A quick take on MS's E3 and the Kinect as a peripheral

[binary solo]

Sevengen said:

Microsoft and the Xbox One can't catch a break...  and to be honest a lot of gamers may not feel they deserve one after last years industry coup attempt at E3. After the dust settled though, it was clear that they weren't really trying to screw gamers out of their livelyhood, but only attemtping to ensure their own. By chasing after the PC model of gaming, which takes DRM to the extreme; limited if any sharing of games, restricted trade-in pollicies, verification and strict licensing of intectuall properties, they were trying to create a more lucrative and thereby stable environment for themselves and developers.  They weren't trying to cheat anyone out of what they deserved, only trying to keep people from cheating them. That's pretty black and white.
But the whole thing blew up and every gamer who paid attention got to watch as Microsoft exploded right in front of us.
A moment many console gamers and their PC brethren had been patiently and opportunistically waiting for.
Attack!!

Since then we've seen every facet and design choice of the Xbox One and Xbox Live broken down and set on fire through nearly every gaming forum, publication, and self-serving blog site the internet has to offer. Some opinions presented fairly and objectively, most of them... not.
Kicking the shit out of Microsoft's Xbox One has almost become a pastime on this site; with PS4 fans slipping comfortably into their Sony jerseys, finding an open seat in the stands and lobbing every insult, ugly fact or baseless claim they can find or dream up towards the other team.
Annoying.
Some of it fair.. most of it not.
The one that gets to me the most though is this conditioned, predisposed opinion that the Kinect for Xbox One is a peripheral.

 It isn't.

It's an alternative controller that Microsoft decided to build there system around, something, as other posters have already stated, helps define the Xbox One and separate it from its competitors.
For the most part, it seems the only people complaining about it are the anti-Microsoft crowd, devoted PS4 fans with a bashing agenda, and gamers that can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that it's not a peripheral and use its inclusion as a way to bitch about price.
While the PS4 is inarguably more powerful on the stat sheet and has seen that difference parlayed into countless threads about better resolutions and frame rates, the Xbox One, as is, can do things the PS4 simply can't.
I'm more than willing to sacrifice a mere 180 lines of pixels and a few dozen frames per second, both technical specs that are negligible when the differences of measurement are so small, for a console that gives me advantages and user experiences the others don't have.
The PS4 is the more powerful, less expensive machine; the Xbox One is the more interesting and forward thinking alternative.
Price or innovation?
Innovation always wins in the long run.. would you be reading this on your tablet or smartphone if it didn't?

Is that you Don?

I don't much care about the Kinect diatribe, but the bolded is utter bullshit. Who exactly has been cheating MS and developers out of money all these years? Just because PC publishers got away with it doesn't make it morally right. Every entertainment product I've ever bought I have a legal and moral right to sell or give away to someone else...except video games? What? How are video games such a special snowflake when they are the most expensive of all entertaiment products I buy. The answer if course is simply: because they can.

I find it so distateful how so many gamers are apologists for corporate immoral practices. I hate DRM on PC game disks, but what's done is done and it can't be undone. But I want that festering disease to stay away from console games forever. And you know true DRM on PC game discs has not become universal until quite recently. I borrowed my brother's Dragon Age 2 PC game and it worked fine.

Games don't need DRM to be profitable, they just need to be good and well marketed. Pachter actually even made a well reasoned case that game industry revenue would go down with universal DRM on consoles. So it's even simplistic and naive to think that supporting DRM on consoles is supporting dame developers. They will make less money with DRM, not more.