Microsoft with Another Power Play

In probably one of the more pandering ways they could have announced it, Microsoft has finally pulled the Kinect as a pack-in starting in June, meaning the XBone will start being sold as a stand-alone console in June for $399.  It's surprising in all the same ways that it's not - I really thought Microsoft was going to be stubborn on this one, but I guess the allure of phantom sales was too strong for them.  The XBox One is now, officially and literally, nothing unique at its base, and that is honestly more than a little disappointing, even for someone who just straight-up has never been interested in an XBone.

The whole of this little experiment as I'm charitably calling it has been rather interesting to witness.  From its inception, the XBone has been this malleable box of variable evil in the eyes of many and that's solely because of the poor messaging and the poor attitude from Microsoft with regards to everything about the system.  Once they fell flat on their face, the following could best be described as "Flailing wildly, grasping at any and all articles of your clothing to drag themselves back to you, prostrate and begging for your time and affection" which is...well, not everybody cares for it, we'll say.

Objectively, nothing is wrong with any of this.  The XBone has now (or will, in June) become a system that is truly about what a console should be: something you can pull out of a box, attach cables to, do the set-up on and then just get to playing your damn games.  There's no Kinect to calibrate (or even think about unpacking) and no -direct- need to plug an ethernet cable into it (or set up Wi-Fi) because of some nebulous DRM scheme.  (Okay, you still need to do that to make the console more or less -functional- but, you know, baby steps)  It is just a system reminiscent of the one we've had for the last decade but shinier and with some extra bells and whistles of some immeasurable value because of their inherently subjective nature.

Is that a bad thing?  No.  Not in so many words.

I have never been a fan of the XBox in any of its incarnations, and I had no love for the XBone when it was announced because, as it was announced, it was a product incapable of being loved.  It was a standing monolith of spite personified, primed and ready to exclaim "Fuck you!" and punch you in your reproductive parts upon being unboxed.  I can't even say, as most are willing to do, that they were trying something new on the Digital side of things because they weren't - they were attempting to push some sort of Frankenstein's Monster version of Games for Windows Live on the system and telling you to sit down and enjoy it for all the 'benefits' that being tied unceremoniously to a server structure an inordinate amount of miles away will provide to you, because shit is futuristic, yo.  It was never going to work out.  It was never going to be a thing heralded from on high by all or even some.  It was destined to be as it was - loathed and mocked for treading on the grass with the "No Trespassing" sign on it.

The Kinect, though?  It had potential.  Perhaps insomuch as MSPaint has potential in being a program in which you can create photorealistic images of shit, where it is only barely on this side of impossible to actually make that happen, but potential nonetheless.  I have a hard time believing anyone who says they -don't- want what Kinect is technically promising, but can't dream of delivering, on top of what it can actually do with some reliability.

Much like Tablet computers, there's something innately futuristic about motion controls and voice commands that is ingrained as awesome future shit to me.  Maybe it's just the Star Trek stuff I watched growing up, but it does tickle parts of my brain that come right to attention when that premise shifts up.  The jumping around, waving your arms about to protect an imaginary goal from soccer balls with dodgy (at best) detection when not instantly calibrated before hand?  Yeah.  I can see people not caring about that.  But walking into a room and saying "XBox, on" and having that shit turn on, waiting for your next command?  Yeah.  That's the shit I can get behind.  Were it only as natural as it could be (rather than having to put on your super authoritative voice most of the time) it would be -really- cool, if just for the novelty.

But I am convinced that with some combination of -something- like the Kinect (maybe even the Playstation Eye 3.0 or whatever) and a controller of some sort (Maybe a Move Wand(s) ) that there could be something immensely cool or enjoyable about motion technology where it concerns gaming.  It might be a couple generations off, but there has to be something out there for it.  I was personally banking on Microsoft stubbornly keeping the Kinect around (even as a toss-away thing because they weren't requiring it) to have it as an option for developers to use.  For someone to finally get -that- idea and implement it and it gets big because, fuck, everyone has one.  That's unfortunately just probably not going to happen anymore.  With the Kinect stuck as it was last generation, it's going to get much the same support as that did (read: almost none) and we'll all just sort of point and laugh derisively at it and what is attempted.

Now, is this move going to make a difference?  Not...much of one, I don't think.

