Whenever I find myself promptly raging and hating something, I try to catch myself a little later on and look back upon my initial reactions and see how much I overreacted, how much I misinterpreted, how much I over looked, and ultimately how much good there really was in that given thing. I find that my later views on these things turns a little more positive, or at least filled with more open-minded insight.
After analyzing the entire X-Box One situation over and over and over again, given the new news we have about it, given past news that I've looked more into, and given the potential prospects past the present that lie in the future, I can say that all of my raging and anger and disgust over the X-Box One and Microsoft's handling/building/absolute ineptitude in being able to actually connect with their consumer fan-base has been so far completely justified. It isn't even so much the X-Box One itself that upsets me, as it is merely a neatly done plastic box containing hardware inside, but everything else around it and the complete lack of anything of any good that there is (or rather is not) to at least fall back on. The exclusive titles? Very nice looking, and with this new Killer Instinct coming out after all these years of me wanting a new one too, I'm more than happy with the selection, but I will not be playing these anytime soon. The issues are these:
The mandatory Kinect? I actually don't mind the Kinect we have for the living room X-Box back home, and I actually enjoy some of the games we have for it, but I really wouldn't be going out and getting any console for a side-device that shouldn't be so co-dependent with the console itself.
No used games? I would say that at least half of the games I own for all of the collective consoles I have are used games. If not half, then at least a strong majority of them are. If it wasn't for the people who traded these games in to the stores in which we bought these games from, I would probably have never played them. There is a tradition here, there is a business here, and there is even a community here. The fact that Microsoft at first even considered denying us the ability to play used games on their new console is just one prime example of how f***ing out of touch they are with gamers as a whole. Another way they prove that is by how bloody anal and restrictive they're being about lending games.
Lending restrictions? I don't think I've heard such copious amounts of needlessly complicated B.S. surrounding something so incredibly basic and simple. I mean, good golly gumbucks, we as human beings have been lending stuff out to our buddies pretty much since we could have buddies to lend stuff to. This is so old that it pretty much shouldn't even be considered to be ritual; it is just human nature at this point. But the big wigs at Microsoft who thought that this was even remotely a good idea...they must have been lonely children. What, was this measure taken to counter-attack pirating? There are better ways to do that I am sure! Do they think that everyone nowadays plays online only? It is a big freakin' world out there, suits, and not all of us only have friends whenever they go online with Call of Duty. Why they even thought of this is just beyond me and apparently everyone else out in the world as well. Only being able to lend onceper game for onceper friend as long as they've been on your friends list for longer than thirty days? But surely the ten people on your family list will be golden, as those ten can register to play that game just fine...right...
Trade-ins? That is up to the game developers to decide, which will be okiee-dokiee I suppose so long as all of these companies aren't complete douche-nozzles (my pardons) about it. Again, something so simple...
The always on Kinect? Again, I don't actually mind the Kinect as what it is when it was just a simple gaming gimmick, but I totally understand the concerns people have with this new version that is much more involved with your experiences while playing this game.
The need to always be connected to the internet in some shape or form? As much as this issue initially pissed me off when I first heard about it, it made me even madder when I learned just how badly screwed so much more other people would be with this system in place. Like me, there are people out there who prefer to not play most games online, and after that there are people who can barely play online, and some not even at all. With the X-Box One, those folks really would be buying a $500 paperweight. Oh, but wait, that isn't fair, the X-Box One can watch live t.v. or dvds regardless of internet capability, so it is nice to know that this advanced next-gen gaming system will be able to play everything else BUT the games it was MEANT to PLAY for. And the whole thing with having to connect online in order to play anything is just utter bulls#!t. It may not have to be online 24/7, but you still have to connect to the internet at least once a day in order to play a game (unless you're away somewhere else and are using Cloud, in which case you'll have to connect by the hour). If this wasn't the ultimate reason why this entire thing is just plain screwed, then surely it is the penultimate next to Microsoft themselves.
Microsoft themselves have been...well, we all saw their pre-E3 press conference, we all saw (or updated ourselves on) their E3 press conference, and by now we should have all seen that short video of Don Mattrick damning himself for what could be the rest of his life.They did not build this thing for gamers with gamers in mind. They built this thing for gamers who could give them the most amount of money and blind loyalty they could give and keep on giving. I have seen comments from people saying things like "well Microsoft is just testing their waters", which to me is just sick. No company built upon/working on products meant to entertain and bring some levels of enjoyment to the consumer populace should ever intentionally "test their waters". That just shows a gigantic lack of respect and graciousness to your fans and supporters, and it really makes you out to be a completely massive tool. And to anyone who can defend any of that, all I can say is...you're either rich or in denial.
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