Microsoft Apologizes For Cavalier 'Always-Online' DRM Tweets

Adam Orth, creative director of Microsoft Studios, on Thursday tweeted that "doesn't get" objections to DRM schemes that require always-on internet connection to play console games. An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft on Friday released an official statement regarding the tweets: 'We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter.'" I can't help reading those tweets in the voice of Sterling Archer.

Comments

"We are very sorry if you are offended..."

[Anonymous Coward]

"...but we're still making it always-on anyway. Fuck you. Sorry."

Re:"We are very sorry if you are offended..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you. Sorry."

except we're not

Re:"We are very sorry if you are offended..."

[davester666]

except a high-ranking employee said we were...but officially, we're not saying one way or the other...

But expect an anal probe when we release the system.

Re:"We are very sorry if you are offended..."

[terjeber]

So they never taught you how to read. How did you manage writing then?

Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well *that* blew up in our face. Let's sacrifice this guy while we pretend we give a damn about the drones and wait for them to forget about this before we get back to screwing them over, I mean, making an 'honest profit.'"

Re:Translation:

[flimflammer]

What the hell are you talking about? Some Microsoft guy made some comments thorugh personal channels and you think they're "sacrificing" him for them as though this was some sort of official announcement they're recanting?

Re:Translation:

[ozmanjusri]

Some Microsoft guy made some comments thorugh personal channels

Not just "some Microsoft guy". He's creative director at Microsoft's video game division. If you think his opinion is irrelevant or atypical, you're delusional.

Re:Translation:

[Bruce McBruce]

Defending a business direction is one thing. Lashing out at customers is another. Guy deserves his career to be crucified because that's just stupid and unacceptable behaviour for a corporation to allow. The DRM issue is totally irrelevant to the problem.

Re:Translation:

[sjwt]

Creative director...

So he chooses what colour the led's will be?

Re:Translation:

[Opportunist]

This wasn't some random drone, some low level programmer, whose input and decision plays no role whatsoever. This was the creative director. If ANYONE'S input in stuff like that is important, it is his.

The mere fact that this was NOT some "official" fart but actually a decision maker making a (from a purely company politically point of view) "stupid" remark says 100 times more than any "official" press release.

Re:Translation:

[max]

I didn't see the following tweets until Major Nelson put out the apology, and I was rather horrified by the way Adam Orth expresses himself to a potential customer. Still, I am not sure kicking someone is the right way to go, but I do think they need to give at least the management some media training and make sure that everyone is aware of a company media policy. So many people are ignorant of how the internet ecosystem works and how things spread.

Personally, I refrain myself from publicly commenting on matters regarding the organization where I work. We have people whose job is to take care of these matters. When I see something I can tell them, say what I think and let them decide the correct course of action. I am entitled to my opinion, but that doesn't mean that I need to express it at all times. I know that my word might be taken for the official position and that might not be true, anyway I am not paid to comment on my employers decisions.

Yesterday I summed up some of my thoughts in the matter: http://mzomborszki.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/how-to-be-an-insensitive-clod/.

Re:Translation:

[flimflammer]

I'm aware of his position, but how exactly does that change anything I've said? I merely stated that it was his personal feelings on a very controversial topic and had nothing to do with Microsoft proper.

AC was implying that Microsoft has a dastardly plan in store and once they caught wind that people aren't actually that keen on it, they're throwing the messenger under the bus and implying it was all a misunderstanding. That's not what happened. Someone at Microsoft (Creative Director or not,) who does not publicly represent Microsoft, spoke their personal thoughts in a "private" place and caused a shitstorm huge enough that Microsoft had to jump in and explain that his words don't actually represent Microsoft. That's all.

Steve Balmer could make a post on a private twitter account tomorrow saying he doesn't understand why people care that Hitler killed millions of Jews. That doesn't mean Microsoft has some sort of pro-Hitler/Nazi agenda.

