Microsoft continues to send out mixed signals…

Our good friends over at Kotaku have published a really good article by their EiC Stephen Totilo.  In the article Stephen chronicles information provided to him during interviews the day of the XBOX One announcement, as well as some answers form other people conducting interviews that tend to muddy up the waters.  You can check out the entire article over at Kotaku, but here are a few choice exerpts:

Harrison: “There are many devices in your life that require the Internet to function… Xbox One is no different in that it requires, at some point in the beginning and at various times through its on state, to connect to our cloud and to our Internet. That is to deliver Xbox Live functionality, that is to deliver download content to you, that is to deliver some of the innovations around TV and entertainment that we showed today. But it doesn’t require it to be online all the time.
For single-player games that don’t require connectivity to Xbox Live, you should be able to play those without interruption should your Internet connection go down. Blu-ray movies and other downloaded entertainment should be accessible when your Internet connection may be interrupted. But the device is fundamentally designed to be expanded and extended by the Internet as many devices are today.”
Kotaku: If I’m playing a single player game, do I have to be online at least once per hour or something like that? Or can I go weeks and weeks?
Harrison: I believe it’s 24 hours.
Kotaku: I’d have to connect online once every day.
Harrison: Correct.

Which sounds an awful lot like w/o an internet connection you’re totally boned.  Also, if something crazy were to happen like the Sony hacking that took place a while back you will be SOL until at least a modicum of service is restored.

There is also this little gem as well:

Then they got to talking about used games and whether you could trade one in. Harrison to Bramwell:

“We will have a system where you can take that digital content and trade a previously played game at a retail store,” Harrison said. “We’re not announcing the details of that today, but we will have announced in due course.”

But in his interview with me, Harrison had said something a little different:

“We will have a solution—we’re not talking about it today—for you to be able to trade your previously-played games online”

See the difference?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not instilled with a lot of confidence that MS isn’t going to piss off a lot of people with some of the choices they’ve made.  What do you think?  Let us know in the comments.