originally posted in:Comet
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[b]tl;dr at the bottom[/b]
Today was a fantastic day to internet. Aside from National Signing Day being today (this is sports related for those of you who are comfortable under your non-sports rock), the internet burned with a bright white-hot rage as rumors about Microsoft's upcoming console shook them to the core. My Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of rage-filled entertaining posts; the same goes for game-related message boards.
And who can blame them? I'm not a fan of "online only" play or DRMs...or any of that stuff, either but what bothers me most is that I see people threaten to abandon console gaming and "to/stick with Steam."
Regardless of your opinions on Steam (I think it's a great service) or your opinion on Console vs PC gaming [url=http://i.imgur.com/Ytl7W.jpg](inb4 PC Master Race)[/url], doesn't this threat seem a little asinine? As far as I understand it, Steam uses DRMs to prevent the sale of secondhand games and it ties any content purchased to the purchaser's account. As far as I understand the rumors that circulated today - and the ones surrounding Sony's next console, that we heard about a few weeks ago - this would mean that console games would adopt a similar approach. I've seen the argument that "MS/Sony wouldn't have sales the way that Steam does." That's possible but unless anyone here is a fortune teller, nobody knows for sure.
[I](And if you are a fortune teller, please PM me next week's winning lottery numbers!)[/I]
I'm not knocking Steam and I';m not knocking those who choose PC gaming over consoles. This is a legitimate question that I have: [b]what's the difference? [I]Why is this threat an actual thing?[/I][/b]
Oh yeah, someone mentioned on Twitter earlier that the rumor was busted. This is the first opportunity I've had to sit at a computer since I read about those rumors but this discussion still has merit whether or not the rumor was busted, as it's a discussion that we will likely have several times over in the future.
[quote]tl;dr ([url=http://www.doesoustillsuck.com]per Butane123's request[/url]): Why do people protest DRMs by threatening to switch to a service that also uses DRMs?[/quote]
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If the rumor is true, that Xbox is a always-online console, then It doesn't really bother me since I have a pretty gosh darn awesome connection, but I see why this would bother others. Either way, I don't think we can really effect it much since the company has already decided by now, should it come out in the next year or so.