More Info on Phantom Game Console

MImeKillEr writes "Newsforge is reporting that the Phantom Game Console discussed on Slashdot is really a DRM-protected PC, sans floppy or CD running Windows XP. It uses a proprietary encryption method to protect the data on its harddrive, and the only thing that differentiates this 'game console' from a standard, Windows-running PC is that it has no way to get data on or off of it except through a dedicated connection to Infinium Labs' own servers." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.

Comments

Fair use?

[inertia187]

When you pick up a pen in your own home, does the pen have a chain on it to remind you not to walk away with it? Maybe the refrigerator pen would, but a vast majority of pens in your home will not come with a chain because you don't want them.

That's what these DRMs remind me of. They're *supposed* to be a gentle reminder for you to not break the law yet allow fair use. The idea that you can circumvent a DRM and get in trouble is ludicrous, to me.

It's like my pen analogy. If you went to the store to buy a pen and *all* of the pens had chains on them, you'd have to buy a pen with a chain on it. Would you have to use the chain? Could you remove the chain? You certainly could remove the chain from your own pen.

I don't understand how fair use got so screwed up like this. Hey, shouldn't this article be on yro.slashdot.org?

Re:Fair use?

[Aadain2001]

This is a gaming consol, and as such you are not required to buy it. If they do almost no business, and the number 1 reason the marketing department sights is the nasty DRM employeed in the device, both they and another companies thinking of doing something similar will sit up and take notice. Vote with your wallet. It's the quickest way to get a company's attention.

Re:Fair use?

[Planesdragon]

That's what these DRMs remind me of. They're *supposed* to be a gentle reminder for you to not break the law yet allow fair use. The idea that you can circumvent a DRM and get in trouble is ludicrous, to me.

"Fair Use", as taught in law classes, doesn't require an exact copy. Fair Use is quoting from a book, reading a book--maybe even writing a parody of said book. It's not, necessarily, copying the book onto your PDA so you can read it wherever you want to.

DRM systems aren't supposed to be a gentle reminder--part of the education of someone using a PC is to ignore most gentle reminders. DRM is supposed to let the copyright holder trust that the song/book/movie they sell you isn't going to be copied to the computers of all of your friends and their friends, and their friends...

Should DRM be given extra-special protection, beyond a lock and key or copyright law? Maybe, maybe no. Should DRM/DMCA be stretched to cover commercial uses that have nothing to do with copyright? (Think: ink tanks.) Heck no.

I don't understand how fair use got so screwed up like this. Hey, shouldn't this article be on yro.slashdot.org?

Napster and KaZaa. Given the chance to make free perfect copies, the public makes the free perfect copies.

While it's possible that a post-DRM infrastructure that included a working compensation mechanism could arrive, it's not going to show up without capital--and no investor or "artist" is going to trust a system that doesn't even allow them to enforce their federal rights.

Hmm... a nice alternative to DRM would be direct licensing and tracking. Generate unique IDs for all electronic IP sales, and direct-bill the original purcheser for copies that show up on P2P systems...

Re:Fair use?

[TrekkieGod]

*I'll* definitely vote with my wallet. How do you propose to convince the millions of people who have no idea what DRM is to do the same?

Only problem with any type of voting...you're in the minority, you lose, whether you're right or not. And the whole "DRM prevents pirates, pirates are terrorists" campaigns make sure that we're in the minority. The user who doesn't want to use his own hardware any differently, ie the parents of the small children this is aimed at, sees no difference between a DRM enabled and a DRM disabled console, and hears the big companies saying that DRM is good.

Re:Fair use?

[Xentax]

It's not, necessarily, copying the book onto your PDA so you can read it wherever you want to.

I agree with most of what you said, but this statement is erroneous.

The right to format-shift (e.g. making a CD copy of an audio cassette you've legally bought) and the right to make "collections" (e.g. making a "Bob's favorites" CD with selected tracks from several CD's he legally owns) are both protected by the Fair Use Doctrine. The latter doesn't readily apply to books, but the former is a fairly direct application.