The damage has been done.  In some ways, the Kinect was holding the device back.  In some ways, the extra $100 was holding it back as well.  Some pretend that these were the only two albatrosses about the neck of the XBone and now it's free to soar the sales charts and reign King Supreme and that's just not going to happen.  The time for the XBone to soar was back when it released, and if there's another time, it's a solid year, perhaps two away. The initial rush of consoles purchased has happened and the PS4 reigns on top of that pile.  The stragglers are the ones reluctant to pay $400 for a Next Gen system for whatever reason, so bringing the XBone down to that price parity....doesn't really do a whole lot.  Were there people that were just -really- waiting for Microsoft to do just this?  Sure.  Not the 'masses', however, since it honestly wasn't something you -should- have expected.

Even still, a stigma is just a -hard- thing to shake.  The PS3 had the "no games" thing for a while as well as the "stupid price" thing, and it all just cast the machine in a negative light long after those issues had been rectified.  It's going to be the same way with the XBone, especially because all they've done is put themselves directly next to the PS4 for comparison....where it will only be seen as lacking.  The XBone without the Kinect is just a less good PS4 without the benefit of PS+ and all the fun stuff that Sony has been working on.  Microsoft's exclusive lineup isn't going to draw in any -new- customers, either.  Halo 5 isn't going to make a Playstation diehard eschew grabbing a PS4 in favor of an XBone.  Gears of War anything isn't.  Forza didn't. 

No matter how you see it, this move with the Kinect just seems born of desperation and short-sightedness.  I will be heartily surprised if it makes the thing sell like a PS4 for any amount of time, and who knows if it's going to help in the long run if Sony continues to do their best with services and Exclusives that you -can't- just expect?  The Order is new and exciting because it's -new-, and if Microsoft wants to grab a few new people, they're going to have to put new things on the plate.  That's what'll sell an XBone over a PS4 way down the line when both have seen a price cut and parents are finally starting to relent, deciding to grab one of these things for the system.  But who knows if -that- is the next move Microsoft is going to rattle over towards?

seriously, I just don't see the point and I really wanted to see them take a stance on the goddamn Kinect

This Post Has to Have "XBox One-Eighty" in the Title

I do believe that the Earth quaked a little earlier today when Microsoft announced one of the biggest backpedals in recent memory, vowing that most of the policies described as "Toxic" about the XBone will be absent from the console at launch.  Instead of the XBone being this thing that acts as a sort of hub for your games (since it would rip them to the HDD) with all sorts of restrictions on it, it has now become....well....a game console.  A game console that has a bunch of extra stuff that we've also been whinging about from day one (TV stuff, I'm looking at you as is....you know....every not in North America) but a game console nonetheless.  Finally.  It is...something of an absurd situation, much like the celebration of Sony's PS4 announcements, when this has to be something brought up and explained.

Specifically, the list of changes looks like this:

• No more 24-Hour Check-In
• No Mandatory Internet Connection at all aside from games that require it (Obvious) and a first-time connection when you set up the console
• Disks work like today and like they will with the PS4 - Buy them, sell them, trade them, loan them, the game is on the disk and the disk is your key
• Disks will not rip to the HDD, thus you have to have them in the console to play
• Family Sharing Plan thing is dead, dead, dead
• Digital Games work just like today in that you cannot sell or trade them
• The Console is Region-Free (Which I don't think it was ever stated as it wasn't?  This is probably due mostly to, y'know, blu-rays anyway)

All in all, it's a win for consumers.  So, basically this has been met with overwhelming positivity, right?

Hahahaha.

If anything, this has simply made people angrier as a whole than anything else and it's all at once completely understandable and not.  Fans of what the XBone was going to be are now angry because "whiners" have ruined their "perfect digital console" and are further incensed by the people who are still not buying an XBone because they're still suspicious of a company that was ready to go full-steam-ahead with these ideas until they were very loudly shouted down.  They're mostly incensed because they view these people who were 'never getting an XBone anyway' as non-essential - they were not part of the 'target market' (I'm really running with the air quotes, huh) so their opinions should have never factored into it.  All of these thoughts and opinions have me feeling and thinking so many different things that I find it's far, far too difficult to really condemn or defend them, but at least try to explain the sides and facets to them.

