Amid all the buzz surrounding the imminent launches of Microsoft and Sony's new consoles, a particularly disturbing rumour has been unearthed, the report yesterday which suggested Microsoft might be planning to make the Xbox 720 an online-only console, meaning that players need to be connected to the Internet in order to play any game. The news has been met with plenty of righteous outrage online already, while devil's advocates have also attempted to extol the virtues of a console always being connected to the Internet. Nevertheless, most people seem to view this as a shady move on the side of Microsoft, and that's precisely why it probably won't ever come to fruition; if it does, then you can bet your bottom dollar I won't be spending my hard-earned cash on a 720, as I expect will be the similar response of many gamers. Here are 10 reasons why an online-only Xbox 720 is a terrible idea...
10. It's Stealth DRM
Whether Microsoft wants to admit it or not, the main reason for a console being permanently connected is so that they can monitor whether players are playing a legitimate copy of the game or a pirate. When Half-Life 2 was released back in 2004 and was the first major game to require an active Internet connection to play, it kick-started a trend throughout the PC gaming industry, with Valve's Steam slowly building a reputable library of games that now accounts for the vast majority of new releases. This now might be transpiring through to the console market, and of course, if every 720 owner is required to be connected at all times, then there's absolutely no way to paly illegitimate games. Not that we're complaining about this, but simply that it appears to be punishing players who have bought the game by forcing them to play the game under a fairly demanding condition (for a lot of markets), to be permanently connected to the web. How about making a product that people actually want to buy instead?