Being an XBox collector I follow that community a decent amount. There is an audience that does honestly want the old setup. There is a type of gamer that seems to be the stereotypical XBox user that comes home, pops on their headset, connects to live and just chats with their buddies while playing games. They don't go to each others houses. Most of the time they are in completely different parts of the country or world. To this type of gamer the Family Share Plan was amazing. Now, the problem is that there is a lot of miscommunication on the Family Share. One side is yelling you only get 60 minutes unless you are on the main machine. Well, it seems that this was not true. Another side is yelling, you get to play other people's whole library and beat the games as long as you are one of their 10 people. Well, this doesn't seem to be true either. Like most things the truth lies in an area of gray. I've been following it for a while and still don't know. It is easy to find sources claiming both. Easy to find official quotes claiming both. Much harder to find official documentation with clear language describing the scenarios. This has caused the problem. Both sides are providing "official" "credible" links for each argument.
I don't do a lot of online gaming anymore. So, family share does not appeal to me. But remembering my StarCraft days, I would have loved this. I stayed online constantly. I remember a friend wanting me to get into Diablo 2, but I didn't want to buy it. We just wanted to hack away online some. Family share would have been perfect. I wanted them to try Phantasy Star Online (I had it on PC and was part of the beta :-) Although I don't remember if it got a solid release here or that I just kept the beta). They did not want to put up the money to buy it. Family share would have been perfect. And one thing that you can find official documentation on is that two people can be on the game at once with family share. That form of sharing is the exact reason for it. That is an awesome feature. Family share had some awesome parts to it.
Another argument is that having to have the disc is a much more restrictive form of DRM. In the case of discs, you have to verify that you own the product every time you play it. Although, I don't agree with that viewpoint. I also can't say that viewpoint is wrong. Actually, I find the amount of truth in that statement almost palpable.
I'll be the black sheep and say I would like to see a lot of those features come back except for two dealbreaking features. I would like the option to be able to play offline an unlimited amount of time
IF you have the physical disc. Second, I want used games. I honestly, like the features of XBox One. I like the always online aspect. I don't like that it would become a paperweight once the authentication servers went off. That was really the only thing I disliked. These are not being asked to be brought back either. But it seems unclear on what you could actually do. Per the original petition selling games were a big part of it (bold is my doing):
This was to be the future of entertainment. A new wave of gaming where you could buy games digitally, then trade, share or sell those digital licenses. Essentially, it was Steam for Xbox. But consumers were uninformed, and railed against it, and it was taken away because Sony took advantage of consumers uncertainty.
To be honest, I also don't even mind the always on kinect. But that is a rant in itself.
