Microsoft confirms our fears...

Ok a couple quick notes on things besides the big Xbox One news because that's obviously what I am covering today:

 
1. The Project X-Zone demo: Really damn short. It's one battle. It was fun and I got a kick out of the characters I did recognize like Ryu & Ken and people from Sakura Wars and Valkyria Chronicles, etc. The battle system is fun and much more interactive than your usual strategy game, mashing buttons to really max out damage. I can see that getting old if there's no variety to the moves though. However it has the advantage of having a pretty solid amount of time between when it comes out later this month and when the next noteworthy 3DS game hits (That'd be Mario & Luigi Dream Team which hits mid August) so it should be pretty decent filler if you aren't obsessing over the new Animal Crossing.

2. Konami's "big" press conference: This was ok? I wasn't expecting that much. Keifer Sutherland as the new voice of Snake is sure to raise a few eyebrows after David Hayter doing it for so long, but it's still Metal Gear and I LOATHE Metal Gear. Lords of Shadow 2 did look pretty intriguing, I've meant to check out the original forever and I may do that soon. The biggest disappointment was easily the end when they said they had a "surprise" and instead of a big game reveal it was just a halfway decent Mega 64 skit. I'm glad it was only 30 minutes because even then it kind of dragged. Hopefully this is the worst thing we will see in the next week as it was just ok, which is kind of an accomplishment for Konami if you look at their previous E3 presentations.

And now we get to the big news: Surprisingly, Microsoft has come clean about two big controversies they wouldn't even discuss a couple days ago: Online connectivity and Used games. I'll give them credit for responding to these questions relatively quickly given that I thought they would wait until well after E3 to say anything. The bad news is that they are pretty much as Orwellian as most people feared. First the used games: Yes you can trade in used games. To people specifically in business with Microsoft. That most likely means you'll be able to trade games at Gamestop along with some other major retailers, but it pretty much kills smaller game-based businesses, individual sales and renting games. I think potentially this is not a terrible thing as I've stated before. If it leads to lots of quick sales and price drops like you see on Steam it could work out really well but given how Microsoft handles pricing of digital content I seriously doubt it will.

In all honesty how the used games work is the least nagging issue.for me. I buy a large majority of games new on a pretty limited budget and while I do trade in games to help with that I am an adult I can just wait for games to be a price I can afford. no big deal. Of much more concern to me is the other 3 big issues I have: Forced Hard Drive Installs, mandatory Kinect inclusion and biggest is online check-ins.

Hard Drive installs are easy: Next gen games are going to be pretty big and fill up a 500gb hard drive pretty quickly so that means it won't be long before I am forced to buy another hard drive, essentially driving up the price. People complain about the Wii U's HD space but since it doesn't require you to install anything it doesn't have to be such a big deal.

Then there's Kinect 2.0: I cannot overstate how much I hate Kinect. It doesn't matter how much more sensitive it is, it's still far less efficient than pressing a button and it lacks the heft of having anything in your hands, making most actions feel disjointed and unnatural. Yeah that works fine for Dance Central but any game where you have a weapon will be terrible. That's in addition to the voice commands, which I'm sure assholes will have a lot of fun yelling "XBOX OFF" when you are in the middle of a game.

But really the final last straw is the confirmation of online check-ins required every 24 hours or your Xbox One basically becomes useless. This is beyond terrible. Microsoft has already admitted that if you either travel a bunch or are in the military you might as well not get one. How about if you live in a place with even remotely spotty internet connection? Don't get one. Live somewhere that has extreme weather and might have power/internet outages? Don't bother. Ever planning on moving? Yeah don't get one. I might be getting a tad extreme with that last example but all the others are completely valid. This is pretty much inexcusable in my opinion and relegates the Xbox One to a pretty distant last in my console buying choices. I'll most likely own a PS4, a Vita an Ouya and possibly even something completely dead like a Jaguar before I get an Xbox One.

All right that is it for today I will probably have some kind of Pre-E3 post up Sunday (thanks to an injury I have the week off so I can do lots of posting) and I I have pretty much cleared my 3DS slate so if I do pick up Animal Crossing I'll do some impressions then.