Xbox One trade-ins keeping it old school

Microsoft has hinted that some of the Xbox One’s less controversial DRM features may return, including family sharing, after people have ‘calmed down’.

According to Xbox director Albert Penello the ability to trade and loan digital games on the Xbox One will make a return at some point, despite the controversy over 24 hour check-ins having precipitated the original spate of U-turns.

‘We were trying to implement the ability to trade [and] loan digital games with your friends which is something that no one else was doing,’ Penello told GameSpot.

‘I believe, in retrospect that people have calmed down and gone back and actually looked at what we said, people are starting to understand, ‘Wow, they did want actually to allow me to loan and trade’ which other digital ecosystems don’t want to do. And so, yeah, I think we need to do that.’




When Microsoft reversed its policies it also cancelled plans for a number of far less controversial features, including the ability to share your games with a small group of nominated friends and family.

‘I get a lot of mails saying ‘god, please bring back the family sharing.’ We’d love to figure out how to bring that back. I still think it was a good idea,’ says Penello.

‘Maybe it was a little too soon for some people, but I still think there were a lot of good ideas in there. And we’ll bring it back when the time is right.’

At the same Microsoft in the US has revealed a scheme to upgrade Xbox 360 to Xbox One games for just $9.99. We asked Microsoft in the UK if they’d have a similar promotion and this was their response: ‘This is currently a US promotion. We have not announced any plans for expansion to the UK.’

The problem is likely to be that the US system revolves around visiting a Microsoft Store, which don’t really exist in the UK.

Microsoft could try and adapt the system to work through other means, but with GAME already offering £10 deals on three of the biggest Christmas games they may feel there’s no point.

Sony was the first to talk about such a scheme, at Gamescom last month, but are still yet to provide any details on their scheme – which will see the pricing dictated by publishers.

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