… and yet we’re dealing with company statements put together by PR departments, arguing the merits of industry leaders, their price plans, copyright protection schemes, distribution methods, and having discourse with several people who are IN the business. Kinda funny to make that distinction now, but I guess my humor isn’t germane to the point at hand.
The point I was trying to make is that corporate advertising everywhere has changed the typical meaning of the word. Walk down through your local Walmart or Target and start asking random people whether innovation is good or not. Given that it’s a neutral idea, the vast majority should say “Not necessarily” or something to that extent. However, I’d lay heavy odds that most would instead say “Yes.” That’s one way that words change. When you then bring it to an online forum, you have to expect more people to use common parlance instead of Merriam-Webster parlance. I find corporate influence on our language as distasteful as the next guy (I refuse to ask for a “kleenex,” fwiw) but it still has to be recognized if anyone wants to communicate with the best efficiency (assuming none of us have plugged in the god code to our reality game engine, that is, lol).
RickH
3108
You should want one of these in your living room. Via Slate:
By February 2011, the NSA was able to monitor Skype audio calls. In addition, by July last year, the NSA reportedly boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through PRISM.
These details compound recent revelations about Skype’s cooperation with the U.S. government. Last month, the Post reported that the NSA has a “User’s Guide for PRISM Skype Collection” that outlines how it can eavesdrop on Skype “when one end of the call is a conventional telephone and for any combination of ‘audio, video, chat, and file transfers’ when Skype users connect by computer alone.” About two weeks later, the New York Times reported that, five years ago, before Microsoft acquired Skype, Skype initiated an internal program called “Project Chess” to explore how it could make Skype calls readily available to the government.
Innovative stuff. : )
Canuck
3109
I hear the xbone is going to make a great teleconferencing device.
I remember when I was certain the Information Age was going to guarantee more liberty. Now I have doubts.
Zylon
3111
As a wise man once said:
This is kind of like that.
Do you want privacy, or Halo?
I don’t play console games therefore won’t have Kinect listening to every sound in my home. So to preserve a level of privacy similar to what everybody had in the '70s all I need to be concerned about is the other 87 million ways government (and corporations!) are monitoring me.
If only I worked at the NSA or MS. Then I could spy on everyone sitting around in their underwear playing Halo on their sofa.
I continue to maintain that this is the biggest problem facing this system today. In political terms, the way the Xbox One was rolled out, Microsoft energized the opposition, demoralized their base and hurt themselves with the movable middle.
One interesting thing at Evo- during the Killer Instinct presentation, the audience actively booed at the mention of the Xbone. (They weren’t fans of KI either, and accused some of the folks playing of being paid to shill)
The fighting game crowd isn’t in a very forgiving mood over the whole DRM fiasco.
For me the DRM issue is/was just a symptom of a larger issue I’ve had with Microsoft over the past few years (and not just in gaming), which basically boils down to: We are going to tell you what to like, and you’re going to shut up and like it (unless the backlash is so great we are forced to reverse course).
Xbox One media focus, Xbox One DRM, removal of start button and forced integration of metro start screen into Windows 8, etc. They have been trying to use the Apple model of forcing their will on the consumer without half of Apple’s savvy (and I say that as someone who doesn’t buy Apple products on principle).
But even absent that, I’m also swayed a lot by what Jake is talking about in terms of the Playstation positioning itself as being for gamers while the Xbox One has been positioned more like “oh, and it also plays games”. Indie self-publishing is fucking huge for me and Microsoft’s 360-era mismanagement of XBLA has basically pissed every notable indie off to the point where none of them even want to work with them anymore.
tl; dr – Still have a PS4 preordered, no Xbox One preordered (though I’ll probably pick one up way late in the cycle to play all the notable exclusives on the cheap).
What’s that Warren Buffet quote? “If you lose money for the firm, I will be understanding. If you lose reputation, I will be ruthless.”
I think Microsoft needs to be more ruthless (with themselves). They need to take a hard look at how they got to here, learn from it and think through how they will get out.
That said, I don’t think this console fight is over by a long shot. Microsoft has a reputation problem - and that’s significant but not insurmountable. To begin with, we’re not normal. Normal people don’t discuss or follow the gaming industry to the same degree we do. For many, the Xbox One is their next console because they loved the 360 - the games, the controller, the simplicity of LIVE, the media features; for them, the Xbox One is a natural continuation of what they loved from the Xbox 360, except it’s all faster and more easily accessible. It’s Halo (or your game of choice) or Netflix or TV or Blu-rays, instantly. If that weren’t the case, the Xbox One would not be sold out at Amazon, Gamestop, Best Buy.
