I can understand that, at the end of the day they're in this for money, but it still shows a rather amazing lack of faith in either their product or their ability to convince consumers of their product's merits.  Changing plans at this point must have cost them millions, so they obviously took a hard look at things and decided that the old path went right over a cliff.  That's a lot of work down the drain.

There is a failure from Microsoft here somewhere.  It could be that they completely misundersood what gamers wanted, that the old XO plans really did suck, or that PR screwed the cat.  Consumers are wrong most of the time but they can never be wrong about what they want.  If you don't make them want your product then it's your failure.  These guys standing up and saying, "it's the customer's fault they didn't pre-order an Xbox One," is beyond meaningless.

The think the backlash was justified.

Digital being the future undermines the argument for the original Xbox plans, if anything. If they're so sure people are going to gravitate to that anyway, why force the issue? Why not just let it happen naturally? That way, people can just acclimate to it in their own pace, and it defuses the hostility.

Or even better, why not incentivize people to buy more digital content over time--i.e. through lower prices? Because it's easier to dump the issue on customers than do anything decisive about the relationship with retailers you supposedly hate so much? Because you have no problem charging $60 on digital copy and pocketing the difference?

You have all these developers coming out and saying Microsoft was punished for being bold, and how Gamestop is the problem. Yet they expect us, the customers, to shoulder the burden for them when it comes to doing anything about it. Kind of hard to feel sorry for them in light of that. :/

But their situation has drastically improved since the change. In their original vision, they thought that the whole consumer fanbase (Let's assume +70 million of Xbox 360 players, +40 million of Gold players) would switch to the Xbox One. Their original idea - to make a console that switched into digital world - isn't that bad, mainly if you consider how well Steam has done all these years. The problem came when they were unnable to connect with the consumers, as they made a disastrous PR regarding the Xbox One, and yet they still thought the consumer would be there. The preorders did show them how badly they were doing, and the PR did nothing to change that, despite having some developers here and there saying how cool the new console was. So they just simply...change. Went back and made a console similar to Ps4, since that's what consumers want, and the preorders are up now. We still don't know total numbers, and wether more XO will be sold day one than Ps4 or not. But now they still have a chance.

They judged their previous situation and came up with the conclusion that this new console wasn't up to the consumer taste, so they might as well change it. As you said, consumers are never wrong about what they want. And this is Microsoft we're talking about, they do miracles with advertising. It was just simply a matter that consumers, mixed with the horrible PR, didn't want the console, even if it had been the most amazing, solid and marvellous digital console ever. This is what Molyneux says, the console did had some bad things, but compensate them with several other good things, so the backlash was unfair. Maybe it was, maybe not, but you can't triumph in a market if you don't have consumers and the competence does.

Oh, right, you were talking about his mobile app xD Now I understand.

So, you partially agree with him onto the having online connectivity makes up for unique experiences?

Unfair? It was pretty hardcore DRM.
Not to mention it was also
unfair to gamestop.
Unfair to resellers
Unfair to mom and pop gamestores
Unfair to legitimate owners
Unfair to developers who while getting a small cut of used sales, lose out on all the benefits of used games market.

Who it was fair to:
Microsoft getting a bigger cut

Now we have a new "family share plan" detailed. And what is it composed of?
Anyone using the console will be able to play the games on it, and if you sign in on someone else's console, you'll be able to play your games too. As how it already works on 360 and ps3.

And this is defended. Holy smokes.
When the family share program was first announced (the original one), it was "share your games with up to ten people". We had no details or information on what it meant. It was touted as one of the system's best features. Even myself, who disliked pretty much everything about the console (except the controller, and SnapIn)...I wanted one JUST for that single feature.
Then the One80.
Suddenly, "oh it was great. You could share your games with 10 people anywhere in the world. It would have been so great for gamers"

Yet here we are, and that statement sticks out like a sore thumb. At what point have any of these decisions been driven by gamer satisfaction?

