'Xbox engineer' reveals details about Xbox One's revoked always-online features

In the wake of Microsoft making a complete U-turn with the Xbox One’s DRM policies, a self-professed “Xbox Engineer” has taken to Pastebin to air his grievances with the company’s decision. He talks about all of the features that were going to be added to the console in due time if Microsoft hadn’t redacted its always-online stance with the Xbox One.

According to the engineer, one of the best new features of the Xbox One was Family Sharing, where you could set your Xbox One games to be part of a shared library that could then be accessible by anyone you deem to be family, regardless of where they are in the world. When your family played the shared game, it would actually be a special demo mode where they could play it for a limited amount of time—between 15 to 45 minutes. When the time limit was up, the player would automatically be taken to the online store page for the game where they could buy it.

Microsoft had apparently planned a lot of features

There would also be some social networking features on the console. According to the engineer, “The motto around the offices for the family plan was ‘It’s the console gaming equivalent to spotify and pandora’ it was a social network within itself!” Each Xbox One account would have a “home space” that acted like its own social networking feed. This is where users could post their screenshots, details about what game they’re playing and game DVR moments.

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The engineer ends his rant by repeating Xbox executive Don Mattrick’s earlier statement: “For people who don’t want these amazing additions, like Don said we have a console for that and it’s called Xbox 360.”