Microsoft: We didn't effectively explain Xbox One's digital strategy

In a recent chat with IGN, Xbox One chief product officer Marc Whitten acknowledged that Microsoft hasn't done so hot in messaging its upcoming console. "We've got to just talk more, get people understanding what our system is," Whitten told IGN. "It's sort of shame on us that we haven't done as good of a job as we can to make people feel like [a digital future is] where we're headed." "I see people feeling like we've moved away from digital, when certainly I don't believe that's the case." Whitten also referenced the Family Sharing feature, recently stripped out of the Xbox One's planned game sharing system, which was met with heated outcry and eventually drove Microsoft to capitulate and offer a day-one patch to change how the console would treat shared and preowned games. However, Whitten says that some consumers were favorable toward the Family Sharing feature, in which users can freely share their game library with a select number of people -- and that it might be in the pipeline to be added back in, as a result of feedback.

"We took some feedback and realized there was some stuff we needed to add to the program. To add it to the program, we had to make room, just from a pure engineering perspective, to be able to get that work done. So taking Family Sharing out of the launch window was not about 'we're going to take our toys and go home' or something like that. It was just sort of the logistics of 'how do we get this very, very clear request that people really want, that choice, and how do we make sure we can do an excellent job of that, get to launch, and then be able to build.'"

It would not be unreasonable to presume that other cut or scaled back features may reappear further down the line. In the meantime, however, Microsoft seems eager to earn back some of its goodwill with customers.