Xbox One Petition Arises To Bring Back DRM Restrictions. Wait, What? [Op-Ed]

There is a new Xbox One petition at Change.org to bring back Microsoft’s restrictive DRM policies.

I wish I was making that up. Someone actually wants to have their Xbox One to require an “always on” internet connection to check in and have their games verified every day. Someone actually wants to pay an extra fee to share used games and be limited to only letting a friend borrow it once. Can you believe this?

The Xbox One petition reads:

“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.”

Yes, you read that right. Change.org petitioner David Fontenot of Georgia thinks that Microsoft’s “vision of the future” was a good thing for gamers, and is accusing Sony of encouraging ridicule and eventually eliminating it. It’s called a console war, and Microsoft was already losing, and now he wants to bring back the one thing that, once reversed, flooded used game stores with pre-orders for the Xbox One. Apparently a positive response is something negative to this petitioner.

You should really check out some of the comments on this petition, such as a recent favorite, “[I’ll] sign to help [PS4] so we have no stupid people on the same console as me.”

Apparently David Fontenot wants the Xbox One that Microsoft showed us at E3 2013. Well, I have an idea.

Microsoft, I’d like to ask a favor of my own. Go ahead and give him what he wants, him and all of his fellow Xbox One petitioners, but only give it to them. The rest of us will enjoy the freedom of trading used games and not needing to go online to “check in” and make our games playable after we’ve paid for them.

I’m hoping Microsoft isn’t actually taking the Xbox One petition seriously, or the PlayStation 4 has already won this console war. Then again, thousands of pre-orders following the policy reversal sounds a lot like money being made, and money talks.

What do you think of this Xbox One petitioner? Does he have a point, or should he just stop while he’s ahead?