Support NeoGAF

[Snake29]

Source on that? I remember my psn going down more than once when I had a ps3 but maybe it got better once Sony started charging for it. And then I read about multiple occasions when psn went down during the ps4 days. Once during the holiday season maybe and another when they were hacked I think. This is the first time I remember xbox being down but I've only had an Xbox since series x launched. And don't forget, gt7 was offline for several days. Not all of psn but still a bad look.

https://gamerant.com/xbox-live-down-more-than-psn/ - https://www.gamebyte.com/xbox-live-vs-psn-which-one-goes-down-more/

Multiple sites have already seen this in the last 2 years that Live has on worldwide base more downtimes.

gt7 was offline for several days. Not all of psn but still a bad look.

GT7 was extended maintenance because of a bug in the firmware/backend, not because of servers outage.

 

[ParaSeoul]

Everyone who parrots digital being the future always seem to be absent when things like this happen

 

[M1chl]

People need to tone down the defensiveness, I for example has been playing second run in Elden Ring whole weekend:

However this is the real issue and same as with 120$ we need to make a fuss of it, because you own the game, you set your console to home one so it needs to work.

Just create some cache on console for like 7 days, when the license is still valid. Fuck make the license stay for 24 hours or so on non-home console for certain account which owns the game. Keys are tiny, it will not hurt the storage. Especially when you have designed your network in a way, when the load can shut down the licensing server, which is ridiculous, but hey it happened.

 

[MonarchJT]

They need to sort this out. It is not acceptable that peoples consoles become bricks if their service goes down

ok listen, I don't want to justify Microsoft or anyone else in this but I ask myself a question ... will it be time to remodel what we think consoles are today? I will explain better ... I am aware that the change would be in this particular context negative, but it is obvious that everyone in the world of consoles is increasingly decentralizing services, saves, personal settings, security and everything else from local to remote ... I ask myself in the most naive way possible .... why do we expect consoles HAVE to work offline? there are products that even if we have paid we cannot access them without a connection and people accept it without batting an eye. Basically I wonder if this is just a problem of perception and old habits. What do you think?

 

[kingfey]

 

[kingfey]

Everyone who parrots digital being the future always seem to be absent when things like this happen

I would still prefer digital.
Don't want to have loads of disc laying in my house.

 

[Banjo64]

ok listen, I don't want to justify Microsoft or anyone else in this but I ask myself a question ... will it be time to remodel what we think consoles are today? I will explain better ... I am aware that the change would be in this particular context negative, but it is obvious that everyone in the world of consoles is increasingly decentralizing services, saves, personal settings, security and everything else from local to remote ... I ask myself in the most naive way possible .... why do we expect consoles HAVE to work offline? there are products that even if we have paid we cannot access them without a connection and people accept it without batting an eye. Basically I wonder if this is just a problem of perception and old habits. What do you think?

This is a real shit take. Sorry mate.

Why should we expect access to a product we have bought?

This isn’t like Spotify where you can’t access your subscription to music without internet.

This would be like not being able to listen to your CD on your CD player without internet access. Or not being able to watch a BluRay on your BluRay player.

Your asking why we shouldn’t expect to be raped by a mega corp.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

ok listen, I don't want to justify Microsoft or anyone else in this but I ask myself a question ... will it be time to remodel what we think consoles are today? I will explain better ... I am aware that the change would be in this particular context negative, but it is obvious that everyone in the world of consoles is increasingly decentralizing services, saves, personal settings, security and everything else from local to remote ... I ask myself in the most naive way possible .... why do we expect consoles HAVE to work offline? there are products that even if we have paid we cannot access them without a connection and people accept it without batting an eye. Basically I wonder if this is just a problem of perception and old habits. What do you think?

I'm paying 500$ for a box...and then i still pay money for a game. i have the right to be able to play that game offline when the game itself is a single player experience. It's that easy.
If my console bricks when i'm offline, then it's the day i stop buying videogame consoles.

My PS5 never gave me these headaches and i hope sony doesn't get any ideas...

 

[MonarchJT]

This is a real shit take. Sorry mate.

Why should we expect access to a product we have bought?

This isn’t like Spotify where you can’t access your subscription to music without internet.

This would be like not being able to listen to your CD on your CD player without internet access. Or not being able to watch a BluRay on your BluRay player.

Your asking why we shouldn’t expect to be raped by a mega corp.

