"Microsoft engineer" on Xbox1

It is true that textbooks are extremely over-priced in US because they are priced with multiple re-sale in mind. It maybe true for games but even so, it will take some time before the effect kicks in.

Part of the problem is that if something is physical, people expects it to be lend-able. E.g. Books, CDs, DVDs, etc. (you can also think of things you can borrow in the library) People don't expect their digital downloads to be lend-able (e.g. iTunes songs, Kindle books, etc.) In that sense, Microsoft has to play the game carefully. I think it will still work if games on XB1 sells at On the note of internet connection, as much as Microsoft thinks that everyone should have an internet connection at home today, it is still something that you should not expect everyone to have. Many XBOXes are sold globally and internet broadband connectivity may not come easily.

Besides the issue of lending of games, I do agree on the vision that the console will be a center piece of the living room. It is much more than just games.

>> Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4 Stop telling customers "take it or leave it". Tell them, "I'm sorry you can't do that", or "we've decided not to support X because Y". You keep telling us to go fuck off and buy a PS4, we might just do that.

Then you blame your half-assed approach on competitors (right after saying competition is good). You're Microsoft! King of anti-competitive practices. Why do you care what Target, Walmart, Gamestop, or Amazon think? If you wanted to build a Steam competitor, why didn't you build a Steam competitor? Why did you create a shitty Steam DRM system on top of physical media.

>> We want to own the living room. Do consumers want you to? Every update to XBox 360 has made it worse. - more ads on the landing page instead of instant access to recently used apps (e.g. hiding Netflix). - the horrible decision to make subtitles the system default, then keep turning it back on (seems like every 2-3 weeks it forgets I don't like them)

Prediction: XB1 home screen will just be wall to wall ads with a tiny little "play game" thing in the corner 7 screens over. Every time I want to play a game, I will probably have to scroll by shitty music offerings, shitty game previews, shitty video offerings, etc.

>> You can turn it off tho, and turn the console like OFF off I bet this will be obnoxious and tedious. Switch on the back? Inside a settings menu?

>> We basically made a huge cloud compute shit and made it free Really?!? No more Live fee? Did I totally miss this? or by "free" do you mean for "for sale costing money on an ongoing basis for consumer, but free for publishers"?

>> If all you do is play games, and nothing else, PS4. This is why we're pissed and you seem to have missed that. Xbox should be a game console first, and a media machine second. MS has said they've made a really awesome Tivo + Roku machine and it also plays games.

So yeah, that's why MS is getting flak. But the real issue is that no one at MS seems to understand that!

Wow Microsoft is really keep their engineers real high on that Kool-Aid.

I'll believe this when I see Xbone games cheaper than $59.99. AKA I'll probably never believe this.

We'll see they may be progressing home entertainment forward but they're really taking a gamble by screwing over their core audience to do it.

For reference almost all of my console gaming is done via rentals and from what I see the Xbone doesn't support that at all so I'm definitely out.

Still selling physical discs is pretty important because broadband access in the US is still pretty dismal so if they went pure digital their market would be unnaturally limited by customer's ability to download games in reasonable times.

I hate this phrase, "trying to own the living room."

We think people want living room devices, but really they just need a living room computer.

A few months ago I went this way. No overengineered media center, just a tower next to the HDTV. Full-sized wireless keyboard and mouse. High-DPI to read text.

The experience immediately killed the 10 foot interface for me. All the 10' UIs out there feel slow, clunky, hobbled when compared to "just use a computer from your couch."

I understand that people are trying to simplify the experience, like Apple did with mp3s. Maybe you don't need to simplify here, though, because people already know how to use computers, they just don't see them in other rooms.

They just need a little nudge, a little help to see that it doesn't mean tiny text and wires across the living room floor.