Microsoft Disingenous About Daily Check-in Reversal?
We run a tournament weekly at Eight on the Break in Dunellen, NJ. Recently we added Killer Instinct to the lineup of games we play every Tuesday night (which gets stream at
http://twitch.tv/8wayrun). However, we had an experience last week that greatly questions how committed Microsoft actually is to the reversal of their daily check-in policy they initially announced a few months ago.
Since Eight on the Break is a small arcade, we actually depend on players to help bring in consoles and games for us to play on. Two people each week bring in their Xbox Ones for us to run the Killer Instinct tournament. One of the players had played Killer Instinct that morning, and we had no issues using his console.
The other player had not played Killer Instinct that day; in fact he had not turned his Xbox One on at all. When we tried to boot up Killer Instinct on his console (which was NOT connected to the internet), we got a warning stating that the license for the game had expired. Really? It had expired after a little over 24 hours? Was Microsoft really still enacting the whole daily check-in policy for downloadable games?
So we connected the console to the internet... only to realise that either Microsoft's or Double Helix's patch/license servers were down. Booting into the game would stall at a screen stating "Checking downloadable content"; and it would remain there and never advance. Checking in with hundreds of stream viewers who were watching live, they too confirmed that they could not play Killer Instinct due to this error.
Because of this, we were stuck running our tournament at a slow pace on only a single console. This issue confirms two things for me: that the 24 hour check-in is still in place for digital content, and that if the internet goes down in your area, there may be a chance you will no longer be able to play your downloaded games.
I am also aware that is exactly how it worked on the Xbox 360 as well. Without connecting to the internet, you could not play some of your games. Last year during Hurricane Sandy, we lost internet for a week... and I spent the entire time on my PS3, playing video games. It seems that with the Xbox One, this will not be possible.
This issue is especially problematic for larger tournament organizers. Many tournament organizers will have 20+ consoles in storage, used strictly for tournaments. For a 3 day event, tournament organizers will have to spend extra time every morning, renewing their licenses, for games they already own, during their already busy schedule.
... its a double edged sword
