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Comment by ihuman | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious what the ratio of Xbox 360s currently always connected to the internet to ones not always connected is. It may be possible that there is just a vocal minority upset about this issue. If there are non-DRM benefits to being always-on, then I would still like an option to turn it on or off.

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for the most part, my 360 is connected to the internet whenever it is on. my problem with the always-on requirement is that when my internet goes down (not often, maybe 3-4 times a year), my first thought "eh, i'll just play a video game until it comes back up". there have been two instances i can remember where i wasn't allowed to play a single player game that i purchased because i was not connected to the internet.

it's annoying and it's anti-consumer. for the next gen, i will be going with whoever doesn't have this restriction.

There's no need to ever have your Xbox 360 always connected unless you play online or use the video services. The 360 is the worst device I've ever owned about nagging constant updates.

You've obviously never owned a PS3. The Xbox gets updated often, yeah, but generally those updates are quick. PS3 updates and mandatory software installs commonly stretch to the 30 minute mark and sometimes beyond, at least on my console and Internet connection.

I have both and find the XBox more annoying personally. I feel like it has more system-wide updates, but I think we're splitting hairs here, both are bad. We're talking about a market where it's normal to go out and buy a game, wait 10-15 minutes for the console to update, the game to update (maybe twice) before you ever get to play the game. I would consider that to be ripe for disruption.

I would'nt say 30 minutes but i would say they push a lot of updates. The only problem I have with that is that it's not always apparent what they're updating.

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