Xbox’s online DRM under fire as some users left unable to play games for 4th day

Xbox’s online DRM policy has been criticised after server outages left some console owners unable to launch their purchased games for a fourth day.

According to Does It Play?, a Twitter account dedicated to testing commercial releases to ensure they work entirely internet-free, the majority of Xbox games require an online check before they’ll boot.

[Furesis]

I thought this wasn't a thing? Jesus, maybe people will see why it's not good and stop supporting this practice. Does playstation or switch have something similar?

[rippermcrip]

No, it is in the article. Sony and Nintendo do not do this themselves, however there are certain publishers that have their own (such as Activision of course).

[ABizzel1]

@PurefieD

That's not the same thing at all. PS+ / GamePass / Nintendo Online games are based on your subscription. So if your subscription is inactive you can't access them.

This is an issue that if for any reason XBL has a network outage there's a chance you can't play ANY of your games regardless of if you're in a subscription service, bought them digitally, or in some cases bought them on disc at retail since many disc-based games just install a digital copy.

[Redrex7000]

huh so ms does?

[Profchaos]

@purefin no PlayStation tags your game if it's a PS plus game with an expiration date which might be the day your subscription lapses (it will extend on renewal) if you own the game it's not tagged and you get it forever

[Lightning77]

But, but, playstation no, no, this is about Xbox this a unique Xbox problem and nobody else's let's not do the #whataboutisms. MS plans from 2013 have gone away only for them to sneakily add it back in all these years later. I'm not surprised. I am surprised during an outage ppl can't play offline that's anti consumer we need to make our voices heard and call them out on this crap NOW.

[Profchaos]

@Purefied. No if you don't set your PlayStation as primary and go offline your digital games can be played still as long as you were the purchaser of the games or subscriber of PlayStation plus.
I've personally taken my console offline many times with a large digital library and had no issues.

You will encounter problems if you're PlayStation is not primary and you are trying to play a game that another account purchased

[Profchaos]

@lightning yeah I agree I can still see a lot of 2013 Microsoft ideas in how the is functions.
In many ways it's ideas were way to integral to how the console functioned to be able to strip it out entirely in a few months before launch.
To be honest I've always had these problems with backwards compatible games since the early days of the X1 I recall trying to boot gears 3 which I owned digitally on my X1 during an internet outage but didn't get anywhere and this was back when BC just became a thing 2015 or so

[NotoriousWhiz]

Are we really complaining about the "home Xbox" setting again or am I misunderstanding? Literally, every console won't allow you to play your digital games while offline unless it's set as your home/primary console. I think the Nintendo Switch is actually the worst as it seems to require a manual check every hour or so. If your Xbox is set as your home Xbox, you can play every digital game previously installed while offline. Same with Playstation. Same with the Nintendo Switch.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Xbox in my opinion needs to get rid of this asap.

[Redrex7000]

guess its still not worth going full digital
on a side note a lot game be doing some sort of online bs
even single player games

[TheGreatGazoo30]

A lot of games, even physical copies, require Online checks to boot up, a lot of that is on the developer not, Xbox or Sony.

[matt139]

There is absolutely no reason to support this.

[Silly gameAr]

Why throw Sony into this? They don't do this. You can play any game you bought online or off. If Sony did something like this, it would be world ending.

I'm surprised anyone even made an article about this. I figured it would be swept under the rug.

[dumahim]

Well, not any game, as GT7 had showed us recently. But yes, it's very different from how it is on Xbox.

[Silly gameAr]

You can still play GT7 offline. Maybe limited, but it can still be played. That isn't anything like this.

[ChasterMies]

We have two PlayStations and while the primary console is fine when the internet goes out, the “away” console won’t play games without an internet check-in. Fortunately my phone’s wifi hotspot works for that purpose.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

It’s been happening to me since yesterday morning. I can’t access any of my digital games which is about 99% of my library.

