Told you so —

Xbox One: not always on, not backwards compatible

Two big questions are addressed definitively, but some remain about secondhand sales.

Microsoft has at long last provided confirmation that its next generation console, the Xbox One, will not require an always-on Internet connection.

The company says that it will require an Internet connection at least some of the time, however. The console will use its "mostly on" Internet connection to perform system management tasks such as downloading updates in the background, backing up game saves to cloud storage, and synchronizing things like the TV shows or movies that you're watching between consoles so that you can start watching a film on one device and pick up where you left off on another.

Games will also be required to be installed to the hard disk and won't need optical media to play.

This has implications for secondhand games. Games will be tied in some way to Live IDs. If you install the game with a second Live ID, there will be some facility to pay money and use the game with that second Live ID; both IDs will then have full access to the game without needing the optical media.

That's fine for concurrent users but isn't appropriate for secondhand sales, where the original owner forfeits their right to use the game and the new owner acquires that right. Microsoft says that it has designed Xbox One to "enable customers to trade in and resell games" but won't say any more on this subject or how that will work until later in the year.

Update: Well perhaps things aren't as definitive as they seem. Wired, which had extensive early access to Microsoft and the Xbox One, states unambiguously that both people will have access to the game ("the new account would also own the game"). One of the official Xbox support accounts on Twitter, however, is saying explicitly that there will be no fees. But with Microsoft still not explaining how secondhand sales will actually work, it's difficult to know if both Wired and the Xbox support are talking about the same thing.

Update 2: It looks like they were indeed talking about different things. Kotaku is reporting that multiple people will be able to install the game from one disc, with the second and subsequent installers paying online to activate their copy. This price will be consistent with the then-current retail price. Kataku's information came from an interview with Microsoft Corporate Vice President Phil Harrison. This confirms what Wired wrote and what we originally reported. However, in addition to this, there will be some as-yet unspecified system for performing license transfers, which is to say, secondhand sales.

The new console also won't be backwards compatible with the Xbox 360. This is entirely unsurprising given the change in processor architecture. Software emulation of the Xbox 360's three core, six thread, 3.2 GHz PowerPC processor on an eight core, x86 processor expected to run at around 2GHz is technically unfeasible.

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