On Xbox One's Social Network, Canceled Family Share Demos

Microsoft's new Xbox One policies eliminated the alluring "family sharing" option, which allowed players in the same family to share what was assumed to be full versions of their games. A lengthy pastebin post, allegedly written by a current Microsoft employee, details that this may not be the case. It also explores an unannounced feature: Xbox Live as a social network.

Because it's an anonymous post, take it with a grain of salt -- but the details have created quite the commotion and conversation around Xbox One again.

The supposed Microsoft employee alleges that games shared between friends would be timed demos, limited to 15-45 minutes of play time before asking players to purchase the full game. Game progress would be saved, however, allowing you to pick up where the demo left off.

Speaking from a purely personal, anecdotal perspective, I heard through multiple people at developers and publishers that this is patently untrue. The understanding within the games industry, particularly during E3, was that full, entire games would be shared between friends, but wouldn't be playable at the same time by multiple people. "Developers complained about the lost sales and gamers complained about overbearing DRM that punished those who didn't share that implemented by publishers to quell gamers from taking advantage of a poorly thought out system," the employee says.

As for the social network, the purported employee says, "Each Xbox Live account would have a full 'home space' in which they could post their highest scores, show off their best Game DVR moments, what they've watched via Xbox TV and leave messages for others to read and respond to. Twitter and Facebook wouldn't be necessary, but would be optional."

That last bit is something I'm uncertain about, considering Microsoft killed both of Twitter and Facebook's social features in 2012 to "streamline" the Xbox 360 experience. Why bring them back to un-streamline Xbox One, especially if there's a built-in way to talk to everyone in your network? However, a social network within Xbox Live makes a ton of sense, and that sort of constant connectivity to your friends is something I've been waiting to see in the service for years.

This is all something we may never really understand fully, given that this discussion surrounds a feature that no longer exists. But if the social network features turn out to be true when Xbox One launches, it could lend legitimacy to the claim that family sharing wasn't as robust as we -- at IGN, you the reader, and the industry at large -- had been led to believe.

I've asked Microsoft to clarify and comment on the points made by the supposed Microsoft employee.

Will you miss the game sharing feature, even if it were limited to a demo, now that Microsoft has reversed Xbox One's connectivity strategy? And do you have an interest in an Xbox Live 'home space'?

Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor at IGN. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com