Somehow I very much doubt it. Set the bar for what exactly? Sony has already laid their cards on the table by saying that the PS4 supports offline play.

There are two likely scenarios: 1) The guy was trolling, and the information is false. 2) He was just being a jackass and leaked the info.

If it does turn out to be false, I can see MS trying to spin it to work in their favour and make it sound like it was intended all along. If he was telling the truth they'd spin it as they see fit. I honestly do not see them going through with it, but hey I wouldn't be surprised if they did. After all, this is same company that made people think that its ok to pay for P2P online multiplayer.

Think about this. The past two days we haven't even talked about ps4 at all.

If true, this could confirm the rumour about the nexbox set top; ie, the deal with comcast to make nexbox a digital cable box. What this possibly means is that you would pay something like 90$ a month, get cable, internet, and xbox live and the nexbox price gets a cost reduction in return.

If this is what they do, I'd be all for it since I already have Comcast lol... however, I still doubt this will be a requirement of every unit to be a settop box. They would need too many partnerships with all the various internet providers and would lose even more sales from people who don't want Comcast/Time Warner/etc.

I think the always online will be true for those on the payementplan that was rumored a while back, if you don´t pay your monthly fee your xbox wont connect to live and you wont be able to use the xbox.

This is another good posibility. Always Online may only be required for the subsidized Xbox plan of "$199 Xbox 720 w 2 year Xbox Live at $15/month". Even then, though, I could see backlash if people buy that option and are unable to use their services due to internet outages or something. Granted Xbox would not be liable for that, but I'd still see some major backlash.

I still think this is just another feature they are putting in for an "as needed" basis. I think both Sony and MS will have the ability to use watermarked discs or always online requirements in their consoles, and let the publishers and developers decide if they want to risk selling their game with one/both of those features.

Are you kidding me? We've got microsoft fans losing their shit and saying they might get a PS4 if the rumors are true...

We've already heard that huge rumor about MS working with Comcast. Think about this, when samsung and apple team up to give discount, they do it through a service provider. Now think about the implications of being a settop cable box. They can afford to make the console very cheap, recoup through Comcast services, and replace the comcast box (and also the 8$ charge per month you get for renting the box from comcast.)

Yes but we haven't talked about ps4.

Sony is profitting on people talking about ps4 specs and releases and conjecture and predictions everyday. This interrupted everything, and for what? A rumor that probably won't even be true? MS will just show up sooner or later and say it's not true, and then suddenly the last however many days would just be wasted on talking about nexbox instead of sony.

Any marketer can tell you, negative press is better than no press at all. And if this isn't even true, then they just interrupted a ton of momentum.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=158150 - looks like sony are throwing a 1-2 punch KO

Edit - negative press is NOT good for a companies stock