I wasn't all that interested in the new consoles, but I have been caught up in it a bit this last week. I was especially caught up in the circlejerk for the PS4. When comparing it to Xbox One, PS4 seemed to have some slight advantages, and none of the disadvantages of the Xbox.
But, I'm trying to be fair, and have come across two things the Xbox One does that are at least interesting on the surface.
1. HDMI Input allows your cable TV feed to pass through the Xbox. This means you can have the XBox overlay, without fiddling around switching inputs. You can be watching TV, and get a friend request to start gaming, and jump right into the game. Nothing crazy, just a small step towards putting the Xbox at the centre of your living room experience.
2. The idea of sharing games with up to 10 "family" members. Still not really any details, but it seems convenient to share a collection of games with a group of friends. Seems odd, though. So we'll wait for some details to see how restrictive this will actually be.
The 24 hour check-in does seem ridiculous to me. I am not buying a console and $60 games if I won't be able to play it due to an extended server outage, etc. It seems a reasonable compromise would be to allow disc-based games to be used offline, and only require the check-in if you try to play a downloaded game. But in that case, I expect a discount for downloaded games. I'm not paying full price if it comes with more restrictions on how I can use it.
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