manicm said:
Don't fool yourself in anyway that Sony is looking out for the consumer any more than Microsoft.
So as far as fleecing the consumer goes - they both get the EDITED medal.
Not fooling myself at all - both are looking out for the consumer as much as possible whilst still maximising their profits - not looking out for the consumer is extremely bad for business and Sony and Microsoft are pretty good at listening to their customers. Neither are "fleecing the consumer" - they offer a product for a price and those that are happy to pay and feel they are getting value for money will do so. Those that don't, won't.
However, none of this changes my original point in that, considering the Xbox One purely as a media hub (i.e. ignoring the gaming side), you really need to take account of the Xbox Gold Live fee on top of any other subscriptions. With the PS4, you don't need this. Will many people pay for the subscriptions despite this in order to get online gaming? Yes, probably and especially those buying Day One. However, as per the PS3, many may purchase one of the consoles when they come down in price mostly for media playback, and they may well be surprised (and quite miffed) to find out they have to pay for this subscription to get online streaming services with the Xbox One if they haven't researched it properly.