Square-Enix Trademark Leads to Star Ocean Speculation

A trademark filing by Square-Enix has led to rumors that a new Star Ocean game may be on the way.

It is worth noting that this could be anything from a mobile title to a portable re-release of a previous game, so automatically assuming it could be another major large scale sequel is probably not the best idea.

I, for one, am not excited by any of the possibilities. After slogging through the badly designed, incredibly cliched and painfully voiced characters and plot of Star Ocean 3, and seeing enough of the content of Star Ocean 4 to convince me that it was most likely exponentially worse, I truly don't give a shit was this trademark is for.

Although I will admit that I would enjoy the bitter tears if it was another of Square-Enix's Japan-only mobile titles.

Mirror's Edge 2 Sighting Pops Up on EA Site

A few years back the original Mirror's Edge became a cult classic with it's first person parkour and chase mechanics and unique visual style that stood apart from the brown and grey grit of other first person games. Although it received a great deal of love from the audience and sold moderately well, it never reached the level of sales or popularity that a giant mega-publisher like EA would need in order to take up a sequel.

In recent weeks there's been rumors popping up in various places, and even some retail pre-order listings from foreign branches of Amazon.com, of Mirror's Edge 2. Today those rumors seem a great deal more solid as EA's own website briefly had a listing for Mirror's Edge 2 in their help enter before being removed from sight. With E3 beginning in just a few days it seems quite likely we now know one of the game reveals. Let's just hope the game hasn't been altered to appeal to the Call of Duty market and can retain the unique qualities that made the original a favorite amongst people looking for new and interesting approaches to first person games.

Sony Bombarded With Anti-DRM Campaign

 

Since the public reveal of the Xbone and the statements issued by Micrososft executives regarding used games there's been a great number of questions surrounding the next-generation console cycle as a whole, and whether or not Microsoft's closest competitor, Sony, would follow suit with used games DRM on the upcoming Playstation 4 console.

Up until this past weekend some statements, seeming to indicate that Sony was possibly planning to allow the PS4 to operate relatively DRM-free in the same manner as the PS3, had many assured that the next console cycle wouldn't be a complete wash. Popular thought was that one could always just switch from supporting Microsoft to supporting Sony to avoid having their expected consumer rights removed. However, on the latest episode of the Gametrailers show Bonus Round, host Geoff Keighley made the following statement regarding DRM on the next-gen machines:

"The one thing that is amazing to me is that right now we're not hearing a lot from the game publishers about what their view is on this. The console companies are becoming the bad guys. And, you know, Microsoft is getting beaten up a lot on it. Sony, I think, has been seen as this kind of white knight so far that's not going to restrict used games. Based on some of the things I'm hearing, I don't think that's entirely true, because I can't see publishers allowing one system to do one thing and one do another."

 Within hours of that episode of Bonus Round hitting the internet, gamers on several sites, beginning first at NeoGAF and spreading to reddit, 4chan and other online communities, began mobilizing to flood Sony with requests to not implement used game DRM on the PS4. While some have taken to single e-mail campaigns to express their concerns, the majority of the effort has been centered around social media, most notably on Twitter.

In the last few days Sony execs who are on Twitter have been hit with 24 hour a day barrage messages from all over the world asking them not to restrict consumer rights on their new console. The hashtags #PS4NoDRM and #PS4USEDGAMES have been wildly successful and gotten the attention of many mainstream games sites like MCV and Eurogamer as well as popular games personalities like Angry Joe and Jim Sterling. While it's absurd that things have gotten to the point where fans have to mobilize just to not be screwed over by the entertainment industry they enjoy, it's good to see an effort is being made. Hopefully the corporate execs across the industry, not just at Sony, are paying attention.

Leading the Sheep

According to a story posted today by MCV the Xbone TV input device is breaking pre-order records at Blockbuster.

Someone, please kill me now.

