Internal Microsoft email: Next Xbox will work even when your Internet doesn’t

Assuming this is even a real email which is already a substantial assumption, and assuming the text of it is accurate, I don't think this is as much of a denial of the general idea as the article suggests.<p>As quoted in the article, the email says: "Durango [the codename for the next Xbox] 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."<p>There's more than enough weasel-room in there (and even some supporting evidence via usage of the phrases "tolerant" and "current connection status") for a system that doesn't require <i>always-on</i> but does require <i>periodically-on</i>, which is something that has been seen on some PC games. So you don't need to be online 100% of the time, if your connection drops for an hour, fine, but if you haven't talked to the mothership in 3 days or whatever now you're locked out.<p>Anyway, at this point anything said is just speculation and rumor and there's not much to discuss until they make official announcements.

The promoted comment at the bottom makes a good point. It seems like this could be a recent change in direction. While it's <i>possible</i> that this was the intention all along (but Microsoft was intentionally or unintentionally vague with employees at various levels, and sent out this email to get rid of rumors), this seems an unlikely scenario.

If true, its nice to see that Microsoft actually cares about what gamers want. They could easily force players into some crazy DRM, and while it would piss off a lot of people and the interwebs would explode, they would probably make more money (at least in the short term).<p>Conversely, companies like EA seem to honestly not care about anything but the bottom line. They might pay lip-service to caring about their customers, but their actions reflect that they just want revenue by any means necessary. Eventually I think this will bite these companies in the ass, revenue is always a lagging indicator of success.

I find it hard to believe that anybody actually thought that Microsoft was going to build a console with a built-in PR disaster. There never was a statement from Microsoft about this, only 'consistent rumors'. I have a feeling that this is just news because news sites need controversy to drive page views.

This is just a rumor and should be flagged and have it's title changed to add the [RUMOR] decorator. At this point Microsoft has not officially said anything regarding this.

While the internal email does indicate that players will be able to play offline, it does not indicate if the games themselves will be tied to a account like Steam games.<p>We will have to see if Microsoft will allow the used games market to continue, or if it will be killed like many publishers want.

I wonder what the motivation was to communicate this to employees now (knowing it would "leak"), versus just waiting until their event on 5/21. The rumor has been widespread for a while now, and I don't think two more weeks would have done much damage.

It's utter idiocy if they don't do this.<p>'nuff said.

The article leaves out another rumor that the new Xbox will have 3 settings and developers can chose which to use. 1) Always Online 2) Activate Online 3) No restrictions

YAY!<p>Free single-player games for everyone!