Following strong rumours that Microsoft’s next console, codenamed Durango, will require a constant Internet connection to use, one of its staff has defended the idea in a rather blunt manner.
Microsoft Creative Director Adam Orth tweeted seemingly in response to this Kotaku article where an inside source revealed that no games or apps on Durango can be started when the user is offline, and games and apps will be suspended if the Internet connection drops for over three minutes. Kotaku, however, note that further sources appear unaware of the ‘always-online’ requirement.
Orth’s Twitter account is now private, but at the time of writing, can be viewed in full on Favstar.
Orth states that he wants “every device to be always-on,” and goes on to support his view with several analogies.
Orth continued to cover the topic with Manveer Heir, who works at Bioware. Both Orth and Heir later said that their exchange was a joke, a friendly troll by Orth. But the points raised still hit home.
This exchange led to the creation of a NeoGAF thread, which has ballooned to nearly 5000 posts. GAF detective work by Pennywise found a post by another developer which adds to the evidence that suggests the Xbox 720 will require an Internet connection to use.
Orth’s comments reached the top of Reddit’s front page, with further posts on the subject dominating /r/gaming and /r/games.
Regardless of whether Orth’s tweets were a joke, the Internet was quick to raise their pitchforks and express anger at the thought of an always-online console, particularly following the problems with Diablo III and, recently, SimCity, which both require a connection to play.
There is no word from Microsoft on the ‘always-online’ rumours, but this tweet came from the completely, one-hundred percent genuine, definitely-not-a-parody account of Sony’s CEO Kaz Hirai:
Sorry, I couldn’t tweet earlier about @adam_orth’s comments about the XBOX always online rumors. My internet connection was down
— CEO Kaz Hirai (@KazHiraiCEO) April 5, 2013