I was wondering if this is a problem that affects more those who are used to what consoles used to be or if the new kids who grew up under the internet sphere get mad in the same way. I understood perfectly what the context and the problem is and it is obvious that the possibility of playing offline would be the best choice than that of not being able to do it. But now I wonder according to you..we know that hardware and software manufacturers know these basic issues, why do they keep doing it in your opinion? For example without online drm gt7 would have been ruined by hackers? Our consoles would be hacked and unprotected in how long time? I say it again ... I'm not defending what happened, I'm not doing it in any way ... I'm trying to see it from another perspective...and asking if in the balance of pros and cons those sporadic hours of inactivity are so insurmountable also compared to the advantages that sometimes go unnoticed

 

[Elginer]

Own a series S and X and wondered why the hell I couldn’t watch some of my digital movies or play a game for a few hours.

 

[GHound]

ok listen, I don't want to justify Microsoft or anyone else in this but I ask myself a question ... will it be time to remodel what we think consoles are today? I will explain better ... I am aware that the change would be in this particular context negative, but it is obvious that everyone in the world of consoles is increasingly decentralizing services, saves, personal settings, security and everything else from local to remote ... I ask myself in the most naive way possible .... why do we expect consoles HAVE to work offline? there are products that even if we have paid we cannot access them without a connection and people accept it without batting an eye. Basically I wonder if this is just a problem of perception and old habits. What do you think?

I say it again ... I'm not defending what happened, I'm not doing it in any way ... I'm trying to see it from another perspective...and asking if in the balance of pros and cons those sporadic hours of inactivity are so insurmountable also compared to the advantages that sometimes go unnoticed

Some people called him a visionary, others said he was born ahead of his time and others still just said he was plain ol' mad.

 

[MonarchJT]

I'm paying 500$ for a box...and then i still pay money for a game. i have the right to be able to play that game offline when the game itself is a single player experience. It's that easy.
If my console bricks when i'm offline, then it's the day i stop buying videogame consoles.

My PS5 never gave me these headaches and i hope sony doesn't get any ideas...

i have certainly more than 500$ in movies on Google still i cannot watch them if I'm not online ...I'm probably explaining myself wrong .... is it simply a communication problem?the PS5 has other types of headache issues

 

[kingfey]

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

Microsoft’s gaming servers have been experiencing outages on-and-off since Friday…

www.videogameschronicle.com

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.

On Friday, May 6 Xbox’s Support Team first confirmed that its servers were experiencing a major outage, after users complained that they were unable to purchase or launch games, or start cloud gaming sessions.

On Saturday, the Support Team claimed it had resolved the issue, only for it to state several hours later that the issue had returned. In total, the Support Team claimed to have fixed the problem twice this weekend, only for it to seemingly return later.

Most recently, Xbox stated at 1:21am BST on Monday (8:21pm ET Sunday) that European users should no longer be encountering errors when attempting to launch games and start clouding gaming sessions.

However, at the time of publishing this story, the replies are full of users claiming they still can’t boot their purchased games.

Unsurprisingly, Xbox’s online DRM policy has been heavily criticised by users frustrated that they’ve been left unable to play their purchased games for a fourth day.

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

“They absolutely do not have them on PlayStation or Switch,” the account wrote. “Trust us we’ve tested them”.

They added: “If the PlayStation servers go down tomorrow permanently, every single player game you own will work offline almost permanently (provided console is working and account was linked). There are a tiny subset of titles that will not.





“Xbox NEEDS to fix their DRM problems. Hand waving won’t help… Nobody wins, especially Xbox fans when ALL the catalog eventually becomes inaccessible”.

The outages are potentially embarrassing for Xbox, which has historically promoted the importance of game preservation, most significantly with its extensive backwards compatibility program. The company also famously u-turned on hugely unpopular plans to require an online connection for Xbox One.

Parris Lilly, a journalist and previous host of an official Xbox event, also criticised Xbox’s DRM policy in the wake of this weekend’s server outage.

“The Xbox outages have made it clear that something needs to change with their DRM policy, games that are downloaded to my console should have a window to be offline and playable without checking in. Hopefully we get some clarity and a solution to avoid this issue again.”



The downtime again highlights the issue of preservation in the games industry, and the challenges developers face keeping their games playable in the future, should crucial services such as Xbox Live ever disappear.

Journalist Brittany Vincent argued in a VGC column that the games industry needs to increase its efforts for preserving video games, before more titles are lost to time.

 

[MonarchJT]

Some people called him a visionary, others said he was born ahead of his time and others still just said he was plain ol' mad.

oh no no pls not him ahhah

 

[Heisenberg007]

@DoesItPlay1 mentioned that Jez is incorrect in his assessment.

 

[MonarchJT]

however I think they will trivially solve this problem with a counter of a few days probably in that particular setup (family) it was not implemented

 

[kingfey]

Hope this gives pressure to MS. We need less drm.

