Why Microsoft Is the Problem With Xbox One

Since the Xbox One’s reveal, responses have varied from optimism, certain it will redefine console entertainment, to despondency, equally certain it is missing the entire point of a gaming console and abandoning the gaming community in favor of mass appeal.  To a certain extent, my own response has mirrored the latter, but something has been nagging at me as well.  It is not just the target audience making the Xbox One feel fowl to me.

It is Microsoft’s vision for the new console that bothers me.

A bit of backstory

I have been a console gaming fan for many years.  My first console was the Sega Genesis.  I upgraded to a Nintendo 64, then the first Xbox, then Xbox 360.  I gamed on PC way back when, fell behind in hardware, and only within the last four years have rejoined the PC gaming community.

My Xbox 360 has never been connected regularly to Xbox Live.  For various reasons, depending on where I was living, it was always a logistical problem.  During my college years it was not being able and/or willing to spring for a $100 wireless adapter and being unable to string an ethernet cord across two or three floors.  After college it was a similar concern, but with the possibility of a wireless connection eliminated by a highly-unfortunate brick wall between myself and the household’s router.

Things turn sour

I am not a dedicated console loyalist, but I have enjoyed Microsoft’s previous consoles.  What has bothered me most lately about using my 360 is my inability to access certain features without being connected.  My copy of Mass Effect 3, for example, came with the day-one DLC of Javik, and I have yet to be able to play it owing entirely to an inability to reliably connect my 360 to Xbox Live for the duration of my playing.

This restriction caught me by surprise when I first encountered it.  I had been promised access to this DLC, was it really necessary to be proving that fact on a 100% constant basis to be able to access it?  It was a sour note on what I personally considered an otherwise gloriously enjoyable game (until I got to the original, un-DLC ending) that baffled me.  Why was it worth actively limiting the value of my game purchase just on the off-chance that I would try to duplicate the DLC on consoles I was not currently using?

The amount of control Microsoft needed to have over my access to gaming content bothered me.  It was an active hindrance to my ability to objectively enjoy Mass Effect 3, a game I had been looking forward to since the first teaser article in the Official Xbox Magazine about the first Mass Effect when they said it was intended to be a trilogy of games.

Back to the present

The Xbox One reveal was disappointing.  I was not as disappointed by the focus of it as many.  I thought the voice controls for television and multimedia functionality were pretty cool.  I did laugh a bit when they used Internet Explorer, but the basic idea seemed all right to me.

I could not specifically place what, exactly, about the reveal was actually bothering me until we heard one specific piece of news.  Microsoft mentioned the Kinect would ask people walking into a room the console did not recognize to identify themselves.

When my console starts asking for the identities of people I invite into my own home, I draw a line.

You need my permission to have friends!

The console requires checking to be sure I actually own the games installed on it once every day (at least), a feature that would not be necessary if the console did not require a complete installation of the game in question in order to play it, which is itself a complete departure from every console to date.  The console does not even accept the presence of anyone it does not identify without seeking more information.

Since when is a video gaming console justified in knowing that much about me and those around me?

The problem with the Xbox One is not the online requirements, it is not the always-on Kinect, it is not even the focus on mass appeal rather than gamers.  Xbox One’s problem is control. Microsoft wants me to grant them a very personal look into my living room and complete control over my video gaming, purely for the pleasure of using their upcoming console, when they are already under attack for accessing information passed over Skype.

I already have enough people looking to control my destiny economically and legally.  I’ll keep control of my gaming, thank you.