XBONED

The new XBox One (aka Xbone) promises to be a piece of sweet, sweet gaming goodness. Unfortunately the shitbricks over at microsoft know that the die hard xbox owners (like me) will buy a new xbox when it comes out, even if it costs more than I would prefer to spend.

When confronted with this cost, the head of Xbox Don Mattrick said he was 'over delivering on value', and while I don't agree with 'over delivering', it does deliver value. I pay $500 once, pay $12 a month for the live service, buy some games, and get hundreds or thousands of hours of entertainment out of it. Plus I get to talk to my friends while I play, which is sweet. Even with the fixed costs (internet connection, live service, new games), it's still good value for money. If you have a multiple users you get even more value for money.

What's ridiculous is that Mattrick is claiming they are adding value in areas that have absolutely no value to me whatsoever. He mentions Twitch streaming, Skype, SmartGlass and Kinect. It's a very good list of things I don't care that my gaming console can do: stream video of other people playing games (twitch), talk on the phone (skype), SmartGlass (whatever that is), and watch me wave my arms around (kinect). I want it to play games and stream videos. That's all. But that doesn't grow the business so I get a good core system wrapped up in bullshit. Reminds me of something Microsoft is well known for, but I can't quite put my finger on it...