 

[kingfey]

@DoesItPlay1 mentioned that Jez is incorrect in his assessment.

I guess does it play doesn't know about sekiro, elden ring, fifa.
Some games do require internet connection, to connect to their servers.

 

[GenericUser]

The real problem (to me) is that the option of setting the xbox console as your home console is well hidden in the menu. Microsoft should make it so, that this option is presented to you right after you first start your console, right when you setup your account. Why they don't do that is beyond me. I fail to see what they are gaining from hiding this option. Same on playstation, iirc.

 

[ParaSeoul]

I would still prefer digital.
Don't want to have loads of disc laying in my house.

 

[BigBooper]

i have certainly more than 500$ in movies on Google still i cannot watch them if I'm not online ...I'm probably explaining myself wrong .... is it simply a communication problem?the PS5 has other types of headache issues

If you bought your internet service from Google, that comparison would make sense.

Also, I don't know if you're aware, but cable tv, internet, and other service providers frequently give refunds or credits for the time their service was down.

 

[I Master l]

Is there any game that require online connection on Xbox but not other platforms ?

 

[kingfey]

Is there any game that require online connection on Xbox but not other platforms ?

No. This is just MS DRM master plan on the work.
Not to mention, the Xseries consoles suffer from smart delivery. Where you are essentially downloading digital contents from these disc based games.

MVG talked more about it.

 

[The Eradicator]

Steam's DRM works exactly the same as the Xbox's, like I said, it's a bug.
the console is ONLINE, as in Xbox Live is not down, but some of the servers had issues, and that is why it returned that message as a bug.

how is this hard to understand?

Except, if you looked in the network settings, Xbox literally had a message that popped up saying that they DID have outages on their side.
I still don't understand why some people can't simply admit that a network can go down sometimes. This is console war nonsense to pretend like Xbox never had issues this week.

 

[The Eradicator]

People who actually own Xbox were fine. People who were complaining were mostly who has no interest or own an Xbox.


/thread.

Stupidest take of the day.

 

[MonarchJT]

No. This is just MS DRM master plan on the work.
Not to mention, the Xseries consoles suffer from smart delivery. Where you are essentially downloading digital contents from these disc based games.

MVG talked more about it.

cmon lol what masterplan

 

[kingfey]

cmon lol what masterplan

 

[Doctor Hades]

I was unable to load GTA V Remastered on Xbox Series X over the weekend even though it was the campaign I wanted to play and not the online mode (which I've never bothered with). Not a great look for the Xbox, I have to say, when you cannot access single player games...

 

[Three]

I guess does it play doesn't know about sekiro, elden ring, fifa.
Some games do require internet connection, to connect to their servers.

So fifa, elden ring and sekiro require an online connection on PC and PS5 even when you've bought the game? He says "outside of xbox" only Diablo 2 and Call of Duty do this. Did you misunderstand what he said or is what you're saying accurate?
I have a hard time believing you can't play Elden ring on PC or PS5 when offline.

 

[Kssio_Aug]

So fifa, elden ring and sekiro require an online connection on PC and PS5 even when you've bought the game? He says "outside of xbox" only Diablo 2 and Call of Duty do this. Did you misunderstand what he said or is what you're saying accurate?
I have a hard time believing you can't play Elden ring on PC or PS5 when offline.

If they didn't change anything with Elden Ring you should be able to play it offline, yes. I'm totally sure you could on the previous games. Also, as far as I know, you don't need a connection at all to play Sekiro.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Everyone who parrots digital being the future always seem to be absent when things like this happen

Or, you just look at the trends and realize that this is still the future regardless of some of the negative things that come along with it. The consumers are deciding what the future is, and they are buying fewer and fewer physical games. At some point we hit the milestone where it starts to not be worth the productions costs, etc. Just like happened with PC years ago.

Regardless, here's to hoping that issues like this lead them to improve licensing procedures etc. to allow the system to absorb some small outages.

 

[Ultra Donny]

Had this problem Saturday night. The DRM implication has to change. Games you pay for should be available offline.

 

[bushwookie]

So fifa, elden ring and sekiro require an online connection on PC and PS5 even when you've bought the game? He says "outside of xbox" only Diablo 2 and Call of Duty do this. Did you misunderstand what he said or is what you're saying accurate?
I have a hard time believing you can't play Elden ring on PC or PS5 when offline.

I personally wouldn't know, but I honestly can't see how does it play would either. According to his list, he's only tested Elden Ring on PS4 and PS5.

