I'll add that I'm a little confused with this staunch defense of everything. I mean, people have long criticized Apple for requiring a specific connector for their phones to work, which costs about $20-30. We're then willing to support than same vision for a $100 Kinect, call it "the future," and then defend it to the death, it seems. We hate the DRM on music and movies, and we voted EA the worst company in America for 2 years because of their Online Pass, in an attempt to earn some money off of used games. Microsoft uses this check-in system to attempt to monetize the used games market as well, and people defend that. Sony released the PS3 at $500, while the Xbox 360 was $400 (for the HDD version), and we dogged them for that, despite they were using the Blu-Ray drive as "the future," in a way that worked out well for all of us (as Blu-Ray beat out HD-DVD and had a greater storage capacity). Microsoft touts the Kinect as "the future" (and not in a way that is as widespread as Blu-Ray has been), uses it to release the Xbox One at $500 (while the PS4 is $400), and that gets defended as well. I'm just unsure (beyond the loyalty to the logo) why something folks here castigated other companies for in the past is now a similar matter which they are defending Microsoft for, claiming it's some kind of "revolution of gaming."
PS3 actually launched at $600
If someone tells the iPhone connecter, "iPhone, airplane mode" it's not going to do anything. Nor can it detect eye movement, heartbeat, limb rotation, etc. Although it was defended for some reason, I'm not quite sure what that was. Obviously, the people defending it wanted to let people know why it was so much better, something nobody else was seeing. Apple at the same time is a very different beast. They are amazing with marketing spin, and feeding it all to the masses.
We all hate DRM. I don't think anybody is denying that. I more so think that people are defending the
notion that this DRM is necessary to implement Microsoft's next step into the future of gaming. I still don't LIKE the idea of 24-hour check-in, and I really don't think
anybody "likes" it, but some people have accepted it as a good trade-off for what they can do. I was complaining about it to my brother, not a big tech-guy, and explaining how that part blows. His response, "Yea, you know... I really don't care. My Xbox is always online right now and I am always on Live anyway". I can't really find fault in that - he took his Xbox 360 to our extended family's house in Canada a couple of Christmases ago - he just hooked it up to their in-home Wi-Fi and we played against our cousin on his 360. For our situation and our connectivity, there really is no problem. The DRM does suck - there may be occasions where something goes wrong or that we want to take it somewhere offline... but for the most part, in normal usage... it works. Not for everybody of course, but some people do find it will work for them without many (or any) problems. And THAT'S why people defend it. People defend it because there are still plenty of scenarios where it will work and not be obtrusive at all. People defend it because they might find it appalling to find such a narrow-minded view, when in reality it actually works for some people. And makes sense to some people. And will be invisible to some people. I imagine it will be invisible to me. I'm curious though and I will take the console offline for 24 hours just to see how it handles it
I specifically want to know if I will be booted out of a game at the exact 24 hour marker, and if my game will be saved or if I will be prompted.
Some DRM is seamless and some isn't. I never bought Bioshock for the PC because of that DRM that limits your number of total installs. I can be known for wiping everything clean on my machine, and I have done that multiple times. I would hate to have a coaster once I installed the game for the 5th time on my PC. I didn't have to worry about that at all when Microsoft offered it for $5 digital download a while back, so I finally picked it up. At least now I can play it on any 360 I want.
Microsoft touts the Kinect as the future. You don't see it, but the Kinect IS the future. It already has brought some fairly impressive stuff with Kinect v1, but this Kinect v2 (or Kinect One) is ridiculously improved. Freaking thing can see me in the dark, that's awesome. I don't need to have floodlights in the room if I want to play a game
Regardless, I really don't need to go into any more details because it really sounds as if your mind is made up and Kinect is just a camera capable of producing games where you flail around and hope it catches your movements. I mean, made up until you see it for yourself at the very least. Myself, I've enjoyed the demonstrations I've seen with actual press people (not Microsoft) are using the new Kinect and having the new features shown off to them.
BTW, on the topic of DRM, I am fairly confident that Microsoft has extremely detailed stats on everybody connected to Live... including how many days they've been offline and disconnected in a given timeframe. The numbers they found on those constantly connected probably helped them arrive at a workable solution.
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