So I'm terribly sorry about all this (assuming anyone reads these), but the blog I promised last week has had to be set asides for the time being. Why? Because my radar positively exploded over a pretty damned big news story - the Xbox One has recended it's Digital Rights Management (DRM) policies. Hooray, right?

Right?

Well, call me hard pressed, but I'm not exactly yaying along with everyone else.

Before we get rolling with that though, I should take a few moments to recap the story so far for anyone late to the party - Microsoft's XBox One is the newest ieteration of the XBox series of Consoles. Originally, the console drew fire from it's revel for promoting Movies & TV over Games, then at E3 with a rather disasterous conferance where they were utterly crushed by Sony's Playstation 4 conferance, topped off with an infamous video on how the PS4 uses game sharing. Even after the conferance, the Humiliation Conga continued with Microsoft doing some really daft things, such as only exporting to a grand total of twenty one countries (of which Poland was excluded - a big deal as one of the XBox One's launch titles, Witcher III, which had Polish developers meant that they couldn't play their own game in their home country), which lead to Microsoft dropping the following:

• The original XBox One was supposed to "Phone Home" to Microsoft once every twenty four hours (for periods of up to an hour) as a "disk check" to make sure that you didn't have any Used Games on your system. This feature has now been cut.
  
• A paywall for Used Games was also rumored. This has kinda sorta been cut.
  
• The Aforementioned country locking has also been removed.
  

However, I don't think this is as big a victory as people make it out to be.

For starters, the XBox One still utilises a Cloud based storage system. This means that the Console still requires an Internet Connection in order to properly function. This in turn makes the removal of the whole "Phoning Home" mechanic pointless. It also means that Microsoft can at any time reinstate their policies regarding DRM software with the flick of a switch, without telling you. Potentially speaking, this system allows Microsoft to sneak though a lot of nasty, horrible software and malware.

Also in case anyone forgets, the Playstation 3 was a repeated target of hacking and other E-Crimes, and was made all the more vulnerable to it because of it's internet based services, no matter how many firmware updates were downloaded onto your machine. I can easily forsee the XBox One having a similair issue.

The other big one is the Kinect. Depending on the stories you read, the new model Kinect can read things like muscle structure, wrist rotation and heart rate. Biometric data is extremely valuable and highly priced information - and Microsoft is going to have access to it via the Kinect sensor, which thanks to the Internet Connection the XBox One requires for reasons mentioned above...you can see where this is going, right?

This isn't to say that the Playstation 4 is going to be any better - do not forget that Sony is capable of (and has been guilty of) some very anti-consumer related practices with the Playstation 3, however right now they pale in comparison to the malevolant evil that the XBox One represents.

Yes, it is entirely likely that the above is conspricy theory balderdash...however, it's not far removed from what is a very real possibility. It is entirely likely Microsoft could have done this just so the console would sell and make a short term profit - and then snag the consumers with DRM later.

Until then, I have been your GABEN. Thank you for reading.

PS: For anyone wondering how and why PC can get away with it, here's the answer that will make all your dreams come true.