It didn't show any games. It will require an always on internet connection (again). It doesn't let you share games with your friends. It won’t play used games unless you pay money for a code. You won’t be able to use its basic functions unless you use motion controls. No more family membership discounts. You can’t play it in the dark. It’s going to cost $700. It’s the prime suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance. Think of a bad thing - that thing applies to the Xbox One.
Except
Pretty much every “story” that ran this week about the Xbox One was either confirmed false already or baseless speculation based on what Microsoft didn't explicitly state in the press conference. They never mentioned that it wouldn't require the blood of a newborn to turn on, so let's run a story with the headline “will you need to sacrifice a baby to turn your Xbox on?” As we haven’t seemed to learn the lesson that any news article where the headline is a question can be answered with "no", wild rumors are being picked up and repeated at every level.
Here’s what we do know; it will not require an internet connection to play single player games. That WAS said in the after-show, but it didn't stop media outlets from saying it wasn’t mentioned in the conference itself so it must be the worst case. We also know the Xbox needs to “check in” with the server from time to time and that if it doesn't some features will be turned off, but we don’t know what these features are or what the time to time number is. More on that when we get to used games.
We know every game needs to be installed on the hard drive, but Microsoft has said this will NOT prevent you from taking games to a friend’s house and playing them there. A cloud service will allow you to access all your games from that Xbox. This seems to strongly imply that yes, the system is going to need to be online to install a game to the hard drive and play it for the first time; that's an online activation, so without an internet connection you won’t be able to install games. Except that it doesn’t. Microsoft has required an online activation for all its products from a time before most people knew what dial up is. This is why they have phone centers that allow you to do the activation offline. If the Xbox requires this type of step, I can’t see any reason they wouldn’t allow activation by phone.
We know the system can play used games. We know there is going to be a check to make sure the same game isn’t installed on two systems. This is where the rumour starts that the system needs to check in to ensure your games are not being shared or it will shut them off. I have two comments here; first, we have no info other than Microsoft saying they are going to tell us later. Any numbers, like once a day, are completely made up. Second; that’s completely reasonable! Look, I hate DRM, but only if it’s unreasonable. Making me input long keys (and keep a physical copy around if I want to reinstall), always on DRM, making me give me personal information to activate ... that’s what I’m opposed to. I’m absolutely not opposed to people makings sure I’m not stealing their product if they can do it in a way that doesn’t bother me! A periodic check fits this bill, provided it’s in the area of 24 hours, or on start up.
We know it’s not going to require you to use motion controls. They said the reason they didn’t change the controller at all was because some people just like using a simple controller and that will always be an option.
We know the price will be “at or below the previous generation”. Using creative accounting, that gives them up to around a $500 price tag; that seems reasonable based on the hardware I’ve seen.
We know it’s going to have a ton of games. MS Studios is building 7 to 14 exclusives alone for year 1, and pretty much every game coming out in Q4 that is cross platform is on the Xbox One and PS4. By contrast, the Xbox 360 launched with 14 games total.
So what’s the deal
There are a lot of arguments for old news. TV and newspapers had something that the internet can’t; investment. You had to take the time to buy the paper or turn on the show, meaning you tried to get as much out of that investment as possible. If you didn’t like the content, you would find something else. Nowadays all we do is scan headlines while reading the aggregate server and the game has changed. There is no such thing as a good article, just a good headline that might generate a click, and most of what people know is going off the headline alone. It’s no surprise that after an announcement like this the media is all over every possible negative, even if it’s not really all that possible. Outrage and controversy drives clicks, and no one is holding you accountable when you get it wrong.
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