I'm saddened at how many people in this thread, including the TC, think doing a 360 means to reverse direction or abandon something and walk away.
That would be a 180, which the majority seem to realize. Because of geometry, and because the "XB One Eighty" is a more accurate pun.
That being said, with this decision they have taken their already ZERO integrity, and then tried to divide it by itself.
When you act like its gotta be your way or not at all, and that all your decisions and policies are infallible, necessary, and for your customers own good (whether they asked for it or not) you had better be damn sure of those theorem proving positive.
They are essentially going "oh, wait, we suddenly had a revelation and we shall magnanimously....reverse every one of our policies that we just spent countless dollars and numerous wince-inducing press statements trying to shove down all your throats. Our decision was based purely upon listening to our fans, and not at all influenced by all of you telling us to go fuck ourselves. Stay tuned for exciting changes to Windows 8 as well."
And not a fuck should be given. I was eagerly awaiting a generation where Sony and Nintendo were once again the only ones in it to win it. It would have been nice to see someone other than Nintendo under the "wtf were they thinking?" umbrella.
The reason being, M$ can and will amend their policies as soon as they think they can safely get away with it. That is true of any entity that has an agenda that the masses don't immediately accept, obviously. And when it stands (at least in their deluded mindset) of making them more money by having these policies in place they are merely patronizing you in order to get that kinect into your home.
Personally, I have never wanted any M$ console. I hate the controllers, and they have ZERO exclusives that I wanted to play aside from Fable and Doom 3. And having played them on a borrowed rig, I was greatly disappointed.
Like I am with EVERY M$ offering. Bing? Um no. IE? Fuck no. Windows 8? NO MEANS NO!
And the phones, and tablets, and consoles. Seriously, stop trying to be Apple, because you really suck at it...
Of course Sony routinely has to pull their firmware updates because they keep bricking their own consoles so its not like you have THAT big a competitor there.