I read a very convincing argument from a friend on Facebook on why he thinks this was all part of the plan:thenumberthirteen said:I HIGHLY doubt it was the former. Granted Microsoft marketers aren't infallible, but I refuse to believe they'd think the "New Coke" gambit would ever work. It never works. It's just an absurd plan making them look, at first, bad, and after the change, like indecisive idiots. They'll have seen the awful negative reactions from the gaming public, press, and probably investors, and then realised they had made a terrible error.
What he's saying that it is essentially impossible for a company like Microsoft NOT to have noticed how most gamers (and the internet as a whole) loathed any form of DRM with a passion - so building the very thing they KNEW people loathed into the the next big console sounds like it was all done on purpose (in hindsight). As stated above, a multi-billion-dollar corporation that has access to endless statistics and keeps a watchful eye on the rest of the world doesn't simply make such an extremely obvious mistake of epic proportions. It makes no logical sense.Markus Palm said:This was planned, no doubt about it. No, that's not me being all "conspiracy theorist" - it's basic logic.
Take a company like Microsoft, a multi-billion dollar corporation. It's in their utmost interest to be at the top when it comes to the console race to acquire revenue. They spent years researching the market and their consumer base. These corporations don't make "mistakes", especially not in this magnitude (and if they do, they will do everything to silence the media). If they for whatever reason wanted to implement DRM, they wouldn't have announced that like a front-page thing - they would have been way more subtle about it explaining the pros before actually announcing their DRM plans.
I'm not saying I wasn't 'fooled', but in hindsight it's all very obvious. All this negativity will now create a contrast and make Microsoft and the Xbox One seem like a great choice. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a huge game-bundle for $599 or even a price-drop before launch to lure even more costumers to 'switch' or 'stay'.
I believe this strategy is for the mid-section, meaning gamers that will only really buy one console and never switch. The 'average' consumer. Any hardcore gamer will either go PC (realizing its benefits) or eventually acquire all 2 or 3 consoles.
In 1-2 months when the release is more imminent all that will be remembered is how Microsoft turned around and delivered exactly what gamers want - even though Sony did it first. (Not to mention, Microsoft has earned a lot of publicity from this. I know a few not-so-involved people who only really had a hunch that a PS4 was coming, although they could ramble the ins and outs of the Xbox One's policies.) I mean, just imagine all the viral videos, memes and posts that have flourished this past week - most of them have been entirely about the Xbox One.
They have indeed gained a massive amount of publicity from it (watch the next few days) and some people are even convinced that Microsoft are the good guys now, they care for their consumers. The next week will be very interesting.
Most fucking aggravating thing of all is reading stuff like this around the internet: "Awesome! Now lets see what Sony have to offer".
Oh god, oh god...