“But, but, but, it's the same as the Xbox 360” was the response a lot of apologists threw up during the Killer Instinct DRM fiasco. We've never received any wide reports about situations like the Killer Instinct scenario happening in any frequent manner with Xbox 360 owners, but if that's the story the defense squad wants to stick to, then that's fine and dandy... but what about NBA 2K14?
We've received a couple of reports from users having trouble accessing NBA 2K14 on the Xbox One. Before getting around to explaining the image above, I should make it known that 2K Games was definitely experimenting with the DRM in NBA 2K14, dabbling in some partial always-on DRM for certain modes that restricted players from playing the game offline.
However, creating an offline profile and opting not to engage in any of the online content enabled some gamers to play NBA 2K14 offline, as we wrote about in the previous article addressing the DRM for the game.
In one case, however, the offline mode didn't seem to want to work at all for one user, as he originally thought it was a RAM cache-and-flush issue, which also didn't fix his problem, writing to us that...
“I played for the last 3 weeks no problem starting Sunday night it kicked me out of my game after finishing the game it would start to save and move on to the next career path and just go to main menu I played same game three times after third time it wouldnt load at all other games would not let play either. I do not even play nba online ever this is a offline career mode we are talking about “
The user tried contacting support about this issue but received no viable help or solution to the problem.
Of course, one could simply say that the incident above was isolated. But what about the other incidents mentioned by users who also ran into a similar problem, with Spawnfirst taking note of complaint threads on Neogaf about server access in NBA 2k14, with user ConflictNZ writing...
“Got my Xbox One about 6 hours ago and have been trying all day to play this game, before the service went down and Azure threw a fit. Every time you start any game (even offline) it pops up a message saying 2K14 requires access to xbox live servers then boots you out to the main menu, regardless of whether you are in a game or not. I haven’t been able to play a single game besides the quick match it lets you play while the game is installing.”
This scenario has also occurred for other users, with one of our readers capturing evidence of the event, which is featured as the main image of this article. You can click the image below to get a full view of the screenshot.
After encountering the problem, Kyle, the owner of the Xbox One, contacted Xbox support about the problem seeking help. Of course, he didn't quite receive the answers he happened to be looking for, in regards to why this happened or what he should to do prevent it from happening again. You can see the response from Xbox support below.
Given the vagueness of support's response, we were also curious about these issues as well. We asked Kyle about the issue and we also contacted Microsoft's representatives about the event, but haven't received a response as of the publishing of this article. Kyle did, however, try to provide some context to the scenario, writing to us that...
"I do not leave my game disks in the console when not being used, so from the dashboard I placed Nba in to the drive. It appeared to try to load as the title screen(Lebron thinking he's a god) was now full screen. That is when I was first hit with the message. The one from the pic I had sent you through twitter. At first I did what it asked, sign out then in. Same results. Then I proceeded to turn off the system (not hard reset). Turn on, sign in, same result. From there the pic was taken and sent to you. MS gave off the stupid automated responses I knew they would even though I only pushed for an answer to why this happened. Nothing. "
Previously, we were contacted by Microsoft about the Killer Instinct DRM situation where they wanted to clarify their stance on the Xbox One's DRM. However, when pressured for an answer as to why exactly these sort of instances are occurring – though infrequently – we didn't quite receive a direct or clear answer. Essentially, it's something that's also not made entirely visible in the Xbox One's terms of service or policy guide, as we pointed out in an updated piece about the Killer Instinct DRM fallout.
While it's easy to establish that we're not seeing a direct return of the Xbox One's 24-hour check-in (or so, that is what Microsoft is claiming) there are still some persisting issues plaguing some users who are accessing the console... even in offline mode.
We haven't received any reports of this happening on the PlayStation 4 or any other platform.
We'll keep you posted if either 2K Games or Microsoft decides to address the issue. And remember, you paid for the product expecting it to work; never be afraid to speak up and make known any situation that may directly infringe on your rights as a consumer.
