Please Don't Buy the Xbox One

I’m going to be doing blog posts about E3 for the next month, just so you know. This stuff is a really big deal to me, and to a lot of people, and the industry is changing in ways that we have never seen before. Next week I’m going to do a full rundown of all of the presentations, but for now, I present a little segment I like to call “Please, for the love of all things humane, do not buy an Xbox One”.

We've all heard the news about the Xbox One (hereafter referred to as the “Xbone”), about how it has to call home once every 24 hours, or it locks you out of your games, about how used games will be a thing of the past or at best price locked through “select retailers”, about how you can’t lend games to friends, since all transfers are one way and permanent, the list goes on. Obviously this thing is shaping up to be a hot pile of ass to actually use, but I still see people who are determined to buy one. I hear a number of arguments on this front, but I’m here to lay down some facts, and also to debunk several of the most commonly used defenses of the system. First, let me make my point crystal clear:

Please, please, as a consumer of products, as someone who supports a free market, as a member of a society interested in things that are beneficial to us all, do not buy the Xbox One.

This isn't about brand loyalty, this isn't about console wars, and this isn't about “winning”, this is about freedom. That’s right, freedom, freedom to play games and enjoy artistic talent without having a multinational corporation nickel and dime us every step of the way. These “features” in no way benefit the consumer; that is a fact. You can go on and on about how these restrictions don’t bother you, but that’s not the issue, the issue is that you are being asked to tolerate them for no reason. These restrictions offer no benefit to you, at all, and Microsoft is banking on the fact that the masses want to play Halo and Forza so badly that they will just eat it up anyway. They are hoping that people are literally willing to put an always on, always connected, webcam that can be mined for advertising data and recorded for the government in their living room, just to be able to play the new Halo. This is 1984 people, and if you buy into it all you are doing is proving to corporations that you will gladly hand over your rights, your privacy, and your money out of sheer, blind loyalty to an entertainment franchise.

If the Xbone doesn't fail, and I mean fail spectacularly, there is no reason why every company wouldn't start doing it. These policies make corporations money, that’s why they are implemented in the first place, and if Microsoft can get away with people not caring about these things, then Sony will do it next generation, and Nintendo the generation after that. Why wouldn't they? If a company can institute hilariously anti-consumer policies and still make just as much money, more money even thanks to those policies, why shouldn't they? This is a very slippery slope, we already have Apply tracking our movements with GPS and Google tracking our searches for advertising and Target tracking our shopping habits across the country, when does it end? When do we, as a society put our collective feet down and say enough is enough?

Please, I’m begging you, don’t support Microsoft in this madness. If you buy an Xbone, you are paying Microsoft to take your rights away, when you could just buy a PlayStation 4 and get a nearly identical experience without all of the hassle. Get informed about this stuff, and talk your friends out of it too if they are leaning towards the Xbone in November. Everyone needs to know how horrible this is, because as hilarious as it will be to see the backlash on Christmas day when Timmy takes his brand new Xbone over to Grandma’s house for dinner, but can’t play because she doesn't have internet, or when one smartass kid decides to log on to his friend’s Xbone and transfer all of his friend’s games to his own console, effectively stealing them, but when he is found out he can’t just give the games back, because the transfer is one way, those people still gave Microsoft their money, and no amount of bad press is going to take that money away.