While I will admit Microsoft was making a bold move which Sony will most likely do as well next generation and that by doing nothing the XBOXONE would have still sold, this move was far too bold at once. Microsoft did not sell the future, they sold the idea that customers were criminals and they needed to have archaic monitoring processes to keep us criminals in line. Some of the new "features" were too different from what we know now and the community as a whole was not shown what benefits it would have for giving up the freedoms it had become accustomed.
The article is bunk. It assumes that casual customers will just happen to buy Xbox if they shipped it. No, casual customers are not buying home consoles at all. They all want iPhones and iPads (and not Surface). Microsoft would have yet another product nobody wants.