Leak Confirms Blu-ray, Denies Always-On DRM For Possibly 2014-Delayed Xbox 720

[admin]

A leaked internal email sent to all Microsoft employees working on the next Xbox console apparently confirms the existence of Blu-ray playback, but also denied that the console will feature an 'always-on' style DRM that forces gamers to be online at all times.

But the inclusion of Blu-ray playback may see the console miss the 2013 holidays release window, according to another rumor.

Arstechnica was first to reveal the contents of the internal Microsoft email regarding 'Durango', the project code name for Microsoft's next console, which read:

"Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today's Internet. There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should 'just work' regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game."

If true, this latest information will calm down gamers worried about being forced to have a constant Internet connection in order to play even single player games.

While rumors suggesting the inclusion of a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 720, or whatever it will be called, has been making the rounds for the best part of a year, it has been unclear so far whether the inclusion of a drive would also allow for Blu-ray movie playback. The Nintendo Wii U console, for example, features a Blu-ray like disc format but does not support BD movie playback, but if the leaked email is to be believed, then Blu-ray playback will be a feature of the next Microsoft console.

However, the inclusion of Blu-ray may be the very reason why the Xbox 720 will miss out on having a 2013 release. According to MondoXbox, issues related to Blu-ray licensing may mean the console will get an early 2014 release date instead, missing the crucial holiday sales period.

The delay is apparently due to an exclusivity agreement that permits Blu-ray playback only on Sony's consoles, including the PS4, which will be released before the end of the year.

Such a delay could be a huge setback for Microsoft as it attempts to build on the success of the Xbox 360.

Microsoft is expected to officially launch the Xbox 720 at an event on May 21, where the console's official name may be unveiled as 'Xbox Infinity'.

[drfsupercenter]

See, personally the online thing doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. For single-player games, yes, it would be stupid to require an Internet connection.

But for things that involve leaderboards, for example, you would need a connection in order to save your scores anyway - and if it works like today's games where you can still get points while offline and then sync it when you connect, that's just inviting unwanted hacking (same can be said of offline achievements)

I like the way some newer Xbox Live Arcade games, like Rock Band Blitz do it - if you're offline, your score won't count and won't be saved - it's strictly just for fun. That way, you can't hack your high scores or anything like that.

[admin]

'Always-on' DRM isn't about being online as an optional part of the game, it's about making a constantly online connection a requirement to do *anything* within the game - even if your connections dies for just one second, the game may kick you out, or give you an error message, even if you're playing a single player game. Saves may also be forced online, like with SimCity, so you don't have a local copy of your game's progress, and that if the server is down or data gets corrupted during the save process, you lose your saved progress (as you can't manually backup the saves).

People were worried that the new Xbox console would do this to them, but it seems that won't be the case, which is a good thing.

I think this is all due a misunderstanding of the phrase "always on, always connected" that was bandied about in some of the leaks. I think this feature refers to a quick-start stand-by mode for the console (so it should just turn on and be instantly available for everything within a few seconds, as opposed to the full boot-up process), and the "always connected" just means that even when it's in stand-by mode, the console can connect to the Internet to download demos, updates, and other things in the background.

[drfsupercenter]

Oh, I know what you're saying. I'm just saying that for games with online leaderboards, it doesn't make sense to have offline saves if the main function of having a score is to compare it to other players online.

[admin]

Yeah, there are a lot of good reasons why certain games needs to be online only or require a constant online connection (games like World of Warcraft, for example). And I don't think people complain about these types of games, but when it seems obvious that the 'always-on' requirement seems mostly bolted-on just for anti-piracy, gamers won't be happy.