That's one of these awkward and sad moments like when you realized the Ultra 64 is using cartridges or the Playstation 3 is going to be $599 dollars. Or when you met the Jaguar or the Saturn.

Yep, curse of the third console seems to be striking again. Or yet, Microsoft's usual "breathe in, breathe out" approach of alternating successful and failed products.

Here we go with "the almighty blu-ray" " we simply cannot have entertainment without it" "Nintendo and Microsoft need to use it" There seems to be some sort of blu-ray fanboyism out there.
For the record ANY company can make their own format disc that suits their needs.
Nintendo just made theirs for WiiU that is 25gb, the majority of games out there now can fit on that.
25-50gb games are far and few between and just because a game is 40gb, doesnt make it better.
Why would Nintendo and Microsoft want to pay Sony for the rights to use blu-ray?

Nintendo's format is a Blu-Ray derivative. I'm sure they have to pay royalties for the technology. They just made sure it's incompatible to normal Blu-Ray burners (harder to pirate), as they weren't interested in BR movie playback anyway. Microsoft on the other hands (apparantly) wants their console to be the replacement for almost all the boxes connected to your TV, including the BR player, so they need regular BRs for BR movie playback.

But I remember microsoft saying the Xbox was all about choices, with these decisions they're limiting our choices.

Only if true, as i said. It's possible that Microsoft's implementation of this will occur in a way that won't alienate anyone (or at least not too badly). Microsoft has introduced some unorthodox standards to gaming and made them quite orthodox, and some things that sounded like bad ideas turned out to be really good ideas, but we'll have to see.

By the way... you know this specific rumor in this thread doesn't actually mention the banning of used games or need to be online right?

All it's talking about is essentially is that optional wii connect always online thing more or less.

lmao at the comments in this thread. Very pitiful that people are turning a rumor with little information into something they hope to see people get pissed off at MSFT on forums. In reality forums are very little of the real world but that is a completely different story.

It sounds like hibernation mode "Always connected". This means if you have XBL and Internet it will update your games and console while in hibernation mode. This will also allow you to turn your Xbox on by saying "Xbox On". That was not that difficult to figure out.

Installs are not new at all and most PS3 games require a install but i guess we are ignoring that. I think what they are trying to do is make it more like PC where you can just click on your games from your hard drive to change games rather than changing discs. That is a good thing and it is interesting that I hear people complaining about that when PS3 requires install and that is only for quicker load times and nothing else. Then you have PC which blocked used game sales a long time ago but we will ignore that too i suppose. Hate on MSFT is the cool thing around here right?

Anyways. Always connected means always on "hibernation".

Installs could potentially block used game sales but until that is confirmed I'd say it is best to not jump to any conclusions. I also want to point out that Sony has been pretty shady about the used game sales as well. From what I've understood about PS4 is that they are allowing publshers and developers to choose if they want to block used games. Now if that is true or not I dont know.

One last comment I want to make. EA has some kind of deal with MSFT correct. now if MSFT does block used games I would not doubt if EA puts all of there games as timed exclusives on MSFT's console so all games are sold as new. It wouldn't be out of the normal if many publishers and developers would take the same approach so for all of the sony fans saying this is dumb, well it is not. it is a business strategy that will help publishers and developers and in return help MSFT. So if they team up together (which they will) then it isnt looking so high and mighty for sony any more. So before you guys draw conclusions without even thinking them through try thinking.

Are you sure? I can go on a silver account right now and play any of my downloaded games.

No my mistake, someone reminded me that I got new xbox. SO Banjo is attached to the old one... 

I really don't see how "mandatory installs" (especially on a console) is going to lead to anything other than "no used games," though anything's possible.