Microsoft initially had several policies for the Xbox One that frustrated some gamers, such as an always-online policy and DRM strategies that would have made playing used games on the console bothersome. Now, in the wake of these policies and their subsequent reversals, Microsoft is hoping gamers will focus on the Xbox One's software.
Phil Harrison, corporate vice president of Microsoft, recently spoke to Edge about the upcoming launch of the Xbox One and he revealed that Microsoft's confidence in their launch lineup has been backed up by the media as well:
"We are winning the games message...We had over 100 awards coming out of E3 for games on our platform. That is more than twice as many awards as any other platform. So the media recognized our games on Xbox One as being the best lineup--including Titanfall, which is the most awarded game in the history of E3, coming to Xbox One and to Xbox 360."
Harrison also apologized to international fans that were affected by the scaled back launch of the Xbox One, but ultimately declared that the move will not affect the success of the new console in the long run:
"We will make sure we work super hard to catch up as quickly as we can...in the long run, in the life of Xbox One, I don't believe this will have any material impact."
The executive also revealed that, while Microsoft is prepared to look into the future of console gaming and try to capture that future with their consoles, the company is willing to change if it is what the fans want:
"I think when you create a vision of the future, you paint the vision of the future that you are most excited about...But we got clear feedback that some of the things we were proposing were perhaps a little too far into the future. So we changed. We took feedback from the community; we changed our plans. We think that's a good thing."
It will be interesting to see if fans take to the games available to the Xbox One at launch, or if Microsoft is overconfident in the console's ability to connect with gamers. After all, there is still a group of gamers who still harbor privacy concerns for the Xbox One and may shift over to Sony's PlayStation 4 rather than use the Xbox One.