So after my angry ranting to all of my friends about the XBox One announcement and the possibility of PS4 DRM, I began thinking about the new generation as a whole. I'm going to be referencing the XBO primarily in this thread since Microsoft gave much more information about their new policies than Sony did.
When I truly think about the XBO, I actually like almost all of the features. Installing to the hard drive and not having to insert the disc to play is very convenient, especially when swapping games. The concept that I can finally say 'XBox on' and my system turns on is a feature I waned for the Kinect, and the voice commands are the best thing about the device (some of the games are pretty decent too). Switching the right bar to use IE means that I can be playing and make a quick run to gamefaqs or other guide sites if I'm stuck; that's pure genius. All the TV features are really nice to have, but since I don't watch a lot of TV, if any, they're just a bonus for my personal lifestyle. Other people might find this feature useful, and it might be what causes some people to purchase the system.
Now I can see a problem with the constant connection. If you're in the military, in a company where your IT department doesn't support the requirements for LIVE, or you have your XB set up in a place where it can't connect to the router, then this is a problem. It doesn't really have much effect on me, and I will place a gamble that for a great number of people, it won't matter at all. But it will cause a lot of issues for certain customers and that will cause them to stick with the 360/PS3.
The next issue is the Kinect always being on. Now call me a little over optimistic on this, but I seriously doubt that Microsoft is stupid to the point that they're going to spy on people in their living rooms/game rooms/garages/bathrooms etc. There would be a crazy number of inside whistle blowers and very large number of privacy lawsuits that MS would no doubt lose. I don't work for Microsoft, but I have some confidence that the company lawyers are not just monkeys in a cage flinging feces at each other. Any smart lawyer would advice against this, and as big as MS is, the chances of them doing something like this is probably nil. The game industry has done some shady shit, but this would blow everything out of the water and I guarantee the US court system wouldn't allow it.
So after all that, the main thing that I was touting would be the deal breaker for me was the restrictions placed on used games and having to register the discs to the system. After thinking about this for a long time, I think I'd be nothing short of a hypocrite if I said this was the main deal breaker. We do this already with delivery systems like Games On Demand and Steam, and I am a huge fan of Steam. The real issue for me is that once Microsoft decides to stop supporting the XBO, the history of the system is gone. All of the discs you have will no longer play on the system, and are then useless coasters. This is what scares me, and is the only thing I don't like about the future of digital downloads. I can still pop out my SNES and as long as the system works and I have a cartridge that works, I can play games that are 20-30 years old. Even if all the SNES systems in the world went ka-put, there is still the emulation crowd to keep that history alive. Yes, downloading roms is illegal, but I don't give a shit, and I'll bank that nobody else gives a shit either. The requirements for a system that requires DRM dodges the problem that people can pirate the game and it has a lot of conveniences, but it does not preserve the history after said system is gone. Those games become nothing short of a memory to never be played again. That's why I toute the greatness of the humble bundles. I can download a separate exe that installs the game without DRM if Steam ever decides to vanish.
Overall, it's the history of systems, or the destruction of, that will make or break the future of gaming for me. I like collecting games, and I like having a library of games that shows off the years of history the industry has provided. Once we get to the point where games becomes nothing but a bunch of throw away code, then it is just no longer worth it to me to keep purchasing console systems. The PC has transcended generations and it looks like it will be the only 'system' that will have any shot of preserving any history of gaming.