Judging by all the forum posts and the #XboxWon(s) i'm seeing afloat, it would appear that by lifting their highly-controversial Xbox One DRM policies, Microsoft has caused one of biggest, knee-jerking turn-arounds I've ever seen. As I've said for quite some time, I'm sure MS could easily revoke any of their policies, at least since the console was designed around the Cloud, and you would have to be flexible as that technology grows and changes. This is already a sign that they've thought ahead...

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

Following rants from Xbox fans around the world and even our very own military, whom can't always get access to the internet overseas, REQUIRING connection was absolutely detrimental to them and Xbox One sales. And with that, the next logical change:

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.

Alright, so even though this is a good thing ( to some), it has to be done since they revoked the requirements to always be online. Microsoft had originally planned for the XBO to make a slow and gradual shift to digital distribution (be more like Steam approach), which is why it needed a 24-hour phone call anyways: to make sure you weren't just downloading your game on everyone's console illegally.

The ultimate question now is what's going to happen to their family-share plan and the ability to use your games anywhere you want? It's quite possible they could still be using a 1-time code check-in system, much like most PC games use today. Buy once, punch serial key once. The digital sharing of games however, was one of their biggest, albeit also one of their worst, selling points since people who don't mind The Xbox One did like the idea of sharing and using their games anywhere they please, being account-based and all. I wonder if MS has an answer to the people who actually enjoyed the old policies... Perhaps, have both re-instated as a choice to the consumer? Mmm... Probably not.

Of course, what's stopping Microsoft from re-enabling the old features nobody liked? Well, nothing really, but we simply have to hope they won't revoke any plans without reason. For now, we're still in the "so how's this going to work now?" phase. They already said it'll work like the 360, which has been fine for 7 years. The 360 even works like the original Xbox, nothing new, really. Come Xbox One and I guess any attempt at trying something new was shot down. Perhaps they needed to rethink their digital plan anyways.

So what do you guys make out of this? A victory for gamers? A turn-around for Microsoft? Both? I actually know a lot of people who would pre-order the Xbox One if these changes were made, and well golly gee, here they are. I wonder how this will affect stock... Still, this tells me people weren't really interested in at least trying-out what Microsoft had planned for the future, which was what the device was more catered to. Of course, if you were as cynical as me, perhaps this was all just a marketing ploy, to unleash the hype when the time was right... but I digress. Still, judging by all the excitement, it would appear a lot of people weren't ready to give-up on the Xbox just yet and "going Sony" was just an act of defiance...

Comment below your thoughts on this news.