I'm just going to take one of the issues real quick, since I am a Grey and no one will probably see this:

Believe it or not, I agree with you. None of this is a deal breaker for me, at this point. We still don't have all of the info though. Don't get me wrong, I think that there are better ways to go about it, but, FOR ME, AND ME ALONE:

You sure about that? Has ANYONE said that you can't cover the Kinect if you are that paranoid? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a mistake to require a Kinect to be connected, but what's to say you can't cover it up? If there is such an article, please point me to it, as I have not seen it.

Actually, taking this a step further... does it allow you to "share" digital downloads? Physical disks installed on your HD? Sometimes my kids want to take a game to their mom's, but I am not a fan of that (they tend to get scratched or never return, and I can't play them while they are gone, if I want...) Could be…

But can you play at the same time? IOW, if you are on one of your four, can you play the same game with someone else, on another console, without both having the physical disk? (Serious question, I don't have a PS3, so I would like to know...)

This. This is a HUGE question. I have 4 kids, 3 of whom live with their mom. Does this mean that I can add them, and we can play games in my library together? If so, that is a BIG DEAL. We love to play games when the kids are here. BUT, I am not going to buy 2 copies of our favorites just so we can play together when…

Ok, now THAT is a good argument. You make some very valid points, and I think I am now seeing where you are coming from. That said, according to MS you CAN turn the whole thing off, so there's that. Now, of course, one may wonder if it's really off, but I can't speak to that level of paranoia. We also don't know if…

See, that's just it. Hacking, by definition, is a matter of trial and error, to see a) who is unprotected and b) what you can do with their stuff. My point is that if the CURRENT Xbox has 46MM Gold subscribers and 20MM Kinects, chances are pretty good that hackers would see that as a pretty good target right there. I…

You still haven't given a compelling reason why there is more incentive to hack the XB1 than the 360. There have been ~20 MILLION Kinect 1.0s sold. There are ~46 Million XBox Live gold subs out there. So, what, in the new system, would get hacked? Stealing Gamertags? Getting payment info (if you are daft enough to…

I don't really get into the Metro apps all that much, I pretty much live on the Desktop. That said, the system is VERY smooth, and all my games run perfect at high detail. Of course, it was built to be a gaming machine...

Same here. Runs smooth as silk. Games run great!

Cool. I hope that one of the other offerings DOES bring something to the table for you, or that at least you can get good life out of your current consoles (or your PC, if that's how you roll). I just think it's kinda funny, is all.

To the point of the article, how many viruses (virii?) have hit the Xbox 360? The 360 has Internet Explorer, so one would think that SOME hacker, somewhere, would have created one of these evil images, and someone, somewhere would have viewed it in the browser on the 360, but I have never, not once, heard of a virus…

Maybe that's why I have 4 kids?

Ok, get ready, because I know that this doesn't happen all the time:

Nope, not a fool. Just someone who works in IT and knows how to properly setup a hardware firewall. But don't worry, you can still call me names if it makes you feel better. By the way, I use a couple of those same Win8 machines (laptops) on (GASP) public WiFi, and lo and behold, I have not been infected with the…

Cool, thanks for backing up your point with a link. I am trying (really!) to remember that outage. Looks like it was right around New Year's 08? I know that I had Live then, but I honestly can't remember the outage. HOWEVER, I do know that I had a projector as my only tv, and it was dead for a while. I ended up buying…

Also, when I said "insignificant" in my earlier post, I meant from a business perspective. Neither MS nor Sony is going to give one iota of consideration to folks who want to play 20 year old games. I know that's sad, but that's a fact.

Please understand that I am not trying to undermine your point at all. In the last 3 months or so I have purchased Civ4, Sim City 2000, and Descent Freespace2 to share with my 12yo son, who is moving into PC gaming (and a bit away, I have to admit) from console gaming. I like to share with him "how it was" so that he…

90% of the time, yes. But it still goes down for days on end, usually for over a week, multiple times a year. It happened as recently as two months ago, and was down for almost an entire week.