Also, once these consoles launch, hype and hate will fade and reality will set in. There are plenty of Xbox One fanbois who are loving the Last of Us right now. And there are plenty of PS diehards who for whatever reason made the switch to Xbox (it has been the best selling console for over a year for good reason) and liked it more than their PS3.
Which reminds me of another Warren Buffet quote. He was talking about the irrational reaction people have when a company’s in trouble: “The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble. We want to buy them when they’re on the operating table.”
Microsoft upgrading systems specs pre-release? http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/161094-microsoft-may-be-upgrading-the-specs-of-the-xbox-one-before-its-release
I call bull. What the XBox One needs is faster RAM AND more of it to be competitive with the PS4. While adding an extra 4 Gig will help due to the ridiculous overhead of Win8, they should just go for broke and get the good (fast) stuff. But I’m sure it’s too late for that and I also can’t believe they can squeeze another chip onto what’s probably an already mastered motherboard. If this rumor thing is true and it’s just pretending to care ( with something that realistically will not change) - that’s a really sordid marketing trick.
This leads me to another concern… If they really CAN make this kind of drastic change to the motherboard, this would mean that yet again there will be very little quality control testing for long-term use… just like for the original xbox360.
It probably just a different chip part number and no PCB change. In which case it wouldn’t have any effect on QC testing.
I agree that “we” are not normal, but I also think that Microsoft’s other Xbox One mistake (the $500 price tag) combined with the fact that many of “us” are switching to the PS4 may cause them more long-term damage than the aborted DRM fiasco.
The people I know in real life who currently mainly play games on the Xbox 360 are split into two clearly defined groups: the hardcore gamers, who all have pre-ordered PS4s and are taking a very “wait and see” approach with the Xbox One, and the non-hardcore who have no intention of buying a new console this fall for $500 (or even $400) and will be happy playing GTA V and COD: Ghosts on what they already have. If the PS4 has heavy early-adopter momentum that maintains until both consoles are in the ~$300-range (or they simply hit the $300 point much faster) there will be more bleed from the Xbox brand than there would be if Microsoft were offering an affordable console this year, IMO. And if the PS4 comes out of the gate with many more preorders than the Xbox One, that will impact the momentum of the next couple of years as dev houses start to view the PS4 as the lead SKU, etc.
Well, they have nothing else to loose, so why not? It might hit a core demographic for them?
Fun gamasutra report on latest rumblings from MS about that Xbone launch:
‘Microsoft: We didn’t effectively explain Xbox One’s digital strategy’:
Sooooo… you are saying of the people you know with 360s absolutely no one - zero, nada, zilch, nary a one - is interested in buying an Xbox One?
Weird, since it’s sold out. And how many people do you know with 360s? Let’s say you know a lot. Not like 10 or 20 but 50 people with 360s, that’s hardly a sample size. Hell, double it and it still isn’t.
Microsoft death bell ringers this generation remind me of PS3 death bill ringers from last generation. It is too early for this type of shoot-from-the-hip prognostication. Make no mistake: I am saying that in the fight, Microsoft was knocked down hard but I’m also saying there are many rounds left to go.
Wait until you can see these systems side by side (I can’t wait for my PS4 but I am very wary of what that OS will actually feel like) and can see their first wave of games (and reviews!), before declaring a winner.
About 10 people, closer to 20 if you include “COD” friends I don’t know except for via online and yes, nobody in that group has any excitement for the Xbox One.
FWIW, I’m not an Xbox death kneller. I’m sure they will sell millions of Xbox Ones over time. But I would also bet a lot of money that by the end of this next generation that the PS4 will have outsold the Xbox One. I wouldn’t have made that bet a year ago. This next generation was Microsoft’s to lose and I think they already lost it as surely as Sony lost the last one with “$599!” and giant crabs, which doesn’t mean the Xbox is dead or won’t sell millions.
As far as the Xbox One being ‘sold out’, though, that means nothing without knowing how many are spoken for. Both the PS4 and the Xbox One are ‘sold out’, but I’d make a second bet that the PS4 is “more” sold out, in terms of absolute units.
My son has a regular crew of friends that he hangs out and chats with on Xbox Live to play Halo and CoD games. They’ve all agreed that they’re switching to the PS4 as soon as they can because the Xbox One “doesn’t play used games” and “is all Kinect crap.” My son has told them that the DRM thing is false now, but it doesn’t matter. The message has stuck.
Yes, that’s anecodtal, but it still sounds like a PR nightmare. A group of 15-yr olds that play CoD and Halo have decided to migrate to the competition. That’s rough.