While it's true that every product simply has some people that just won't buy it no matter what - you're never going to sell your new chicken product to a vegan, for example - and they should really be factored in, you need to keep in mind just what your target market is and be able to determine if your target market is large enough and willing to buy in.  The target market for the XBone as it was was basically:  People who had reliable, stable and fast internet, people who have no qualms about digital purchases and sharing (and also have reliable, stable and fast internet) and people who live in the countries that Microsoft can reliably support with such a plan.  That target market....is honestly smaller than many people would like to believe thanks to the poor state of global infrastructure, and even a bulk of the people -in- that market weren't willing to buy in, meaning it was an even smaller one to begin with.

Conversely, it was completely within anyone's rights, interested buyer or not, to complain about how the XBone was shaping up, because it was a terrible machine for this point in time.  As far as I'm concerned, it was a terrible machine for -any- point in time, because I don't think Infrastructure is going to get to the point that everyone pushing digital is assuming we are anytime soon (soon meaning decades here) but I'm in the minority there.  The internet is not a right.  It's not water, it's not food, it's not housing - it's not classified as something necessary for your quality of life and as long as it's in the hands of the same people that refuse to improve upon it because they're making mad bank as it is, it won't be.  So this goes for everything as far as a 'digital future' involves, not just gaming.  Online banking, purchasing, straining out physical media more and more as time goes on is silly, but I worry that we're not going to figure that out until someone's gone over a cliff, so to speak.  Microsoft curiously toed that edge with a machine that will not work without the internet and thankfully was talked back from that precipice (because of pre-order numbers, I assure, not care for the consumer personally) but it sets a dangerous precedent all the same.

This was Microsoft's vision of the future today.  This missive from the company clearly states that it has not lost that vision of the future,

For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future.

but rather insists that you'll be fine with that vision anyway since you'll abide by what the restrictions were regardless,

While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.

which simply means, to me, that we'll have to worry about Round Two of this nonsense whenever the XDeuce is announced.  That's...not particularly appetizing to me since I simply see trends continuing as they are, meaning the five, six or seven years between now and then might be the difference in a lot of people standing up for consumer rights and instead adopting the 'fuck you, got mine' manner of thinking that many XBone supporters were clinging to.  That's likely a little unnecessary at this point, granted, since it's hard to tell what'll happen next week, much less in the next half-dozen years, but I'm sure it's something that a lot of people with the distaste of the XBone as it was before today are considering as well, given the level of Microsoft-distrust that still exists.  It can't -all- be simply residual, after all.

Regardless, what this honestly means is that the XBone has been elevated from this very niche market to something that is as accessible as everything else, meaning it's much, much more attractive to quite a few people out there.  Not everything is fixed with the console as Mandatory Kinect is still something many folks have been grumbling about, rightly or no, and will continue to grumble about because that's not looking like it'll change.  Combined with a higher overall price, the fact that many, many people have been indoctrinated into the wonders that is Playstation Plus and the idea that a lot of people have simply found reasons to attach to the PS4 means that this might not do a -lot- for Microsoft in the short-term, but thankfully it might in the long-run.  I know I've personally elevated the XBone from "Never buying it ever" to "Might get on the cheap for exclusives" like Project Spark (even if I'm still grumbly about the Fable filter) and there are likely plenty of people who -wanted- to like Microsoft, but couldn't and now feel that freedom with these policies taken down.

Personally, I'm just....disappointed by it all, really.  The fact that the XBone was presented as it was as a viable machine in the first place speaks more to a dissonance between companies and consumers than anything else possibly could, aside from the abysmal PR that's gone on since then.  And the basic fact is that we got lucky.  Microsoft was very easily in a position to force the XBone as it was down all our throats to attempt to make it the standard and the resistance would've been fierce at first (obviously since it was), but, well, people end up moving on.  Nobody was going to press the issue everyday it existed, much less multiple people and eventually fatigue sets in for the people who -can- run with that model but don't particularly want to, so long as the games were there.  Microsoft clearly flashed a lot of cash to developers and probably could've continued to do so for a year or two which would've been all that was needed for the final "ugh, fine" moment.  I'm obviously glad that none of this is going to transpire, but if Microsoft of all companies, thought this was viable, who's next?  And how many 'next' companies is it going to take to 'force' this model to be viable?  If we continue to be lucky, we won't find out, so....well, let's just start banking on luck, folks.

I kinda bummed myself out with all this, to be honest, how annoying