At this point, it seems like consumers just don’t know what they want from the next generation of consoles. After the venomous reaction Microsoft suffered due to the Xbox One’s stringent DRM and 24-hour check-ins, the company decided to pull away from the not-so-user-friendly policies and market the machine in a new fashion. Most people seemed happy with the fresh direction, but a new petition that’s calling for the return of all the old features tells a different tale. It started with just a thousand or so signatures, but as of this writing, more than 20,000 people have added their names to the list.
The author, David Fontenot, is asking Microsoft to bring back the Xbox One everyone was promised during E3. To him, that box was the real future of gaming consoles.
“This was to be the future of entertainment. A new wave of gaming where you could buy games digitally, then trade, share or sell those digital licenses,” the post reads. “Essentially, it was Steam for Xbox. But consumers were uninformed, and railed against it, and it was taken away because Sony took advantage of consumer’s uncertainty.”
How seriously should we take this? One of the top comments on the website gives a pretty good indication of what type of people are “supporting” Fontenot’s cause.
“I love restrictions. I want always online DRM. I want the game rental business to become obsolete. I don't want to let my friends borrow games, because fuck them,” the commenter states. “All I care about is my god damn new age console that'll blow everything else out of the water!”
Even with such a large group behind the petition, it’s highly unlikely that Microsoft would return to these policies after all the hard work its put in to restore the Xbox One’s image.