So, yes, you CAN create an eBook from a Book you've bought (assuming you had some means of practically doing so), for your personal and noncommercial use. Obviously, distributing the eBook file(s) of that book to any and everyone is a different story, since doing so is copying, or allowing others to copy, a version of the entire book.

Xentax

Re:Fair use?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Listen, this type of approach always gets brought up whenever someone is discussing consoles. Sure, you can buy the console for $500 (no idea what it will cost) and they might lose $200 because it cost them $700 to make. But if they don't sell the console to you, then they lose $700 because it is just sitting in a warehouse, unsold. Honestly, I see this type of threat made all the time. Think about the economics of it just a little bit.

Re:Fair use?

[Jahf]

Except that if you and 1,000,000 friends buy the box but no software and cost the company $200, they're bound to make more and lose more. If no one buys it, sure, they lose $700 on the first round but they don't make any more.

Does my argument have holes? Sure. So does yours.

1) Any company with the financing to pull off a successful game console probably isn't going to notice the damage done by either method.

2) Both methods hurt the distribution channels at least as much as they hurt the manufacturer.

If you want the machine, buy it. If you don't, don't. Economics will sort it out in the end.

Re:Fair use?

[gallen1234]

*I'll* definitely vote with my wallet. How do you propose to convince the millions of people who have no idea what DRM is to do the same?

As much as it pains me to say this perhaps there's nothing to convince them of. If the general consumers purchase the system and don't find the restrictions offensive and recommend the systems to their friends and coworkers who also don't find the restrictions offensive then the market will have spoken. While it's possible that the first wave of consumers will buy the product, find its limtiations intolerable and inform their circle of friends I have to concede the very real possibility that the general purpose user just isn't going to care that they can't make a copy of their favorite game and spew it onto the Internet.

So what about backups, you ask? What about them? How often does your mother or brother-in-law back up their current machine? I'll bet you can measure it in years.

And what about when you move to a new ISP? Again, how often does this happen? I've been with my current ISP for years. So have all my relatives. I think this could be overcome with careful marketing that pitches the system as something more akin to video game rentals than a traditional shrink-wrap software purchase. I also don't see the ISP's objecting since it provides a strong degree of lock in for them.

Re:Fair use?

[Giggles Of Doom]

This almost has a ring simular to the whole Circuit City DivX (not the codec) thing. The nice thing about current game boxes and PCs is that if you cancel your XBox Live! accout or turn off your internet, you are still left with something you can run games on or keep an electronic diary. With this thing, if you stop paying for service you end up with a junk box full of parts that probably aren't usable anywhere else. That's $400, how much ever you spent on games, and how much you've spent on the subscription down the drain. I could understand having a system where you pay for the box, pay to download the games to the box (cheaper then buying it on CD), and then get to play it forever. Add in an online gameplay charge like everyone else and its all fine and dandy.

Who would want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

By those specs, there are no selling points to this box.

Re:Who would want this?

[DrWho520]

Not only do the specs appear...lacking, but this set depends upon a broadband connection. So sales are already limited to the number of people with broadband. Those people with broadband who are interested in using it for gaming already have existing solutions in the form of pre-existing consoles, already including one from M$.

I do not care how big your library is, I like to have my games in my hands. How am I supposed to loan my buddy my Metroid Prime or GTA3? I cannot with this business model.

The article makes a point of Roberts being a family man and the Phantom being a way to protect small children from the evils of violent gaming (how?). The box costs $400. I just do not think that price tag will fly today for parents buying a game system for small children. GCN has the most kid games, is the cheapest system on the market, and a little bit time by parents picking out games does the same thing.

I wonder how much of the $400 is attributed to the cost of XP?

So it's a crappy Xbox?

[Megor1]

So it's like an Xbox (Really a PC)but you have to download all yours games...

the only thing...

[sulli]

the only thing that differentiates this 'game console' from a standard, Windows-running PC is that it has no way to get data on or off of it except through a dedicated connection to Infinium Labs' own servers.

Yet.

Re:the only thing...

