Xbox One Details: Clarification for the Haters

[JWeinCom]

I love it. Microsoft announces features that in no way benefit the consumer and people try to defend them. How does this system benefit you in the least? Why should we lube up and take it up the *** from Microsoft when they're offering us nothing in return?

I've never finished Chrono Cross. It was a game I played and enjoyed, but I never wound up finishing. So, you know what I did recently? I plugged in my PS1 and popped Chrono Cross in and started playing it. No internet check, no calling Microsoft, no verification, no hassle.

I have a brother who is a LOT younger than me. Kirby Superstar was one of my FAVORITE games as a kid. When my brother was about 7 I wanted to play it with him. I could revel in nostalgia, and see him enjoy the game for the fist time. So what did I do? I plugged in my SNES and I played the game. Simple, easy, and awesome.

My sister isn't really much of a gamer, but I got the impression she'd enjoy Phoenix Wright. I suggested it to her, and I lent her the first game in the franchise to play at home on her DS (I was in college at the time). So she played it, enjoyed it, and later gave it back to me. No problem at all. She wound up enjoying the game so much that she bought the next 4 entries in the franchise (which I was able to borrow from her).

One week a couple of years ago, I was sick. I had to stay at home and was bored out of my mind. I decided to spend a whole day just playing duckhunt. I hooked up my NES (I did need a CRT TV) and blasted ducks for hours. No problem at all

I bought RE Revelations and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I lost the cartridge. After searching my house high and low I couldn't find the cartridge so I bought a new copy. A month later as you might expect, I found my copy of Revelations. I had a copy with nothing to do with it. Instead of trading it in, I sold it to a friend of mine (who was not on my 3DS friends list) for 10 bucks. I got more than the trade in value, my friend got a good deal. No hassle.

When I went to college, they had a backwards internet policy. They didn't allow wireless routers at all, and I had to log onto some sort of program (clean access agent or something) to get access. Furthermore, any gaming console had to be approved before I could connect it. Due to their ineptitude, it took about three weeks to connect my XBox 360 to the internet when I bought one. But hey, at least I could still play offline...

After Hurricane Sandy, my building had no power. I stayed with my grandparents for a couple of weeks. They only had dial up internet access. I spent most of the week playing DS,Wii, and Gamecube games. No internet? No problem.

Speaking of which, as a kid, I used to bring my SNES, N64, Gamecube, or PS2 with me when going to boring family gatherings. Me and my cousins would play games while our relatives engaged in dull small talk. No need to hook up to the internet, no need to contact Microsoft, and no fuss.

I had been anticipating Bioshock Infinite for quite some time. I got up at 9 in the morning, went to my local best buy, came home, and started my 360. When I started it up, it said "could not connect to XBox Live". Oh well. At least I could still play the game. P.S. it took 2 weeks and 4 phone calls to MS to get XBox Live working for me again (all of my other devices worked fine). If I had to wait 2 weeks to play a game I preordered and bought on day one, I would have been very pissed.

So, maybe you'll say that these issues are no big deal. Maybe you'll call them minor inconveniences. There are worse things in life than having to wait 2 weeks to play a new game, and having to go through a trade process to let my sister check out Phoenix Wright. But, the bottom line is this. When I buy a game, I should be 100% sure that I can play that game when I want and where I want 100% of the time. Whether I want to play it the day it comes out, two months later, 15 years later, at a friends house, at a hotel with no free internet access, at my grandparents house, at my friends house in his basement where he gets no wireless signal, or in a freaking submarine if I so choose.

I shouldn't have to go through any sort of hoops to play the games that I already bought. Anything less than 100% ability to use, trade, or sell, the products that I paid for is unacceptable to me. The reason I game on a console, and not a PC, is because of that 100% ownership and ease of use. Take that away and I have no reason to buy an XBox One rather than investing in a PC.