[matt139]

Crap like this is why i still prefer movies on bluray compared to appletv. Digital is so convenient but has potential for issues relating to actually playing your own content,

[ufo8mycat]

This is why you pirate movies. Hollywood make more then enough $$ anyway

[EvertonFC]

I don't buy a nice TV and surround sound system to have sub par HD movie experience.
My friend streams movies online and paid over £1200 on his TV and I'm always like why did you buy a expensive TV to watch those movies in that quality? Makes no sense.
Edit: to make matters worse my friend earns £27 an hour and can't even be arsed to pay £20 per month for Netflix and Amazon.

[Profchaos]

You'd be surprised the amount of movies that actually return a profit isn't that high anymore

[Good-Smurf]

My reason to stick to Blu-ray and DVDs was that on streaming service stuff got delisted all the time and without notice there's too much shit to choose and takes your attention lead to choice paralysis and less playback control than physical media.
I was planning to binge watch We Bare Bears only for it to got completely delisted the following month that was the moment I knew that streaming service are not for me and will use my stream box as a paperweight.

[lodossrage]

I hope everyone that keeps cheering for a digital only future is paying attention to when things like this happen.

[moriarty1889]

Agreed. Digital only is for sheep who line up for whatever companies dictate for them to spend their money on.

[EvertonFC]

Sheep ? Or people who like the convienence of digital and are not fussed about the service going down for a day or 2 which has never happened to me and I'm also sure it'll only happen maybe like once every 10 years so its not like this is a common problem all the time .
Infact it's quite the opposite a extreme rarity .

[EvertonFC]

If it does there is more to life than gaming. I'm sure you would survive if you couldn't play your games for a day or 2.
Having said that I see you're point obviously, it's not perfect but the pros far out way the cons.

[Flawlessmic]

Bring that same energy yall brought for gran turismo 7 guys, x 100 considering this effects more than just one game.

I assume u will be selling ur xbox due to this based of yoyr comments in gt7 threads.

Good thing i was out of town the last few days so didnt really impact me.

[BehindTheRows]

Yeah, the crickets will be loud for this one. The typical suspects will stay under their rocks and it makes you realize how deep their hypocrisy is.

OT: This is highly unacceptable.

[Good-Smurf]

This takes sweet ass time to gain traction compared to GT7.
Stop defending trillion dollar company, they literally asked you to bend over for their issue and be grateful about it.

[zsquaresoff]

A lot of Xbots are defending this online, They know they're in the wrong but just can't help but defend their poor trillion dollar company. Truly pathetic.

[StarkR3ality]

Bro I've defended Xbox this gen as up till now they haven't really put a foot wrong. But I agree this is bullshit and I expectan apology and a system change after the issue is resolved.

[Silly gameAr]

Not that you know of. This has been going on for days, and hardly anyone has covered it. How would you know if they did wrong if everything gets surpressed and buried?

[StarkR3ality]

You PS fan boys are fucking jokers 😂

Bruh' I have both a PS5 and an Xbox, but I don't wanna put my dick in the drives of them, legit just said Xbox fucked up.

Shall we compare as I can speak from a PS5 owner.

1. External HDD's bricking consoles due to stand by issues.

2. No SSD support.

3.£70 games with microtransactions thrown in.

4. Commitment to live service games.

5. Back tracking on next gen upgrades, upgrade process in itself is half baked.

6. Sony fans giving game pass shit but sucking Playstation plus off.

7. Software is shitty. The UI is half baked, big long line of apps at the top of the screen is not functional, no app grouping support.

I'm being petty coming back with this, but my point is both Sony and Microsoft have fucked up in some way. Agreed the Xbox has a lack of exclusives for the last decade. But there's been Forbidden west this and that's it from PS5 that I have enjoyed.

Keep the same energy and stop being fan boys.

[Silly gameAr]

You xbox fans need to come back to reality, and get off of Moon X, or whatever planet you're on.

