OppressiveStink

@green_incarnate: Honestly, the only real cool announcement to me was the fixed digital pad...

@zombie2011: What this felt to me, was a lot like Sony's PS3 announcement. With one bad presser, blam, they screwed the pooch this generation and only caught up near the tail end of the cycle. I see Microsoft's announcement in the same light. Also, if they were to announce games at E3, why not just announce the system then too? Sony managed not to piss the bed too hard this time around, why didn't Microsoft wear the underoos?

@ruthloose: I just think it's a huge misstep not going for us first, it reeks of the Hubris Sony had during E3 2006. Microsoft doesn't seem hungry enough with this offering, and honestly, it has only a small window of opportunity to court us. As an audience, we're pretty goddamn vindictive.

I, as many of you, experienced the unveiling of the Xbox One, or XBone, as coined by Ryan on Twitter. After fully absorbing it, I have to say that it's a severe misstep for Microsoft to pursue the general audience before tying up the core market.

First and foremost, this machine is meant to play video games. Microsoft can talk around the subject all it wants, but the people who buy this want to play video games and the main people who buy things like this are people like you and me, the people in-the-know... you know, the "core demographic." No matter how useful the Xbox One will be to play those hot titles like "John Madden's Fantasy Football 2013" or "Xbox, watch MTV," if it doesn't have the software, it won't fly.

The people who they've marketed to with this release are people who already have things like NFL Sunday Ticket, already have DVR through their cable company, watch Netflix through the software on their TVs and get together in REAL LIFE to do their Final Fantasy Football. So, needless to say, these features are value added, as the real selling point will be the software, of which, they showed only a few pieces. This is a strange thing, because they need the core demographic to pick this up to make any traction, as the general audience is just fine with the Xbox 360 they bought three or four years ago(these people are not early adopters.)

Which leads me to this: the really good, ground-breaking, and games, the games that are made for people like us, they aren't always accepted by the general audience. With the democratization of game development, many of the coolest games coming out are from small developers and this announcement makes me feel like there might not be room on the new XBone for that type of experience. What with the bells, whistles, football, voice commands and pizza delivery, support for new experiences might fall by the wayside.

After all, if the initial segment they market to is the same share where innovation is not the currency of the realm, that means our segment is secondary. If our segment is secondary and what's catered to us is an afterthought, why would I be that all-important initial adopter that they need so desperately at launch?

@patrickklepek:

Welcome back to the living, Patrick, how did the conversion from normal human to beer-fueled, visual-novel reviewing automaton go? Here's my artist rendition of you after the conversion.

None of those small men scared me, for I am not a coward.

A developer has a different personal preference on the games he thinks people should make? And he didn't try to sugar-coat that opinion?

I am simply aghast.

@Mistzero:

But they accepted their feelings for each other and acted upon it about halfway through. Hell, they even vacationed together, had implied sex, this is why the main character goes all zerky later on.

@Animasta:

I don't like the traditional romance films, simply because a good non-demographic-targeted romance story is hard to do. Romance as the conflict in a movie usually has one of a few tropes "Love Triangle", "Star Crossed Lovers" or "Forbidden Love", none of which particularly interests me.

Though, you were making a comment on anime and there are two romance anime that I like. ToRaDoRa and Sword Art Online, simply because these did not end when the couples got together as most romances do. There was an after, a building of a relationship, something that is missing from most romance-based media.

@Feanor: What type of agnosticism though? Thiest or Atheist?