I like the Xbox One and enjoy Kinect voice control to manage my game playing and TV viewing. Did it live up to the hype machine MS peddled leading up to and shortly after its release - probably not...but then, what does?
I don't blame MS for having a poorly communicated vision of the future. I won't say they have a poor vision of the future because, frankly, nobody waited to see it through. Granted, I think a lot of the old management team put the cart before the horses. Misguided as they may have been, you have to realize in a huge organization there are a lot of voices deciding how things get spun.
I surely won't discount the idea that drm and digital distribution is the future. You would be an idiot to not think that is the case. Sony may have trolled MS for a quick win over the entire drm thing, but don't fool yourself, it wasn't because Sony is the gamers friend trying to stave off the death knell of physical media. They did it because, at the time, they had no answer to Microsoft's features. Features which, btw, where introduce a couple months later by Steam and people gushed with love for Valve.
I am glad to see major changes from the top down with the Xbox division - from the leads to the marketing. Not that I wish any ill will to those folks but the new team seems to have a much more gamer centric vision. So far, I like what I have seen. Does it make it all better, no but I won't fault MS for trying to right the ship, even if it did have to take on water first. Same thing happen to Sony when it launched the PS3 and they were better for it as well.
I don't blame MS for having a poorly communicated vision of the future. I won't say they have a poor vision of the future because, frankly, nobody waited to see it through. Granted, I think a lot of the old management team put the cart before the horses. Misguided as they may have been, you have to realize in a huge organization there are a lot of voices deciding how things get spun.
I surely won't discount the idea that drm and digital distribution is the future. You would be an idiot to not think that is the case. Sony may have trolled MS for a quick win over the entire drm thing, but don't fool yourself, it wasn't because Sony is the gamers friend trying to stave off the death knell of physical media. They did it because, at the time, they had no answer to Microsoft's features. Features which, btw, where introduce a couple months later by Steam and people gushed with love for Valve.
I am glad to see major changes from the top down with the Xbox division - from the leads to the marketing. Not that I wish any ill will to those folks but the new team seems to have a much more gamer centric vision. So far, I like what I have seen. Does it make it all better, no but I won't fault MS for trying to right the ship, even if it did have to take on water first. Same thing happen to Sony when it launched the PS3 and they were better for it as well.