Microsoft Slowly Fixing 'Broken' DRM?
Possibly. I know I would like to see a solution to this. My Xbox 360 was visited by the RROD specter around this time last year and, since then, I can only play my Arcade titles while online and only on my profile. That sucks as my boyfriend would very much like to play the games I bought on his profile, too. Anyways, let me get to the story at hand.
A while back, a reader of The Consumerist had his tale of DRM woe about his Xbox 360 on their website. Fast forward to today and someone else with the same issue has finally had it resolved. Apparently, Microsoft's crack support team needs to go through the "lengthy" process of re-licensing the content to the Xbox 360 as serial numbers may have changed (as is the case with mine since it had to be replaced) and have you re-download the content. As a result, your DRM issues have been fixed. Here's a part of what reader Starsmore has to say:
Lo and behold, it works. And I don't even have to delete the old content. Just go under Account Management, then Download History, find the content and choose the "Download Again" option, and there it is, available for use online, offline, and on any GamerTag on the console.
Perhaps I should make a call this evening and see if the issue can be resolved for me as well. Are you going to give this a try?
UPDATE: Microsoft May Slowly Be Fixing Their Broken XBOX DRM [The Consumerist]
Super Timsy
Posted to Video Games on 26 March 2008
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: drm, microsoft, xbox 360, xbox live, xbox live arcade
i had a huge problem with this... and calling customer support at xbox was a nightmare! my boyfriend bought an xbox live account just so he could play catan and some other xbox live arcade games... well then my xbox died and i sent it in and he could no longer play them... they (customer support at 1-800-4-MYXBOX) even told me on the phone that if he wanted to play those games he would have to buy them himself... which doesn't make sense at all! they never understood that the game was bought for that console and any owners on it... and they thought if any other player wants to play a game on that same console they would have to buy it themselves o_O; yeah it was a nightmare... but they just now fixed it (about a month ago) its just a pain that now i have to redownload all my xbox live arcade games... and i have quite a few... but at least its "fixed"
While I'm lucky in that I have not experienced my Xbox 360 breaking, I am thinking of getting a new console (one with HDMI) because my TV doesn't support VGA input and while component video works great for games, my understanding is that HD DVDs can't be displayed in their full resolution over it. My concern is that if I get a new console, what will happen to my downloaded games and other content? I don't want to have to be online to access it, and I would like other users of my system to be able to access it. Does anyone have any information on this kind of situation? Would I have to call up customer support and ask them to re-authorize the content for the new system? Thanks a bunch for any info on the subject.
They fixed mine a few weeks ago and yet this is the first news article I have read on the subject.
Ms has been very crappy on the whole thing. And telling people to get another gold account is a rip.
We had this same problem. Our 360 crapped out in October '07, it came back quickly (less than 3 weeks, as I recall), but it took over 3 months of my partner hounding Microsoft for us to get the Live games bought under his account playable by other users. (I was jonesin' to finish Puzzle Quest but couldn't play it even when my partner was logged in, a workaround that was effective for the other Live games we'd bought.) As many of you know, their customer service is awful: they repeatedly provided misinformation, failed to follow up as they assured us they would, etc. Interestingly, they finally fixed it a couple weeks after my partner submitted a lengthy, detailed complaint to the Better Business Bureau. I don't know if that kicked them into action, or whether it took 3-4 months for us to finally rise to the top of the queue. Grrrrrr...