[StarkR3ality]

@silly

I'm not an Xbox fan, that's the funny thing, I actually prefer the PS5 as a whole. You just lack the intelligence to grasp the argument I'm trying the make. Which makes your username quite fitting.

[CBaoth]

so comical. This is Microsoft's first mistake all gen? Halo ring a bell? Just silently move on, take the L, and act like the rest of the MS schills here by treating it like it never happened. Better than that retarded, half-baked list of anecdotal heresay you attempted as a rebuttal

[Petebloodyonion]

Huh, Care to show me the " lots of Xbots" in this thread?
Most of the ppl agree that it's illogical and wrong to force you to check in to play an offline game.
Some ppl just point out that MS can't be at fault for publishers who programs always online in their games like Activision.
Personally, I think that MS did some great things with Gamepass and Serie X/S but in no way shape, or form should they get away with enforcing this practice and not letting know the customer.

[StarkR3ality]

Sony Ponies for you pal, actually agreeing with their points but disagree that it's only Xbox that aren't the only ones to fuck up.

[darkrider]

We aren't talking about one game, we are talking about almost all games need to be online to work on Microsoft consoles. For what I read here a month ago I believe many will stop buying consoles and games from Microsoft, because this kind of stuff isn't acceptable. How can they do this. Without online connection Microsoft consoles turn it to paperweight.

[aaronaton]

So GT7 got slammed for DRM, while MS is doing it at a system level....

[StarkR3ality]

Both companies should get slammed for it. Taking a shit not as big as the guy next to you doesn't mean it smells any better.

Both are shitheads in bith examples.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

Couldn’t of said it better myself…

[StarkR3ality]

"oh someone said something bad about my console and now the other console has something wrong with it so now I'm going to talk shit"

Children.

[Silly gameAr]

When one company does some shady crap, why do people feel the need add in the other company to make it even? Reminds me of Amber heard and Johnny Depp. People were crapping all over Depp when they thought he was a wife beater, but now that there's evidence to state otherwise, now it's "they're both crazy, and should stop throwing bottles at each other!".

All that is, is the person defending doesn't want to look like they have a bias, so they throw both sides in, like they're both guilty. Then have the nerve to call people children for pointing out what should be obvious.

[StarkR3ality]

@silly

You're likening Fanboyism to domestic abuse? Okay.

What I'm saying is a lot of people have double standards. I remember when GT7 came out and people were bringing up Forza saying GT7 is the better game. I said that if Xbox had done that with Forza, they would be slammed. GT7 got defended by a lot of people that wouldn't have done the same if it was Xbox doing it.

People are giving Starfield shit and it's not even out yet, talking about glitches and shit (I am aware of Bethesda's rep). I'm playing Forbidden west at the min (amazing game) but that has loads of visual glitches and bugs, nothing that takes away from the game as a whole but still.

People need to keep the same energy.

[shinoff2183]

Damn with all the doom and gloom sonys so horrible articles , idda thought everything was all peachy over there in ms land.

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

How many times will you people repeat this same ridiculous line?

[EvertonFC]

Until it changes so you Xbox gamers get a better system for if/when online does go down, and it will with cyber crime and hacking at the forefront being number 1 security risk these days.
Ask yourself ffs online goes down for a week or 2 or longer what are you gonna do with GP and other games ?
I'll let that one sink cause being a Xbox fanboy won't save you from that one .

[aaronaton]

What do you mean "You people"?

[lellkay]

Stupidest thing ever.

[Dandizzle]

This is super lame of Microsoft, I had no idea they where doing with even with physical games. Microsoft is such a ahole.

[StarkR3ality]

I've defended Xbox a lot this gen by people giving them shit just because they are Playstation fanboys. But this shit is inexcusable. Hasn't effected me in anyway, but wasn't able to play with my mates because they couldn't launch their games on Saturday which is the only day we get to game together.

For it to not only effect multiplayer games but single player too? Going on for 4 days when you're the biggest software company in the world. Whole situation is bollocks.