In all seriousness though, this is another instance of the gaming audience disappointingly acting like trained sheep by supporting the worst aspects of the AAA Gaemz Industree™. In all the years of gaming I've been aware that there are single platform loyalists; people who care more about the health of a specific console maker like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft than they do about gaming in general. I've seen one guy who to this day refuses to touch a Nintendo or Sony platform because he blames those companies for Sega's exit of the console business and early demise of the Dreamcast. But how anyone, even the most diehard of Xbox-only gamers, can want to place a pre-order on a potentially DRM-infested and privacy invading TV switching box with an unknown price tag and an unknown release date following an unveiling that showed more footage of The Price is Right than actual in-game footage of all the announced games combined is beyond me.

Unfortunately this all falls in line with previous instances of the AAA Gaemz Industree™ training it's subjects so well that they seem to buy, support and validate some of the most ludicrous and awful cash-grabs one can imagine. Apparently with enough hype and a whole slew of corporate Gaemz Jurnalistz™ who do nothing but parrot publisher PR speak while receiving free consoles, games, paid expenses trips and bribery swag, you can get enough of the audience to plop down their cash and buy anything no matter how fucked up it is.

Beginning in the early life of the Xbox Live Marketplace when EA would sell downloadable content for the 360 version of The Godfather that was present and usable on the disc for free in the PS2 version of the game, which retailed for $10 cheaper, to modern times when we have an industry riddled with shitty season passes for DLC, DLC content on the disc locked behind a paywall and an attitude that says releasing a broken and buggy game only to patch it after the $60+ sale has been made is acceptable, it's become quite clear that it's not just the industry that's at fault, part of the blame also belongs to the consumers who put money into this machine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for people to not be able to spend their money how they want, but clearly there needs to be enough of a pushback against anti-consumer practices to counter the noise of the industry PR so that the audience is much better educated about how often they are getting the shaft from the companies whom they often defend quite vocally. The news of rapid uptake of pre-orders of the Xbone suggest there is a long ways to go.

Worth Checking Out: PersonaGAF Podcast With Erin Fitzgerald

On the popular NeoGAF forums there is a community of fans of the Persona franchise who have created their own podcast called S.Link FM. The most recent episode of the show had special guest Erin Fitzgerald, who voiced the English version of Chie Satonaka in Persona 4 Golden, Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4: The Animation, join in the discussion.

This was definitely a great show which dived into the inner business workings and psychology of anime and videogame voice acting, all things Persona 4, all things Chie Satonaka and some other miscellaneous subjects. Do check it out if you can.

Downloads available at:
S. Link FM Episode 7: Voices in My Head with Erin Fitzgerald

Gametrailers Kingdom Hearts Documentary

GameTrailers

One of the most confusing plotlines in videogaming has been that of the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Taking place over 7 different titles spread across 4 separate platforms, with prequels and games that occur simultaneously to others released in non-sequential order, the plot is not exactly easy to follow.

With the upcoming release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX, an HD remaster for the PS3 of the original Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories and a movie detailing the plot of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Gametrailers has made an hour-long documentary trying to piece together the plot from all 7 games in the hope it finally makes sense to more people.

 No word yet on whether Gametrailers has succeeded in making Square's obfuscated writing any more coherent for the audience at large, but kudos to them for trying.

Review: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

Release Date: 3.20.2007
Platform: Windows PC

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is a first person shooter with mild RPG mechanics and a dark survival-horror atmosphere that released in 2007, after many years in development by the Ukraine-based studio GSC Game World. Taking place in an alternate universe where a second Chernobyl disaster occurred, the player is sent on an adventure through a heavily radiated and quarantined area called The Zone, where the very laws of physics are changing, mutants are on the prowl and gangs of violent scavengers battle each other to find rare artifacts that grant incredible power.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s base game mechanics are more like that of an old-school first person shooter rather than recent titles which take a very handholding style when it comes to gun aiming, gun accuracy, health regeneration and controls. Your guns in this game can wear down and jam and bullet spreads are much more realistic than in modern games like Call of Duty: Black Ops. When you take damage your health doesn't regenerate automatically like most post-Halo shooters, but rather you have to use scavenged supplies like bandages, medicines and health kits to repair yourself. Adding to the realism is the weight limit to how much gear you are able to haul around and how item management and scavenging quickly become a thing of high importance to survival.

