#FF00AA

Amazing miracle: it’s only taken them three years, but Microsoft finally has a solution to its DRM problem that happened when you changed your console or hard drive (and, in particular, when support changed it for you after a red ring of death) and caused the Xbox Live games you’d bought before not to work on the new console unless you were logged in on Live under the very account who bought each game (in case you’ve only got one account on your console like I do, you may not know that under normal conditions any user of the console can play downloaded games and movies, and that it’s also supposed to work without an internet connection).

Three years, then, to add an option on xbox.com that lets you gather all your licenses (movies, games, etc., except for movie rentals) and download them to your new console; the miraculous part, though, is that, according to the FAQ, technical support is supposed to automatically perform that operation when they send you a new console (without affecting your once-a-year limit that only applies to voluntary uses when you buy a new console — I’d have gone with six months, but one year isn’t unreasonable). And, on that point, I’m waiting to see how it goes, because I’d be surprised if the process wasn’t completely buggy for the first six months.