Lack of game focus aside, it is my opinion that the overall XBONE offering by Microsoft was limited, short sighted, and generally too full of caveats and "bad news" for consumers to be viable this generation. This could change with more information, so take everything with a grain of salt. The reveal itself was kneecapped by irrelevant trailers and a failure to effectively communicate a "must have" product to consumers. As a thought experiment, I compared the reveal to Apple events and how they might have gone about selling the next generation system. These are just a few things I came up with.

*Announce pricing, and streamline. Keep it simple, and give consumers a reasonable way to cross your paywall. 399 and 499 models, and 1.99 a month XBOX live. All done within the XONE interface - no more calling a number to cancel or buying access cards online. Justify the paywall by discussing the strengths of Live. Stability and speed. Make a sales pitch to the consumer that a modest fee is rolled into providing a top tier, zero stress experience.

*Do not require Kinect to turn the console on, but frame it as a bonus. Sell the console first and foremost, then use the Kinect to put a period on the sales pitch. The consumer should feel they are getting a top tier gaming and entertainment system even without the peripheral. It is a value added proposition, as opposed to a bitter double edged sword. Want to use Kinect? Go ahead? Don't want to? That's ok, it's in the box, and offers you a wealth of tools and games should you opt to plug it in.

*Announce a release date. Build to that date. Get it inside people's heads and let them start putting money down.

*Keep "bad news" to zero. Other than announcing a price, nothing in a reveal should be bad news for a potential customer. If you want to charge for something, keep the fee reasonable, simple and easy to opt in or out of. If you want to sell Kinect, stay humble and understand that it is not a much loved device at this stage in the game. If you want to treat used games like you are a PC platform, lower the price and indicate that sales will be a regular event.

*Have it playable right after the event. Let the media do your work and build hype.

What the hell are you expending all that energy for?

Change the Xbox logo to an Apple logo and you ship 100m units, no questions asked.

How would Apple have sold the Xbox One?

Put their name on it.

Excellent sales pitch. Would buy!!

I'm not even beeing ironic! One would wish, Microsoft would have done it this way.

"And the Xbox One will be available in our stores, next week."

Apple DOES have Apple Tv, and it was a dud from the start and still struggles even after various iterations of hardware. So yeah... Apple fucked the idea up as well.

Actually for $95 it's not a bad deal. I don't have to pay Apple to view Netflix, Hulu, or other services...unlike XBL.