Xbox One will require users to pay a fee to play second-hand games on the console, Microsoft has confirmed. Speaking with Wired, a Microsoft representative said that all Xbox One games will be installed to the system’s hard drive to be played without the disc inside the system.
The game disc is then registered to a user’s Xbox Live account, tying that copy of the game to a single user.
Microsoft added that a second user could still install the game from a second-hand disc, but there would be an activation fee to install and register the game to an additional Xbox Live account.
Microsoft also confirmed to The Verge that Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games.
“The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compatible doesn’t really work from that perspective,” Microsoft Xbox Live vice president Marc Whitten said.
Xbox One was announced at a recent Microsoft event, billing the system as an all-in-one console for gaming and home entertainment.
The system will include a next-generation Kinect sensor, which can record video at 1080p and 60 frames per second.
Xbox One will launch later this year worldwide, with no exact date or price set at this time.
This is a huge victory to Sony right here. I think Xbox has miscalculated how many friends lend discs to each other – not to mention its a huge step in the wrong direction for digital ownership.