[arbitrary nickname]

But the real question is, when does a purchase cease being your personal property?

The moment it has a single byte of copyrightable software in it :(

weird

[Boromir son of Faram]

I have trouble believing that any game companies are going to pony up development costs and then not release an identical product for normal PCs. At which point, why buy the console?

Seems like they came up with the product by drawing up a list of things it won't do. Well, add another item to that list: it won't sell.

Re:weird

[Jason Earl]

Yeah, casual gamers are going to plop down $400 on a console that requires a $10 a month service fee to play games that you have to purchase separately. Oh, and you have to pay separately for broadband. Anyone that thinks that this is likely might want to invest in my specially-reinforced upside-down umbrella I invented just in case it happens to start raining money.

Let's face it. The "kiddie" game market is currently being cornered by flash games at places like nickjr.com. No parent is going to pay Phantom prices for what is basically a disabled PC when they can buy a fully functional PC for less.

Never mind the fact that they need three quarters of a million users before they even break even. That's insane. What kind of overhead do these guys have? They don't manufacture the boxes, they don't make the games, and Windows XP takes care of most of the software.

This farce doesn't have a prayer.

Not in my home

[r84x]

Personally, I really don't care how cool this system could be, I don't want what is basically an extension of some corporate incredibly proprietary system in my home. A corporation should not have power over things in my home to that extent.

This is just the next step from the Xbox, and I cannot imagine having NO control over something in my own home. The Xbox is bad enough, so I say no thanks to the phantom.

Re:Not in my home

[NanoGator]

"Personally, I really don't care how cool this system could be, I don't want what is basically an extension of some corporate incredibly proprietary system in my home. A corporation should not have power over things in my home to that extent. "

A.) It's a GAME MACHINE. Lighten up.

B.) How is this different from the GameCube, XBOX, PS 1&2, GameBoy, GameBoy Advance, Dreamcast (sorta), Saturn, Nintendo 64, 32X, Genesis, SNES, NES, Jaguar, Atari 2600/5200/7800, or Master System? I got news for ya, they were all proprietary, they all had protection schemes, and none of them allowed for you to make backups.

Either you're overreacting or you have serious trouble with the Game Industry in general.

Re:Not in my home

[ksheka]

The difference is I can still play my Atari 2600 games 20 years after I buy them, without paying a dime to anyone except the electric company to power my system (few cents an hour?).

Who on earth thinks that I'll be able to play games on this machine a couple decades after the company goes belly up?

Im glad they incoprtated the "????" step.

[bethane]

Roberts told me it will probably take somewhere between 750,000 and one million subscribers to start turning a profit, based on $9.95 per month. This doesn't look good to me. Seems they feel that they'll have to have something like $88,000,000 to $100,000,000 per year to break even? That's JUST TO BREAK EVEN!?! This certainly smells like a bad ".com" bussiness plan to me. Is it buying all the licences for the games? Someone help me understand why he has to have that sort of cash flow, just to break even. After all, you can build rather large networks and even support them for a heck of a lot less than that. His console is pretty much a PC, not exactly huge costs there. Besides, the purchaser is paying his share. So, is the lion share going to pay for content? If he has to have that sort of cash flow to pay for content, that surely sounds like he isn't brokering very good deals to support his business model.

Can't see much use for this

[Art_Vandelai]

At least not for the home user - how much would it cost to set up a "dedicated connection"?

Maybe in high-end gaming establishments - arcades, etc. But then, why use a PC-like platform?

I could see this working something line the NTN game consoles that are in bars, where everyone across multiple locations can compete all at once. Still, setting up completely dedicated connections without using public networks makes this a huge undertaking and probably not worth the cost.

And if it did use public networks - well who would want this, why not just buy a PC?

Re:Oh no....

[damiam]

Isn't it a little weird for an essential component of this device (the OS) to be made by their primary competitor? That sounds like a moronic business decision to me.

Another hobbled PC console...

[grimani]

What's the point?

If development for it is exactly the same as the PC, why develop games for this console?