The Zone itself is an open world with many diverse areas that allow for numerous choices of approaches to achieving missions, from blazing gun battles to stealth tactics. Meanwhile, the highly radiated nature of the environments creates areas that are toxic to player health, leaves anomalies that are lethal and spawns deadly mutants who are more than willing to attack any and all human invaders of their territories. Within The Zone there are towns and communities of other scavengers and outlaws who you can interact with and accept missions from, and who will react to you based on your actions and your alignments with different factions. Scavenged items from the environments and fallen enemies include gear and power ups that increase player stats and capabilities and upgrade weapons with add-ons like scopes and grenade launchers.

In many ways one could say that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is a thinking person's FPS, granting greater rewards and satisfaction to those who engage missions with a deliberate and methodical approach rather than the Hollywood blockbuster balls-to-the-wall action of newer shooters. The game is inherently more difficult and unforgiving than what the average Call of Duty: Black Ops or Halo player is likely used to, but the challenge is never unfair or cheap. A fair comparison many have made is that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is to the FPS genre what Demon's Souls was to the sword and sorcery RPG genre.

Production-wise the game in it's initial release was fine for it's time, albeit dragged down a bit with some long loading sequences between areas and a few glitches that were of some annoyance. In the years since the first release the large and impressive modding community has created fixes for many of these flaws and also refreshed the game with drastic visual and audio enhancements. If you are only now getting into S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it's practically mandatory that you install the 2009 Complete Mod before you begin in order to have the absolute best experience possible.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. not only makes it's mark with challenging and intelligent game systems, but with an incredible sense of mood and atmosphere. The Zone is a suitably dark and ominous place, perfectly designed to reflect the bleakness of the backstory with great visual and audio design that build tension and really give off the feeling of being in a post-apocalyptic Russian wasteland. Everything comes together brilliantly in this game, and even 7 years after it's debut it still stands at the forefront of doing this sort of apocalyptic subject material right in a sea of pretenders to the throne.

In short, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl is a game definitely worthy of anyone's attention and playtime, and it gets my highest recommendation.

Persona 3 Anime Trailer

With all the depressing news coming from the games industry of late I feel this blog is turning into too much of a corporate hate site. The truth is that I really do like videogames and videogame related things, so I'm feeling a need to seek out some awesome things to talk about in order to bring some balance after the raging incited by the corporate AAA Gaemz Industree™ in most of my posts.

This is where the Persona 3 movie comes into play. P3 is one of my favorite RPGs of modern times and now Aniplex is making an anime film adaption that will debut later this year in Japan. Word has it the project is designed as a series of films, which would make sense considering that the game's plot and story are a 70+ hour affair. Seeing it announced as a film project and not a TV series causes me to hope that Aniplex will develop these films with a production level reminiscent of the impressive Fate/Zero anime series or better.

I'm definitely looking forward to this, and hoping that the US release won't see the Blu-rays sold exclusively in some absurd $300-$500 package like other Aniplex releases of recent times. Perhaps having Atlus as the IP holder will allow for a more mass market price point.

Xbox One: Not Just Game DRM?

As the backlash to the Xbone console rages on, MCV continues to post rumors that if true will make this device the absolutely most anti-user and unappealing home electronic contraption to ever be conceived.

The latest in the train of bad rumors came today with a story claiming insiders have confirmed that the Xbone's mandatory Kinect camera functions will act as a visual DRM measure to check how many people are in a room viewing a piece of media. Apparently this is supposed to fall in line with a patent filed by Microsoft in the recent past.

