Microsoft defends Xbox One gaming and licensing restrictions

Having come under fire from various quarters Microsoft has felt it necessary to defend its stance on pre-owned Xbox One games and online access by further clarifying the proposed restrictions.

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In a recent press release the company states that the Xbox One is "designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends". Although Microsoft insists that no fees are chargeable for games transfers this is unlikely stop further criticism as they also reveal that you can only give games to users that have been on your friends list for at least 30 days, and each game can only be given once.

Additional concerns relate to Microsoft's proposal that the devices will remain permanently online and they have confirmed that gaming will not be possible if the console has been offline for more than 24 hours.

Microsoft attempts to justify this by claiming that it is required to verify if games or application updates are needed, but also adds that it permits users to play cloud based games on other people's consoles.

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Whether this is enough to assuage public concerns regarding apparently ever increasing Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions remains to be seen.

The full Microsoft press release regarding pre-owned gaming restrictions is available here and the section on online networking requirements here.

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