I blame the backlash from the community. If we would've taken more time to think about the pros the combination once a day Internet connection and the DRM instead of just blasting on the cons (some of which are misguided), perhaps this could've led to a better gaming future for the consumer. The article GSG posted from Gizmodo points this out.
Sony took advantage of the people's misconceptions of how DRM works, and it worked. But in the long run, we (the community) will come out on the losing end, again. They forced Microsoft to abandon their vision, and that sucks.
Nope. Microsoft never came out and explained exactly what you could and couldn't do. Their entire PR campaign was handwaving and vagaries. Even Major Nelson looked dumb in interviews (and I normally like the guy) because everything wasn't spelled out.
I've been a gamer all my life. I grew up playing Lucasarts Adventure titles, did the fps clan thing in the mid 90's, and I saw what happened to PC games because of "DRM" like starforce. People keep comparing Xbone to Steam, but they were in entirely different markets. PC games had huge piracy rates from day 1, and we've had CD keys and crappy DRM solutions for over a decade. While steam isn't perfect, it proved to be a boon for PC games, because they have virtually no shelf space in brick and mortar stores. This allows valve and publishers to run awesome sales, because they aren't undercutting retailers and dealing with those contracts.
Contrast that with consoles, which dominate retail space, and haven't had DRM, ever. Borrowing and selling console games has been common forever. Microsoft's used game deal sucked for consumers, because they were negotiating back door deals with Gamestop and Best Buy for "official" used game deals. They would cut out p2p sales (craigslist and ebay) and have a stranglehold on pricing. Look at the big games on PC (COD, Blizzard games) that have shelf space in
brick and mortar stores and they
don't drop price at all. Same thing would happen on Xbox one.