This needs to change so it never happens again before this starts to reek of the old Don Mattrick Xbox One launch and those good numbers you're shifting at the moment will fall off a cliff.

The Series X is a great piece of hardware, don't fuck it up by being assholes again and just give us some quality first party games.

[Elda]

I didn't even know this existed guessing because I was playing the other console all weekend while my XBSS continues to sit & collect dust.

[moriarty1889]

Ridiculous that a game you purchase should need an online check…….your supposed to own it period. If it’s an online game then that’s obvious but an offline game should never require this type of shite.

[Petebloodyonion]

MS needs to address this quickly if they want to still have to faith and goodwill of the customers because there are 0 reasons why you would need to validate your Internet presence for a game or a component of a game that is a single-player portion.

Also, this would be a perfect time for MS to have strict guidelines about DRM usage and making sure the customer is aware when some are enforced.

[shinoff2183]

They wont. Didnt they try to do this last gen at the start?

[Petebloodyonion]

And if memory serves me well they basically shot themselves in the foot was a PR disaster and had to do a complete 180 before the system launch.

[Deathdeliverer]

It’s funny. GT7 had great reviews at launch and then when people realized most of it couldn’t be played offline the reviews dropped and when the update to slow down money farming came out the review scores dropped again.
You can’t play ANYTHING on your series console without internet. PS3 went through hell cause you couldn’t play online because PSN was down for a few days. Still has access to play your disc games. Again, you can’t play ANYTHING on your console in 2022.

I already knew all this though. How? Look through my history and you can see when I got my series X day one there were server issues. I couldn’t connect to Live. I decided to try my disc games so I could play something on my new console. Nope. Blocked me. Then Live came up after a few hours and I could play things. Went back out and my games stopped working again. I didn’t fully grasp the reasoning, but now it’s confirmed. Pretty crazy none of this gets mentioned by media outlets.

[dumahim]

To be fair, the GT7 shit-storm wasn't just the offline part. It was also about the heavy-handedness of mictotransactions and then followed by a series of significant nerfs.

[dumahim]

@viktorFTW
People weren't angry about the MTs? You don't see reduced rewards as a part of the push for MTs? Being not forced to use MT (and when are MT ever forced?) isn't the issue.

https://gamerant.com/gran-t...
Gran Turismo 7's microtransactions are a fundamental part of Polyphony Digital's racing game, which has angered and upset fans in equal measure.

https://clutchpoints.com/gr...
Gran Turismo 7 gets review bombed after GT7 microtransactions update

https://www.nme.com/news/ga...
‘Gran Turismo 7’ hits record-low user score due to microtransactions anger

https://www.racefans.net/20...
Why the Gran Turismo 7 backlash should make EA think twice about microtransactions in F1 2022

https://www.thedrive.com/ne...
‘Fundamentally Broken’: Gran Turismo 7 Update Pushes Microtransactions, Draws Backlash

https://boundingintocomics....
Gran Turismo 7 Director Apologizes for Game’s Heavy Microtransactions

https://www.techspot.com/ne...
Latest Gran Turismo 7 patch relies more on microtransactions, and gamers are pissed

Do you want more? How about some of those 0 scores on Metacritic?

"Say hello to another game that ruined its economy just after the launch/review window for the sake of microtransactions."

"Online Only and Micro transactions, I don't need to go any further .than that"

"One of the most anticipated games of 2022 ruined by greed. Players not buying in to MTX? well lets reduce the rewards for races in SINGLE PLAYER CAREER to try and force us to use MTX?"

"Only one raffle ticket is given each day, and the rewards are pathetically low. After the update, the earnings of the game have been reduced again, and it has become a micro-transaction insider game, right?"

"The latest update nerfed credit rewards to a point where progression is now terrible, forcing to buy MTX."

"Microtransactions and low rewards killed the game "

It's also still an issue, it just isn't being talked about as much right now because tons of people are exploiting a glitch that allows you to use an overpowered car to go twice as fast as the AI and easily win over 800k Cr in less than 20 minutes. PD tried to fix it, but only made it worse because with a minor tweak to the previous glitch, the car now even more powerful.