The general idea is that the copyright holder of something like a movie or TV series could decide as part of a licensing agreement just how many people are allowed to view that media and Kinect would read and detect whether you are over your licensed limit and respond by stopping playback or demanding more goddamned money via microtransactions if your viewing party is too large.

" If it is deemed that too many people are present, the user will be prompted to pay an additional fee to upgrade the licence.

Says the filing: “The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.”

It should be noted too that Kinect is designed to continuously observe its roommates. It also adds that the T&Cs for any particular piece of content can be determined by the copyright holder."

Again, it must be noted that this is all rumor right now, and nothing regarding the Xbone is set in stone, but if this comes to pass as true then I can only hope this device tanks harder than the Virtual Boy, the NGage or the 3D0. This is unacceptable to force a mandatory spy camera in with a device to monitor people in their own homes in order to police how well they comply with corporate mandates. This is like something out of a George Orwell work, and what I would expect from a games console if it were designed in North Fucking Korea.

If this becomes reality in the end product then Microsoft's executives have truly gone beyond being simply out of touch with normal humanity and entered into a domain of being a comic book villain made real.

Backdoor Corporate Deals and the Loss of Gamer Autonomy

Today MCV posted an article detailing how exactly the pre-owned games market will operate on the Xbone. Amongst the noteworthy tidbits:

" Retail sources have told MCV that Microsoft has this week briefed key retail partners on how it intends to take ownership of the pre-owned market."

"A gamer walks into a retailer and hands over the game they wish to sell. This will only be possible at retailers who have agreed to Microsoft’s T&Cs and more importantly integrated Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure pre-owned system into its own.
The game is then registered as having been traded-in on Microsoft’s system. The consumer who handed it over will subsequently see the game wiped from their account – hence the until now ambiguous claim from Phil Harrison that the Xbox One would have to ‘check in’ to Microsoft’s servers every 24 hours."

"These same unconfirmed reports also suggest that the activation cost for consumers buying or borrowing pre-owned software will be £35."

 It is worth noting that often the way the games industry prices things between Europe and America is simply to switch the currency notatins and leave the numbers intact, regardless of currency exchange rates. Thus a European retail price of £35 will translate directly to $35.

So there you have it folks, if this system of corporate control does come to pass on the Xbone the gaming audience faces a fee of more than half the original retail price of a game to have Microsoft's permission to activate the mandatory install. Only those who have enough corporate power to be accepted as part of Microsoft's Azure cloud-based ecosystem get to have any part in selling pre-owned software. This is the stereotypical worst of modern corporate backdoor handjob dealmaking, as it serves nobody but the pititful mega-publishers, Microsoft and a few select retail chains while shitting all over the end-consumer and small businesses. This is how oligopolies form and more of the type of crap that has led so many in the tech sector to hate the Microsoft corporation for decades now.

The worst part though is that this practice, as outlined in the quoted article, already has defenders amongst the gaming population. On one popular gaming forum the following quotes could be read in response:

 " Seems fair."

Fair to the corporate entities maybe. Name me one other consumer product that bars me from private reselling, and why it should be acceptable in this instance.

" Publishers Win Retailers Win
This is something both sides of the equation can support... what, therefore is the big deal if you can still go to a major retailer and trade in your stuff?"

Yes, let's gladly let "major retailers" and Microsoft have complete control over how we resell the things we have paid our own money for, so long as the mismanaged AAA Gaemz Industree™ and select corporate resellers win. Oligopy Super-Winning Power....Activate!

"Makes sense."

I seriously hope you mean it "makes sense" in that it follows the trend of American corporations freely enacting measures to control the end consumer like rats in a maze, and not that it "makes sense" in a fashion of being a good idea.

"Sounds good."

Sluuuurrrrp....sluuuurrrrpppp..."Oh Master Ballmer, shoot it all over my face, get it all over my face!"

