Microsoft famously backtracked on its previous plans to put in restrictive DRM policies on Xbox One games this summer. However, concerns that Microsoft is planning to put in new DRM restrictions surfaced over the weekend, in part due to the experience of one person who got his Xbox One earlier than Microsoft"s Nov. 22 launch date.
André Weingarten, a student from New York state, was able to play a disc copy of "Call of Duty: Ghosts" offline in campaign mode, even though his Xbox One was banned from connecting to the Internet, over the weekend. However, he later discovered he was unable to play the game at all.
Just a quick update, with my temporary console ban in place, I CANNOT play Ghosts offline. It requires online, and the ban prevents Live.
— #1 Source 4 XBOX ONE (@Moonlightswami) November 11, 2013
Microsoft Xbox executive Albert Penello later posted on the NeoGAF message boards that this was not a sign of a new DRM game policy for the Xbox One, but simply a consequence of the fact that the company is still not ready to debut the console to the public. He stated, "His build is now old. This is why we were saying we didn"t want people on early - it"s not done yet." He added, "When we launch, console will work exactly as you expect today on 360."