Microsoft Confirms Physical Media is Useless and No Fee for Used Games

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  • Shawn Zipay
    Managing Communities 24/7
    • Apr 2003
    • 69279

    #1

    Microsoft Confirms Physical Media is Useless and No Fee for Used Games

    More Xbox One details are coming at you tonight courtesy of Microsoft. More from their extra long FAQ says that you can buy games on a disc or digitally on the same day. Furthermore, they say that you can install the game to your hard drive and will never need to use the physical disc again as the game is stored locally and in the cloud.

    This ties into the fact that you are able to access your game library from any XBone console that is connected to the Internet.

    As for the topic of used games, Microsoft says they do "not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games." Publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers, says Microsoft.

    However, there are two requirements for this. You can only give games to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.

    So you can trade your games in for no fee, but you can only let a friend borrow your game once? And even beyond that, there is no guarantee the publisher will allow it since they very carefully selected the words "can enable" almost as if there is a choice for the publisher to ultimately make there. And where do game rentals fall with this? Are those as effectively dead as we all assumed they would be when these rumors started to circulate weeks ago?

    You can read more on these license issues over at the Xbox.com website. Maybe you can make better sense of it than I can right now, but it really doesn't sound all that great from where I'm sitting.
  • Thortok2000
    Dominant
    • Sep 2026
    • 382

    #2
    Think you missed this paragraph:

    "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."

    Think of it like Steam, from what I can tell. Once you own a game, you own it and can play it from anywhere, forever. Unlike Steam, you can have up to 10 people on your account (supposedly family) that can also play any of your games from anywhere. And finally, unlike Steam, you can actually give your games away (with the once per game 30 day friends list limitation), and you can resell your games back again. Those last two things (give or resell) are publisher-specific so some publishers may not allow that and/or charge fees for it, but Microsoft does not.

    So other than those differences, it's basically Steam for consoles. Own a large collection of games that you can play from anywhere but, for the most part, can't sell or trade.

    Comment

    • Shawn Zipay
      Managing Communities 24/7
      • Apr 2003
      • 69279

      #3
      I really do not recall seeing that paragraph yesterday... I wonder if I simply missed it or they added it later.

      Comment

      • CptainCrunch
        I am the 1%
        • Oct 2007
        • 12976

        #4
        I bet they added it later.
        Twitter: @CptainCrunch
        Battlelog/Origin: CptainCrunch

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