I'm all for the always-on Kinect. I live in the US, so the government can already listen to what I say through my phone (even when it's turned off as long as the battery is on) or through the cable box, so ... I have no privacy anyway, so whatever. Besides, I mostly trust Microsoft not do do anything wrong with their ability to spy on me, and one can always just put a cover over the Kinect or even just turn the Xbox off.

What you get from an always-on Kinect is incentive for developers to actually incorporate it into games as something more than a sideshow or gimmick, since they can be confident that the entire user base will have one ready to go. I suspect that this will lead to more innovation in how game controls are set up. Yes, controllers are very nice, but I believe we can find better (or at least different and refreshing) ways to interact with games.

In my opinion, the privacy threat more worth focusing on would be Sony's poor security record. My family had a PS 3, and a bit after PSN got hacked, we ran into some fraud issues with our credit card. Fraud protection means that we didn't lose any money, but it's really not something I want to worry about. That experience really soured me on the PS 3 and Sony in general.

Also, I remember hearing all that "PS 3 is a super computer!" stuff back in the day, and after playing some PS 3 games that I've also seen on Xbox 360, I couldn't say I noticed much of a difference. I expect that the current crop of hype will prove disappointing as well.

For the record, I'm not super invested in the "PS 4 v. Xbox One" spat. I'd be okay with owning either.

Microsoft failing at media and marketing is really nothing new : p It's funny to watch though.