PCs number in the hundreds of millions. Nobody in their right minds would develop a game exclusively for it - maybe a port after a PC release, but this will never be a primary platform.

The XBox is similar, although noteably different in one respect - Microsoft is a huge games publisher and owns quite a few development houses as well.

I predict a quick, merciless death due to the following reasons:

1) Lack of good, exclusive content results in lackluster hardware sales, which results in lack of good content...

2) There is another company trying the same approach. That company controls DirectX. Does anyone really think Microsoft will sit still while some upstart to beats down the XBox? Expect Microsoft to hit back. Their weapon of choice would be DirectX.

3) Lack of differentiation from PC, if most games are available on PC as well. XBox suffers in this regard also, although Microsoft has done an admirable job of making content exclusive. It remains to be seen how long they are willing to throw away money to support XBox; we all know that Halo would have made much more money had the PC version been released by now also.

I'm Sorry

[Dark Paladin]

But already, there's no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks I'm going to use this.

First, I'm somebody who likes to play the games. No problem there. I even like to play the PC games (FPS belongs on the PC - why I'm waiting for Halo OS X before playing it).

But I also have a job, two kids, a wife who likes the wild monkey sex at times - and every so often, I have to travel.

So for me, I might take my PS2/Gamecube/GBA on the road (I'd take the Xbox, but it would bring my luggage over the weight limit....), or plug a game into the laptop (my Powerbook plays Max Payne and such pretty surprisingly well).

But I can't imagine paying for a mothly service for a game I don't own, can't touch for myself, maybe sell later like I would a book or a CD. (Agh - RIAA lawyers - run!) I'm odd that way - I need that sense of ownership, that I can go to my little library and just pull it out whenever I want and play, not wait for the downloads/reinstalls (since it may be years until I replay an old classic, like Deus Ex or Wasteland or Fallout - you get the drill).

The system must also require a bandwidth connection, and while I'm sure they won't download the entire game to the hard drive (which, seeing as more games (aka [sarcasm]Baldur's Gate III: 20 CD's and counting[/sarcasm]....)), they'll still have to stream it. And I have other things I can be doing with my bandwidth.

I'm not saying it's a horrible idea for everybody - just not for me. For others, I could be wrong.

Re:Not -that- surprising, I guess.

[radish]

current leader in the field got its legs dominating the PC market

I assume you mean Xbox? You must come from some other planet where "3rd best selling out of 3" equates to "leader in the field".

Re:Not -that- surprising, I guess.

[gradius3]

Yea, I'm sure the $9.4 billion dollar gaming industry (IDSA's 2002 figure) was all computer games. Beside nobody I know owns an XBox, PSII or Gamecube. Seems like everyone's running out and buying a new pc for the latest and greatest games, oh wait...

The Best Part of the Story

[Ian Wolf]

Really, the only thing that differentiates this 'game console' from a standard, Windows-running PC is that it has no way to get data on or off of it except through a dedicated connection to Infinium Labs' own servers via your broadband ISP, plus the fact that if you try to open it up or modify it or grab data from the hard drive, bad things will happen, starting with violation of the terms under which you will lease or purchase the Phantom.

The first question is why would I want this when there are PS2's and Xbox's to be had for less money. Especially when you consider that this is going to retail for around $400 plus a $9.95 per month subscription fee and some games will have a seperate charge not included in the subscription (so I gathered, I wasn't certain if the 9.95 subscription was for a service or a lease). All told the cost of this device is going to be steep.

Now on to my next biggest concern. Downloading games over the internet is all well and good for some games, but you're still going to have to wait a long time for it to download. This becomes even more evident to those users who have substandard broadband providers like I do.

Don't get me wrong, I think software delivery over the web is the wave of the future. In fact, I download a large number of the software I use (legally), but some titles are just too damn big.

Re:The Best Part of the Story

[iamhassi]

At first glance I'd agree, but I think downloading games is still a good idea, even if it's *gasp* dial-up, depending on how they set it up.

