Gamers: FLAWLESS VICTORY!!

Today Microsoft shocked me and most everyone else by posting the following on Xbox.com: 

"Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.

For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.

Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One.

You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world. 

So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means: 

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360. 

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360. 

In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console -- there will be no regional restrictions. 

These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray. 

We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds. 

Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year"

 This news is awesome for everyone! The customers have made themselves heard and forced a behemoth to bend to their will. To all those who participated in the social media campaigns #PS4NoDRM and #XboxOneNoDRM, to all those who crashed the comments sections of Xbox videos so hard that MS had to shut off the comments completely, to those who responded to MS's Facebook promotions with ASCII-art middle fingers, to those who spoke with their wallets in pre-orders for non-DRM-hell consoles and spoke with their mouseclicks in online polls that embarassed Microsoft, and to those who created the educational .jpgs warning others about the awful DRM that spread like wildfire across the internet, THANK YOU!

In the face of the industry sycophants like Cliff Bleszinski and Totalbiscuit, who downplayed and/or ridiculed the efforts to fight back with social media campaigns and harsh criticisms, so many stood their ground, refused to give way to the cynicism and mockery and actually made a change. We saw it first when Sony acknowledged the NoDRM campaign and it's creator, NeoGAF's famousmortimer, in their press conference, and now after a few weeks of intense pushback Microsoft has raised the white flag and decided not to fuck it's customers over after all!

Before I close out this celebratory post, allow me to indulge in a moment of pure gloating excess:

 To all the apologists in the industry and games journalism who called the critical voices across the internet a bunch of entitled whiners, who implied that we're backwards troglodytes, that we're spoiled and that we are a loud and unimportant minority who don't amount to anything, all I can say is suck it, suck it hard motherfuckers! While you were willing to bend over and take the loss of first-sale freedoms for whatever petty reason, be it simple fanboyism, blind faith in unproven promises or licking the asses of the industry suits that give you free shit, we became an unavoidable storm that forced the corporate regime in Redmond to adapt or die. You kiss-ass shitlords lost, but the fact that you lost means you get a better and more user-friendly Xbox One than the one you would have gotten had we heeded your terrible advice to calm down and stay quiet. You can thank us later, after you've picked your egos up off the floor, but until then, YOU'RE WELCOME.