A group of hardcore Microsoft fans are petitioning the platform holder to go back to the original iron-fisted DRM policies for the Xbox One, and deliver the consumer rights destroying, Internet required, next-gen console that was announced prior to E3.
David Fontenot is heading up the Xbox One pro-DRM campaign on Change.org, describing his goals for the petition as follows:
“This was to be the future of entertainment. A new wave of gaming where you could buy games digitally, then trade, share or sell those digital licenses. Essentially, it was Steam for Xbox. But consumers were uninformed, and railed against it, and it was taken away because Sony took advantage of consumers uncertainty.”
“We want this back. It can’t be all or nothing, there must be a compromise… Give us back the Xbox One we were promised at E3”
The petition to restore the restrictive Xbox One DRM policies is (unsurprisingly) not taking off anywhere near as fast as NeoGAF’s #PS4NoDRM campaign, but it is amazing to see the number of people who are actively lobbying for an end to their ownership rights.
At any rate, I’m somewhat excited to see where this misguided Xbox One petition ends up. That’s not to say that I want the abusive DRM console that Microsoft first announced (I absolutely do not), but I would love to witness the marketing/PR disaster that would erupt across the Internet if there was a second policy reversal. That would be something truly worthy of sitting down to watch with a bucket of popcorn!
