I understood why you couldn't turn an Xbox 360 off with voice - that made sense, particularly when the Goddamn thing decides it heard something nobody in the room actually said. I didn't really understand why you shouldn't be able to turn it on with voice, though, other than it not being possible with that hardware. The Xbox One can do it, which is nice I guess, though it does mean it has to be listening absolutely all the time, because... that's how. It's not clear whether or not it will judge you at launch, but if the previous system is any indicator, they're always prepared to add functionality.

If you were to have this conversation with someone from Microsoft, say, Aaron Greenberg, they probably wouldn't understand what you were talking about when you used terms like "privacy concerns" or whatever. He would ask you why you ever turned it off in the first place.

Ben beat me to it, "it" being discussing the alien realm we're entering vis a vis "Used Digital Gamez(?!?)," but even then I can't just let it sit.

This is essentially absorption, full ownership of an entire market, and it's so complete that I can't imagine there isn't something on the Sony side to reflect it also - if not digital trades, then certainly one-time codes. I think that this reality, more than anything else, accounts for the "rumored" retreat from Microsoft Points. People might be willing to trade games in for points, but I doubt it. So much of the conversation about Used is really a conversation about value. If you could "trade in" a game with the flip of a switch, and all games were available digitally, that world looks very different. I don't trade games back in the current regime, I can't square it; I'd rather retain that value and build a library I can try to force my son to play later, alienating him, and ultimately driving him away. Others leverage the crystallized value of their discs to get more discs. On console, this is still a reality for the time being. But the disc itself is being deprecated to the extent that it's like a banana peel, or something. Not merely useless, or inedible, something more like a hazard.

As I have said on several occasions, this is precisely how it works on my computer now, with no trade-ins. Even before Steam, one-time codes functionally obliterated Used on PC. Which meant there was no incentive for my game shop to even carry them, anymore. I became that weirdo dude who was always trying to buy things they didn't sell, and preordering was the only way to get software. That's why I believe there's something else we don't know, yet - the Gamestop piece. You'd better believe there is one.

Used Digital was a rumor awhile back on Steam, too. To a certain extent, you have to admire the pluck. Well, you don't have to admire it, but you have to recognize the slide into selling not products but the use of a product, and then buying the unproducts back.

(CW)TB out.