The General Games Discussion Thread.

Should waste a few hours.

Microsoft has provided a pretty robust set of answers today to questions about second hand games and online elements of Xbox One.

But we've boiled them down further - you can find them below.

You can read our original summary here.

We've also summed up some unanswered questions here.

GAME OWNERSHIP & TRADE-IN GAMES

Xbox One will introduce day and date digital/retail delivery of games.

Discs will "continue to be a great way to install your games quickly" - but you can also download them.

The games you buy are tied to your account.

That way, you can sign into any Xbox One device and play all your games.

Any games you assign to your owned device can be played by anyone who turns that device on, whether they are signed in as you, themselves, or a guest.

You can also allow up to ten friends or family log in to your library remotely from any Xbox One and play your games.

You can even be playing different games from your library at the same time from different locations.

Xbox One, again, is not built with anti-preowned measures.

But Microsoft has transferred the decision about preowned games to publishers.

Its up to them if you can trade their games in at retailers.

Microsoft is not charging a fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games - and has been clear it is not taking a slice of the cash.

Its first-party games can be traded in with no extra fees or stipulations or second user charges.

But it is allowing publishers to charge if they wish.

And it looks like trade-ins can only be done 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" is how Microsoft describes it.

You can still lend your games to your friends, and it doesn't cost money to transfer/lend the licence to them.

But there are stipulations: "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 if you lend a game to a friend, get it back, and they ask to borrow it again, they will have to buy their own copy.

But in many ways a lot of this is moot - Microsoft says that 'loaning and renting games' isn't a feature available at launch of Xbox One.

That suggests that this plan has been tweaked in the days since the Xbox One reveal.


ALWAYS ON & CONNECTIVITY

Every Xbox One will need to be plugged into a broadband connection.

Microsoft jargon says this means 'developers can create massive, persistent worlds that evolve even when you’re not playing'.

What that really means is that Xbox One is an always-on device,

It runs in a low-powered connected state which, as explained in May, means it background downloads patches, updates and your other content.

This is also the backbone supporting the licensing and ownership policies above.

Consoles can be offline for up to 24 hours without connecting to Xbox Live.

But it must connect after a day to "verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend".

You can play for one hour offline if you are logged into someone else's Xbox One and are accessing your game library.

Offline gaming will not be possible at all if you don't reconnect once during these specified time periods.

But you can have the device 'offline' from Xbox Live but still watch Live TV, or watch Blu-Rays or DVDs.


KINECT & PRIVACY

As explained at the Xbox One unveiling, Kinect is a compulsory element of the device.

It is always running so the device can be controlled by voice and gesture.

But Microsoft says the device doesn't invade piracy.

Owners can decide, when setting up the device for the first time, how data is used.

Microsoft says Xbox One is not recording anything you say to send back to its data centres.

"When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded."

Kinect can be paused when games are running if you don't want it intruding on gameplay.

When the Xbox is in standby mode, it is only listening for one command - Xbox On - to reactivate it, and isn't 'listening' for anything else.

You can even turn that off, too.

"Data will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission" it has also added, to those concerned that heart rate monitors (possible with Kinect), or tracking of what photos/videos you look at can be monitored.

Fuck that shit, bitch. Did you see the gameplay demo for The Division?



Action MMORPG similar to Phantasy Star Online buy set in kind of modern day, with PvE and PvP? I'm in like Flynn.

Definitely the most exciting concept I've seen at this E3. My dick gets hard for any game actually set in a modern urban environment that isn't a warzone, you know, just real cities. That's why I love games like Alpha Protocol, despite its many faults. This, Watch Dogs, The Crew, It's looking like it's going to be a good year.