Today in an official blog post Microsoft’s President of Interactive Entertainment Business Don Mattrick rolled back the Xbox One’s controversial Digital Rights Management (DRM) Policies. You can read the official blog post here. If you did not hear about the policies you can watch our E3 reaction videos in which we slam Microsofts poor decisions.

Why Did This Happen

As much as this has to do with the consumer feedback that Xbox has been recieving it has to do much more with the mass media reporting on Xbox’s poor handling and explanations of their choices. When Jimmy Fallon bashes the Xbox One on National Television, when Amazon pre-orders for the PS4 outpace the Xbox One and Microsofts confusing message is being broadcast everywhere on the internet you get a snowball effect of bad PR. This is what led us to this rollback on their policies.

The Good

Gamers be proud, we proved we will not go quietly into submission when a giant corporation tries to strongarm us into how we game. Gaming for many gamers offers a sense of freedom and Microsoft’s DRM policies endangered that freedom. These policies are gone, EA’s online pass is no more. This is important, and not something we should take lightly. It has become clear that the gaming community now speaks and is heard. We now have proven that if we can speak together along with the media expressing one unanimous point of view corporations will bend, policies will change and ..they will make The Last Guardian.

The Bad

This may end up damaging Microsoft despite it helping the Xbox One. That may sound anomalous in nature but hear me out. While this may help those looking to support the Xbox and thus lead to sales, this to a much larger extent shows a major weakness in Microsoft. It shows that they did not understand their audience, they were not prepared to handle criticism, they were not serious about their decisions or justifications. It lowers consumer confidence in Microsoft as an organization. Don Mattrick himself claimed these policies were implemented with the long run in mind and that this was not a sprint. But by changing their policies in the short run they are further adding confusion to the minds of the consumers.

This may lead to a slight increase in sales for Xbox One, this may be phase one of damage control for Microsoft. However I think some of the damage that has been done cannot be reversed. Although, backpedaling shows an immediate response to consumer demands I find it hard to believe that Microsoft did not know this is how the gaming community would respond. They presented their policies with a certain air of smugness and it did not meet their expectations and now they have changed their plans. Sony came out and from day one of the PS4 reveal talked about how they are for the gamer. Microsoft already knew this is not what gamers wanted but presented it anyway. Now they flipping the switch before the console has even released which goes to show that they are not listening to the community or the gamers they are worshipping the almighty dollar.