In perspective - Steam Family Share

What you've heard 

The Micro$oft Bone had planned a feature where users could share games with others on their friends list, allowing them to play them on their own system. After the backlash to the online-only policies, they changed their tone saying it couldn’t be done without a 24 hour check in requirement; it was impossible. Well, Gabe Newell descended from his home in Asgard on the wings of unicorns this week to let everyone know the impossible is possible when you are at his level of awesome. Steam Family Share gives us everything Microsoft said it couldn't do!

Except

Steam is offering an account sharing service, where you can allow up to 10 users to have access to your complete game library when you are not using it. When you log into a game (any game) anyone using your account at the time is given a short amount of time to leave the game they are playing. You might recognize this as exactly what you can do right now by simply giving someone your username and password. Microsoft, on the other hand, had a full game sharing service. I could give Duty Calls 4 to Jim and Grand Larceny: Bank Fraud V to Mary and play every other game I owned without effecting their experience. It's also important to note that where Microsoft only required a check in every 24 hours to make sure I wasn't playing the games I loaned out, Steam Family Share requires a constant network connection. That's the exact thing the internet said was completely unacceptable about Microsoft’s system.

So what`s the deal

The internet is a horrible place. Fanboys have chosen champions like Microsoft, Steam, and Sony and see them as doing battle in cyberspace for absolute dominance. The gaming media has reacted and writes articles that are going to get the strongest reactions, the most reads, and the most comments. It`s impossible to talk about Steam`s new service for what it is: a great example of how Steam has reacted to what players are doing anyways (sharing accounts) and make it easier for them to do it (no more password sharing is a great thing for security, which is in Steam's best interests). Instead, it has to be an example of why Steam was sent by the gods to purge the evil that is Microsoft from the land ... if it`s anything less, no one is going to read it.

One perfect example to illustrate this point: There is a story going around the internet detailing a teardown of the Xbox One and PS4. IGN network (with a very Sony friendly reader base) has been covering this story with the headline `PS4 faster than Xbox One`. Game Informer and UK Gamer (Xbox friendly sites) have the same story with the headline `Xbox One faster than PS4`. What does the story really say? The Xbox One has faster shading and rendering, while the PS4 has faster ram and bus, neither of which should result in any real difference in performance between the two.