Re:Translation:

[epyT-R]

Uh what? no. he should be able to say whatever he wants on his own twitter account regardless of his employer's position.

Re:Translation:

[Bruce McBruce]

I think you take a very reasonable position on commenting on organisational matters. Orth should know better and it's inconceivable to me that Microsoft (which takes an extremely reserved stance on public commentary as a matter of course) wouldn't have briefed Orth on its policy. At the very least it indicates a troubling ignorance to the internet ecosystem coupled with losing control of himself in a fit of childish spite. Someone who represents an entire creative dev team (who probably shouldn't actually be involved in determining DRM issues anyway) should know not to grossly antagonise half of his company's North American customer base (and more of Microsoft's overseas customer base).

This guy should have learned from Paul Christoforo and I can't help but think he should be canned for an unapologetic reel of spiteful crap directed at consumers.

Re:Translation:

[hairyfish]

I'm not sure how the titles work at MSFT, but where I work, the "Creative Director" is one step up from art school intern.

Re:Translation:

[SternisheFan]

Those comments MS's marketing director made in his 'tweets' do seem to reflect the underlying cavalier attitude at MS towards its customers. It reminds me of Mitt Romney's attitude toward the "49%", very telling of their true feelings.

The XBox720 will not function if an internet connection is not found within 3 minutes. I don't give a damn how 'great' their games might be, as a consumer I've been turned off to Microsoft altogether, and won't be contributing my dollars to this company in any of their product line.

Re:Translation:

[hairyfeet]

He's part of the same division that gave us such "greats" as Games For Windows Live or as i like to call it "attack of the really fucking dumb UI" since you can search in it ON a PC for specifically PC GAMES and it'll give you 4 pages of Xbox games, so do we REALLY care if MSFT is gonna do something fucking retarded? Hell isn't "We're fucking retarded" practically the company logo now?

Lets face it folks, from Zune to Windows 8, from killing PlaysForSure (which was actually GAINING decent share at the time) for the DOA Zune Market, hell I could go on all day just listing fucking DUMB moves by that company in the past few years so would anybody be REALLY surprised if they embraced a bad idea that other companies like Ubisoft already saw kills sales worse than putting a Goatse on the cover, would it REALLY shock you to see MSFT yet again embracing ideas from 2 years ago that were flops?

This is coming from somebody that has sold and serviced MSFT products since the days of Win 3.x but even I can see the company has come off the rails, anybody with eyes can see any guys that had any kind of vision have bailed for Google or Apple and now everything is designed by a committee of PHBs using PPT slides and Excel sheets that focus more on what it'll do to the stock price than whether it'll be a great product. As I have pointed out MANY times before the entire history of MSFT can be summed up as "Then the other guy did something fucking DUMB and MSFT took advantage", from the revolving CEOs and mess of products in the late 80s Apple to Sony adopting a "fuck you peasants" attitude and pricing the PS3 double what the market would bear it all comes down to the other guy doing something really fucking stupid which gives MSFT a free shot.

But now we are seeing what happens when their competition is run by people who are NOT Forest Gump levels of stupid and the answer is simple: a fucking mess. Behind the times, stupid move after stupid move, Ballmer's MSFT snatches defeat from the jaws of victory better than any company out there and from the sound of the 720 or whatever they end up calling it is gonna be another fuckup thanks to bad calls made by the suits.Again is ANYBODY really shocked by this?

Re:Translation:

[marcello_dl]

> Some Microsoft guy made some comments thorugh personal channels...
That COINCIDENTALLY reflect the corporate views. It's not astroturfing, never ever.
"As much control as possible" is the corporate view for most corporations. "As much freedom as possible" is the people view for most people.
Well, more precisely, the view is "As much doing_whatever_I_want as possible", which becomes "as much slavery as possible" if you soak up enough propaganda. But I digress.

Re:Translation:

[gnasher719]

Not just "some Microsoft guy". He's creative director at Microsoft's video game division. If you think his opinion is irrelevant or atypical, you're delusional.