"Sounds good, but will places like gamespot just increase the price of used games to cover what they will lose and pass the cost on to us? Also, how will renting work?"

This retard just confused Gamespot with Gamestop, speculates that the prices of used games will increase, asks how rentals could ever work under this system (they likely can't, genius), and starts their post with "Sounds good". Can people really be this fucking stupid?

"So what? Who lends £40 discs to get scratched to fuck anyway?"

Redbox, Gamefly, local mom and pop stores, people with active social circles of friends and family who enjoy the same hobby and may lend a game out to those whom they associate with. You know, people who have a LIFE and don't play videogames exclusively in their gamer basements.

"All it does is prevent loaning games to a freind and I havent done that in a while"

This reminds me of the modern Libertarian/Objectivist view of economic disparity: "I got mine, fuck the rest of you!"

To be fair, this is just a small subset of the larger discussion at the site I pulled these quotes from and doesn't represent the majority of opinion and discussion. I just wanted to highlight these selected responses because it perfectly showcases one of the major problems we as game consumers face. So often we're willing to give up our expected consumer rights and freedoms to corporations which don't deserve our respect or money, but who have an uncanny ability to garner such support even after screwing us over through sheer power of PR hype machines.

While I hope the gaming audience on the whole continues to respond to this anti-consumer garbage with such negative force that it becomes mandatory for Microsoft to abandon their plans in order to keep their gaming business alive, I fear many will simply just sadly come to terms with it and still buy the damned box once they get "hyped" after the inevitable E3 trailer with Master Chief's helmet.

For the Dumbasses: Clearing Up PC vs Xbox One DRM

As the fallout from Microsoft's day of woe (Xbox One reveal) continues and they get roasted by the gaming community left and right nonstop, some of their apologists, who are no doubt shellshocked that their favorite console corporation is under such assault of negative opinion, are scrambling to find any defense they can for the bullshit anti-consumer tactics that are set to be launched on the Xbone TV switcher.

In their desperation they try to call out PC gamers and ask them such stupid questions as "Why is this a big deal? Isn't it the exact same DRM as Steam and PC games?" Thinking they've thrown a brilliant rhetorical jab at their opponents they fail to notice the only thing they've done is display a shocking level of ignorance about the vast world of difference between PC gaming and console gaming.

So, as a public service to the clueless, uninformed and the willfully ignorant who would pose such a moronic question, allow me now to spell out why lack of ownership rights has been accepted to a certain degree in the realm of PC gaming. I hope I can explain for even the most simple-minded of readers why restrictive DRM on services like Steam is not drawing the wrath of the gaming public like the proposed DRM of the Xbone is.

- On a PC I have complete control of all the hardware and software installed on my system. I can switch any component I want and run any program on my OS I want. On an Xbox I can only use overpriced Microsoft approved hardware and software. On Xbone the hard drive won't even be replaceable.

- On a PC I have free reign to modify my games any way I want to, with the exception of MMORPGs which are more of a service platform than a traditional game. I can even copy my game files for archiving or remove things like the Steam DRM with a little know-how and/or a guide. What are the chances any of this will be available to Xbone users?

- On a PC I can run older games dating back to the days of Doom and Wolfenstein alongside newer tech-intensive games like Metro: Last Light and The Witcher 2, and my library of games can be modified to be future-proof to play on new operating systems and hardware as they come out. Xbone can't even play 360 games and the game library will likely only have a playable lifespan equal to Microsoft's desire to run XBL servers for the console. 10 years from now your copy of Forza 5 might only be usable as a drink coaster once Microsoft pulls the plug on Xbone services.

- Steam is a FREE service that has FREE online play and the store often features amazing sales where major AAA games, many less than a year old, get price drops of 75-80%. For less than $15 you can pick up entire packs of games and entire series of popular franchises. Xbox Live almost never offers deals like these, and even with Steam's DRM in place the fact that they often drop prices of games to levels where they compete not with other games, but with everyday consumable items truly does go a long way to soften the blow of the loss of ownership of the software. If you pick up the first two Bioshock games for $5 are you likely to complain later that technically you really only bought the license to use the game code? Probably not.

