So, last week was verrrry interesting for at least a few people at Microsoft as they had to fight off the wrath of some (well, more than some) on the Internet who went quite ballistic after some Twitter posting from Microsoft Studios’ creative director about their upcoming console requiring an always online connection even for single player retail games. Naturally, to the millions of Xbox 360 owners without a decent online connection as well as those with decent connections who know what a terrible idea this is, some opinions of this potential plan were pretty vocal about their dislike for such a foolish forced deal. It didn’t help one bit that that this smug fool proceeded to tell people they should more or less stop whining and “deal with it” because EVERYONE is always online and we all have connected devices up the wazoo, right?

WRONG. Things got so bad that another more respected spokesperson had to drop in and post an official statement that the views of the other guy weren’t the companies at all… but then there was NO confirming or denying the rumor anywhere in that statement. Which makes me and a lot of others say “Ruh-Roh!” about the whole mess…

Look, you big game companies with deep pockets and not enough deep thinking about your ENTIRE user base: you’re not winning friends and influencing people by being totally unwilling to grasp the FACT that not everyone you want (and need, by the way) to BUY your new system wants to be (or can afford to be) online ALL THE DAMN TIME. Period. Between the security issues, areas in the country (and hell, around the globe) where online access is limited for any number of reasons you don’t seem to want to hear and a few other things, all you’re doing is making sure you shut out people with money to spend who will spend it elsewhere… like on a competitor’s system.

Sure, you can say you’ve got exclusive games they WANT to play, and that’s true. But guess how many won’t be playing ANY of those games simply because you’ve created a box that keeps them from doing just that? I’m not the only one saying this and just hoping me and the rest of that “vocal minority” will go away is wishful thinking at it’s finest. We’ll go away, that’s for sure… just to another company who isn’t quite ready to not take our hard-earned dollars we want to throw at them. Watch and learn, corporate snark-meisters, watch and learn…

Amusing YouTube Video swiped from Cramgaming.com (Yeah, yeah, DEFIANCE is an online-only game, but as I keep saying, MORE people would be able to enjoy it (and the show) it there were some way to play offline…)