To this date I still see a lot of people defending the "always online" approach of the Xbone, particularly the more hardcore MS fanboys. Now, could anybody tell me what would "always online" allow that is not possible with the current system? Because from my perspective there is nothing the "always on" could bring that would make the current system be less shitty, in fact, it'd be the contrary.
I was one of the few people who understood exactly where Microsoft was trying to go with their 24 hour check in version of the Xbox One, a lot of people confused that message horribly. As a 20+ year PC gamer and a day one adopter of the Steam platform Microsoft was simply moving into the PC realm of things, all digital, all online etc. Things are going this direction anyways and have been similar to this in the PC space for the last decade or so, Microsoft was just trying to be ahead of the curve in the console market.
With a console that is actually online focused it could have brought down the cost of games on the system as physical media could have been scrapped nearly all together and many more sales could be offered. Cloud computing could have been at the forefront of game development which could drastically change the gaming landscape. Since online is optional now that completely removed developer incentive in the same way that untethering the Kinect from the system as mandatory removed developer incentive, developers have no idea how many people are online/offline or have the Kinect/don't have the Kinect so developing for it is a waste of time.
Console games are like PC games these days anyways so this console needing to be connected to the internet is pretty much a requirement regardless, this is the same reality on the PlayStation 4. Games need to be updated post release, essentially all of them. Bugs come up, new features are added, DLC comes out etc, gaming these days is completely revolved around internet connectivity. I think the problem was not what Microsoft was trying to do but rather that the console community was just not ready for it or didn't like being told they needed to be connected to the internet, although most are anyways.
I think the whole thing was blown completely out of proportion by a lot of ignorant people who didn't really understand what this meant, I think that Sony wanted to do the same thing as well but seeing as how poorly it was received for the Xbox One they scrapped those plans before having announced anything. The ironic thing though is that the PlayStation 4 is becoming even more like the Xbox One was originally going to be than the Xbox One currently is. Sony is moving a lot of things over to the online side of things, they're pushing digital very hard, they're pushing their TV service, they're pushing their game streaming services, it has more online requirements to get every bit of use out of it than the Xbox does.
Either way by the end of this generation I think that both console will essentially require that you be connected to the Internet anyways so this whole mess was completely unnecessary.
Considering how often the networks for both systems go down, an always online console would have been a disaster. Both PSN and Live were completely shut down for several days near last Chirstmas. Imagine buying one of those systems and not being able to use it at all.
Even with an always online system, I don't see how Kinect would have been successful. Microsoft had a launch line up of games which failed to show off the potential of the device. Even if everyone had one, I imagine most developers wouldn't have bothered due to negative reception.
First off let me start by saying the Xbox One was never going to be "always online", it had a 24 hour check in. Secondly both PSN and Live were not completely shut down for several days, PSN was down completely for 5 days and Xbox Live had large but scattered outages for less than a 24 hour period, it never went down. Kinect based games are a stupid idea, however Kinect integration in games is not and works nearly perfectly. The problem is developers have no reason now to integrate its functionality into their games because they have no idea how many people actually have them.
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