Firstly I would like to say my faith has been rewarded as I knew MS couldn't have seriously ignored such a big PR backlash for a month straight. Ironically this was done in part thanks to those with less faith but hey, it all led to a greater good.

With lending, used games, region lock, and internet check-in now scrapped, the criticizers are still coming in. Sigh...haters gonna hate I suppose.The main cons that seem to remain are:

1. The damage is done. MS tried to take advantage of us and we won't forget.

The Xbox1 was annoucned one month ago. That was one month of horrible PR and then the major cons were then taken out. November is 5 months away. That gives 5x the.....time for MS to build back up a suitable image. Nevermind this is well before each console shipped a single unit and well before MS marketing budget flexes its vastly superior muscles. Also......LIVE fees since 2002. RROD which STILL haunts the Xbox image in certain core gamer circles. When was MS NOT hated and labelled anti consumer? Ya. 360 still shipped 75 million and counting. Essentially, core gamer perception only has so much impact. If the games come, and they are coming, and the polocies remain as consumer friendly as with 360 in regards to lending and used games, then X1 has little to truly worry about come November. After the exclusives arrive and marketing is in full swing, this will be remembered as just a rough patch like the 3DS or WiiU early months.....except with the luxury of the console not being out for another 5 months.

2. The Xbox1 is priced $100 more then the PS4.

How quick are we to forget our rich history. This is why history is taught in school at all academic levels......its important to remember what we have done and learn from it.

Given last generation, MS made the mistake of not learning from the benefit of being cheaper while being able to play the exact same library as the competition. Sony, has apparantly learned and done the right approach. But I am pointing fingers at the fans, who seem to convientely forget that PS3 was $499/599 in 2006.Nevermind with inflation that $499 in 2006 would be about $550 in 2013. $100 gap isn't exactly a deal breaker considering you will be using the console for the next 5-10 years.And considering it includes kinect, there is at least a reason for the price disparity. But again, it isn't nearly as bad as PS3 in 2006 versus 360 2006 pricing. Come fall 2007 the PS3 prices fell to $399/499, so whos to say MS can't do the same thing in 2014?

3. Kinect is still required/can totally watch and listen to me.

This is primarily the reason why it is $100 more expensive. But to me anyway, it is totally justified. I mean sure the occasional game will make decent use of it as a secondary control method, but the voice and gesture controls alone would do it for me. $100 to have a ultra-modern lifestyle really.....the idea of walking downstairs in the morning, make your breakfast, and tell the Xbox to play your favourite music while you prepare and eat, without even sitting down or touching a controller. Voice navigating a increasingly crowded marketplace to get where I want to go in seconds. You essentially pay for convience, which is fine by me.

See my sig for further details regarding watching/lsitening to you :P. But in regards to this whole NSA thing......the program was intended to spy on terrorist suspects.......not tell the police that kinect spotted some guy smoking weed in between COD sessions. To speak about this on a serious matter, really shows your true colors regarding your personal level of paranoia and how much tin foil you have in your house :P. It is required to have universal support for games and encourage you to use it (god forbid...), but it can be tweaked to your liking. This is a non issue.

4. The Xbox 1 is still weaker then PS4.

There is no amount of chart comparisons and spec sheets that will change the fact that multiplatform titles will be largely identical. Exclusives will be where the hardware shines, but even then this ain't no PS2/Xbox gap. Lens of truth may spot some things but has that stopped PS3 gamers from buying "bad" multiplats this gen. lol no. This is a non issue, and grasping at straws at its finest.

5. Still restrictive indie support.

Not sure why core gamers are taking issue with this one. We aren't indie developers. This just means that Sony will have more indie games from developers that can afford to publish their own games. This doesn't affect indie devs who desperately need financing to concentrate on their game, which IMO, far outnumber those that can self publish.All this means is that the playing field is levelled now, since XBLA was the leader in the console downloadable front for most of then gen. And Xbox still has Minecraft where PS4 doesn't.....can't say MS doesn't have the bigger indie devs on their side completely. And guys, lets be honest, we do care more about AAA retail games. Unless its super origional and scores amazing, most indie games fall well below the radar for us. Seriously......its the distinct impression haters are using this as a con because they can, not because they actually care.

