I'd say almost certainly yes, but if it's own features and every game being developed for it are being made with always online in mind then to say removing could cause problems would be an understatement. I'd hate to be the people trying to patch that even more than I'd hate to be the people who spent money on the privilege.Originally Posted by DMKA
On a different note, I was thinking a bit more this evening about what Paul said: that after the Sim City blow up they may strongly reconsider this. I hope they will, but there's a problem with that line of reasoning. Always online DRM has been blowing up in developers and publishers faces since long before the Sim City fiasco and nothing has changed.
Assassin's Creed 2 was probably the earliest case I can think of as the PC port caught a ton of flack for it. Hackers even took down the servers for the first few days to make a point. What did Ubisoft do? They added it to a lot of games after that, and even a few more after they said they would stop (granted Ubisoft are just complete morons about PC gaming and piracy though). But what happened after all of those problems Ubisoft had and the customer dissatisfaction they incurred? We got Diablo 3 which didn't have any single player and didn't really work for the first few weeks. They actually took the whole DRM concept farther than Ubisoft did because there's nothing like doubling down on a proven flop. And then we have Sim City... just yeah...
So it'll be nice if Microsoft has half a clue and doesn't screw this up, but history tells me that three of the biggest publishers in the industry not only made the exact same mistake repeatedly in the last several years, but they actually upped the ante and failed more spectacularly than the last guy every single time. If the pattern holds, an always online console would be a great way to out do EA.
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