Lets look at the possibilities.
Always online is real. MS is not stupid. They know hardcore gamers would piss and moan and gripe about this. So, the reactions to the rumors, are not surprising or relevant to MS. MS also knows the every day gamer has not heard of these rumors and even some that have, don't care. They live in a city with reliable Internet and don't care about the requirement. Either way, in this scenario, the only way MS cares about the rumors, is if they had it in their heads that somehow, hardcore gamers would love it and accept it. Since we all know that isn't the case, MS does not care about the rumors.
The other scenario of course, is that always online is not real. Or it exists, but not in the way we're assuming. In this scenario, MS sees a bunch of hardcore gamers on NeoGAF reacting negatively towards something that doesn't even exist. They might be worried that the every day gamer will catch wind of this nonsense, and it might sway their opinion. Then they realized they have not even confirmed a Nextbox exists yet, yet alone shown it off to the world. In this scenario they know that as soon as they take the tarp off, all these rumors will be put to rest and that these consoles are still 7 or so months away from release. So once again, MS does not care about the rumors.