While it can be said that ALL COMPANIES are only in it for their own profits, let's stop pretending like the xb1 original features were about anything other than maximizing profits.

Incorrect: It was because of Gamestop.

Yea I kinda agree with him on a few bits and pieces, I think the main issue Microsoft had during their reveal and E3 is that they had a lot of big huge and sometimes scary ideas but they never justified it by saying "and this is good for the gamer because..." like Angry Joe probably put it best when he said that there was far too much Stick and not enough Carrot. All it would have taken would have been for them to have a press release were when they were asked questions like, "would their system for online licenses be akin to steam" or "could people look forward to steam like sales with that always online library" then they should have jumped on it, Yelled from the rooftops, YES, MY GOD YES!? IT'LL BE JUST LIKE STEAM, BUT A CONSOLE YOU LOVE AT YOUR TV?!!!!! EVERYONE BUY IT. But they didn't do that, instead they put their backs to the wall and swore that their system was different to steam, it wouldn't have the steam sales but it would have family plan,

I know there would of course had been people complaining if they ripped off steam a bit, but it would've been mostly steam users on the PC who would have felt encroached upon, it wouldn't have been their own fanbase who they hurt with Drm, always online and other limitations.

Having a awesome vision and not execute it properly is how companies live and die. The good thing for MS is that they are so huge they can mess up their communication and still recover.

I believe the reason MS had to change course was many folds. The negativity was to huge and the momentum was building up each day. Such negative momentum no matter how great features will be would have mired the console down. Some of the things or carrot that MS was trying to bring I thought was about due. I really wanted the ability to sell, trade, share, gift my digital content. Even Renting was on the table once they got their stuff together. This was the main proponent that MS wanted to change and it was the carrot they felt that would lead the console in a all digital format. The other carrot was having access to your digital collection over the cloud. This would decouple the content from the console and make it available anywhere. There were a lot of good things that MS was trying to do but they bungled the execution.

First was the DRM. 24hour check in was way to restrictive. If anything MS should have used the same model they use for music. For Zune pass, its a month before you have to check in to keep using your digital content. The feedback would definitely not have been so violent if MS went that route. 2nd was Disk VS Digital. MS basically wanted to move to the PC model where you install the game and pretty much forget about it. There was nothing really wrong with this approach if MS would have lined up their effort to do the selling, trading, sharing renting of digital content. The problem I believe was that the big elephant in the room, gamestop wasn't going along with these plans. Actually MS whole problem was trying to change things up but not tipping off their competition. Keeping things to close then tell everyone, here is the plan.

There was nothing wrong about MS trying to go the install route because you really cannot do both easily.

I agree with him, I mean look at how some haters refuse to give it credit for anything at all even when they're proven wrong.

Take the claim haters made about Microsoft turning its back on gamers for example. E3 came around and the haters were expecting Sony to crush Microsoft in terms of exclusives and then Microsoft actually announced more for their console. Instead of admitting they were wrong they instead claim Microsoft was crushed at E3 even though in terms of games they weren't. This is probably the first year that games ever took a backseat in terms of importance at E3 and only because Microsoft won it on those terms so the goal post was moved by the haters.

Then there's Xbox Live and the constant bashing it took over the years for charging for online gaming. I remember some Playstation gamers saying they'd never pay for online and would move to PC if it ever happened on a Playstation console. Now we see that it has and they're preordering and making excuses, I haven't seen any kind of serious backlash with large groups of Playstation gamers moving to PC.

Another one is the indies, last generation you'd hardly hear a peep about them even though the 360 was the console that brought them to console gaming. In fact I remember people having list wars and refusing to even put XBLA games let alone indie games in the lists because they didn't consider them in the same league as retail games. Now I see Xbox One vs. PS4 list wars and suddenly indie games are listed side by side with retail games for exclusives. Just another goal post that was moved when it serves their purpose.