Xbox 360 Content License Transfer Tool now available

Looks like Microsoft has finally gotten around to attempting to fix the horribly, horribly broken Xbox 360 DRM model, which we have written about in the past here and here, with the release of the Xbox 360 Content License Transfer Tool. The video above, hosted by Major Nelson, shows off exactly how users go about consolidating all their licenses to a single Xbox 360 console. There are a couple of issues here though, and they need to be addressed - after all, if you are going to work on a tool to help your users, the help shouldn’t result in new problems.

First, you can only use the tool once every 12 months. That means that for the people who are rushing to use the newly released tool to finally get all their content pulled into one Xbox 360, if your console breaks down tomorrow, you’d better hope that Xbox support (who have been known to be completely inept in multiple cases) transfers everything for your correctly on their end, otherwise you are back where you started. This should have been set at once every 60-90 days, tops.

Secondly, if you purchase a lot of content, you can look forward to an hour of two of downloading. After your transfer your licenses online, you then need to go into each item on your console and download it again. What if you have 500 pieces of content, like Major Nelson’s console has in the video? Well, you have to go into 500 menus and download 500 pieces of content manually. What - you expected a simple one-step process that would let you re-download all the licenses in one fell swoop? Oh. Sorry. In any event, if you want to give it a try, you can head on over to the Xbox 360 DRM page.

Hey Microsoft - it’s time to listen to your community, and act a bit faster this time. This DRM Tool almost feels like it’s too little, too late.