Turns out the internet is not quite as united on the issue of DRM as we were led to believe. A fan by the name of David Fontenot has started a petition on Change.org claiming that “consumers were uninformed” during the initial outcry against the DRM policies that were announced with the new Xbox One.

To review, when the Xbox One was initially announced at E3 in June, it was also announced that the Xbox One would have to log in via internet connection every 24 hours to verify ownership. If a log in was missed, gamers would not be able to use their consoles to play games until a connection was re-established. Microsoft also talked about their game sharing and trading policies, stating that games used games could be resold, given as gifts, and even resold to retailers, but this could only be done once per game license.

And as they are wont to do, gamers got a bit upset.

After about two weeks of listening to their fans’ rage, Xbox announced that they would be repealing their DRM policies on the Xbox One, and the system would operate largely the same as the 360 does currently, with no online requirement and infinitely resell-able games. Unfortunately, along with the removal of DRM, came the loss of several features that were announced with the Xbox One, namely the ability to trade and resell digital licenses for games, and play your games on any Xbox One.

What really needs to happen here is that both parties need to step back, take a deep breath, and really look at what each side is asking for. Xbox made a serious misstep in their initial release statement by claiming that “every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection”, and not highlighting that it is the DRM policies that allowed several of their notable new features to operate. This situation exacerbated by Phil Spencer’s sarcastic claim that “We have a product for people who can’t access the internet, it’s called Xbox 360”.

The fan response could have been a little more controlled as well. Any appearance of the letters DRM these days seems to cause an immediate, visceral reaction in gamers, leading to copious quantities of “nerd rage” and not a lot of well thought out research and reasoned discussion. Perhaps a calm complaint would have elicited a more informative response from the executives at Microsoft, than the wave of outrage that was put forward.

So where do you stand on the Xbox One DRM policies? Do you want the many-featured, but DRM restricted Xbox? Or are you in the DRM free, but less innovative camp? Let us know in the comments below, or over in the forums. To check out the petition, head over to http://www.change.org/petitions/microsoft-give-us-back-the-xbox-one-we-were-promised-at-e3-2

~kemosaabi