: Actually, the periodic-phone-home DRM is the main reason I consider the full
: sharing thing even remotely plausible. There is no way publishers would
: be okay with 10 consoles being even loopholeishly able to do funny
: business like install a game, go offline, and play indefinitely. But
: things that can effectively behave like discounts? Plausible to an extent;
: DRM can reduce prices.

I always wonder why people assume such obvious exploits of a system were never considered by the developer. These guys make worlds out of bits, and you don't think they can't figure out how to develop a timer for borrowed titles? I don't think you'd have ever been able to do such a thing. And certainly playing borrowed titles would justify, for me as a customer, a periodic connection. However, that's sort of the point...

: What really wouldn't make sense, I think, is an always-online DRM system
: that gave no benefit to the player. There'd have to be some sort of
: compromise to make it attractive over something like the current digital
: download model, which already does a good job of preventing game sharing.
: The way the system was structured had to be there to counterbalance
: something new, otherwise there'd be no purpose for it.

Microsoft did nothing to sell the customer on the benefit of the 24-hour check-in. They didn't tell you what it actually afforded you that couldn't be done without it.