Let's also not forget, they still haven't managed to work out a way for us to sell cars yet.

[Aussiesummer]

Yeah I'm gonna try and sell this disaster peice of shit console, it's been collecting dust anyway, fuck knows why I bought it in the first place, my PS5 is in constant use.

[Elda]

I concur.

[aaronaton]

they go for RRP on Ebay, that speaks volumes if you ask me.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

Seems like people aren't aware you can put an Xbox into offline mode and play those games without internet. I had to do this when I moved and it took an extra week to get internet. The only games that didn't work were online games (duh). Being connected to the internet that has services down or working incorrectly will cause an issue.

[Deathdeliverer]

On series X? I’ll try it when I get home. Why would that be a setting? Isn’t being offline offline mode? lol.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

Yep, right under settings there is a "go offline" option. Also, I bet most people don't do the "set as my home Xbox" setting. Doing that ties all the licenses to that system for offline play. Works great. I had zero internet for a week and zero issues with single player games.

[Deathdeliverer]

It’s hands down the most ridiculous setting I’ve ever seen, but you are correct. Put it into offline mode and it works.
You have to have connected it to live recently AND there’s a lot of settings you can’t change while you’re offline, but it does work. I don’t think anyone knows about this because it’s pretty dumb. Why wouldn’t it just default to it after realizing you’re offline while giving a message. “You’re in offline mode, cannot connect to services”.

*update to the update*
Some games won’t work in offline mode. They MUST check in online.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

@Deathdeliverer

The setting is there for situations like this. The internet was working, many Xbox services were working, some were for everyone. Some were intermittent or not functioning for some. The setting let's the Xbox know not to looking for that data, which it's getting incorrectly or partial.

IF the internet wasn't working, you wouldn't have to tell it to be in offline mode to work as long as you have it set to your home Xbox.

[Wrex369]

They need to fix that what the hell man. Above all else this is the number one issue with the console and Microsoft at large. Im usually fairly positive on them lately but get it together it's 2022 and all your competitors are doing better.

[Hofstaderman]

Me.. Pop in disc.... Play
Physical is still the way to go.

[Orchard]

Completely unacceptable - especially after the 2013 mess. People need to keep the pressure up on them & don't let up - that's the only way the big 3 listen.

Also, wasn't 'My Home Xbox' meant to take care of this? That path needs to work offline as a bare minimum requirement.

[SonyStyled]

Since the 2013 DRM debacle I think it’s safe to say one console manufacturer hasn’t listened, or just really really want to control your gaming box and software after purchase regardless of the ‘pressure’ gamers put on them. Or the manufacturer is hoping gamers forgot about 2013 or blind to it.

Either way I don’t think the ‘Big 3’ need to be listening since 2 of them haven’t perused console and game DRM- and thus those manufacturers have been listening, watching the others mistake. It’s an issue Xbox fans need to put pressure on Microsoft for as it is not an issue with the other crowds.

Why would a PS/Nintendo only gamer be loud towards Microsoft for this if it doesn’t affect their Nintendo or PlayStation (unless you have Xbox too)? This is a reason why one would choose to play Nintendo or PlayStation over Xbox as DRM is a non issue. I can’t really ‘put pressure’ on Microsoft because it’s not a product I’m interested in, nor am I the intended target customer Microsoft tries to appeal to. If I’m going to be loud and put pressure on a company, it’d be to the manufacturer of the product I own. A fanboy who doesn’t own an Xbox would put pressure on Microsoft to add fuel to the flames of a fire that’s not theirs.

All I can hope is the DRM issue gets addressed for those on Xbox, as we all enjoy the same hobby and not being able to play is a bummer

[Orchard]

"Either way I don’t think the ‘Big 3’ need to be listening since 2 of them haven’t perused console and game DRM- and thus those manufacturers have been listening, watching the others mistake."

