Announced today, on Xbox.com, Microsoft will now not require Xbox One games to be silently authenticated one per […]

According to the post on Xbox.com, Microsoft plans to make the change officially […]

Also, Tokyo with 37,000,000 people has pretty decent coverage for the most part. This is why I called it sketchy, as even without some geographical limitations, some music gets bottled up. I also was dismayed when suddenly all the space on my Surface (64gb RT) was taken up, realizing my whole collection had downloaded to the device while I was not looking. Some things are not particularly intuitive or do not offer complete flexibility in choosing what syncs and what doesn't. Unless i have missed something, this was something I did regularly with the Zune desktop, but from the PC to Cloud to Surface, it is a little more rigid.

Fortunately, the Windows Phone 8 sync on Windows 8 has taken the guesswork out, though I did use the Zune to fix the language issues on a Japanese album. Would be nice to have even those sparse tag editing tools in the new software.

If my Zune should ever die, after I stop crying, I have no idea how I'll listen to music in my car. There's no way I can afford to pay for the data that would be necessary to stream music over my cellular network all the time.

One really frustrating thing about the new Xbox Music service for me (and possibly the reason Mark encountered the errors in playback) is that they seem to remove albums and put them back with slightly different metadata; resulting in you no longer being able to play the copy you had synced to your device, and having to download it again (one album I specifically remember encountering this with is Maroon 5's "Overexposed").

It's also frustrating that, since I no longer sync any music to my phone, I can only play the stuff that's available on Xbox Music (for some reason, even the Music app on Windows 8 seems to suffer from this occasionally), which means that much of my obscure music isn't available away from home.

On the other hand, the Xbox Music app on Windows is pretty rough. I'm seriously looking forward to that redesign that's coming to it.

Now that I have Windows Phone 8, I have experienced first-hand the problems with syncing music collections and streaming music from the cloud. With the newly improved Windows 8 WP sync app, much is improved.

However, bugs still creep into the system. Today alone, I have dealt with these particularly annoying issues:

- discovered at least one album with multiple copies of the same album, but variants of the artist's name. One had the proper cover art, and the other did not. One was able to have background art added, and the other did not. When the album played, the infamous "unable to confirm usage rights" popped up over and over until a track was found to play. Wanna know the funny thing about that? This was ripped from a CD, not purchased or rented in the Marketplace.

Now I know why this might happen. While I cannot confirm, we all know that hitting the arrow to simply play shuffled music sets up a playlist, including adding tunes from the Marketplace. But what is most puzzling is why with the proper ID set on the phone, why there should be any issue. This may, however, also be related to another Zune pass I used on another ID. This co-mingling of tracks is one thing that Windows 8 does not handle well at all.

- The other issue is with the current cloud-network-environment-hardware combination. While speeds and data transmission are much better than they were say even a year ago, using music that is stored in the cloud is fraught with playing problems compounded by data loss due to tall building, moving into a parking garage, transportation interference, as well as the memory and speed of your phone and processor.

So my recent introduction to the wonders of streaming media is a little uneven. On the downside, I have had tracks quit mid-track, followed by silence as the next track is queued up. I have had something play flawlessly while retrieving my bicycle from the underground parking, but also had tracks that SHOULD be on my phone actually streaming instead.

On the plus side, I am not concerned that my 32gb Lumia will become choked with music. I have listened to an ever-widening assortment of music, one of the strengths of Zune and not had to have tracks downloaded to the phone, thanks to the cloud. Even though the number of tunes increases everyday and the number of artists I would never have purchased or downloaded thrown into the mix, my phone sits quite nicely at just over 4gb free all the time

There are enough tunes saved to the device to get me by when out of range or roaming. Now, if Microsoft/Nokia would only allow me to see before selecting tunes which are in the cloud and which are handy on my device, I'd consider it a win.

According to Microsoft, the new locations will be anywhere between 1,500 square feet and 2,220 square […]

And really, in this day and age, the always-on Internet connection is almost a given. So if a gamer does decide it is time to abandon the platform, no problem. That is not necessarily a good reason for any company to not move forward with the hardware they see fit. The problem has primarily been one of messaging, not exactly new for Microsoft.

Now as I noted above, I do not yet have all the info on the DRM, etc. But all consoles are likely on the cusp of needing likely many of the same things and each will have their own drawbacks to contend with. Thurrot ends by saying MS has lots of time to fix this between now and November. At least they need to rein-in the blowhards who are muddying the water and let their marketing department do their job.

I have always been "hurry up and wait" on much of this. Partly, because Japan is behind the curve on getting some of these things. Xbox One sounds like it will be no different.

Also, without backwards compatibility in purchased games, keeping a 360 even if one were to purchase the One is kind of a no brainer. I think a lot of folks will go this route.

The danger of the last item is obvious from the previous response: with no backwards compatibility and no real reason to upgrade, many may take this opportunity to jump ship and abandon Xbox. While everyone is entitled to the reason why they choose one direction or another, and I am evidence waiting until just recently to upgrade to WP8, I find it a little unnerving that people would say things like "if Instangram doesn't come to the phone, I'm jumping to Android," etc. The dust has barely settled on the Sony and MS consoles and already people are dead certain what each of the upgrade means.

I am of the opinion it ain't over until it is over. Witness my 4 Zunes! LOL

There's nothing wrong with them saying that the Xbox 360 doesn't have any of these requirements either. Honestly, Identify with military service members and users who have zero internet access, but, come on. If you have regular access to the internet and your Xbox 360 is already plugged in or connected to it, then your complaints are totally grandstanding bull outside of the used games thing, which were' still waiting for more information about.