@rem234 I don't mind ads by Xbox for content on its marketplace or xboxlive events etc. But unsolicited 3rd party ads suck on any medium. So if the plan is to allow 3rd party advertising on the Xbox at some stage in future I'd be very against that regardless of "where" they put the ads.

Zynga is doomed.

The saying is something about rats leaving a sinking...

@hadlee73 @rayonmachristie @jdt532 As long as you authenticate every child once every 24hrs?

MS would imply that the 24hr online authentication at home or the 1hr authentication when away from your primary xbox was to protect publishing partners. Allowing 10 different individuals (not actually family by MS definition) to share one copy of a game (one user at a time) was just as unfriendly to publishers as the current trading, lending or reselling model.

Biggest problem was the MS authentication system would not work at all offline leaving you with a doorstop if the net went out in your area for more than 24hrs. On top of people in no net service areas or areas with outages there are those who work on location (mines, rigs, defence force personnel etc). The previous policies were exclusionist.

The simplest process would have been to use the new chipped disc technology to allow license transfer onto a HD. This transfer of content plus license now meant the disc copy could no longer be accessed. This would enable disc free gaming for as long as you wanted the game. The day you wanted to trade the game you could transfer the license back to the disc. When license returned to the disc it can be lent out, traded or sold just as with a normal disc.

This was a option which was available which MS chose to overlook in favour of online authentication which might have worked ok for online purchases but made no sense when you plan to have discs anyway. It was a big blunder.

@keltonkelly1989 The sound of one hand clapping for you sir.

@DoublesWorld Agreed. Damage done. They need to work overtime to fix this not just reverse some policy.

@HenrySix Takes balls to make an embarrassing backdown? That isn't leadership or balls. If they genuinely felt their model was the way forward they should stick to their guns. THAT would take balls.

The ultimate failure in leadership is having access to a 48million online subscriber base and not building a system of surveying those members about potential new policies in advance. They could have saved a lot of face by not going in the direction the majority of their users didn't support.

@Zevvion @punksterdaddy When I look "objectively" at coming tech I use a simple process:

Pros vs cons.

So far I have counted 7 cons for the Xbox One which do not exist on the Playstation 4. The "only" pros I could find for Xbox One (not found on Playstation) were kinect / TV media integration.

Its an easy decision for me and that is despite a decade of using Xbox consoles.

@Zevvion @punksterdaddy How does Sony doing the right thing by gamers and gaming in general make the Xbox One more attractive? Perhaps you could explain the logic behind such a bizarre statement?

I own 4 Xbox 360s and I have been an Xbox user for a decade but I'm not a fan boy who is so one eyed I'd let Microsoft take a dump on me because they feel like "it's time". I've been cringing at the hardcore diehard Xbox fanboys. They are trying too hard to be positive when the company and console they prefer is proving that it doesn't have their concerns at the forefront of its thinking.

Meanwhile Don Mattrick is walking around making buffoon statements to the press. A "tech" company lead by an absolute idiot isn't going to win a console generation.