Have they? One of them just launched an unjustified always-on singleplayer experience... which also went down and was unplayable...

The only one who MIGHT be innocent here is Nintendo, but that could also just be a lack of information on our side. We typically don't know how a platform or title behaves until the backing service goes down.

Honestly, Steam handles this the best today, although one could argue they also seem to run services better than MS & Sony and have less outages.

Hopefully people keep the pressure up, on all platforms affected by always-on DRM, because this is an industry wide issue that affects all gamers and is only going to get worse.

[SonyStyled]

Orchard, you are trying to compare a ‘single’ player games always online requirement to an entire console online requirement.

As you mentioned a DRM issue, but you can actually launch and play some modes offline in that game, which is very different from Xbox console DRM which games cannot even be launched.

You know the always online requirement in your favorite game is to legitimize track times, and most would agree there should be an offline ‘unranked’ play for the full game.

It’s an unfortunate circumstance the games servers were down for 24hrs but the article is about gamers consoles being DRM locked for 4 days now.

“The only one who MIGHT be innocent here is Nintendo, but that could also just be a lack of information on our side. We typically don't know how a platform or title behaves until the backing service goes down.”

No, not really. All use DRM to some extent, and most gamer experiences work when the “backing service goes down” so we don't share that same concern

[Orchard]

@SonyStyled I'm comparing DRM to DRM.

My singleplayer racing game requires me to be connected to the internet (and for their servers to be up) to race against AI.

I don't care about esports or professional tournaments, nor do I intend to participate in such things, I just want to play my racing game which cost $70. Therefore, it's unnecessary, always online DRM that infringes upon my ability to play.

So my point stands true, at least MS and Sony are guilty of this BS. Nintendo I'll give a pass until I see / hear otherwise.

I don't actually have an Xbox Series, but I hope people stick it to them and keep doing so until resolved, because this is a much wider problem with the industry and the direction it's going in - and some backlash is well deserved any may help reduce/avoid future occurrences of DRM.

[XBManiac]

Welcome to the real world, Neo.

[John_McClane]

I've played every day without issue.

[babadivad]

This is ridiculous.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

PSA for everyone. Set your Xbox as your home Xbox. If you lose internet or XBL is having issues, set it to "go offline." Boom. All your games can be played offline no issues. I'm shocked people took to Twitter to scream rather than follow instructions or search "how to play Xbox games offline"

[RickRoland]

This shouldn’t even be a thing.

[littletad]

So you how do you buy a digital game if you need the internet? See how stupid that sounds? The servers are down, you cannot access games that require the internet or purchase games or play games that require anything internet related. If your xbox is set to home or you are offline, you can play your games offline no problem. This issue shows up on N4G once or twice a year under the pretense that it's a DRM related issue. This is because the author of the "article" hasn't set their xbox to home or offline, making it appear like a DRM issue. It isn't. The SERVERS are down dude.

[John_McClane]

Most of the ones screaming probably don't even have an Xbox.

[Knushwood Butt]

This doesn't sound very consumer friendly.

[Tetsujin]

For those who are in favor of an all online machine, what happens when issues like this occur?

Situations like this is why I will always prefer the option(s) to play offline; to prevent issues where online is mandatory. Excluding MMO games, this is unacceptable and a big reason why I dodged certain games.

[glennhkboy]

Lucky for me? I haven't experience that issue so far. I can play all of my games, including GamePass games.

[Good-Smurf]

This article here proves how MS is controlling the gaming media when GT7 got thrashed by its microtransaction practice and online only requirement people have a fit over and they opened the floodgates youtubers jumped at the issue but
when it's time for Microsoft DRM system wide issue it barely if ever got the same traction to what GT7 received.
How is this fair I thought we can criticize any company now it got swept under the radar by the gate keepers themselves and big gaming sites just lap it up when the issue are this serious.
I thought they got rid of that crap in 2013 it got even worse now.