A defence of the Xbox One, and the future

This is a hard article to write, for obvious reasons. In it, I'm going to try and justify all of Microsoft's controversial decisions. I'll then explain a few things about public perception and why Microsoft need to fix up to avoid falling behind.

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People are wondering why Microsoft have included their 'used games' and '24 hour check' systems in the Xbox ONE. Rather than Microsoft just scréwing us over for the sake of it, there's actually sound reasoning behind it.

Something that a lot have people have forgotten is that the difficulty in trading used games on the ONE vs the PS4 will be because Microsoft want to make it so that everyone can just save their games to the console, then never have to use the disc again. This is in comparison to Sony who are continuing the 'traditional way', with discs that the games load off. This, in my opinion, could be a really, really good feature.

Their argument is this is easier for the user (definitely, requires no disc switching) and allows games to run faster (Again, yes). We've seen them proudly show off how you can be playing Ryse one minute and then your friend sends you an invite to another game and you instantly join it, as if it's all part of the same game. This is cool, and I can actually see this being very useful.

However, this obviously causes difficulty, because what's to stop someone from saving lots of games to their hard drive, then selling them to the friends for say... £35, then they do the same, etc, etc until game companies are broke because they've only had one copy sold.

The solution? Make it so the game has to be uninstalled before you can trade it. This fits in with their 'participating retailers' thing, because you'd need to go to a proper shop so they can verify that you haven't just given them something you're gonna keep playing anyway.

Ah, I hear you say, but why don't they just disconnect the console from live so they can continue playing anyway? Oh wait, Microsoft does the 24 hour check thing so this doesn't happen. Bam.

There's the whole argument of 'ethics of ability to trade games' (Which I'm sure microsoft will protect) versus 'Ability to play halo, fifa, cod and watch movies without getting off my fat arsé' but I think we'll hear more about this that'll clear it up.

Then the internet thing... WHO DOESN'T HAVE INTERNET? My house has been connected to internet 24 hours a day for about 8 years, save the one time I switched from Sky to Virgin and it was down for 5 minutes while they changed it. It's not going to affect anyone who doesn't live in a cave.

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Now let's address the other issues.

'Kinect is always watching you' No it isn't. It's listening for 'Xbox on' and you can turn that off if you really want to.

And price is the other main point. I agree, it's too much. But the ps3 was $600 when it came out compared to $400 for the highest priced 360, and over a couple of years it evened out. I'm pretty sure they'll be the same eventually.

Microsoft try to justify their cost because of kinect, which is stupid because I don't think Kinect is worth that much to me, even if it does mean I can be lazy as hell. They should sell a model without Kinect, and they could probably do this for the same price as the PS4, with Kinect as an extra you can buy along the line later, LIKE IT IS NOW!

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I've written this because I don't think the PS4 is the heaven sent console ready to pleasure us like nothing has before and the Xbox ONE is not the console sent by Satan himself to punish us for our sins. Both have good points and bad point and the console war will be a lot closer than people think. Misinformation and premature judgement have led to many people assuming things that simply aren't true and think that the PS4 is like a Ferrari compared to the Nissan Cube that is the Xbox ONE.

There are so many idiots in the world nowadays who believe everything the sensationalist press tell them to believe. Some idiot says 'the PS4 and ONE will cost $600' and half the world thinks that before being rational. Likewise, on the Arsenal board everyday there'll be a new article claiming we've signed someone from a trusted source and claiming that they get everything right even though yesterday's debunked article serves as proof that they were wrong and are usually wrong.

Having said that, Microsoft are behind now, because of a terrible public image and it costing £80 more. They'll need to get their act together to avoid falling behind. IMO, their best bet is to offer a 'Kinect-less ONE' or to include, say, a free copy of Forza 5, an extra controller and a year of live to everyone who buys a ONE before January. Something like that would help to justify the price difference and would put them in a much better position moving forward.