Microsoft Exec: If You Don’t Want To Always Be Online, Keep Playing Xbox 360
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In the video below, Microsoft’s Don Mattrick tells Game Trailers that once users get their hands on the Xbox One they will see and finally appreciated what the company is trying to do with connecting gaming, entertainment, and online content.
Which is all well and good until he makes the off-handed comment of, “fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360… if you have zero access to the internet, that is an offline device.
“I mean, seriously, when I read the blogs, and thought about who’s really the most impacted, there was a person who said ‘Hey, I’m on a nuclear sub,’ and I don’t even know what it means to be on a nuclear sub but I’ve gotta imagine it’s not easy to get an Internet connection.”
What Mattrick is either completely missing out on or completely trying to gloss over is that many of the people concerned about the online verification requirement — in which Xbox One users will need to regularly connect to the Internet, perhaps as frequently as once per day — are not worried about being able to play their Xbox Ones in cabins in the woods or at their arctic Fortresses of Solitude. Instead, these people simply don’t want to be required to be online when they are not actively playing a game online or otherwise accessing online content.
It remains to be seen how many of these people will allow their concerns to prevent them from buying an Xbox One or push them to purchasing a PS4. We’ll get a better idea of that come the holiday shopping season when both consoles fight for consumers’ dollars.
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