Xbox 180: the fallout

Now that Microsoft has decided to do away with all of the anti-consumer restrictions on the Xbox One you would think everything would be okay. But, no. Apparently there is a group of people out there that really liked the policies. I touched on this in my last post, and about the fact that the family sharing was going away with the restrictions. To the people that think that all-digital and game licenses are the future: Just get a gaming PC. PC gaming has been like that for some time now. Services like Steam have grown quite popular delivering people digital downloads of games. And I totally get why some people are into that. It can be very convenient, I'm sure. But console gaming is a different entity from PC gaming. We console gamers continue to want the right to loan our games around, to buy cheap used games, and to have meaningful libraries of games on our shelves. Not pointless discs that eventually won't do anything anymore because some server shut down. Seriously, this isn't meant as an insult or an attack or anything, check out PC gaming. You'll probably really like it!

As for the family sharing issue, I think Angry Joe said it best (NSFW). The people that raised their voices to get Microsoft to change their policies aren't the ones that took family sharing away. Microsoft chose to do that themselves. There doesn't seem to be any reason for it, either. Did they just do it out of spite? They could still implement this feature for digital versions of games if they wanted to, they're just not. So if you want that back, let them know. They're clearly listening. Then again, we never got the full details of the family sharing. There were rumblings about it not letting you share the full game, rather just a demo version, which would be kind of dumb considering most games have demos anyway. Ah, whatever, we'll likely never know for sure.

Lastly there's the conspiracy theory going around. Yes, I'm breaking out the tinfoil! Did Microsoft plan this whole thing? Maybe they announced the restrictions knowing everyone would hate them, hoping that when they reversed their decision everyone would celebrate them for listening to their customer base. It's something that's not completely without precedent. If that was the case here, though, I don't think it worked. In my experience, both online and in my daily life, people are still pretty upset with Microsoft. Going from, "We're gonna screw you good!" to, "Okay, we decided not to screw you," isn't going to make people like you. Oh sure, we're all very happy that the decision was made, and I do plan on getting an Xbox One myself eventually, but it still makes Microsoft look bad. As I said above, console gamers are not PC gamers, and we tend to have long memories. We're not going to just forget that Microsoft tried to impose those restrictions on us. And there's still the fact that Xbox One costs $100 more than PS4, mostly so they can bundle the Kinect in with it, which is something most people don't want in the first place.

I'm not trying to be super negative, here. It was a big deal for Microsoft to change their policies to suit their customers, and, as long as it wasn't a ruse the whole time, they deserve to be applauded for that. I just can't help but think that it's too little, too late. The PS4 is cheaper, has more exclusives, doesn't force a camera on you, and never tried to tell you how you can use your own games. Combine that with all the fantastic looking games coming from Nintendo this year, and Microsoft may have a rocky start with its Xbox One. Only time will tell, though. The PS3 had a rough start, and it eventually wound up passing the Xbox 360 in sales. The 3DS also had a slow start, and it's currently the best selling video game system world wide. We'll just have to wait and see.

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