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Microsoft announced today the impending departure of Chief Product Officer and Corporate Vice President of Xbox Marc Whitten. Marc has been with Microsoft since 2000, and has been on …
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Microsoft has apparently been listening to the chorus of press and gamer voices denouncing the current state of digital downloads on its next-gen Xbox One console. Xbox Community Manager Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb yesterday revealed in a Reddit thread discussing Titanfall digital download release times that his company plans to improve the situation — eventually.

“A better digital experience is on the roadmap.” wrote Hryb. “Preloads, unlock by time zone etc. are all things we want to roll out for Xbox One. Those features are simply not available yet.”

Some Xbox One owners residing in timezones running ahead of Pacific Standard Time have expressed their dismay at having to wait until the clock strikes midnight on the West Coast prior to being able to download Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall onto their consoles. The game will not be available digitally until the wee hours of the morning for many, while it can be purchased at brick and mortar retail stores at 12:01 am local time at participating midnight release stores throughout North America.

In addition, the Xbox One does not provide gamers with the option to pre-purchase and pre-download games to their consoles over Xbox Live, a feature that’s been made available for games on rival digital distribution platforms such as Steam, Origin and the PlayStation Network. Microsoft temporarily displayed a message on Titanfall‘s Xbox Games Store stating that the ability to pre-download would be made available for the game, but it removed the message shortly after and stated that it was posted in error.

Hryb stated in yesterday’s Reddit thread that there is currently no time frame available for when the Xbox One’s digital experience will be upgraded to include pre-downloading and other heavily requested features. He said that the public will learn more about the new digital experience “as soon as [Microsoft has] the proper story to tell.”

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This isn’t a new argument; it’s been made before. Chances are high that you’ve made it yourself once or twice. Recent events, however, warrant revisiting it. Microsoft teased us all last week with a feature that the Xbox One should have had at launch. It told us that we’d all have the ability to do on Xbox One what we’ve enjoyed doing on digital distribution platforms like Steam and Origin for years: pre-purchase and pre-download a game prior to its release. Then, in a move that felt like some sort of cruel joke, Microsoft took it all back.

Just kidding, you guys

“Whoops, our bad. Sorry if you got excited, but we’re not actually going to let you do that thing we said we’d let you do that we know you want us to let you do,” Microsoft said in a statement after removing the pre-download option for first-person shooter Titanfall.

OK, no, it didn’t actually say that — but it might as well have. Here’s what Microsoft actually told told Polygon of its blunder: “The pre-purchase offer page was posted in error. We apologize for any confusion.”

The Xbox.com page for Titanfall, which releases on March 11, temporarily had the digital pre-download option that has been so conspicuously absent from digital Xbox purchase pages to date. It was quickly removed, and now Microsoft is apologizing for dangling that carrot out there before yanking it back and locking it away. Polygon captured the official explanation for how pre-downloading on Xbox would work before Microsoft “fixed the glitch.”

Pre-purchase: You will be charged the full price immediately for this pre-purchase. Xbox One game expected to release on March 11th, 2014. You may download the game from Xbox Live before then, but it will not be playable until after 12:01 AM PST on the release date in your country.

For a brief time, at least, it looked like gaming digitally on Xbox was now going to be a little bit more like gaming digitally on PC. It looked like it was going to have something that has become so commonplace in PC gaming that it’s no longer a value-added feature; it’s an expected part of the service that is taken for granted. Unfortunately, unlike those freewheeling distributors of digital PC games, Microsoft has interests other than its own to consider.

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There was a time when playing a single-player game meant playing alone and playing a multiplayer game meant mandatory exposure to the (often annoying or offensive) thoughts of random players on the other end of Xbox Live. That time ended during the last console generation thanks to an Xbox Live feature that caused many to pick Xbox 360 over PlayStation 3 as their choice system for multiplatform games: party chat.

Fixing the problem

The introduction of party chat to the Xbox Live equation was a game changer. No longer did the desire to play an online multiplayer game mean that players would — almost without fail — be subjected to nonstop barrages of insults streaming into their ears from other players. No longer was getting into a game with friends and communicating with them while playing a hassle. No longer was it necessary to remember to inform friends how cool that single-player game you were playing was and why it was so cool after you played it. Up to seven of your friends were now right there with you in a party, and nobody else was getting in the door without you first putting their name on the guest list. You now had your own private party, and damn if it wasn’t fun.

So improved is the party chat experience over the only option that preceded it (chatting with random individuals) that I now refuse to play online multiplayer games without first entering into a private party. Even when no one on my friends list is available to play I still start my own private party, just to keep the cacophony of the internet’s worst amateur comedians and trash talkers out of my ears. The multiplayer experience is exponentially improved thanks to Xbox Live party chat, and, until very recently, no other home console has been able to compete with it.

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The latest title update for Xbox One game Killer Instinct was released recently and includes numerous fixes, updates and new character details for the next-gen fighting game. Changes have …
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Microsoft have vowed to help disappointed Xbox One owners whose consoles have arrived broken. Faults include noisy and broken Blu-ray disk drives that in the worst case scenario will …
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Dear Xbox 360,

Where to begin? How do you start something like this? Is there any “right” way to do it? I don’t think there is. Maybe by saying that I’m sorry? Yeah, a sincere apology feels right. It’s not the type of sincerity you express at the end of a cover letter to someone you’ve never met in your life and couldn’t possibly have sincere feelings for, mind you; it’s the kind that means something, as you have meant much to me these past eight wonderful years. I know I’m rambling now, but this isn’t easy for me. What I’m trying to say is, I sincerely apologize, Xbox 360. I’m sorry, but it’s time to move on. It’s not you, but it’s not me, either — it’s that dark temptress known as the next generation.

Know that we now head down different paths not necessarily because of some sort of monumental “paradigm shift,” but rather because it is simply the way of things. This is how it has to be, and we both knew this day was coming the morning I brought you home from Best Buy after waiting in line overnight for somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 hours. It was cold, and it was raining. I had to take time off from the crummy Postal Service job I was working at the time to do it, but I did it for you, and, given the chance, I’d do it all over again.

Do you remember that morning? You were sitting cozily inside the heated store; you didn’t know me yet, but I was sitting on the pavement with four or five layers of clothing on when it happened. The man in the blue shirt and yellow name tag got to my point in the line, and he gave me ticket number 41 — out of 42. I was both relieved and horrified all at once. My efforts to brave the elements would not go to waste. I would take a shiny new Xbox 360 home with me that day. I would take you home, but, truth be told, you weren’t the one I wanted. Sorry again, but I had eyes for another.

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In a post over at PlayXBLA, the first Xbox One TV ad was shown, and for an advertisement released first in the American TV market, it has a distinct …
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As was first reported by Kotaku, YouTube personality and college freshman “Moonlight Swami,” (real name Andre Weingarten) pre-ordered the next-generation Xbox One console from Target and surprisingly received it …
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UPDATE: We spoke briefly with a Microsoft Spokesperson. The official comment is: “On Xbox One games are games. All games follow the same policies for achievements and Gamerscore.”

Evidence has recently …
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