Ofcourse they knew that they were taking a risk, otherwise they would be completely incompetent. Just as MS knew they were taking a risk with bundling of the Kinect.

I remember how everyone bashed MS for the original Kinect, saying it would never be succesful. But their risk payed off in that case. These companies make calculated risks and hope that enough fans will jump onboard for the risk to pay off. In the case of both PS3 and X1, that risk didn´t pay off, so they reverse on their strategies to adapt.

You are right, companies don´t know beforehand if they will succed of fail with a new product.

However Microsoft changed the XOne before it was launch. For you logic one might assume that we don´t know if they would succed if they´ve hold to their guns.

I would have love to see them trying the original policies.

When thecnology is at hand, some time choice is not the best option.

Kinect had little to do with all the last year XOne hate.

The only complain was the price that Kinect add to the bundle, but everything else was the suposed TV,TV,TV and removing the "right" to resell, land and borrow fisical games without online checking.

Exactly.

I've never said, MS doesn't deserve praise because they never took a risk. I said praising them for listening to consumers is false because they didn't listen, if they did they would've at the very least acknowledge the public with a letter. If someone wants to praise them because of the changes they've made thats fine, but we can't pretend that they listened to consumers.

Did MS really have any choice ?

I know, but Kinect was a major factor in the pricing. I also remember when sony announced the PS3, they couldn´t stop talking about how it would become the mediacenter of our homes, very much like how MS was talking last year.

That last statement is stupid, you can't play CDs on your iPod Touch, you know people still buy CDs right? :P

People don't have a thing against digital downloads/games. Never have, if they did MS, Nintendo and Sony wouldn't have stores via their systems. If MS just pitched 2 consoles, 1 with a drive and one without that is download only just cheaper, people would have been on board. It was the forcing people to log on once a day to prove to them that you didn't steal the game.

Their pitch for the new gen was "Your are all thieves and we don't trust you so..."

This thread is not concerned with personal opinions about whether or not the XB1 would be good in its original state. Nor is it concerned with whether or not the XB1 would have payed even worse had it not changed faster.

This question of the OP is whether MS listened to consumers.

They did not.

So praise based off of that pretense is false.

MS changed to stay competitve and that could be seen as to benefit its customers and itself, which might be praiseworthy in some eyes, but not for the reason of "listening".

Customers speak with their wallets. Microsoft listened (actually before launch. They knew which way things were leaning and tried to fix it). But I haven't been on this site as much as I used to. I bought a PS4 and an Xbox One and both are pretty disappointing to me, thus far. I preferred the 360 to PS3 and preferred the PS2 to the original Xbox. I personally don't praise them (Nor do I praise my beloved Nintendo for doing what they should have been doing from the start). Since the OP is saying that EVERYBODY is jumping on the trend of praising M$, can somebody point out some examples of who these people are? I honestly don't see everybody praising them.

Its easy enough to say that, but where is the acknowledgement? They didn't have time to say we are working on it, or "Please Understand", but Don Mattrick had the time to say, if you don't have internet buy a 360?

Granted OP is at fault for making a sweeping generalization, but we can't equate Customers to wallets, not anymore, not in the generation of the Internet. There was a concern even before preorders, MS made no response, instead trying to clarify the policies, that people fundamentally disagreed with, when they saw the preorders after E3, Sony heard the complaints against Microsoft and listened, responding with a low budget youtube video that capitalized on the PR greatly, in some circles people even joke that Don Mattrick was the best advertiser for the PS4. They did this to themselves, and while it might be admirable that they've changed, there is no evidence to support the assertion that they listened.