That's Microsoft's job to demonstrate those thing, though - whatever amazing stuff this console is capable of, they sure as hell didn't showcase it today.

It looked better, at least. Still a disappointing amount of lag, even in it's most barebones display. The one lengthy demo I saw today still had a lot of detection glitches. If it's not fast or accurate enough to make the gameplay fluid, I don't think it's ready. It's important tech on our slow march to VR, but the…

The design if the unit is about the only thing its got going for - it balances retro classic with sleek modern pretty nicely.

That appears to be the only audience MS is interested in, so I guess they should be.

I was stoked for this, and everything revealed at this event was extremely disappointing. Who is the audience they are aiming this thing at - Price Is Right/NFL/Racing/military fans? The same exurb audience without the high levels of broadband saturation that the device hinges on?

I don't even care about the always-on thing, the no used games thing, or the required Kinect thing - there's a lot of potential positives that could come from all of those, if properly utilized. But selling the system with enhanced sports television watching? A sure-to-fail Halo TV show? More clumsy Kinect content?…

You can loan out the disc you bought, but legally we've long ago separated the ownership of content from the delivery medium. This medium is what you own, the content you don't - media has been licensed ever since 1710's Statute of Anne.

That's the point, obviously.

The idea of 'ownership' is the illusion in the first place - digital content is post-scarcity, and there's no reason for ownership without scarcity.

Sure, there are some, but, according to industry reports, 14% less every year. All I'm saying is that a forward-looking technology company can't really be expected to accommodate a dying industry. You should really prepare yourself for your local game rental places to no longer be around by 2016.

I don't know where you're at, but across the US game rentals - physical and mail order - have been in deep decline since 2006.

Whether it works for me is irrelevant to game rental places closing down for years with no sign of that trend reversing and no indication of game devs, publishers, or console manufacturers not embracing digital distribution.

Gamefly, at least, is $15 for one disc or $20 for two, after their trial membership. I guess the value depends on how many games you play a month - I tend to really focus on one at a time for a couple of months - a $30-$40 rental isn't nearly as good of a deal as a $20-$35 purchase. I can't remember the last time I…

I'm certainly going to wait and see with both the new consoles - give them 6 months or a year to see what the services are really going to be like for the consumer.

I don't think there's a single physical place left in my city - Phialdelphia - that rents games. The online ones seem prohibitively expensive - I'd rather spend $15-$20 to buy a marked-down game I missed from last year than be tied to a monthly fee for mailed discs. I wouldn't be surprised to see digital content…

I"m sorry, that's just how capitalism works. If enough people don't buy something, a competitor has the opportunity to make a product that they will. There are dozens of electronic gaming devices, and there are countless real-world games, and a virtually infinite amount of entertainment options. Since nobody is…

We don't know yet, I'd guess each primary account is allowed to share content with other local accounts on the same system, just like Windows.

If you don't like the service as provided, don't buy the device. It's as simple as that.

There's tons of 50%-75% sales on XBL now - one publishers have more control over their digital store offerings (and less impact from used games) there's no reason to assume they won't strategically use sales to compete with other publishers and to increase the lifespans of their titles, just like they do on Steam.

Where can you still rent games? I guess there's GameFly, and that one kids game in the Redbox?