Or unless, you know... it impacts their experience positively, not negatively like having to be online to play games that have no online functionality would seem to do.

lol that's hilarious!!

It makes sense if MS wants to get into the cable box business.

But personally, my home has internet. This news wouldn't effect me because I have good internet. Im gonna say this now.....it ain't my problem if others don't have the same situation. People using this news to act all high and mighty....as if people care about spotty internet countries. Fakeness at its finest among gamers.

Personally I don't want to be dependend on my or a companies servers' internet connection to just play some console games.

Playing stuff offline I can agree that we should be able to do so without a connection. Give it a week of official backlast when its all officially confirmed, and MS will do a PR statement saying they will enable offline content to be played without a connection. Again, this stuff can be easily remedied.

Ya, I agree we should play a game offline regardless of connection and it should be allowed, good thing that is something that can be easily remedied with a simple firmware update.

LOOOOOOL.

Is it possible that some people care because they have shitty internet? You know, like maybe people who live in North America - Xbox's biggest market?

Serious enquiry, living in Canada, my connection is pretty fast, and the connection is not as spotty as it used to be. Tell me how does it truly stack up to Europe or countries like say South Korea or Japan?

Any graphs/numbers/ratios out there to give some perspective? And why is NA internet supposedly "shitty" when we are so developed?

The problem is, a phone's job is to communicate with other people. It needs to be connected because that is it's fundamental purpose.  The cable box's job is to bring tv into your home. That is what it does.

A game system's purpose is to play games.  You don't need a connection to play games.  Every system I've owned so far has done a fine job of it.  You only need connection if you  are playing online multiplayer.  Most of my games I am quite content playing solo.

I don't mind optional online additions to single player, like the Miiverse addition to NSMBU.  But forcing a connection is stupid.  It's also for purposes that are not int he best interest of gamers.  MS wants it to gain customer research data, to prevent piracy and possibly to block sharing/used games.  None of this is good, and the technical issues that could arrise could be awful.

I personally still don't believe the rumors. Not until it's confirmed. But if MS does do always on, I don't see how that's going to sell well. Not everyone can afford internet. I have several friends that play xbox and ps3 with no internet connection. They come to my house to do updates. There's no way they would buy an always on box. And I'm sure there are more people like them.

Hell, even I wouldn't get the nextbox if it's always on. Sony and Nintendo are the only two companies I will be supporting this gen if this rumor turns out to be true. If they don't think they will lose customers, they need to start reading forums and look at what gamers are saying about it. The idea of always on is universally hated with the exception of few.