Valve? That's a major concern of MS? The very fact that you say "Xbox under fire" belies the fact that XBox has stolen the thunder from Sony (even if Sony eventually takes the total sales crown) and the relative failure of Nintendo's new console shows the success of Kinect (which MS has failed to fully leverage).

I think that Win8 may very well be looked back on as a milestone in computing. I'm not thrilled with it, but I am thrilled with the limitless number of devices that will run it.

To me the problem with this is pricing, I don't know why the used an i5 when it could run easily on an i3 (or less). With this and the RT, they should have come in not just competitive, but giving the competition a kick in the groin. We will see the prices drop (we already are), but why not start strong? In fact, look what that strategy did for the XBox!