True,condemming goes a bridge too far but for myself it just takes a while before i would give them thrust because of those early fuckups they did.

I would like them to do more for gamers without being forced to do it.And maybe theyre on the right track again but it takes time to win people over :)

No, they don't. If you think Microsoft is your "friend", wait until they are in a better position, so to speak. They will have you biting a pillow, as soon as they possibly can. It is up to us to never give them the open shot.

You make all valid points. I still own my dvd collection, but I no longer play them anymore. all my media is on harddrives now.  There are pros, and cons to every side. I was not dismissing your view, but it's pretty obvious that even Sony wants to go to an all digital future.

This gen has been so odd for me. I personally do not understand why if I own the disc version of a game I need to download it to the hard drive, and after I do that I still need to put the disc in the the system for it to play all that I downloaded. this seems very redundant. Whereas if I download the game once I download a game I have access to it  whenever. why is this?!? I personally believe both systems use a DRM type system on the disc.  Before you label me a nut job.

Keep in mind Sony was creating this exact type of DRM prior to the PS4. They knew that not all systems would be online, and to get to that group of people they would have to create a DRM in the system for people that tried to bypass the internet check.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-patents-tech-to-block-used-games/1100-6401992/

Sony understood full well that the 2nd hand game business was hurting sales. The crazy thing is I really believed that Sony not MS would have pushed this more considering they have so many first party studios, and I'm sure that missed revenue on 2nd hand sales caused Sony to close down some of their 1st party studios. I also think this is why Sony has been welcoming more indie games, where they do not have to create as much content, and hope that  half will break even or make a profit.

just my personal take on all this.

If Microsoft deserves praise for listening to their consumers, they should also be chastised for not thinking through what they were doing in the first place.

Let me describe to you what the Xbox One SHOULD HAVE BEEN. A product which would have made gamers love Microsoft rather than froth at the mouth:

• All content is streamed from Microsoft's Cloud.
• XBox Live is required to play games.
• All Purchases are handled by Microsoft's Servers (DRM hidden on the back-end).
• Price Point of the Device: $99

Consumers would have loved this because 90% of them are going to get XBox Live, anyway. Consumers would never notice the back-end DRM, so the only difference from a consumer's point of view is $300 off the console price.

Now, let me explain to you why this didn't happen. North America's ISP's would have broken down crying if 50 million gamers suddenly rose up and demanded affordable high-speed internet because they want to profit off keeping data caps low and that would raise massive flags with the FCC. Microsoft hedged their bets and made the XBox One able to handle itself without the cloud, hoping the ISP situation would improve. (It won't.)

At that point, the DRM was grandfathered in, even though it offered nothing to the end consumer and made their lives complicated and miserable. Consumers had every right to demand it to be removed because Microsoft had not served their interests.

I hesitate to call this "listening to your consumer." The consumers had to complain to get a product Microsoft ostensibly designed "for" them to reflect their interests.

And the Kinect? Don't even get me started. It was always a nifty toy and a development dead-end. Nintendo made motion-controls about as reliably as they could first try with the Wii. Come the Wii U they largely abandoned it for the second screen. Why? You know Nintendo probably ripped a dozen Kinects apart before they did that. It's because they knew that form of motion-control was unreliable!

@ bolded 1 But imagine how much MORE they could make without spending on nonsense like timed exclusivity that doesnt really benefit anyone except whatever publisher they are giving money too. Cause right now their actual 1st party output doesnt even beging to match that of Sony or Ninty. Not saying it has too but MS isnt even close.

@ bolded 2 online passes and DRM arent the same thing so lets not even act like they are. Sure i needed a coded to play the online mode of Uncharted 3 but my entire console didnt break without it and i could still play the game. 

@bolded 3 i agree that they didnt put it in for themselves but they sure as hell didnt do it because they thought thay was the direction the industry was going, if that is true then they truly had stupid people running the company cause no one in their right mind was going to accept their whole DRM policy, and they were warned and the other two didnt do it.  Sony files patents all the time. So what? it means very little. We cant say for sure but we can def say so for MS. e3 thats my point it should not have even gotten THAT far. They should have never gone through with it after rumors appeared and people were like "you better not" or at the very least should have dropped it after the intial reveal. Naw they stubbornly waited till after e3 and PS4 full reveal to change tune.

on a side note Sony patent some PS2 add on for PS3 in order for newer systems to play games. Nothing happened.

or these companies could. I dont know manage their budgets. Crazy i know!

Maybe they don't deserve it, but I don't think that matters at all. I think that what is important is that their userbase gives feedback back to Microsoft so that they know how they are doing (unfortunately they haven't been very receptive in this regard in the past) and maybe praising is an effective form of feedback to let them know if they're in the path the costumer expects. So praising a company when they make the right thing is beneficial to the consumer as it is for the company.

With an AAA budget you can make a game with multiplayer and 30+ hour’s gameplay that people will not resale right away.

With a limited budget you might only be able to make a great single player experience that last less 10 hours. Limited budget also mean limited marketing and this would result in lower first week sales.... by week 2 this game will still have the same competition from all the AAA games, indie and other video game on the market. But, they are also being undercut by their own game which is selling for cheaper used. From week 3-5 there might be a buzz about the game great single player but people are buying used version from the initial buyer or slightly discount used copies from used game store or major retailer like best buy and future shop. By week 5 the game might have been resold and enjoyed by more than 5 gamer. But, the retailer only got a cut of the initial sale. This game will flop due to lack of sales and we never see a sequel to a great single player game.

That's why we now see the rise of indie games, which tend to be much smaller project and with a very limited budget. Indie scene is very volatile and we see so many failures and cancelled project. On top of this the Major AAA companies are making their own version of indie games backed with marketing budget. AAA companies are now taking away revenues out of the indie scene; they see this as an untapped opportunity. If this trend continues more and more start up and indie games will also fail. All we're left is with company like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc. Were overzealous ideas will be shut down because they don't see the profit in it!

I largely agree with your other points, and I absolutely prefer having the physical disc over digital.  That having been said, redownloading games isn't that much of a task anymore.  My speeds on Steam and Origin are quite far beyond necessary, especially when you consider downloading 1 game, and then playing that while others download.  It's not like you're going to play all 100 simultaneously.