I think the name sorta says it all though, doesn't it ... HBO Go? When it comes to consoles you're not going anywhere. Your cable box is typically sitting in the same entertainment center the console is. Like I said before it makes sense to me when it comes to mobile devices. On consoles apps like this in their current form are trivial at best.

Meh, I'm not sure offhand about the shows but my cable box can get the movies on demand as well, and they look better cuz it's cable and not streamed via the internet. Look, I get it as far as mobile devices go. When on the go ya don't have your cable box and TV with you. But Xbox and Playstation are not mobile devices. Chances are pretty high that wherever you've got one or both of those consoles you've also got your cable box. And if ya got it on your cable box, a requirement, then what good is it to have it on the console? Apps like this on consoles are not gonna mean anything to me until ya can use it without already having it on something else. In that sort of scenario ya could pay for XBL and dump your cable rather than paying two monthly fees to get a second way to access something you're already getting paying for just one.

If a 30%-40% difference is marginal in his book then his definition of marginal is much different than mine. To me that's a pretty substantial difference for 2 machines that launched only a week apart, made even worse by the fact that the weaker one is $100 more expensive than the stronger one. I've been a Xbox fanboy since 2001 and they've lost me. I sure as hell did not walk away because of something marginal. If they can lose me they can lose anybody.

I still wish that when they learned of PS4's specs they had decided to delay Xbox One to redesign it (Take Kinect out of the box, change memory to GDDR5, double the power of the GPU). It would have sucked waiting an extra 6 months to a year to get it but if that's what it would have taken to get a true next-gen Xbox I would have been willing to wait. Sure, a delay like that would have put MS in an uphill struggle to catch up but with the box they've got now they have no friggin chance.

I haven't bothered trying the HBO app but I really don't get what the point of apps like this is. The few similar ones I've tried always tell me I have to be a subscriber to the service in some other capacity to use it on Xbox 360, often from my cable provider. Well, if I've already got it from my cable provider then what the hell do I need it on 360 for? Seems to me that in order to be truly useful there would be no requirement to already have it on something else. If, for example, I already have HBO through my cable box than an app for Xbox 360 is redundant cuz all I gotta do is change inputs to watch it, and at higher quality too.

I'll agree that PS4 is whoopin X1 in Europe so far but it's pretty close in NA. X1 might even be a little ahead in NA. Considering it's weaker and $100 more I expected PS4 to be leading in NA by now.

Yeah, FF13-2 with its time travel and parallel universes and all that is confusing and I don't really get it entirely but oh well ... it's still a good game anyway.

I played FF13 and am playing FF13-2 now. I like both of them. The size of FF13-2 is surprising to me. The game is freakin' huge ... and gorgeous too. The Academia level is especially impressive.

Rant incoming:

I'm actually more interested in what TV news comes out of CES than I am anything video game-related. What I'd especially like to see is for Samsung to focus on picture quality again. For the last couple of years their sets have been feature-loaded but pq has been lacking. Really the only Samsung LED for sale right now that has acceptable pq is the extremely expensive F8000.

The problem started when they abandoned both cold cathode and LED backlighting and went with LED edgelighting exclusively. Seriously, my mom's 46D630 with cold cathode lighting that she got for $800 a few years ago looks better than any (With the F8000 being perhaps the one exception) Samsung LED I've seen for a while, even ones that cost hundreds more. Tech is suppose to get better over time, not go backwards. Get it together, Samsung. I wish they'd just stop making edgelit sets altogether. Sure, it makes for a thinner panel but the pq sucks.

It makes buying a new TV tough. Amazon deeply discounted the 46F6300 to $650 at Thanksgiving and I thought long and hard about getting it but decided against it because reviews say the black levels are abysmal, a standard problem with edgelit LED HDTVs. So really my only option is the 46F8000 and that costs nearly $2000! I've been waiting for a great sale on it, like perhaps for $1500 (Been looking for a few months now. Starting to get convinced it'll never see a discount like that) but even that is a ridiculous amount to pay for a 46" TV. Sure wish my mom's model was still for sale cuz if it was I'd get it without hesitation. It's much better than the edgelit crap Samsung is peddling now.

Suuurrrreee, COD:Ghosts runs at only 720p because X1 is more powerful than PS4, lol. You guys need to give it up already and accept reality. Amazing to me that this misterxmedia character is still getting attention from a handful of people.

I get a kick out of that sign. Yeah, all of that is true but unfortunately what they can't write on there is "As powerful as PS4" because that wouldn't be true. Is weaker and costs $100 more. If they're having a tough time selling it that's why. All the stuff people were going on about in the months prior to launch like always-on internet connection, DRM, etc., were little problems because they were things that could be fixed. The hardware design is a colossal problem because they're stuck with it; it can't be changed now. Going with a paltry 12 CUs and DDR3 memory guaranteed they would play second fiddle to Sony this time around.