Microsoft revealed earlier today that it's bowing to pressure from some parts of the gaming community and changing its policies regarding used games and mandatory internet connectivity on the Xbox One. While these changes will appease some, they certainly won't please everyone, with some features being dropped as a result of the revised policies.
While the requirement for the console to check in online at least once every 24 hours has been dropped, Xbox One buyers will still need to connect the web the first time they use their console. IGN spoke with Microsoft's Marc Whitten earlier today, who confirmed that users will need to download and install a required update at first launch.
"There was always going to be a day one update on the console," said Whitten, "and that's frankly just a difference in manufacturing schedules versus software schedules. We just wanted to be clear that that hasn't changed, that you have to go online to get the software for day one, then you wouldn't have to be connected after that."
While Whitten didn't reveal details of just what the update might include, or how large it might be, he did say that any web connection will do. In response to an enquiry about whether users will be able to download their update through smartphone tethering, he replied: "Sure. Any way that you can get connectivity to the Live service would enable that to come down to the console."
He added that Microsoft considers that that won't be an issue for the majority of customers: "We believe that most people, frankly, are going to continue to take advantage of the connected state and all that comes with it."
Whitten also noted that Microsoft hasn't changed its stance on Kinect, and that the Xbox One will still require the sensor in order to play games. "We still believe Kinect is a really critical part of the architecture," he said. "We think it changes the way you can interact with your experiences... and we want game and interactive entertainment creators to be able to know they can take advantage of it, and we want it to be completely consistent for our users. So we still are very comitted to how Kinect transforms that experience."
Source: IGN | Images via Microsoft
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