- Competition improves PC services in a way that you don't see on consoles. Sure, there is some competitive fire between Playstation Network and Xbox Live, but for the most part they are closed monopolistic ecosystems on the platforms they inhabit and are not subject to the same pressures a service like Steam is. For the savvy PC gamer who doesn't like Steam they can often simply choose to go buy the game they want at Gog.com (DRM-free), or Amazon, or even for the masochistic, Origin. There's no shortage of competition in the PC gaming space, and it's that competition that forces companies like Valve or Good Old Games to be as consumer-oriented as possible.

- PC games are almost always the best versions of the games technically. While consoles age over their lifespan to the point where after a couple years many games are unable to run even at 30 frames per second in 1080p resolution, the constant evolution of PC hardware allows the same games to run at even higher resolutions, sometimes spread across multiple HD monitors, with more detail and a steady 60 frames per second on a system with even a moderately priced graphics card and CPU. There's just no way around it, the PC version of a game is typically THE definitive version.

Hopefully for those who use comparisons full of ignorance and logic failures in regards to PC gaming vs Microsoft console gaming this will clear things up a bit. Hopefully it will make them realize why their arguments are bad and why they should feel bad for making them. Maybe, just maybe, it could help them understand why they should re-evaluate where they should spend their money this coming holiday season in regards to gaming hardware.

Of course, the problem for some is that they'd have to get their heads and eager tongues away from Don Mattrick's asshole first in order to read this, wouldn't they?

Guilty Gear Xrd Announced

Not all the gaming world's news was bleak and depressing this week, seeing as Arc System Works announced Guilty Gear Xrd, the newest iteration of their best fighting game franchise.

So far the details are scarce, but confirmed is that the series has abandoned it's 2D sprites in favor of 3D models which imitate the classic Guilty Gear XX hand-drawn anime look, and that Sol Badguy, Ky Kiske and Millia Rage are returning.

No word yet on arcade or home platform release dates.

Will The Industry Squeeze the Trigger?

Right now it seems that our beloved games industry is in trouble. Publishers and game developers within the mass market "AAA" games space have become bloated behemoths who spend absurd amounts of money on game development, oftentimes resorting to firing their CEOs, closing long-running studios and posting financial results in the red even after having games that top the charts and sell 3 million units in a fiscal quarter. We've seen entire companies go under and others consolidate and contract, all while homogenizing their products to imitate the top franchises in their chosen genres and creating an environment where most major $60 games all feature the same modes, the same mechanics, the same character and plot archetypes, the same features and the same dependence on pitiful pre-order DLC bonuses and gimmicky downloadable garbage which one would expect to see from a free PC game modding community.

The worst we've seen is the stale and bloated corporate industry masters, unable to grasp what it is their audiences want, flail around wildly at every strawman they can to find something, anything, to blame their performance and management woes on. Piracy, used games, Gamestop, game rentals, negative reviews and all manner of other excuses have been made, and the industry has marched ever onward with badly implemented and sleazy digital rights management schemes to try and curb behavior they disapprove of. Oftentimes these schemes result in trampling on consumers' expected rights to use products they purchase in the manner they choose and burdening paying customers with barriers to their gaming while doing almost nothing to curb things like internet piracy.

With the Nintendo Wii U currently bombing at trainwreck-spectacle levels in the market and the upcoming Xbox One console implementing system-wide DRM measures that penalize those who might wish to trade or borrow games, use Gamefly or Redbox or allow someone to use their disc on their own account, it's become clear that the gamer backlash against Nintendo's hardheaded insistence on ignoring their own market and Microsoft shitting all over theirs outright has become a very, very noticeable trend that should cause the industry to shake in fear. Out of the "Big Three" who have dominated living room gaming for the past few decades, two of them are seeing an outright revolt, with one dying on the vine from apathy and one facing the collective wrath of the entire gaming community before their product even enters the market.

