Bad news travels further than good news, and the sheer degree of hate they generated with the original Xbox One flooded out into the "real world". It's the worst reveal of a gaming console in history. No one will ever let them live it down. So many people I know simply haven't heard that Microsoft went back on it's policies. Unless Microsoft do a mass media campaign explaining how they tried to screw everyone, and that they changed their minds because their pre-order numbers were unfathomably low, those same people won't know for a long time to come.
They know they've fucked themselves royally despite also knowing they'll sell out at launch. Their NFL ad for the Xbox One does more to confirm to these people that Xbox One isn't about games. Add on top of that that Microsoft simply don't have a mass market killer app in their launch line up that instantly shuts down those kinds of comments, and I think it becomes clear why they're sending poor Major Nelson across the country to be insulted and spat at.
"Xbox One" is going into launch with an awful public image. It's also more expensive and has Kinect - which wouldn't be horrible, except that its from a company currently associated with mass privacy invasion. They've "lost" the launch already; they're looking at re-building their public image. And it's going to take them years to do it.
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