On broadband you could easily download a 1 CD game in a few hours (how many console games are on more than 1 CD?). If it was a PC game I'd get bored in 20 minutes and be upset it took so long to download, but console games you usually play for months, so waiting a few hours for something I'll use for months isn't so bad.

On dial-up they *might* be able to split some games into levels, textures and sounds not needed until later levels (don't get the rocket launcher till level 3? Why spend 10 minutes downloading the textures and sounds until then?). You could download the first level, get playing, and while playing the other levels could download. If you don't play a few days then the rest of the game could finish completely.

No CD?

[lightspawn]

So... let me get this straight.

If I buy this console, and a friend buys it too, we can't trade games?

Do I even "own" the games I pay for?

What happens when the console breaks down and I want to replace it? Did all my games vanish with it? Phantom, indeed!

Considering the amount of games available for my non-phantom computers, why would I ever want to bother with it? I wanted to be able to root for the underdog here, but there's just no way.

Jigga, pleaze

[serial frame]

No way this will work, because there will still be thousands of people who would insist upon owning actual copies of the games they play. There may be other things to analyze, such as bandwidth costs, etc (depending on the sizes of the games). It would be interesting to see them offering broadband to go along with the game, because thousands upon thousands of people STILL use dial-up.

And from the sounds of it, game licensing seem pretty exclusive to Infinium Labs for new games. Will they be offering any assistance to third-party developers, or will they be reaping the benefits for themselves?

I'm pretty sure these ideas have already been thought of, but I'm just tossing them back onto the table. *shrug*

Re:Not -that- surprising, I guess.

[badasscat]

We're rapidly approaching the point where consoles are pointless. Commodity hardware is cheaper, computers offer a far superior gaming experience, and the current leader in the field got its legs dominating the PC market.

Except for that last part (which is 100% false to begin with), people have been saying this for at least 20 years. There's always been a leapfrog thing going on between consoles and PC's. You look at the PS2 now and say "a cheap PC can do those graphics better" - then when PS3 is unveiled, you'll wonder if PC graphics will ever catch up again. 4 years later, the cycle will repeat. Just the way it is.

You could argue just as easily that consoles have become commidities. Practically everybody has one, and they're cheap enough now that almost anyone that can afford a TV can afford a game console (adjusted for inflation, my Intellivision cost $900 in today's dollars in 1980, compared to $180 for a PlayStation 2 or Xbox or $149 for a GameCube). Plus, the economics of the industry are such that there's no way dedicated consoles are ever going away - all consoles really are are mini-PC's with their own DRM, and it's always been that way going back to the Atari 2600 (which used off-the-shelf computer parts - the reason why Activision was able to successfully argue in court that they did not need a license to produce third-party games for the system). Back in the cartridge days the DRM was physical - it was exceedingly expensive to produce your own cartridges and required a lot of technological knowhow. Sure, we didn't call it DRM back then, but that's what it was, and nobody ever complained about it on game consoles. Today, the DRM is software-based, but the concept is the same - you can only play these games on one specific device, and you can't easily copy them. It's the DRM, the stable, predictable hardware platform and the co-branding that attracts developers and publishers, and Infinium understands maybe 2/3 of that. What they don't understand is that without a big name and lots of money to promote both the system and individual games (including third-party games), there's not a compelling reason for a publisher to want to associate themselves with the Phantom.

As to your last statement, I would gather from your comment that you assume Microsoft is the "current leader" in the game console arena. MS is a very distant second to Sony - very distant, and further distant than they were a year ago (MS's sales have dropped year to year, while Sony's have risen). I'm talking a 4 to 1 difference. And they're losing buckets of money on the system. Experience in the PC arena is certainly no guarantee of success in the console arena - they're two different markets, and if you don't understand that difference you will get trounced by the rest of the game industry. Infinium seems to "get" part of it, but I don't see that they have either the will or the way to really get big-name publishers on board with this system, and I don't think they necessarily understand exactly what consumers want, either (the whole broadband download thing).

What To Do If They Go Bankrupt

[WC as Kato]

This is a risky proposition for the consumer. What would you do with this crippled PC if the company goes bankrupt? You can't use it anymore. You can't even run local games. It may not even be fit for modding. But I'm sure a true geek will manage a mod to get a blue LED on the thing.

