Today, as part of the upcoming E3 festivities, Microsoft has come forward to discuss some of the news about the Xbox One with IGN. We are quoting from the article here. We condensed it own and added some additional explanation. Hopefully, this will clear it up for everyone.
[gn_heading style="1"]Always Online[/gn_heading]The Xbox One console does not require a constant internet connection to work, initially. “Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.” This means that the system itself may not need to be online, but some games require cloud access and therefore must always be online. As far as the system is concerned, “With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.”
[gn_heading style="1"]Used Games / Borrowing Games From Friends[/gn_heading]“Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers. Microsoft does not receive any compensation as part of this. In addition, third party publishers can enable you to give games to friends.” Microsoft continues by saying that they don’t make money off this, but if the publishers require a fee, you’ll have to pay it to play the game. Microsoft stressed the fact that as long as you are logged into your system, playing your copy of the game, anyone can play for as long as they want. “Xbox One will also allow you to give up to 10 family members access to log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. A family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.”
[gn_heading style="1"]Kinect[/gn_heading]The Xbox One requires the Kinect to function. Microsoft has said that you can control what the Kinect sees and hears at any time. It said you can “pause” the Kinect while playing games or watching TV. Microsoft also said when the console is turned off, the Kinect is only listening for Xbox commands. As one would expect, Microsoft is promising that having an always powered Kinect will not compromise security.
[gn_heading style="1"]Conclusion[/gn_heading]These clarifications that Microsoft released only further incriminated themselves, especially concerning the Kinect. Having an always on seeing and listening device is dangerous and Microsoft needs to think about the possibility of someone being able to hack into the device or use it to spy on other people. It seems like a dangerous move that doesn’t really benefit the gamers as much as they think it does. Don’t forget to chime in and let us know what you think about these clarifications.