This leaves us with one last contender to the next-generation throne, Sony, and their upcoming Playstation 4 console. Sony is at the crossroads now, and the decisions they make before launch I believe will determine whether we go back to a PS2 era situation where one console takes 80+% of the market and offers a viable outlet for developers and publishers to succeed and expand even as the competing platforms struggle to gain significant marketshare, or if we see a collapse of the industry to levels more reminiscent of the late 80's and early 90's.

If Sony follows Microsoft in restricting the rights of paying customers then I predict there's a good chance that console gaming as we know it will become an irrelevant niche, suitable only for the most sycophantic of corporate cockmunchers who will willingly part with their money to buy an expensive pseudo-computer with $60+ software that will be unusable once those who grant us permission to use the products we buy decide to axe their services.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth"

The above quote is from the famous poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, and is a perfect description of the state of the industry. As low budget consumable titles ascend and high budget behemoth games fall like stacked dominoes it seems that everyone in the corporate offices of the platform holders and publishers face a choice. They can either double-down on the losing strategies they've employed so far or change to control their costs and serve the end-consumer better. Unfortunately it seems the early outlook has seen many of the big players continue on their path of self annihilation. As this current generation of hardware rapidly reaches it's end, time is running out for the industry players to reverse course and stop a self-inflicted implosion. Will they take the road less traveled and succeed at expanding the gaming business again, or will they end up putting the gun to their head once and for all and squeezing the trigger?

Let's Be Blunt: Xbox One Can Fuck Itself

Today at the Redmond, Washington Microsoft campus, the Xbox division officially revealed it's long-rumored and often-discussed next-generation console, dubbed the Xbox One.

When I first heard the name during the broadcast I had to double-check my Twitter feed to make sure I got the right info because I was confused by the prospect of a company releasing it's third device with the name Xbox calling the latest version "One", especially when that designation was already worn on the product of a competing company from two generations and more than a decade ago (PSOne). Even at three hours after the end of their conference, when I Google image searched "Xbox One", I still received many more hits for pics of the original Xbox console than the device which was supposed to be lighting the internet on fire with discussion and trending social media. This is not the smartest move ever by Microsoft, but from what I can tell it's the least of the problems this device presents to the world.

In the early stages of the conference we got to witness a half-hour long demo of the One being used as a TV tuner with instant switching to game functions, XBL Marketplace and general internet browsing via Internet Explorer. All of this was controlled via Kinect hand gestures and talking, and while it's all very cool-looking on a controlled stage and very reminiscent of Minority Report sequences, I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I pondered the pinch and squeeze gestures or the switching tabs on the OS motions being accidentally triggered by children in the living room playing with their toys or someone moving their arms suddenly to answer a phone, hand something to another person or grab something off a table.

All that aside, the most puzzling thing was that the vast majority of this presentation was about the Xbox One being used as a TV box, and we're living in an era when TV services are becoming threatened by independent streaming services like Netflix and Hulu that operate across many devices, including sub-$100 units sold right now in retail chains or stuff built into most modern HDTV sets by default that will never require someone to rush out and buy a new TV-tuning console that will likely retail for at least $400 this holiday season. Don't get me wrong, the Xbox One did these functions with a good deal of style and grace, but it wasn't so far advanced over the large list of connected devices and services already available and already installed in millions of homes worldwide that it would drive people to switch from what they already have. While it's obvious that games consoles need multimedia functions to be relevant, it seems Microsoft has taken this message a little too far and made this device more of a (potentially) $400+ competitor to a Roku box than a competitor to Playstation or Nintendo.

