Xbox One
Does this really require any discussion at all? It's a cable box with the design language of the 1970's, only lacking the faux wood paneling. It costs the most out of the three consoles by $100. It's Kinect mandatory. It doesn't support used games. It has a DRM policy that requires it to have not only an internet connection but a paid subscription to Xbox LIVE or it locks you out. It watches you masturbate, reports you to HUAAC as a terrorist, rapes your dog and sets fire to your house. Yes, that's correct, It was designed by blind aliens that live in a cave. You would have to be completely fucking delusional to think people would want this.
Even after seeing what happened with Sim City's always online DRM disaster, Microsoft still thought it could pull off an entire console that does this. Perhaps it was too late to alter course at that point but it doesn't matter because you shouldn't have to learn this from example. Do some critical thinking and USE YOUR FUCKING BRAIN. What is the point of requiring online checks? It's to make piracy more difficult. So who does it benefit? Ultimately no one. It can only be at best for the consumer not a hindrance and at worst, it makes the system unplayable. For the company that makes the system it makes less people want to buy from them. It's a feature that only has negative effects that outweigh whatever 'good' it was intended to do. There's a Confucius quote for this; "Never use a cannon to kill a fly." You can't stop piracy. In trying to kill the unkillable fly, you just destroy everything around it. If you have to stop piracy so bad, then don't make games, because that is the only way. No one will be playing them anyway.
The no used games thing is really all they need to say to get me to not care about the new Xbox. Probably around 80% of my games are used because new games have an overblown price tag and I don't believe in digital copies. They're trying to strip away every basic freedom that players have enjoyed since day one of the first home console. Imagine if in the next election, one of the candidates said "If I become president, I will abolish the constitution. There will be no freedom of speech, no right to a trial or any of those other things that the government and law enforcement find annoying or difficult to deal with." Would you vote for them?
No, you know what? These aren't basic rights of people that play video games, they're basic rights of consumers in general. Right now you can go into your public library and borrow any number of intellectual properties in every medium including movies, books and music and enjoy them for free. But woe betide anyone trying to pull that shit with a video game, our most time honored and sacred of art forms. A new video game costs 2-3 times more than a new movie which has a comparable budget. Game publishers like EA essentially don't want you to be able to own their products, making greedy corporations like the MPAA and RIAA look like Santa Claus by comparison. Like I said in the beginning, a game should be just as easy to buy, use, loan and sell as a hammer. It's not magical. It's not the Second Coming of Christ. It's just a fucking product like every other product in the world. This holier than thou bullshit that video games have needs to stop but it won't. Why? It's all because we, (and by 'we' I really mean all you dumbasses out there,) allow it to continue by preordering and buying their shit at day one for $60. Then you buy all the day one DLC for it. Four hours later you're trading it in for $2 toward the next over-priced and over-hyped piece of shit.
But even you dumbasses have a limit, a limit which was finally found by Microsoft. So congratulations to you. When Microsoft peddled the Xbox One at their reveal and at E3, you didn't stand up and cheer "Yes, Microsoft! Yes! Please sodomize me with your endless and extremely convoluted list of totalitarian rules detailing what I can and can't do with MY games that I purchased. I can't wait to have a device in my home straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel that watches and or listens to everything I say! And I love the added feature of needing to be connected to the internet for no good reason! It's so very useful and not at all a potential stumbling block!" Yes, good job, dumbasses. There may be hope for you yet.
