MS has been trying their damndest for the past 6 months to "build anticipation and guide the narrative" around the Xbox One. They basically threw a temper tantrum because "the media" and "entitled gamers" didn't allow them to pass this controlled PR message to consumers about "unlimited graphics via cloud computing"/"balanced hardware"/"no comment on indie games"/"DRM freedom is slavery"/"Kinect must be plugged in". The entire fiasco was ridiculous. The box is a physical thing, with power, price, and software quantifiable and comparable to other products on the market.
The entire attempt was derailed by their reversals. We know that most of their statements around E3 were sleazy PR. They did what they had to do to get their preorders up, and I suppose they should be congratulated for finally listening to their customers rather than defending "the message" to the grave. But with Albert's recent statements about not knowing resolutions of the biggest launch games (before resolutiongate), and the recent banning, you get the sense that MS is still fighting tooth and nail to maintain some pretense over the launch.
You can't hide what your product is and does in consumer electronics. Not in 2013. The world has changed since the release of the iPhone and the increase in tech enthusiast websites. When people buy a modern phone/tablet, they want to know the screen resolution, CPU clock speeds, battery life, benchmark scores, build materials, camera specs, operating system version, All of this information was known about the LG/Google Nexus 5 before it was even announced. MS' attempts to control the narrative about the One launch is taking a piss in the wind. When they say "we can increase graphics 10-fold with cloud computing" and anandtech writes a rebuttal "no, that's not true", everyone knows they are full of shit.
If LIVE sucks, if the dash crashes, if the One version of 3rd party games have severe graphic deficiencies...consumers are going to know. It's their right to know. The box is $500 after all. The absurdity of the banning here is that, from all outward appearances, the machine isn't the disaster that so many have predicted; the UI is solid, the interface is slick, the games look pretty damn good. Kinect even works, for the little content they have for it at launch. MS is pushing the same losing battle Nintendo did - if people don't know what your console does or what it's capable of, the response isn't intrigue, it's apathy. No one is dropping hundreds of dollars on a mystery box.
/jk