This sort of focus isn't a surprise in the era of Don Mattrick running the Xbox division of Microsoft, as we've seen for years now in E3 conferences, and what minimal percentage of the time allotted was devoted to upcoming Xbox One games was painful, to say the least. They showed a CG trailer for Forza 5 that didn't look any better than anything seen in current high end PC racing games or the coming Playstation 4 title Drive Club. They showcased a new game from the developers of Alan Wake that started with a poorly acted live-action sequence (I thought FMV games died with the 3D0) of a creepy young girl talking about her mysterious powers that quickly jarred the senses by switching to CGI footage of a boat crash and cops getting shot. None of the supposed "in-game" footage looked like it couldn't be done on a 360. We then got the usual multiplatform EA Sports and Activision Call of Duty: Ghosts crap, with the now standard promises of timed exclusivity on downloadable add-ons. The only hint of a Halo title was not a game but more of Microsoft becoming obsessed with TV and announcing a new Halo show directed by Steven Spielberg.

All in all this conference was boring, irrelevant to the gaming audience at large and confirmation that my choice to abandon Microsoft consoles in favor of PC gaming was the correct one. In spite of all that, what really inspired my obviously inflammatory title for this blog is the post-event news which broke out across the web that affirmed some of the fears many had about Microsoft taking their hubris and domination of a closed off platform too far and enacting DRM measures which hinder paying customers and reduce their rights while offering nothing of value in return. Specifically I'm referring to this:

"Reports are claiming that Xbox One will require all games to be installed on the console's HDD before they can be played.
According to Wired, if owners want to use the disc with a second account they'll be asked to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, suggesting that once games are installed you won't need to insert the disc to play."   -IGN

What's further complicating this mess is the fact that Microsoft's own people are saying these game installs are tied to accounts, not consoles, and while they claim there's no mandatory "always-on" connection, it seems impossible to register and validate an install key without one.

So what's the story Microsoft? Is it tied to an account? If so does that mean households with more than one user of a machine, who may like to track their own individual game completion and Achievements on their own profiles, now have to discuss and debate each other over who gets to install the game to their XBL account? If you are going to require this key system, are you going to drop the prices of games and offer similar sales prices that we see on PC that make the removal of user ownership rights more acceptable on that platform, or are you and your publishing partners still going to insist on $60 discs and massively overpriced download versions that never drop below $30 until many years after release, if ever?

This sort of DRM, which is intended to appease a pitiful AAA games industry that blames end users and Gamestop for their poor business practices and over-expenditures on "blockbuster" games, is shameful and yet another sign that the AAA mainstream-big-publisher games industry will go down in flames before realizing the root cause of their financial woes. Instead of facing the real problems of homogenization, bloated budgets and poor product management they will blame all of us who play and buy games and the retailers who keep interest in gaming going by catering to an audience who may like to browse through back catalogs of used games that often feature older titles that are rare or out of print.

Even if this re-installing fee on a different account or machine is small, it still is a move that makes the Xbox One less appealing as it shortens the viable playable lifetime of every box sold. Every game will only truly be playable so long as Microsoft keeps running the activation servers and still employs people to run the services on that platform. Once that's gone all Xbox One consoles will be limited to playing only the content that was on the hard drive at the time the servers shut down, meaning we won't see the sort of secondhand market and community that pops up with all retro games and consoles and still sees functioning NES consoles from 28 years ago trading hands amongst enthusiasts looking to play games from the past. I myself still have a large collection of functioning games and consoles from 20+ years ago, but the way things are looking the max shelf life on an Xbox One game is 5-7 years. How sad that console gaming has come to this.

All in all this reveal was a mess. Microsoft wants to be a TV company with a box that will be overpriced and late to the internet TV box party, and in order to succeed it's asking gamers to be the prophets of their messaging while simultaneously shitting on them. The worst part about this is that this approach already has it's vocal defenders and I have to wonder if sociologists could make a case study for Stockholm Syndrome using Xbox fans.