He's just got a major telling off from his company. He may be creative director now, but that's not a position that you have for a lifetime. And being a creative director and somewhere higher up in the food chain means that making statements contrary to the official company line is a major problem for the man and his career.

Re:Translation:

[gnasher719]

Uh what? no. he should be able to say whatever he wants on his own twitter account regardless of his employer's position.

In my company, and probably many others, they do performance reviews. The guidelines how you are measured depend on your position. The higher up you are, the higher the expectations of you. From some level upward, you _always_ represent the company, even on your private twitter account, and whatever you say is part of your job.

Re:Translation:

[SternisheFan]

I have been told people go from Intern to "Creative Director" in one jump. So I wouldn't think much about this.

Well, due to this MS employees tweets, right now the rumour mill is churning without any actual statement by MS confirming or denying that a game will not function on the XBox720 after 3 minutes of not having an internet connection. The console debut is months away, perhaps these tweets were a test baloon to gauge reaction to the always online idea. It seems to be the disturbing trend in computing/ gaming. Not the future I'm looking forward to, perhaps 24/7 monitoring in all of our devices is going to be inevitable, sigh.

Re:Translation:

[hawkinspeter]

In theory, yes. In practise, he needs to be careful talking about his employer and his employer's products as it makes it seem like he's talking on behalf of his employer. It probably wouldn't matter if he was a janitor, but as a Creative Director it adds weight to his comments.

Re:Translation:

[SternisheFan]

Fuck, as soon as you enter political statements into your post, you have undermined anything you might have said that would make sense. After you sadi Mitt Romney...we all heard blal blah blah blah blah blah.

Was using the M.R. 47% thing as an example of organizations that do their 'real' business dealings in ways that they wouldn't want the general public to know about. Not trying to make a pro/ anti political statement.

Re:Translation:

[Doctor_Jest]

It's a trial balloon. Microsoft does it all the time. They gauged the response and sent out the "apology"... meaning that in a few months, they'll re-spin it... Make no mistake the 720 is going to have always-on DRM. It's just a matter of how they're going to present it to the customer... they'll figure it out. :) Trick is, though... will they "buy" into it?

Re:Translation:

[flimflammer]

You are a goddamn idiot. I never said his opinions have no meaning to the projects he works on; I am saying condemning Microsoft, implying that he is leaking their evil plans and now denying it because of his comments on a private twitter account is nothing but conjecture.

But of course, if someone dares not make every oppertunity to take swipes at Microsoft must either be an idiot or paid damage control. Stay classy.

Re:Translation:

[HiThere]

That may be so, but he expressed a clear intention to injure a large number of customers. And no remorse when challenged on the point. This is not someone that we want in even a low-level management position.

OTOH, as I wouldn't buy any Microsoft product anyway, my standing to take action on this matter is dubious. But then I *didn't* take any action. I'm merely defending the actions of those that did as being reasonable (the actions I heard about, anyway).

Re: Translation:

[Opportunist]

For some directors the creed really seems to be "I waste your time, hence I exist".

Re:Translation:

[Opportunist]

As long as people keep buying them, yes. Because it is in the interest of the manufacturer and he will take whatever he can as long as it doesn't hurt sales.

The summary doesn't mention

[DrEldarion]

... that they made absolutely no effort to refute the rumor. At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say that their only objection is to how the guy said what he did, but they still are going to proceed with it.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[Opportunist]

The objection is mostly THAT he said it, I'm pretty sure. I highly doubt it was supposed to be trumpeted out that the X720 will be relying heavily on "always on" DRM before people could get a chance to buy it unknowingly.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[Opportunist]

Set themselves up? Quite the contrary. "Your console doesn't work? It's not the console, it's your internet connection".

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[RogueyWon]

If you own MS shares and the launch a console with an "always on" requirement - SELL. Don't even wait for the end of the press conference.