Sounds Familiar

[shoemakc]

"As one industry observer pointed out when he first heard the Infinium Labs story, "You buy the console. You buy the games. Then you pay to play the games you bought on the console you bought. It's sort of like buying an arcade game but still having to put quarters in. And ads!"

Sounds like Circuit City's DIVX to me. God knows that went well.

-Chris

Re:Not -that- surprising, I guess.

[PhoenixFlare]

Commodity hardware is cheaper

Please show me a computer built for $149.99 + tax that can pump out the same level of graphics detail, texturing, and framerate that my GameCube does. Oh, and you'd have to give people a $50 game and a joypad free to match it at the moment, too.

computers offer a far superior gaming experience

Speak for yourself...I'm guessing you don't actually own a console. I won't go into a huge listing, but there are many, many quality console games out there that beat the hell out of any PC games.

and the current leader in the field got its legs dominating the PC market

They may be leading in sales right now, but I don't think that'll last forever. Seems like a bit of an ominous sign that the XBox has barely been out a year, and yet they've had to cut the selling price almost in half to stay competitive already.

What with Media PCs picking up acceptance, I wouldn't be surprised to see a game/network/PVR combo soon.

Whatever happened to using a game console/device/whatever you call it for games? I don't want an everything-box, thank you.

Or not.

[tevenson]

So, they want me to buy a set top computer that runs XP, won't let me change anything, and can only play games I download off the net. All this for only $400 and a monthly fee?

Wow, or I could spend that money making my OWN set top box which could:

• Connect to my wireless network to stream movies and music from my basement fileserver.
• Play games from the vast library that exists for PC (read: free if you're smart)
• Allow me to play older console games via emulators and a gamepad pro
• Hell, since I've got this little fast box I built I could also use it for LANS.

Sounds like this will sell well to me.... 8-|

Re:Why Windows?

[techstar25]

It's so they can inflate the "number of software titles", when they launch. There are millions of shareware tetris/pacman/solitaire clones that will already play on their Windows machine. So technically, at launch it will have more software titles than ANY OTHER console. Linux would have Tux racer and ...well anyway I agree, linux would be a better idea.

If for no other reason, just imagine that MS could pull the plug on the licenses at any moment if they think it's cutting into Xbox sales, which it likely will, though not by much.

Re:Why Windows?

[Zathrus]

The only real plus I can see would be DirectX. That said, Linux has OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, Allego, SVGAlib, and anything else you want.

Anything else, except DirectX that is.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, count how many modern games are written for OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, Allego, or SVGAlib. Now count how many are written for DirectX.

Now if you want people to port to your platform, which is the safer bet?

Sure, you can (and probably will) release your own SDK, but you still have to deal with reality. Game makers have 4 primary platforms right now - PCs, PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Xbox gets to leverage PC development since they're not too far off from one another -- you need to change things certainly, but the core engine can remain the same. Mostly. If you're creating a new platform then you may as well either leverage off one of the established platforms, or have one helluva lot of capital behind you to create a new one and lure developers over. Since you'll be going up against Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, I really hope you have a lot of capital.

Since two of the four platforms are completely and utterly closed - Nintendo and PS2 - you only have one option to leverage. DirectX. Done right you can actually do better leveraging than the Xbox... although it's not sounding like they're doing this.

Oh, and before you flame me as a Windows bigot, I'm not. Yeah, I use it. I also use Redhat and code for Unix. I prefer Unix. But that doesn't mean I put blinders on and whine about how the world should work instead of understanding how it actually does.

proprietary encryption - broken

[plcurechax]

uses a proprietary encryption scheme

translated:

Some crappy, broken scheme baked up by programmers not professional cryptographers.

I'm glad it is not my venture captial money backing this broken puppy.

Sigh. Snake Oil FAQ or the Crypto mini FAQ and various Cryptogram will remind you, proprietary encryption is very bad.

Har, har.

