You bring up some excellent points. Especially how these kinds of changes will affect people overseas. I guess we will have see how MS responds to these issues over the next few months as they release more details. They are going to have to do something to prevent these privacy issues. You are right though, I am normally against this kind of stuff. I guess the only reason I am being a ‘sucker’ for it is that I have gotten so used to it with my online PC games.

As far as the cloud – yea I love the cloud. I use it for everything. I only have a hard drive as a backup but I almost no longer use any computer space unless software requires it….now I am speaking of personal use. If I had anything that couldnt be viewed by others, I would never use dropbox or whatever.

I didnt get into the diablo 3 thing but I did see the issues it had. I am kinda glad I saved my money there:) Although blizzard has gotten enough out of me with their wow subscription fee that I paid for like a year or two.

Look up the DRM issues that have been plaguing the PC world for the last couple of years.

Why would you like to save everything to a cloud? Might be nice in the States where Internet is prevalent, but elsewhere in the world having a constant connection is not the same – I get a bandwidth cap on my internet in New Zealand meaning all of those GB’s uploaded and downloaded are charged back to me. Also, being outside the US I fall into the Governments ability to snoop on my cloud based in the US, just by having an outside connection from the US… 9th Grade English class all over again… BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.

There are plenty of cases with DRM software companies, such as Ubisoft, who have also terminated people’s rights to the software they have purchased… nothing governing this from not happening to you. You can’t negotiate the Terms and Conditions you agree to when installing.

Look at the Simcity and Diablo 3 launches of their always online model… people did not have access to their purchase for several weeks and it was beyond the customers control.

Also,… for years and years now, software developers like Microsoft have tied software licenses to Machine Registry information. Having a disk doesn’t mean that anyone can use it if there is a pre-screened registration process which ties back to you specific machine registry – this in itself sucks, I will admit too, because if you change a graphics card for instance, you loose you software rights as the machine registry has changed.

Then you have the “Book Syndrom” where having something in your hands empowers some people, over saving it in some cloud and reading it off a tablet.

Now, the cloud idea isn’t bad, but it should by no means be trusted. I mean, why not just have a registry check to the software you bought and be able to save it to the XBox 1 or an external hard drive? Is it really that bad to have to take with you a disk or external hard drive to a friend’s place? Why wouldn’t you take the whole box these days with LAN connections, or even just play together from separate locations? Beats having to share the same TV for gaming.

And remember it isn’t Microsoft who is dictating that you can take you uploaded software over to a friends place, it’s the Software publishers. Kindle has this agreements too with the book publishers – they have yet to allow book sharing!

Don’t forget you are also killing the local game and video-rental shops by backing this too!

I see too many reasons to be suspicious and cautious of this new advance in gaming than benefits. Just because Microsoft are trying to make it a business to save your stuff, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy into it.