As a member of the military, I can tell you that most of the game rooms set up overseas at "forward" locations are filled with Xbox 360's. Therefore, the relationship between Microsoft and the military is of high importance. It may be no coincidence that shortly after the negative feedback from the Navy publication that Microsoft exec's came together make an about face on their console policies that would have prevented thousands of us troops from being able to use an Xbox One overseas and therefore forced the military to consider other options for the regular morale activities they hold for us when we're deployed away from home. Congratulations Microsoft on making the smart business decision here when so many spoke out against those terrible policies.

Fantastic news for GameStop I'm sure. Regardless of the motivations for Microsoft's reversal of policies it's important that ultimately they reversed them. This is how the free market works (spoken by a true conservative). If their is enough negative feedback and bad sales (or in this case pre orders) then we can convince the largest companies to change their policies. Great for the gaming industry, the last thing that I want is a monopoly from either Sony or Microsoft.

@thekazumalord Technically, since neither system is out, the "get go" hasn't happened yet. I can care less what their real motivations are for reversing their policies as long as they were reversed.

@KPKeeley Yes.

We the People!!! While I'm sure the major 3rd party publishers like EA and Ubisoft are not happy about this most of the gamers have to be. We stood up to the giants of the gaming industry and proved that with the voice of the people united, we can cause the big boys of the gaming industry to back down. Looks like I can look forward to Forza and Halo 5 after all.

That's one of my BIGGEST concerns about buying an Xbox One. I've been deployed three times and while most of the bases overseas have a gaming room that has video game systems hooked up to them for morale purposes, these systems are not online. I doubt Microsoft truly understands how vital it is to those of us who serve that we have the ability to play games offline. We don't get to decide if we're going to deploy or not and I don't want a $500 gaming system that I can't play games on when I'm deployed. My "offline" system when I deployed won't be called Xbox360, it will be called PS4.

I'm getting a PS4 and later a Xbox One when they get their butts kicked and drop their stupid policies but calling the PS4 "sexy"? That was not the first word that came to my mind when the look of the system debuted. Both of these boxes are a little to big and bulky for the year 2013 when devices are starting to slim down and actually look sexy. My guess is both of these companies will follow status quo and in a few years release a "slim" version that has minor upgrades forcing us early adapters to look at these ugly beasts and wonder why we get punished for supporting them at the beginning stages.

Nice take on the achievement models and it should provide a lot of fun for Xbox live players. I hope this will apply to the Xbox 360 owners as well since I won't be buying an Xbox One until Microsoft changes their stance on the 24 hour check-in.

My problem with the "always on" concept where the system checks in every 24 hours is my current situation. One of Microsoft's buddies Comcast is terrible with providing a technician at your doorstop in a convenient 24 hour period as the only timeslots are often available when the vast majority of the people have to go to work. Something is wrong with the internet in my apartment (who knows what happened it's an older building) and I'm forced to wait until Saturday when I'm off to have a technician come out and check it out. It has been down since yesterday when I got home from work which means I will wait for 3 days with only my cell phone for me to check email. According to the Xbox One policy, not only will I be unable to get on the internet on my PC but I will then loose my ability to play games as well until Saturday when a technician can come out to restore it. That is just one of many such instances that might occur where a gamer may find himself unable to do anything other than watch TV. No thanks, I will buy a PS4 to start off with, and I have bought both the original Xbox and Xbox 360 and loved both of those machines as well as the games.

@godzillavskong Agreed. That 24hr check in is to try and cut down on piracy. But piracy is just consumers trying to save money. It's cheaper to buy a game and burn it and make copies for your friends to play and them do vice versa as opposed to me having to buy every single game at full price because it's linked to your account.