Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, has posted some very surprising news today regarding the XBox One’s controversial DRM policies. Mattrick has stated that he and his team has taken every readers’ feedback into consideration, and is addressing their criticisms by reversing the same DRM policies that had put them and their system under heavy pressure.
According to what had been posted, the Xbox One does not have to be connected to the internet anymore for people to play their games. With the exception of a one-time system set-up, the Xbox One can be playable without ever having to be connected online again. Mattrick also announces that Xbox One games will be playable on other Xbox Ones consoles without any regional locks or restrictions.
As for the used games policy, the system will support used games just like the Xbox 360. Players can buy, sell, trade, lend, and gift used games to anybody like they have always done up to this point without any limitation. Furthermore, games that are downloaded on Xbox Live can be playable on any Xbox, offline. There has not been any address towards the worrying concerns over Kinect’s surveillance, or if there is backwards compatibility; but hopefully, these questions will be answered in due time.
Until now, Don Mattrick and his team have defended the former policies throughout the Xbox One’s reveal, and have been universally slammed. This was especially so after Sony revealed its support for used games and offline usage as well as the price for PlayStation 4.
