I never had any issue doing what I wanted to do with the 360 with any version of the Dashboard or store, and in regards to how the Xbox One has been presented so far, I'm not sure why intelligent adults can so easily have their perception of reality shaped by marketing. Does any of this TV stuff they've talked about make it more difficult to play a video game? Does it negate the list of exclusives they've developed or secured? I fail to see how. It does everything the 360 ever did with games and more, and it isn't one bit more difficult or inconvenient to do it.
I love the show, but it just gets silly when the 360 and Xbox One are the topic of conversation.
What we said in our 360 retrospective was that the first 4-5 years were great, with lots of amazing exclusives, Microsoft caring very much about games/gamers, paving the way for indies on console. Even if they had other ambitions at that time it was largely invisible. For the first 5 years of the last generation the 360 was my go-to console. I have a larger library of games on 360 than I do on any other platform. I don't think anyone would disagree that the Microsoft of those years was awesome.
But there has been a noticeable tilt to one side in the messaging and strategy. Not just of Xbox One, but of the 360 as well. Since around the time the Kinect came out Microsoft's strategy has changed to be living room entertainment focused. Games are a part of that but to a much broader userbase of fitness games and kids games. All you have to do is look at their landing page for the Xbox 360 on xbox.com - how much of that is devoted to the 360 as a gaming platform? Gaming is on the second row of "Entertainment is more amazing with Xbox 360."
This isn't to say that Microsoft hasn't always had broader goals with the 360 to take over the living room. They have. Even in the launch presentation J Allard talks about Windows Media Center and using it for music, movies, photos, etc. Even whilst releasing amazing Halo sequels and having awesome Summer of Arcade promotions they were putting in on-demand video, Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Xbox Music, etc. Turned out that the 360 continued to be a best-selling platform fueled by great multiplatform games and though Microsoft's first party output declined, as an Entertainment device the 360 was still beating the competition in sales. Clearly it was a strategy that was working to great extent.
Of course their success has informed their approach with Xbox One. They spent the first unveiling touting its media features because those had already become such an important and popular direction with the 360. The first ad on TV for the Xbox One touts its media features and not games. Where games were the focus when the 360 launched to get the box in your home and then later sold itself on the Entertainment functions, Microsoft itself is a different company than they were in 2005 and has a broader range of services/businesses that are leaning on the Xbox for success. Xbox Music, Video, SmartGlass, Windows Phone, NFL content deals, these are now much more closely tied to the Xbox One as a platform at launch 'cuz they didn't exist when the 360 launched. It is not surprising that this is the direction.
Does it make it any more difficult to play a video game? No. In the 360 podcast we were talking about the number of clicks in it takes to find/be informed about games/new game content. And it has increased over the years as the 360 has become more of an entertainment Swiss Army Knife by necessity, surely. Do I believe that games are less of a focus for Microsoft with the One platform than they were with the 360? Yes I do. Now this doesn't mean that they're not securing great exclusives or that the system will be without amazing games. But what this does say to me is that this is the same Microsoft of the back-half of the 360's lifespan where they all but dropped indie devs, first-party support dwindled just to a few core franchises pumped out regularly, they stopped funding interesting games from 2nd parties, they focused on non-gaming system functions and multiplatform games with exclusive content were expected to fill the void. If I didn't already have a 360 I don't think I would've been compelled to buy one over the last 2-3 years. I've not turned it on nearly as much in the last 2 years as I used to. I don't think I'm the only one on the 'cast that feels that way.
