That’s absolutely no excuse. For a game not to be in a playable state on the disc is completely unacceptable to me.
So? From my perspective, as long as I keep my system offline, the game should be playable off of the disc in the state it was on launch day.
I completely understand the need for patches and other updates, but it should be my choice.
To be clear, for me personally this is an academic discussion. I keep my system online at all times, and very rarely buy physical games, but it’s the principle of the thing that rubs me the wrong way.
Because there’s no conceivable technological reason for it. And there’s plenty of situations where people may want to play games without being able to be online. So why not have the game playable on day 1 directly off the disc?
Hikikomori Media reports that Smart Delivery game disks and Series games where you install the game from disk now do not need to be onlineto be able to install and play the game.
Backwards compatibility games (ie. OG and 360), Game Pass and stubs (games like Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite) still require internet connectivity. You also still need to connect online to set up your Series X console for the first time.
(I’m pretty sure someone has already posted this- if so, I’ll delete my post)
This is an awesome step in the right direction. The less DRM on the system, the better. Hopefully they get to a point where peole can use the console out of the box and start providing system updates on game discs like they used to do. Would also like to see fewer stub games from the company. The system support 100GB blu ray discs, so it would be great if they used that when a game is too large for a 50GB disc.
My next disc based purchase will probably be Gotham Knights. Does this mean I can install the game off the disc and play it once the install is done? If so, this is great news!!! The few negatives that I have with Microsoft and Xbox Series X are slowly being eliminated one by one. Woohoo!!! Xbox baby!!!
I was hoping this would help with not being able to play games on a not-home console when Xbox servers are down, but it seems not. Still a good step though, props to MS.
Do hope they address what’s left especially what can happen if Xbox network is down and the offline verification system doesn’t take over for whatever reason.
Downloaded and installed A Plague Tale Requiem the other day via Game Pass and I was able to play it off-line with no issues. Currently on Chapter 3.
Bought Gotham Knights on disc and installed the game. Went to start it and woohoo, it worked. Went to the title screen, no issues. Had to go online to download the day one patch obviously but it fully seems like the DRM shit and my biggest negative/issue/complaint with Xbox is gone.
As long as it stays this way, I will be a very happy Xbox gamer!!!
Aren’t a lot of games bigger than the storage limits of the disc now? That would be a technical reason.
They also plan to have it look for updates in order to make sure that bugs and things that might give the customer problems are dealt with so that the games reputation isn’t tarnished by people playing things that they’ve already fixed.
I do get where you are coming from but it’s not that surprising that it’s set to try to look for updates before playing.
And yes, I understand why devs want to check in when someone starts up a game. And I even agree with doing it. I just don’t think it should be mandatory. There simply is no good reason for it, and plenty of scenarios where people are unable to comply.
But this has been beaten to death in this thread, so I’m not going to be responding again.
You can still play games offline you just need to log in once a day. I get the issue over content, but that alos happens with PS games too. We now live in an online world, even cash is going digital.
I would be more worried what happens when XBox shuts down the servers for their old systems and if you can still play your old games. Given Piracy for a dead system isn’t an issue I hope one can. That would be more of an issue for me, rather than the need to log on, Hell my slow cooker is hooked up to Wi-Fi
