I wouldn’t go quite that far. I’d accept “The XBOX One Kinect can only respond to ‘XBOX ON’ when it is turned off or in standby mode. It cannot record or transmit video when turned off or in standby mode. Both of these constraints are enforced in hardware and cannot be changed.”
Quaro
1726
I’d be honestly shocked if they didn’t say that. Its too obviously creepy and doesn’t have much actual use beyond the government requesting access angle anyway.
I’m thinking now though… what would the discount have to be for me to opt in to having the Kinect on most of the time. Not all the time like when the console is off, but whenever I’m watching television, via Xbox or HDMI in. Watching me closely during programs and especially ads, reporting facial expressions, identity/demographics of other people in the room, etc? I’d probably do it for a minor price break.
Not that it would even work since I use an old tivo, in theory I guess I don’t really care as long as I feel like I get something out of it.
If you go to Giant Bomb… you’re probably a terrist! Terrist!
Sounds like a huge pain in the ass, especially considering how ridiculously difficult it can be to get Microsoft to remove your credit card data from Live once you’ve used it there.
At this point, I’m 99.999% sure I will never own an Xbox One. Not sure on the PS4 yet, Sony is going to have to start talking more.
xahlt
1730
Maybe they don’t even have to ask. WP story from today:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.
…
Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
You know, Microsoft is guilty on a lot of things. but on the spying case maybe you should blame Obama instead of Steve Ballmer.
JeffL
1732
Hmmm. Continue to read here and elsewhere trying to separate the speculation from the known. Used games are not a big deal for me, so I’m not so caught up in that issue, though it is stupid if I can’t uninstall a game and give it to a friend or my son when I’m done with it. But that’s not high on my decision tree.
So far, though, it appears the PS4 will have more powerful hardware. The XBox One’s Kinect does nothing for me (I’ve waited for years for an excuse to buy one for my current XBox and don’t see a reason I’d want it now) and I don’t like the idea of it being on all the time. If rumors of having to pay $15 a month or so for Live are true, that alone could be a deal killer for me. And having to stay connected to the Internet is also a negative.
If the PS4 has more powerful hardware, doesn’t require a constant connection to the Internet, and doesn’t require a yearly fee (or requires one that is significantly less than the XBox One) I don’t know why anyone would prefer the XBox.
KWhit
1733
Wow. These policies suck. The 10 person shared game account thing is the only one that is remotely consumer friendly. And I’m SURE that there will be restrictions to this that they have not disclosed yet. Fuck them.
Plenty of blame to go around. Obama, Bush, Ballmer, Feinstein, Graham. Plenty of blame.
And, since I live in a region which is prone to significant wind events, I think I’m going to skip the next XBox. If the generator is running, but I can’t play single player games because the Internet has been down for 24 hours, I really don’t feel like dropping the cash on the box.
You’re going to buy an extra xbox live gold account for each game that has multiplayer?
xahlt
1736
Heh, well I personally think MS only wants to sell our information; it’s just that the Xbox One happens to be great confluence of connectivity and capability for the government.
Wow, that other place seems totally OK with all of this. Like night and day.
Crater
1738
I’m not quite willing to say that I’d never get an Xbone, but every bit of information I hear just makes it that much less likely.
As has been said before - Steam certainly has more restrictions than a disc-based PC game, but the massive sales make up for it. Especially since I can by cheap copies of games when they’re on sale, and give them to my friends. Since MS hasn’t touted “massive sales several times a year”, I’m going to assume it won’t happen.
The cynical part of me expects that MS expected this reaction from the tech-savvy hardcore gamers, but is expecting that it won’t matter in the long run. They just need to get enough other groups on board and they’ll be fine. It feels a bit like they’re expecting “casual games taking over the marketplace” all over again.
JD
1741
Good lord. I’m glad I wasn’t eating or drinking anything when I read that.
Microsoft was apparently the first company to sign on to PRISM, in 2007, before Obama took office.
No, that would only work for singleplayer games.
I don’t blame MS for complying. If the government comes to you with a sealed court order, you have no choice but to comply. That said, if MS has a videocamera in my living room and it’s possible for it to record remotely, I expect at some point it will be.
That’s why it needs to be impossible for the Kinect to record and transmit. Not “we would never do that”. “We can never do that.”
Not to get all P&R in here, but the issue isn’t whether or not you can trust that the Kinect is really off, it’s that we know MS collects all sorts of data when the Xbox (360 or One) is on. What you watch, what games you play, how long, etc. They track your searches in Bing. They record everything you say in Skype.
This makes the Xbox One a much more effective tool for the government to use in PRISM. It needs to be always on and connected to work correctly.
rowe33
1745
I’ve been a big Xbox fan ever since I played NHL Hitz at my first E3 years ago…but wow, I haven’t heard a single thing that convinces me owing an Xbox One is a good idea at all.
