internet connection will be required for users to play games. The new Xbox One console must be able to access the Internet once every 24 hours. If a connection cannot be made, the console will not allow games (even those played completely in offline mode) to be played.
To ally some fears behind the built in Kinect sensor camera and microphone, Microsoft claims that users will have complete control over that aspect of the Xbox. “When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded,” said a Microsoft statement.
However, that statement regarding Kinect was released just hours before the Washington Post broke a story about Microsoft’s involvement in a secret government spy program called Prism, that allows the NSA and FBI to have direct access to customer usage data from Microsoft and eight other technology companies. With new information about the government’s ability to freely sift through Microsoft’s data, many in the gaming community are fearful of having a Microsoft product that can film and listen to them at any time in their home.
The poster below, reminiscent of many of the themes in George Orwell’s book 1984 was posted to Reddit earlier this morning in a thread detailing the privacy issues of the new Xbox console.
