No, you can't actually name a star after a person. Well, you can, but nobody else will know about it and it doesn't matter. But what if you actually could, for reals?
I think that would be better.
Alright, so the latest Microsoft rumor was not a rumor, because they never are, and this one is so interesting.
It shouldn't be, of course. It's utterly pedestrian. Subsidizing hardware with a service charge is how you sell expensive things to people who can't afford them, or can't afford it all at once. It's about context, though: the gaming console has historically been sold to people who place a premium on its ownership. Eventually the top part of the funnel gets wider, certainly, and prices drop. But seeing this model here, where I live, is like finding a bear in your driveway. What happens when you launch a console in this way?
You can look at Amazon or whatever and see that the hardware goes for $276 and up. Obviously, you and I probably aren't interested in such a device for our personal use: four gigs isn't enough to copy a single disc to the local drive, reaping the benefits thereby. The Kinect is deeply, profoundly optional as a peripheral. It doesn't matter, though: "we" already own the thing. "We" have probably owned several, statistically speaking. This box is for another type of person, and that person exists in far greater numbers than the stalwart faithful which huddle in our cloister.
The thing to say right now is that there won't be another console generation. That's primarily some ragged, street-preacher style Apocalyptics; we may safely disregard it. If they'd like to mitigate the grim prophetics somewhat, and suggest that we may not recognize the next console generation - because of its shape, or its method of propagation, or for any other reason - we may find common ground.
(CW)TB out.
