What happens? Day 1- 3: You repeatedly tell yourself it's okay, that things will get better, and that you can catch up on those smartphone/tablet games you've been accumulating. It's a blessing in disguise! Day 4: You feel jittery, despite all the games you've been playing on your phone/tablet. You decide it might help your nerves a bit if you knocked back a couple of beers before gaming. Day 5: You start mixing whiskey and prescription drugs before gaming. Day 6 - 7: You wander about your house in your underwear muttering something about Saigon and "Charlie getting stronger". You're not gaming anymore, and you're not sure if your bleeding hands and the broken mirrors in the bathroom are connected. Day 8 - 9: Total blank. Day 10 - 14: You awake to find yourself in jail awaiting charges in regards to the beheading of your neighbor's pet parakeet, Kurtzie, while screaming "Terminate! With extreme prejudice!"
Or you buy a Wii U or PS4 and play when you want and where you want with or without internet. In all seriousness do M$ not have someone looking at the reaction online? 90% of people seem to think M$ have made a terrible move but I think they would rather go bust than admit a mistake.
Like M$ is going to tell us to buy a PS4 or WiiU, which is what a lot of people will end up doing. If you want to enjoy the latest generation of console games and graphics on Xbox, you have to be connected every 24 hours! Screw the people who travel with their console (I know many truck drivers), screw the family road trips where the kids have their console plugged into the back seat or in hotel rooms, screw the people in America and other parts of the world without Internet but want to play the newest Halo, screw the young children that aren't allowed access to the Internet by their parents, screw the person whose internet service is out or have to cut their service off due to financial problems, screw the people who want to play the latest games but balk at the audacity of Microsoft. Could you imagine if Microsoft decided to require internet access on every piece of software & hardware they sell? Your Windows 8 laptop locks up, because you're not connected or you can't edit those Microsoft office files without Internet access, and then while you're on a beach vacation, your tablet won't work anymore cuz you've been away from the internet for more than 24 hours? If people can't see a problem with this, they're fools that MS is looking for! People who say no big deal, always assume that everyone should be like them... well I have internet and I have money, so should everyone else! How about you go fuq yourself with that privileged yuppie mentality!
I don't agree with some of the goofy restrictions and check-ins that MS is doing with the Xbox One, but I would also have to admit that my own 360 has pretty much been perma-connected to the internet since the day I got it in 2005. I'm guessing that the vast majority of 360 owners are the same. You turn it on to play a game. You see a message about a system software update or a game software update. You update via the internet, etc., etc.
You could play the 360 and all of its disc based games without any kind of internet connection whatsoever right out of the box. If it never has been connected, it would never know to check for an update. That's how all game systems should be. Plug it, pop in the game, and play... simple! This requirement for XBone is not going to reduce piracy, it's going to reduce legitimate sales.
There's always power cuts and outages or ISP or server issues. The last of us auto save glitch is a prime example of the kinds of problems that could occur. It seems Sony will sabotage its own games to demonstrate what Microsoft is doing wrong.
It's definitely hard to figure why MS would have chosen the 24 hour frame for the owner check-in. What exactly is the advantage of that supposed to be even if you were ONLY considering the issue from their perspective and completely ignoring the consumer side? It doesn't even make sense then. That said, would it have been possible for me to buy the 360 in 2005 and still be using it for any disc based game I wanted in 2013 without ever updating the system software?
Yes, if your Xbox 360 wasn't connected to the internet or if you didn't have internet access in your home, you could download updates from any other PC & burn it to disc or put it on USB Flash drive. Even some X360 games came with the mandatory updates needed for them to play, already included on the disc!!! http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/system-updates/system-updates-info?icid=furl_update#56c97553595049818a0b954d548bf97d
Yeah, it's not so common now, or maybe it's because my PS3 is always up to date but some games would have firmware updates. Very common on PSP, probably as a piracy prevention measure. You can download updates from the Playstation website and update via USB.
My PS3 went years without being connected. Around half of the games I've bought installed firmware updates from the disc before being able to play.
Borrowing and renting games is what kills the Xbox One for me. There's a place in town that had 5 day rentals for a $1 a day. I stop by there after work, rent a game or two, and I'm playing them when I get home. They are better than online demos and I don't have to worry about going over my ISP's bandwidth cap by renting disk games.
So true, we all know what the future will bring for gaming content distribution (Direct download and cloud streaming), but taking advantage of those old dying business models is a fantastic way to save money now. Speaking of saving money, the place holder price for PS4/XBOne games here is $118.95. I'll be getting a PS4, but I'll be damned if I'm paying more than $89 (max price in PSX generation) for a game. $60USD plus import and goods tax is nowhere near $120, it's more like $80-90. I don't pay more than $60AUD for a game on steam and usually max out at $50. Console game prices suck.