@Mugzippit But who games on Steam and doesn't purchase atleast one game anyway?

Also, Steam summer sale should start any day now...likely tomorrow :)

That rumor a few weeks back of Steam sharing sounds promising too. It would potentially let friends or family play some of your steam library.

@stanknuggetz12 If the actual backlight for the Lightbar is LED, then its not going to drain the battery very much.

The only real issue to me would be that in a darker room, if its bright enough to be a distraction/annoyance.

@wiiutroll @FULGOREY2K @SwungCookie Just want to Add that it was Microsofts Design choice to make it mandatory and they are seeing the repercussions of this decision.

@wiiutroll @FULGOREY2K @SwungCookie Not everyone uses Skype.

Some people including me see the Kinect as a gimmick. Siri for iPhone wasn't a convincing feature for me. Completely not interested.

Skype may be something that interests you, but don't force it on all others and force the price of the console +$100 just because its heavily integrated into the system.

Simply answer for me: I'm not buying it. If MS wants developers to develop with it, forcing it on the system is one way (at the cost of annoying fans), but the better solution would have made it a compelling add-on and convince people to get it (make it cheap, get 1st party developers to prove why its worth the extra money).

Kinect Sports and Star Wars is what we got on current gen.

@Kelleyb4947 @YoungCardinal @BlueRaptor7

I just personally don't see the value of TV anymore.

News and weather have been replaced by the internet for me. All major newpapers publish articles on their websites for free, and have apps to check these on my phone too.

Sports and the Discovery channel are the only things I miss out on, but I can sign up to stream games for my favorite teams.

To me, the high cost of digital cable does not justify having Discovery or National Geographic. I'd rather pay a fraction of that cost to get on demand movies and TV shows on Netflix (where you can watch many complete shows without having to buy a DVD boxset ever again).

(I used GOT as an example to point out that its among the highest pirated because of the way its not accessible easily to everyone - without deluxe cable package premiums at least.)

@Kelleyb4947 @BlueRaptor7 Time warner cable subscription...is that free?

Paying $10/month for Netflix, Hulu and HBO Go gives me direct access to everything I would ever watch on TV without the bloated other channels.

Why pay over $100/month for cable when you can essentially pay for what you want and get on-demand for practically most things for $30. I'm just waiting for HBO to offer a standalone Go service (you wonder why Game of Thrones and many HBO shows are among the top pirated shows, people have stopped paying for cable and moving to netflix)

@epicgameresearc But but you can now talk to your console to change the channel lol...

Its really point-less. Since this only acts as a pass-through, it still requires you have a dedicated cable box and its just as simple to change TV input from HDMI 1 to HDMI 2 to say swap between sports and gaming (it doesn't free up any room in your living room).

@Yomigaeru @YoungCardinal I never buy games within the first week or two of release unless its a trusted brand. I usually wait for multiple reviews of the game to help make a decision on purchasing a game.

As you said, tt seems true that devs release a game to rake in as many sales as possible one day-one especially since sales will tank right after release it it turns out to be bad (like Colonial Marines did). This is the problem with the gaming industry right now. The majority of devs aren't in control. Their parent company or publisher sets hard deadline dates (something thats impractical for software) and often leads to major bugs or technical issues (SimCity), but they release it anyway just so they can make those sales and boost their quarterly earnings.

You can't really correlate these two distinctions when some of the best-sellers don't necessarily require demos anymore (some franchises have built up their customer trust so people will buy it no matter what).

Any new IP should have a demo to go along with the game to prove a game is worth buying. So many past examples of hype and advertising and made some people weiry of day-one purhcases (look at Colonial Marines). You will start to see fewer and fewer pre-orders and sales on games if they don't provide a demo of a new IP.

Developers are scared to provide demos nowadays cause people won't buy their games if it turns out to be garbage.

As long as your require Origin for all future EA titled games, it will be used to drive tranactions and I will continue to refrain from using it...