Microsoft’s newest gaming console, the Xbox One, has received a large amount of negative feedback from the gaming community since its announcement in May 2013.
The successor to the Xbox 360, and competitor to the other upcoming gaming consoles such as the Wii U and PlayStation 4, had many students at The University of Alabama believing the Microsoft console would not have a chance.
Tyler Tucker, a senior majoring in psychology, said the console’s restrictions were the overall problem.
“Xbox One looks absolutely awful to me because of a lot of absurd restrictions and creepy invasions of privacy that I can only at this point chalk up to some impressively greedy corporatism on Microsoft’s part,” Tucker said. “The console requires Internet access every 24 hours or it locks you out of all your games, even single-player. What happens during extended outages? What about on vacation? There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to play my console.”
Tucker added the Xbox One’s $499.99 price tag, compared to other consoles like the PlayStation 4 selling for $100 less, does not help.
“While the Wii U competes for a significantly separate demographic, the competing ultra-HD-and-everything player, PS4, offers all of the pros and none of the cons,” he said. “The only negative change from previous generation is the introduction of paying online, which is $4-6 a month, which is still cheaper than Xbox Live. It’s a shame it happened, but that point is still tipped in Sony’s favor.”
Matt Hanna, a sophomore majoring in computer science, found issues not only with the games but the built-in Kinect and its mandatory “on” setting.
“Let’s start the list of bad things that were wrong with the system: [You] must be online once a day to play any games, couldn’t resell those games, couldn’t give away a game without the second person having to pay a fee, the Kinect always has to be on plus the Kinect is always on [and] always listening for commands,” Hanna said. “Creepy, right?”
According to Microsoft, games could not be loaned or sold when using the Xbox One. Players could give their friends their games as long as they are on their friends list for at least 30 days, and trading could only be done once per game.
Microsoft also announced a “family plan” that would enable up to 10 friends and family to play someone else’s games from a separate console.
After the backlash from the gaming community, Microsoft issued a change in their policies on June 19. The changes included not needing an Internet connection to play disc games and the deletion of the family sharing option.
Anthony Lundquist, a member of UA’s ABXY gaming group, said Microsoft’s retraction was not a sincere one.
“I am a little sad that they went back on it,” Lundquist said. “It means that Microsoft was simply doing it for all the wrong reasons and that they didn’t really believe their system was an improvement for the customer.”
Though Microsoft revoked a large number of the policies, they kept their Kinect policy intact.
Terrence Penn, a senior majoring in psychology, said Microsoft will still need to work hard to gain his or other gamers’ trust back.
“I give Microsoft credit for changing their policies, but I’m still a bit sour that they did it in the first place,” Penn said. “If Sony didn’t emphasize their no DRM [digital rights management] policy for the PS4 during the E3 Conference, Microsoft wouldn’t have changed their policy.”
The Xbox One is slated for a November release.
