Rickin10 said:
I wont rehash the litany of reasons people hated the Xbone but you ask the question, 'Did literally NO ONE see the benefits of an always online console?'
And this is exactly the point: Microsoft didn't show us any benefits! They showed us TV, Sports, COD Dog, and tried to shove a multitude of anti-consumer practices down our throats. When anyone anyone had the temerity to ask about the restrictions they were either fobbed off or patronized. When they finally got round to mentioning the plus points, like the Cloud and Family Sharing, they seemed like they had no idea what they were talking about. Different people gave different impressions and tried to weasel out and redirect straight questions. In short they came across like dodgy used-car salesmen.
'So...why do we need DRM?'
'Hey, why don't you wanna come with us to the FUTURE?'
'Could you nail down exactly how the Family Sharing is gonna work?
'Did you SEE Titanfall?'
As consumers it's not our job to search high and low for possible benefits, it's up to Microsoft to show them to us. They failed spectacularly.
This. Very much this. They were so unctuous and slippery when it came to ANY question.
You know when you are watching a program like "the office" and find it almost painful to watch because David Brent is so embarrassing (to any outside the UK who doesn't know what I mean, just youtube it. Good god)? That was how I felt watching ANY Xbone announcements after E3.
I think the crowning achievement was when people asked if it was true that you'd lose access to your games if you were banned on XBL - a fair assumption, since how is it going to verify your connection if the account you're using to go online with is banned - and we were told "absolutely not" by (that idiot) Major Nelson. Hang on though, did that mean that all games would be locked onto the console? what if the console breaks? Do I lose all my games and end up with a useless collection of game discs?
Every single feature of the Xbox One was so poorly thought through, had limitations that didn't benefit anyone - seriously, how does signing in every 24 hours benefit either us or Microsoft? Is it to update those awful adverts on the splash screen on startup?
Nothing was explained, and when it was, it either had huge restrictions or had been very poorly thought through.
The initial unveiling of the Xbox One spoke volumes, who is going to be waiting for the Xbox One announcement? Gamers. Gamers are going to be the ones sitting on the edge of their seats, counting down the hours till they see the Xbox One, its hardware specs, the new games being released on it. So what did they do? talk about nothing but being able to watch TV on it, with no mention of gaming.
MS seem to have a real problem of understanding anything that their customers want - the only reason they have reversed decision on the Xbox One is because the PS4 was outselling it, by some (admittedly anonymous) accounts, by 3 to 1.
I am also not comfortable with the Kinect 2.0 sitting and watching me all the time either, this thing can monitor up to 8 people and can even read your heartrate through your face. Sounds impressive, but anyone who's even read a headline with the word "PRISM" in it in the last 3 weeks should be very, very concerned about it. Yeah yeah, you can "turn it off" - you can't unplug it though can you? Otherwise the console doesn't work. I don't think its paranoid to be suspicious of this thing.