[Inoshiro]

I really doubt this "Phantom" will make any dent whatsoever. Look what it's up against: Xbox, GameCube, GameBoy Advance, Playstation 2.

These are all focused consoles with their own markets. There is overlap, but it's fairly well satured. Everyone who has broadband and cares about games will have an Xbox with Xbox Live!. Everyone who wants neat Japanese games will have a GameCube and PS2. Etc!

The Phantom is a joke. MS can pull off PC components in a game console because they have clout with nVidia and other people to spend millions of dollars fabbing specific parts. That company probably doesn't, as evidenced by their use of XP as the environment for the console.

What kind of game console doesn't have a bare-bones OS and SDK libs that are meant only for running one application ever?

Re:Har, har.

[mattwolfewvu]

"Everyone who has broadband and cares about games will have an Xbox with Xbox Live!."

I have broadband. I care about games. I do not have, and most likely never will get, an Xbox, let alone Xbox Live. I'm perfectly happy with my PS2, Gamecube, PC, PS1, Saturn, SNES, GBA, and GB Color, thank you very much.

DRM = 1984 Materialized

[felonious]

With all of this DRM talk it seems as if it's the most important subject these days. If anything was ever the epitome of "big brother" it would be DRM. You buy a product but don't own it and only have certain uses for it as stipulated by what ever multi-national conglomerate.

These corporations are yielding more and more power and with their deep pockets they are shaping our future laws. Most people are completely ignorant to what is transpiring and the ramifications as applied to all parts of life. I'm not full of paranoia but the truth is right before our eyes.

I find it beyond frightening when a guy is busted for releasing the new Hulk movie online and is sentenced to a longer jail term than a rapist/robber. That was a very powerful moment to me. It says everything about the type of power behind the DRM movement.

I can see it getting to a point where the DRM is embedded in hardware and people who are anti-drm no longer upgrade because of this. The people who are ambivalent to all of this are in for a world of hurt once DRM starts to permeate through all parts of society and it's products.

As said before our only hope for ridding ourselves of DRM and it's derivatives is to speak with your wallet. The sad thing is we are a minority. The majority has no clue. DRM, disposable DVD's, & game keys are only the beginning if we don't make a strong statement.

I practice what I preach so I hope others do too.

DRM systems = white wall syndrome

[heironymouscoward]

Taggers can't resist a blank wall and hackers can't resist a DRM system.
Let me guess the ways the Phantom PC will phall:
1. Someone will hack the network protocol and find a way to stream those downloaded games to unprotected media.
2. Someone will find a bug in part of the DRM (the loader, maybe) that allows code to be inserted into the stack and WHAM.
3. Someone will make the inevitable mod chip and inevitably be sued.
4. Someone will... heck this is getting boring.
Did no-one learn a lesson from the 1980's? Guys, you CANNOT COPY PROTECT SOFTWARE!!! Jeez. It's like the movie where the bad guy says to the cop: "to stay alive, you have to have a good day, every day. If I (the crook) have just one good day, you're dead and I win."
Aw, let the games begin!

One significant difference from the 2600 et al

[NaugaHunter]

If I had River Raid, and a friend had Pitfall II, we could simply trade cartridges. That's it. No online registration, no serial numbers, no boot-sector tampering. In other words, the concept is not exactly the same. You couldn't copy them, but you could use them with as many different devices as you'd like.

Yes, this is partly because having overly-difficult-too-copy hardware is different from fairly-easy-to-copy CD/DVDs. The problem is when DRM goes too far, and prevents legal use. Want to use your software at a friend's? Sorry. Want to install it on your sister's so she can play when you're not home? Nope. Tired of it, and want to sell it? Uh-uh - you don't own anything to sell.

So really, we didn't have DRM then. There were ways to copy the ROMs (they're all on line, if you want them). It just wasn't easy. Now that it is easy, DRM makes it impossible - removing legal use as well as illegal use.

Is this really cost efficient?

