Early Kinect Games Kill Buyers' Access To Xbox Live 111
Stoobalou writes "Microsoft's Kinect motion controller isn't due to ship until November 4th, but one retailer has jumped the gun, leaving a number of gamers with a bit of a quandary. The un-named distributor has sent what Microsoft describes as 'a very small number' of Kinect systems to lucky buyers who might not consider themselves quite so lucky if they try to use the device and its bundled games. Installing the games will require a firmware upgrade, which is nothing out of the ordinary, but in this case the upgrade hasn't yet been released. Attempting to install the non-existent update seems to fool the console into thinking you are trying to play a pirated game and locks the user out of Microsoft's Xbox Live on-line service."
Re:Just another reason (Score:5, Informative)
Although the summary and linked article blame DRM (and I'm not one to defend that restrictive crap), the original joystiq article [joystiq.com] implies that it's just grabbing an incomplete update which doesn't have proper Xbox Live support yet. Nothing to do with DRM or copyright, simply that MS haven't set up a final version of the new firmware yet because they thought they had another few days to do so.
Re:Just another reason (Score:2, Informative)
This isn't an anti-piracy measure, it's to keep people from using beta firmwares before Microsoft officially releases them. The Kinect firmware in question was given to a few 10,000 or so who signed up for the update preview program. Xbox Live will not let you sign in on a console with beta firmware unless your gamertag is registered as part of the update program.
In fact, during the NXE update program, they warned users not to swap saves or profiles between then-current FW consoles and ones running the NXE prerelease firmware. Since Xbox firmware updates are stored to all storage media, it would spread the prerelease firmware to the other console, locking your friend out of Xbox Live (unless he was accepted to the program).
Aside from this, Xbox Live does *not* enforce street dates. Xbox Live only bans for piracy (or stealing betas, like what happened with the Halo 3 Epsilon), if you have a legitimate disc than you won't be punished even if you got it earlier than what the publisher wanted you to.
Re:Just another reason (Score:4, Informative)
Questionable conclusion in summary (Score:4, Informative)
Attempting to install the non-existent update seems to fool the console into thinking you are trying to play a pirated game
It's likely that the XBox update is working properly, but the production servers aren't set up to communicate with the new firmware yet. Unless the affected systems don't start working properly on the release date, this is just dumb antimicrosoftism.
Re:Just another reason (Score:1, Informative)
Actually it has nothing to do with that. The original story got it wrong. What happens is the disk starts the firmware update (pretty standard--think of all the games that try to install direct x when you install them for example). But what happens is the update starts, then it looks online for part 2 of the update. Part 2 of the update has not been uploaded to the xbox live servers quite yet, so the update fails midway. The difference is in this case that there's no way to undo the update you've started, so as far as the xbox can tell, you haven't updated your console completely which you need to have to play online.
Most online games on the PC require you to play using the same version as everyone else, no different here.
Re:Just another reason (Score:3, Informative)
There are even opensource multiplayer games and they work fine too.
Re:Oh Noes... (Score:1, Informative)
You'd be wrong actually - there have been a number of high-profile street-date-broken events in recent years, some from smaller retailers that don't like all the attention GameStop et al get, and some from retailers that have employees that just screw up. Just Google "street date broken" and you'll see a long list of events.