6. Xbox Live Gold is more expensive

Well......funny how we have gone from "Free to play > pay-to-play" to "my pay-to-play model is better then yours". Huh. Interesting how someones core principles can change in an instant. Also consdiering how it costs Sony and MS next to nothing to give free digital games, its essentially free money to them and the illusion of value to us. I see this as a more-or-less even playing field.

In conclusion (opinion piece, sorry if bias shows here): At the very least, Xbox One is likely to hold its own in NA and UK. And considering most of us who post in ".com" gamign forums are from NA and UK.......you will just have to deal with that Xbox 1 may be dominant in the country you live in. Talking about PS4 Spain and Japan sales is kinda redundant considering you don't live there and do infact live where it might very well be losing to Xbox.

I agree... MS is back to the game.

1. I think won't be a problem... the damage will be forgotten until the launch... MS needs to focus now the show how good the Xbone is for the consumers and stop the PR talk.

2. Nothing to add.

3. Well... you can put it off but I think some consumers don't want the Kinect at all... they can have a better price without Kinect.

4. Sony had luck when the GDDR5 tech evolved.

5. The most strong indie support is yet with MS but they can change the policies here to make more easy for the indies.

6. Less than $1 per month... $10 in the year... not so much if you deliver a better service.

I'll respond to each of your points

1. People will eventually forget this event even happned, hell most of the buyers out of x1 won't even care/know about it.

2. Ya, but honestly I still think $500 is a high price point since I personally prob won't even using the functions of kinect very much. So paying $100 more for an xbox one is iffy. Ps4 and xbox one are essentially the same system. It isn't like the disparity between the hd twins and the wii u. Ya ms will drop price eventually though. Sony could also drop the price by then too,

3. Meh, don't see myself using the kinect very much. I guess some the the things suggested would be cool though I have devices that can already do that. Though not exactly obviously

4. I've always thought they were rather similar in power anyways so no need for further comment on this one on 3rd party games.

5. umm, don't really have much of an opinion on this one lol

6. I never had a problem with xbox live gold in general.

It will def put up a fight which is good for competition, domination is never good. It keeps companies on their toes. Though not sure about the dominat comment since I think ps4 will outsell it because of price, but not a massacre by any means. The two will be close. lol almost forgot about wii u. Umm its somewhere.

Point #4 is wrong. It would have the potential to be right if the hardware was different and required recoding like the PS3. It wasn't worth it. But with the new hardware it's more a case of turning somethings up. It will be easily noticeable. 50% more optimum performance is a lot.

I could make small arguments on both sides of all of these that wouldn't really change the dynamic of what you're saying a ton, but #4 is huge.

GDDR5 is to Ferrari as DDR3 is to Ford Escort.

That being said, it matters what devs do with it. Like you said, exclusive first party titles will shine, and though multiplats may be similar early in the gen, I'd argue that the gap would widen as the gen evolves. A few points:
-PS4 is more developer friendly than PS3, moving from Cell to x86
-The gap between DDR3 and GDDR5 is pretty wide
-It is rumored that the PS4 OS will take much less memory to run than that of the XBox One.

If the PS4 becomes the multiplat master platform with more, faster memory and XBox One becomes the ported console, look out.

Personally, I think Microsoft can overcome most everything else to be competitive this gen. This is the one that they're not going to be able to do much to compete with.

^This all day long.

Argument: GDDR5.  *Drops mic

The 100$ difference in price is way more important than Kinect (which in the long run people will get use to, not me personally) and its pretty much the only valid point right now in my opinion.

There are other things like the fact that you can't updrage the HDD internally and AA batteries in the controller but they are really nothing.

Sales I respect your stand on things even though sometimes I have seen you just look at only what you want(as we all do) when it is in your best interest lol.

But to have an honest outlook....don't you have to state the good and the bad for BOTH sides?

It's not like they have to pay the publishers or anything, or lose sales on their own games. And how is being given great games to play an illusion of value?

Im sure there is plenty "bad side" opinions to go around without me chiming in lol