[sivam]

They should rename the Xbox One to the Xbox 180, it would be very apt.

On a more serious note, I don't like this rollback. It only goes to show how the witchhunt and echo chamber on Reddit worked. Even before the reveal, Microsoft was falsely accused of trying to game Reddit and everyone flew off the handle over someone pretty much lying to be a troll. Say the word "DRM" and you get bucketloads of Reddit karma and posts pointing out the facts(forget about posts taking the opposing view or opinion) were downvoted into oblivion by the angry mob.

And then there was the bad timing on the NSA leaks, which didn't help at all. Everyone has smartphones, laptops and tablets with cameras and mics which could be watching and listening and Apple/Google were part of the leak, but it was Microsoft that was singled out for proposing a device that could turn on itself, and had numerous safeguards to configure privacy if you wanted to.

All this doesn't excuse the fact that Microsoft utterly and totally failed in communicating their message in a proper manner in E3 and handed Sony an easy victory on a silver platter.

I guess it was easy to roll this back because it was not Microsoft but publishers and game developers that were going to reap the benefits of diskless gaming because Gamestop etc. skim off the value of older games and leave publishers with not much value. Once the public failed to see the advantages and blamed Microsoft for a power grab that was not going to really benefit them all that much, it was game over.

[drivingmenuts]

A friend posited the theory that all of this was a calculated move on Microsoft's part.

First, they throw up the idea of some draconian DRM, which they then later retract. The first move gets them tons of publicity and tongue-wagging, the second move starts to make that positive publicity. They're banking on gamers being so addicted, they won't really care that they've been played for idiot chumps.

If the market for the new XBox was 12-year old children, they wouldn't even have bothered. But, since they're really marketing to adults 20-35 or so, they have to look like good guys to the people they're talking out of their money.

This was calculated. Reddit and everyone else got played. Hard and dry.

[clavalle]

That would be a valid theory if they didn't have a very similar competing product released at about the same time. A competitor that captured the lion's share of positive publicity by merely maintaining the status quo.

As it stands, I will be surprised if XBox One captures 25% of the latest gen console market when it is all said and done.

[Radix_]

I like this theory a bit but I don't think the part about getting positive publicity works out. They don't really look good here and, though I haven't read Reddit's response yet, I don't think they're going to look good to hardly anyone. At least not the 20-35 year olds who were aware of the snafu.

I think I cleaner interpretation is that they were aware that the push might fail but figured going back on the setup as they've done wouldn't set them back too far. And the move, even if it failed, would set them up for basically the same change in the future of the consoles life. Remember they changed the Xbox dashboard a lot. They can still add the planned sharing features to download only games. At first only to developer opt-in games then just the MS published games will have the additional features. After that other publishers will need to have their games use the extra features for licensed download games.

So everyone saying they ought to have done both may be right but maybe it wasn't ideal and they reached a bit too far. So they've fallen back and are retooling. I just wish they'd let me take off adverts on the damned main dashboard! I never buy anything and they know it.

[jonny_eh]

Microsoft is not that clever, and regardless, I don't see how this 180 will turn out in their favour. They have clearly lost momentum to this.

[warfangle]

Gonna have to invoke Hanlon's razor here.

[ricardobeat]

Re. used game sales, it surprises me to see everyone repeating the idea that game stores "skim" value from publishers. The license has been paid for, the original owner will lose his ability to play the game; there is no value being created and no reason at all for the publisher to participate in that transaction. Do you think car makers should be entitled to a fee every time you sell your used car?