One of the biggest concerns to surface as part of the next-gen console race between Microsoft and Sony surrounds the need for a console to always be online in order for critical features to work. At the recent Xbox One launch Microsoft didn’t mention this, but it has now cleared things up.
A statement from the company explains how games licensing works in detail, including the sharing and selling on of games, plus of course the need for the console to get online. When it comes to sharing one console in the home things are simple; up to 10 people (profiles) can share your games and content on the same Xbox.
The company confirmed that in order to play games offline, the Xbox One will need to connect to the internet once each 24 hours, presumably to authenticate the game content and your gamer profile. “Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection,” Microsoft says. This is obviously going to be a huge pain for those who don’t have an internet connection or at those times when the internet goes down for a few days, thus ruining the potential for those several day marathons trying to complete a single player campaign.
Microsoft lightly touched on the subject of second hand games but still didn’t go into much detail. We now know that retailers will not be charged a fee to resell games, nor will publishers or the customer when buying a pre-owned game. Whilst not quite crystal clear, this appears to say that we’ll be able to buy a second hand game and play it without having to pay any additional fees on top of the cost of the game itself from the shop.
We’ll also be able to give our Xbox One games to friends, says Microsoft. Provided somebody has been on your Xbox Live friends list for more than 30 days, you can gift them your disc-based game and they’ll be able to install it and play on their console.
The next bunch of Xbox One news will arrive next week as E3 unfolds in Los Angeles. Microsoft has already promised us lots of games and a big focus on gaming after the TV-centric launch event of the console and we can’t wait.