One major flaw with the 360's Xbox Live Marketplace is the way it handles Digital Rights Management (DRM). When you download a Live Arcade game or piece of premium content (say a Rock Band song) it is linked to both your GamerTag and the serial number of your console. What this means is that, if you ever get a new 360, either because your old one dies or you upgrade to an Elite, all the content you paid for on the old system will only work if you are signed into Xbox Live with the GamerTag that purchased it. No other profiles on the system will be able to access it and if you take your 360 to someone's house (perhaps for a Rock Band party) you'll need to hook it up to an internet connection or else all your content will be locked out.
Needless to say, that's a huge pain in the ass, and an unnecessary one at that.
Thankfully Microsoft has been listening and will be releasing a tool next month that will "allow you to better consolidate your licenses for downloaded content to a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline."
All I can say is: It's about damn time.
Even if it turns out there really will be no dashboard update anytime soon, this long overdue fix kind of makes up for it.
What's interesting is that this DRM fix was one of the features listed on the rumored spring update feature list that leaked earlier this month. This lends a bit of credibility to that list, even though the whole thing reads like a fanboy wet dream and a fix to the DRM issues would certainly be high up on any such wishlist.
[via Joystiq]
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