[JFMulder]

I mean, it says that you wil still have to pay less for you games. Ok, so I'll throw some numbers around. Right now 200$ for an XBOX. if you buy 5 games each year, you'll end up paying about 225$ dollars a year for games.
Let's say you use it 4 years. In total, you'll have spent about 1100$ for your 4 years of fun.

Now do the game math with their system.
400$ for the machine, add to the subscription fee for 4 years (essentially 9.99$ a month), you get and you get 880$. You are now left with 130$ dollars. Now, if they still want to beat XBOX on price, they are to charge maximum 6$ per games if you still want to own 20 games after 4 years. It said in the article that you would still have to buy the games at first, then rent them. He compared the idea to buying an arcade, and then putting quarters in it, which I find kinda dumb, but still, let's go on with our calculations.

Sooooooo. Even if they do sell the games 3$ (yeah right...), now that most consoles games ships on a DVD and may be bout 3 or 4 gigs (or if they're not, they'll be real soon), how the hell am I supposed to pay all the extra bandwidth these games will require to my ISP? For my part, I can download 10 gigs a month with my ISP. But a lot of people I know have only 5 gigs. So let's say you want that new Star Wars game with a hundred hours of FMV and it's 6 gigs. Then I guess you f***ed for one month and can't use the Internet, unless you want to pay more money for the bandwidth you used over your limit. (8.95$ CAN/Gig where I live, so about 5$US/Gig)

So this thing will make money unless
a) the games are unbelievably good and only on their console (not likely)
or
b) it's customers are not well educated (or stupid if you prefer to put it that way)

Even tough I think that scenario b) has a lot more of chances to happen that a), I don't think that this will work.

I'd almost be willing to put my hand in a fire if did succeed, but judging from the popularity of some products (none come to mind right now, but you know, there's something each week that you see on TV and you tell yourself "Are people really buying those? Am I the only one who doesn't?"), I won't.

Re:Fair use? The real moral

[frovingslosh]

Ironically, I was able to make a copy of the CD with my phillips burner that then played fine on her stereo.

Moral of the story: copy protected CD's hurt consumers.

The real moral, if this is the total story, is that the label and the stores don't care. As far as they know they just made another sale. The CD should have been returned to the store (after you made your copy) as not suitable for it's indended use and you should have received a full refund. That way copy protection hurts the people it should and when this happens enough it might go away.

Re:Why Windows?

[Slack3r78]

In all honesty, with a properly designed engine that keeps these issues in mind from the start of development, it's not that hard to be able to leverage whatever the hell you want. You have to write wrappers around your core code, which does take time, but it's completely possible. Hell, the Win32 implementation of SDL is mainly just a wrapper around DirectX. Graphics engines can often be ported between APIs with a simple DLL swap.

While I've never developed for GameCube or PS2, the fact that ports for/to the Xbox and the other two consoles happen fairly regularly with minimal delay between releases (PS2/XBox releases are often silmultaneous) is further indication that as long as your engine is well built, it can be ported with minimal headache.

DirectX is NOT the only option if you want leverage. It's the option that Microsoft has pushed however, and for that reason, it's become the "standard" of the gaming industry. In my opinion, it comes more down to software design and developer preference - and MS has successfully convinced enough developers that DX is "the" in thing, so that's what most people these days are learning. I don't think it has anything to do with either set of APIs being any more advanced or portable than the other.

heh

[dmszero]

umm, the packets have to go somewhere dont they? like through my firewall.. which means we can get a pretty damn good look at what it does how it does (assuming it isnt vapour).

so how long do they really think they can operate before someone provides a 3rd party server? what was that? the sound of a business model rapidly evaporating? its like providing a deadlock, and paying for a guy to stand there beside your door with a fist full of silly putty asking you for a key impression.

dms0

Re:VIRTUAL ARCADE!

[Tokerat]

Why not just build your own stand-alone mame machine that charges you $0 each time you play?

Sure, and while we're at it, let's download MP3s instead of paying for them. ;-)

I think perhaps a subscription-based service would be nicer, or better yet the choice: the people who don't play as often won't be charged as much, and the fiends who would play every game every day (....myself O:-) can pay a nice flat rate.