It would seem does it play is letting his personal bias get the better of him here. He's on Twitter saying that this largely only occurs on Xbox consoles, yet when I went through his spreadsheet on a game by game basis... It shows that out of the many games he's tested, that only a very few were tested on Xbox. Elden Ring being a good example, as he tested it on PS4/PS5, but not on Xbox or PC. Furthermore, looking at his results however limited they might be. There's nothing there that would suggest it was "extremely linked to Xbox".

Mind you, I'm not saying it's not, as I really wouldn't know. But it appears he wouldn't either looking at his tests/results. What his tweets say vs what his vids and data say aren't the same.

 

[AJUMP23]

Rocket league was inaccessible for a few hours. I just played something else.

 

[sn0man]

For example without online drm gt7 would have been ruined by hackers? Our consoles would be hacked and unprotected in how long time? I say it again ... I'm not defending what happened, I'm not doing it in any way ... I'm trying to see it from another perspective...and asking if in the balance of pros and cons those sporadic hours of inactivity are so insurmountable also compared to the advantages that sometimes go unnoticed

Diablo or Diablo II (aka a long time ago) had offline saves and battle.net saves. People that wanted to play offline could without ever being bothered with online requirements. People that played online had the sanctity of no cheating if they cared.

There is no good reason to force a single player experience to have any kind of online strings attached.

I’m also not talking about single player games that do an online check for a patch and gracefully fail and say “no online found, hit A to continue looking for servers, hit b to play offline”.

It’s annoying but it doesn’t sink the game under the sanctity of “we need this game absolutely patched no matter what” standard.

 

[mckmas8808]

this is what people wanted

I'll never understand the videogame media that actually "wants" this to be our only future.

 

[sn0man]

Is there any game that require online connection on Xbox but not other platforms ?

There are multiple online checks on Xbox. To setup the console, online required. To create a profile to play games, online required. Essentially, you cannot play games on Xbox without one or more online connections and activations.

With PS5 and Switch you can play without ever connecting to the internet ever. Completely offline experience if you so choose.*

*Publishers can dictate an online to play their games. COD implemented that at some point during the life of the PS4 (another offline native console).

 

[kingfey]

So fifa, elden ring and sekiro require an online connection on PC and PS5 even when you've bought the game? He says "outside of xbox" only Diablo 2 and Call of Duty do this. Did you misunderstand what he said or is what you're saying accurate?
I have a hard time believing you can't play Elden ring on PC or PS5 when offline.

They require internet connection. Though, you can play them offline. They still require you to have internet connection for certain things.

In FIFA, you need server connection to save your data.

 

[nemiroff]

Ok, we do of course have a right to expect things to work. But what's the practical scenario here where a large part of people don't have access to the primary/home console in their houses..? IDK, just being curious.

 

[Topher]

They require internet connection. Though, you can play them offline. They still require you to have internet connection for certain things.

In FIFA, you need server connection to save your data.

Being able to play offline is the point though. Yes, "certain things" require online, but playing the game does not.

And FIFA saves your data locally.

FIFA 22 Save File Location on Windows 10 - TheNerdMag

Are you trying to find the FIFA 22 Save File on your Windows 10 PC? You can read our guide here to find it!

www.thenerdmag.com

 

[Three]

I personally wouldn't know, but I honestly can't see how does it play would either. According to his list, he's only tested Elden Ring on PS4 and PS5.

It would seem does it play is letting his personal bias get the better of him here. He's on Twitter saying that this largely only occurs on Xbox consoles, yet when I went through his spreadsheet on a game by game basis... It shows that out of the many games he's tested, that only a very few were tested on Xbox. Elden Ring being a good example, as he tested it on PS4/PS5, but not on Xbox or PC. Furthermore, looking at his results however limited they might be. There's nothing there that would suggest it was "extremely linked to Xbox".

Mind you, I'm not saying it's not, as I really wouldn't know. But it appears he wouldn't either looking at his tests/results. What his tweets say vs what his vids and data say aren't the same.

Does it play didn't mention elden ring Kingfey did. I'm not sure how accurate his list is but I'm sure it's easy for others to verify. Note that the spreadsheet list is first boot of the game too.

They require internet connection. Though, you can play them offline. They still require you to have internet connection for certain things.

In FIFA, you need server connection to save your data.

Not being able to use the online functions is one thing. That is a given when you are offline.
That is different to not being able to play an offline single player game at all due to it requiring online authentication.

This is the issue. It appears that on xbox games require an online connection to authenticate on boot and probably to send back usage data. The online games that do that on other platforms are Call of Duty and Diablo 2 which require it on all platforms.

