http://www.techdirt.com/ Easily digestible tech news.... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130517/16293423122/think-doj-spying-reporters-was-unprecedented-think-again.shtml#c31 Fri, 24 May 2013 20:12:23 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130517/16293423122/think-doj-spying-reporters-was-unprecedented-think-again.shtml#c31 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c278 Fri, 24 May 2013 20:12:10 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c278
That being said, Microsoft totally sold me a PS4 with that mess of a reveal.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c262 Fri, 24 May 2013 20:12:10 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c262
That being said, Microsoft totally sold me a PS4 with that mess of a reveal.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c254 Fri, 24 May 2013 20:02:46 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c254
They are bowing to the publishers who - for the last 20 years - only in the last 3 years suddenly find used game sales an unsustainable business. How about, if you make a game that is worth keeping for more than the 5 hours you make the game last, people will KEEP the game longer than 5 hours? Instead, they are trying their damndest to kill the used game market like they did in the PC market (RIP used PC games).

Then the non-upgradable hard drive, which was a feature the freaking PS2 had. It'd be a SHAME if people didn't buy your arbitrarily overpriced "official" high speed add-on USB drives, wouldn't it? Just like with the 360, which you stupidly decided to make as a baseline have NO hard-drive, so developers had to develop expecting one not to be installed.

And now we have the Kinect. An always-on, always watching and listening camera and microphone with the same company which has patents for figuring out the number of people in a room and charging an account based on the number of viewers. It can't possibly go bad. Must make it mandatory. Nobody could possibly NOT want to participate in motion controls or voice activation, huh.

And while we're at it, why are we so insistent on so much control over the devices WE purchase? Why do you insist on having the product phone home every damned day? You are treating every customer as if they are a dirty pirate in order to stop the 1% who actually are (console security was pretty good last generation, most didn't bother), and it won't even stop them! Instead, since the infrastructure in our country is still a joke, what with near monopolies in many cities, it is possible to not have internet. What's worse, you can not have internet after having NOT turned on your console on for 3 days. Maybe you just got back from vacation. Turn it on, no internet. Well, since you didn't phone home for 2 days, you must be a DIRTY PIRATE, NO VIDEO GAMES FOR YOU!

Console about to check in, and you disconnect it to take to your brother's LAN party across town? Don't bother to hook it up to his internet, just LANing them together is hard enough? well TOUGH YOU DIRTY PIRATE! NO HALO FOR YOU! DON'T YOU KNOW THAT SUDDENLY HAVING TO NEED MORE PORTS ON A ROUTER IS PROOF THAT YOU ARE A PIRATE?

*sighs* And the sad part about all of this? Is that my mother is actually interested in this. All she heard was a local news channel report about it talking about the cool gestures and hand waving about controlling your TV and cable box. Which I guess is EXACTLY who Microsoft cares about now. Not us gamers, but our mothers and fathers.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c251 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:57:54 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c251 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c232 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:56:56 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c232 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c227 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:56:44 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c227 I've got nearly every system from Pong to Wii, but I'm done now. I will never run out of games to play though!]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c215 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:53:26 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c215
It does not help you one bit OOTB that you are as redundant as you accuse Timothy Geigner of being.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c192 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:51:21 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c192 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c171 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:49:17 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c171
Were I able, I'd edit out that and about half the rest of your text as unnecessary at best, starting with the unique notion of herbivorous gazelles eating nothing but butter. That just about stalled me out, but I'm plucky and kept going.

Timmy, I try to not read your pieces because of verbiage*, not because of topic or any other reason. You're often like reading "Engrish" ( http://engrish.com/ ), either a hoot or baffling, in that your word combinations just about CAN'T occur to one immersed in the language from birth. It's not something to be proud of.

You're welcome to the attention; I know you appreciate anyone at all taking the time to read your... oh, let's just say output.

(*Look that up as I just did and you should find that adding "excessive" is redundant, so I removed it.)]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c161 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:35:07 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c161 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c143 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:34:11 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c143
You can upgrade your old PS3 with a 1TB SATA 3.0 hard drive for about a tenth of the price...and keep your data after you get a PS4...and you can also hack it to the point of emulating SNES games.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c135 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:32:02 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c135
But you won't simply be able to swap with friends or other normal things back when you actually owned games and they worked on any console.

The have killed that and hopefully they pay a price in lower sales.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c119 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:29:08 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c119
Not just arrogant and crazy....but very similar to the "updates" to the Windows platform that led to Windows 8...Steve Balmer (please excuse the spelling of that name)is trying to fix what isn't broke. Instead of upgrading the hardware and interface, he chaged the hardware, kept the interface...and kept it incompatible with the previous generation regardless of the fact that the thing still shares the same performance level as the xBox360. Meanwhile over at Nintendo...we still have a system that plays our Wii and VC games...both of which in 1080p mode.... All WiiU games thus far have been natively rendered at 1080p....

As for the second part of your comment....You're right... :-)I don't see Nintendo getting all huffed up about used game sales...do you??]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c108 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:28:39 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c108 https://i.minus.com/iBzvb2JSpQNRM.gif]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c102 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:25:55 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c102
Call me a fanboy, but I'll be saving my pennies for a shiny new PSWhatever and granting Sony the privilege of occasionally bending me over for some unpleasant surprise "loving" or severe data breach.

On second thought, I'll just take advantage of the upcoming price breaks on last gen and stock up on a couple of PS3s and run them into the ground. (Which may take awhile, as mine spends about 90% of the time running Netflix, rather than games...)]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130522/00412423167/fair-use-me-not-thee.shtml#c226 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:21:55 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130522/00412423167/fair-use-me-not-thee.shtml#c226
If this person is trying to control what he posted on Youtube, is a bit different to someone trying to control why is a commercial production.

BTW: this idiot, (not you) get's to make the decision on fair use or not, that is a specific legal issue, and is decided by courts.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c80 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:21:12 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130524/06445123204/xbox-one-release-tons-questions-very-few-answers.shtml#c80
I pray that gaming laptops find a renewed market because I trust Steam far more than I do Richmond.

I'm holding out hope that Sony understands their customers a little better and not force them into the rape dungeon that is XboxOne.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130521/18265123163/reporters-find-exposed-personal-data-via-google-threatened-with-cfaa-charges.shtml#c919 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:20:05 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130521/18265123163/reporters-find-exposed-personal-data-via-google-threatened-with-cfaa-charges.shtml#c919 Just because something did not have an original intent to be used in a certain way does not mean it should not be used in a new way if that way is innovative and provides value to the world.

Yes, but if using it in that way is stupid and ineffective, then that doesn't provide value. Maybe the illusion of value, which is even worse than nothing.]]> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130521/18265123163/reporters-find-exposed-personal-data-via-google-threatened-with-cfaa-charges.shtml#c913 Fri, 24 May 2013 19:18:57 PDT http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130521/18265123163/reporters-find-exposed-personal-data-via-google-threatened-with-cfaa-charges.shtml#c913 While robots.txt is not by original nature related to search engines, a means of security, Google has the power and resources to respect it for the sake of security.

So you're saying it was never intended as a security measure, it is not appropriate to rely on it for security, Google does not recommend it be so used, and Google should try to make it as effective a security tool as possible? No wonder I was confused. :-)]]>