For months and months, rumors about Microsoft’s next console have revolved around the idea that it’ll be “always-online,” to the point that people have thought that the console won’t actually be able to do anything without being connected to the internet. Of course, that rumor hasn’t been backed up by anything resembling, say, EVIDENCE, but that hasn’t stopped it from gaining tons of traction and spreading like wildfire on the internets and whatnot.

But maybe this will help to pour some water on those fiery rumors: a post on Ars Technica claims to have gotten text from an in-office memo sent around to Microsoft employees discussing the forthcoming next-gen console from the company, codenamed Durango:

“Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today’s Internet […] There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should ‘just work’ regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game.”

Is this actually a memo from Microsoft? It doesn’t really sound too officially official…it also raises questions about why a memo like this would even be sent around to employees with the big Next-Box reveal event set for a couple weeks from now in Redmond…employees who are already working on the next console. Shouldn’t they know all this already?

Even still, let’s just reiterate here and now: it’s extremely unlikely that the next console Microsoft puts out will REQUIRE an internet connection to play single-player games and function and everything. The “always on, always connected” stuff from an earlier memo is almost certainly referring to features that will take advantage of stable broadband connections—such as automatic, standby updating and stuff like that.

Anyway, that’s the update. Think it’s the real deal? Or is this all just more smoke?

[Via Ars Technica]

Last week, SimCity developer Maxis held a pretty disastrous Q&A session on Reddit, in which users grilled the company relentlessly about the game’s planned always-on internet connection. Gamers hate that, and see it as little more than a sneaky way to try and avoid piracy.

Days later, though, Lucy Bradshaw from Maxis has explained what the always-on connectivity is for: the community. Because the new SimCity is the most advanced iteration of the franchise yet, Maxis is looking to find a way for one player’s city to have some impact on others’. To do that, it needs the always-on connection:

“You’re always connected to the neighbors in your region so while you play, data from your city interacts with our servers, and we run the simulation at a regional scale. For example, trades between cities, simulation effects that cause change across the region like pollution or crime, as well as depletion of resources, are all processed on the servers and then data is sent back to your city on your PC. Every city in the region is updated every three minutes, which keeps the overall region in sync and makes your decisions in your city relevant to any changes that have taken place in the region.”

That’s…actually a pretty awesome response. Even still, the folks at Kotaku point out enough reasons why the always-on connectivity is still a bad idea:

“Maxis makes a point of saying you may play SimCity solo in a private game, like Diablo III. Which had an always-on connection. […] Bottom line, we’re talking about Electronic Arts, an always-on connection, and a game utterly dependent on servers that the publisher could one day shut down. That’s enough to kick up a stink no matter what the game is, even one as loved and anticipated as SimCity.”

That’s a solid fact, too. Even though it’s a very cool idea to interconnect the different players’ cities, what gamers want are options, and they want to be able to play a video game that they pay for. If in five years SimCity tanks and EA shuts down the servers, that will punishe those gamers who did pay for a copy and want to play, regardless of whether the rest of the world has moved on. Always-on requirements are pretty much always more trouble than they’re worth, no matter how good the features they’re meant to power sound.

Maxis Blog via Kotaku

Always-online DRM—it’s the thing that pretty much every PC gamer hates with a passion, despite knowing the justifications that publishers have for using it. In the end, it’s a hassle for everyone involved, and it makes life hell for gamers with less-than-reliable internet connections.

But according to an interview on RockPaperShotgun today, apparently Ubisoft has removed their always-online DRM from their PC games—something they actually did way back in June.

Said the company’s worldwide director for online games, Stephanie Perotti:

“We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time online activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline.

Whenever you want to reach any online service, multiplayer, you will have to be connected, and obviously for online games you will also need to be online to play. But if you want to enjoy Assassin’s Creed III single player, you will be able to do that without being connected. And you will be able to activate the game on as many machines as you want.”

That’s…that’s fantastic. How great is that?

Ever since they knocked my socks off with their various awesome-looking offerings at this summer’s E3 conference (Assassin’s Creed III, ACIII Liberation, and Watch Dogs, to name only a few), I’ve been pretty impressed with what Ubisoft’s got going on. That they’re making a point of listening to customers and knocking off shit that they hate—it’s great! I’m not even a PC gamer, and I’m pretty thrilled about the move. Nicely done.

Via RPS

Fortnite, the multiplayer-focused, Minecraft-inspired, zombie-defense game from Epic Games, might implement some form of PC DRM to help combat piracy of the game. In fact, Fortnite might even go as far as the way of Diablo III – meaning you’d be required to have an Internet connection to play it.

“Fortnite is a game that’s being developed as a co-op experience primarily,” Producer Tanya Jessen mentioned to Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

“That’s our number one focus. This is a game you’re gonna want to play with your friends, and it’s most fun with your friends. So whatever we decide to do there is gonna be more relevant to the most fun experience you can have with your friends [than it is to piracy]. But I can’t nail that down today.”

While the game has been described by the folks at Epic as predominantly multiplayer, it will incorporate a single-player component as well. However, if they do intend to implement an always-on DRM restriction for the game, it’s nearly inevitable that a backlash from the player base will take place.

News that Diablo 3 would require an “always-on” internet connection seems to have stoked the fires of anger among some of the internet’s nerdliest. I never knew there was such a strong feeling about this one way or the other, but apparently id Software’s creative director Tim Willits weighed in on the issue during QuakeCon last week.

According to Willits, he foresees a bold and bright future filled with automatic game updates, free from the shackles of “clicking.” Fucking clicking.

Here, Willits paints a picture for Eurogamer of the utopia we COULD have, if only we’d imagine a little:

“Imagine picking up a game and it’s automatically updated. Or there’s something new you didn’t know about, and you didn’t have to click away. It’s all automatically there. But it does take juggernauts like [Diablo 3] to make change.”

IF ONLY WE DIDN’T HAVE TO CLICK SO MUCH YOU GUYS.

Willits believes that the ubiquitous popularity of the Diablo franchise will usher in a new age of always-on games:

“Diablo 3 will make everyone else accept the fact you have to be connected…If you have a juggernaut, you can make change. I’m all for that. If we could force people to always be connected when you play the game, and then have that be acceptable, awesome.”

To be honest, though, I still fail to see the great benefit of this strategy, based on these quotes at least. That said, I also fail to see the great tragedy that always-on net-connection brings. I mean, if you’re a PC gamer of any regularity, you have a broadband connection that is already always-on. The only real benefit I see for developers is tacked on at the end of the Eurogamer article, in which the writer reports that Ubisoft has seen a “clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection.”

Via Eurogamer