I don't see this as a big issue because things rarely go down but Jez is spreading the bullshit with his damage control.

 

[Lognor]

https://gamerant.com/xbox-live-down-more-than-psn/ - https://www.gamebyte.com/xbox-live-vs-psn-which-one-goes-down-more/

Multiple sites have already seen this in the last 2 years that Live has on worldwide base more downtimes.



GT7 was extended maintenance because of a bug in the firmware/backend, not because of servers outage.

Both links reference the same study

But it is interesting because apparently steam is down significantly more than psn or Xbox and I never notice that. So maybe these outages truly are minimal? Sure, it gets a lot of press like even xbox is down for a few hours or gt7 is down for a few days, but in the grand scheme it's minimal, I suppose??

 

[kingfey]

Being able to play offline is the point though. Yes, "certain things" require online, but playing the game does not.

And FIFA saves your data locally.

FIFA 22 Save File Location on Windows 10 - TheNerdMag

Are you trying to find the FIFA 22 Save File on your Windows 10 PC? You can read our guide here to find it!

www.thenerdmag.com

That is where xbox drm comes to play.

The drm is why those games can't be played offline.

Also fifa needs the online function to sync your data, or update the rooster.

 

[kingfey]

Not being able to use the online functions is one thing. That is a given when you are offline.
That is different to not being able to play an offline single player game at all due to it requiring online authentication.

This is the issue. It appears that on xbox games require an online connection to authenticate on boot and probably to send back usage data. The online games that do that on other platforms are Call of Duty and Diablo 2 which require it on all platforms.

I don't see this as a big issue because things rarely go down but Jez is spreading the bullshit with his damage control.

The offline problem comes from the drm, which verifies your license, so Jez is correct.
PS and Nintendo dont have that drm, like Xbox. Which explains why their games works offline.

Remember, MS wants to stop game sharing. They are the ones who started this mess, during xbox one.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I guess does it play doesn't know about sekiro, elden ring, fifa.
Some games do require internet connection, to connect to their servers.

So fifa, elden ring and sekiro require an online connection on PC and PS5 even when you've bought the game? He says "outside of xbox" only Diablo 2 and Call of Duty do this. Did you misunderstand what he said or is what you're saying accurate?
I have a hard time believing you can't play Elden ring on PC or PS5 when offline.

You can play Elden Ring etc. on PS5 without an internet connection.

That's the difference DoesItPlay was pointing out. Jez was incorrectly claiming that third-party publishers require DRM checks and online connection as a requirement, but that is not true. The only two games that do are COD and Diablo. Other than that, there is no game that has that requirement. And that means every other game (99.9%) can be played on a PC or PS even if you are offline / no servers -- which is not the case here.

 

[Allandor]

You can play Elden Ring etc. on PS5 without an internet connection.

That's the difference DoesItPlay was pointing out. Jez was incorrectly claiming that third-party publishers require DRM checks and online connection as a requirement, but that is not true. The only two games that do are COD and Diablo. Other than that, there is no game that has that requirement. And that means every other game (99.9%) can be played on a PC or PS even if you are offline / no servers -- which is not the case here.

That is also true for xbox. Just go into "offline" mode on your home-console and playing a game shouldn't be a problem.
But yes, they should fix the problem if the services are not available correctly. They the OS should directly ask if the user want to go into offline mode or it should behave like it is in offline mode until the services are available again. Those "news" pop up from time to time because most users just don't know that there is an offline-mode.

 

[reksveks]

What's mitigation xbox?

 

[Heisenberg007]

That is also true for xbox. Just go into "offline" mode on your home-console and playing a game shouldn't be a problem.
But yes, they should fix the problem if the services are not available correctly. They the OS should directly ask if the user want to go into offline mode or it should behave like it is in offline mode until the services are available again. Those "news" pop up from time to time because most users just don't know that there is an offline-mode.

I think that's also very hit-and-miss.

 

[MonarchJT]

The offline problem comes from the drm, which verifies your license, so Jez is correct.
PS and Nintendo dont have that drm, like Xbox. Which explains why their games works offline.

Remember, MS wants to stop game sharing. They are the ones who started this mess, during xbox one.

lol it will be fixed in some day as Parris is saying giving some days before the drm kick in. is nothing big as u wanna make it look

 

[SuperSaiyanWithDreads]

Stupidest take of the day.

These ppl are so fanboyed out over companies they have no money in for dopamine in imaginary wars is so sad. The fact ppl are defending this bullshit is scary. Xbox DRM is terrible and this is coming from someone i bet have an higher gamerscore than that genius that said that