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Mandatory game installation required for all games; second install on separate Live account sits behind paywall

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Individual games will be tied to Xbox Live accounts, Microsoft said, meaning that the software giant can detect whether a game has been sold to a retailer and repurchased, or handed from one friend to another. In such instances, the second user must pay a fee.

"On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play," a Microsoft representative told Wired.

The company added that, once discs are installed on the hard drive, games can be played without a disc being in the tray.

The Wired article then elaborates: "What follows naturally from this is that each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Since this is clearly not going to happen, each disc must then only install for a single owner."

It added: "Microsoft did say that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc."

Microsoft did not disclose what the second-user fee would amount too, and did not clarify further on the matter.

The article claims that there is no sweeping 'always-online' requirement for future Xbox One games.

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Sony this past week has been teasing us with a lot of things, from the PS4 hardware to obscure gameplay from unannounced titles. Sony Japan’s recently released trailer for a game seemingly titled “Panopticon” left a lot of buzz in the PS Vita community, especially with the system in dire need of the next hit game.

There is no word as of yet on what the gameplay will be like, but we do know that it will be a multiplayer action game of some kind as revealed through the description of the video. There is a numbers system involved which seems to indicate how long a person has left to live, but there is no confirmation of this as of yet.

Freedom Wars, although no full description was given, can have it’s plot somewhat pieced together by watching the trailer. The game takes place in/around Japan, and involves a futuristic society that is crumbling for whatever reason. There is a numbers system, as mentioned earlier, that counts down when ever someone gets injured. This leads us to believe that the numbers represent either a health system or the length of someone’s life. A special police force of sorts, with the ability to see this number, can be seen in the trailer hunting down specific people and capturing them.

The game’s website has released three screenshots, although none of them really say much other than implying a potential third person shooter style game. There are several blackened out screenshots that read “UNVEIL: 5-23-13″ or the same thing with later dates. The three screenshots each have a word written to the side, reading Imprisonment, Recapture, and War. This gives us further insight into a potential story for Freedom Wars.

Freedom Wars is being developed by Sony’s Japan Studio, the same people responsible for games like Patapon, Locoroco, and Gravity Rush. It seems that they are particularly interested in making handheld games, so there is plenty of promise involved in this announcement.

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