It's not the reaction of the slashdot market you need to worry about. Will we cry foul over such a requirement? Yes. Will we be less likely to buy the console as a result? Yes. Are we a drop in the ocean? No.

Rather, it's the huge "hinterland" demographic, particularly outside the coastal US and Western Europe, that you should be concerned about. If you think that internet connections are as reliable and "always on" as the electricity supply in most of the world, then think again. Personally, I'm pretty lucky; I live in the suburbs of London and have a pretty meaty 120mbit downstream 12 mbit upstream connection with no monthly cap. But even here, reliability isn't perfect - in the 12 months since I moved into this place, I've had two serious broadband faults; that's actually better than the reliability of my old 6mbit downstream 0.5mbit upstream connection in my old place.

Get outside of the major cities and, even in the US and Western Europe, broadband connections become a lot patchier. Moreover, people who don't fall quite so far towards the nerdy end of the spectrum as I do are more likely to be on cheaper broadband packages with restrictive monthly caps; an always on device which is doing anything more than pinging status back and forward could be a major inconvenience for them.

Oh, and then you get some pretty developed parts of the world, particularly out around the Pacific Rim, where home broadband is still fairly limited (sometimes associated with ultra-high-density housing) and most net activity takes place in internet cafes.

If MS announces an always-on console, you can take that as a declaration that it's not interested in competing in those markets.

If the always-on connection is linked to restrictions on the use of used games, then you can take that as a declaration that it's not interested in competing in ANY markets.

There's a lot to dislike about Sony's record. Seriously - a lot (do I even need to say this on slashdot?). But thanks to unbelievable levels of stupidity from both MS and Nintendo, the PS4 is heading to win the next round of the console wars by default, simply by following a low-key, low-risk approach (PC-like architecture, no always-on, no used-games-restrictions, no expensive tablet controller pushing developers into territory they don't want to bother with).

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[hairyfish]

Are we a drop in the ocean? No.

Um, that should be a yes? MS, Sony, Apple etc are all rich and successful despite how much we moan about their business practices in here. If Slashdot has taught me anything it is that a well thought out and reasoned argument carries zero weight when measuring the likely success of a product in the marketplace.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the new Xbox will require always on connection. Everyone who has any clue has known this for months.

For Microsoft, it is primarily a box to sell subscription services - XBox Live Gold - and act as a platform for things like Netflix. That is where the money is. To be the living room box that does everything.

While going for this goal, everyone at MS who know anything about games and what gamers want have already left. It started with the whole Kinect thing. Since then, Microsoft themselves have shipped ZERO Xbox 360 titles that were not either...

- Sequels to existing huge franchises (their lip service for "core gamers", ie. they keep funding production of games series proven to sell. Halo, Forza etc.)
- Kinect junk

For the new Xbox I fully expect their presentation to be...

- 25% about the hardware and how it is better than PS4 (spoiler; it won't be)
- 25% about how kinect is the best thing since sliced bread and showing of new titles that leverage the improved sensor. All of them will be crap.
- 25% about how the new UI seamlessly ties to Windows RT / Windows 8 / Windows phone (never mind that Xbox 720 won't have touch interface - but that doesn't matter, they'll make you use a crappy touch-optimized UI even with a controller)
- 15% about how the new Xbox will happily be your living room box for video
- 10% about some core games, most of which will be multiplatform ports. Oh, there will be new Halo because well, Xbox = Halo.

Every gamer will go either for PS4 or PC.

And for the record, I own Wii, Xbox 360, DS and PC. 360 had some good stuff early but the hardware was obsolete 2-3 years ago and all development of interesting games ceased around that time. I have never owned PS3. I still think PS4 will completely own this round because Sony seems to understand that it is all about games. games. games. If that works, they can then sell all kinds of other stuff, but if the core bit isn't done right, why bother.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[RogueyWon]

Sorry, bad wording on my part. What I meant was "we aren't *even* a drop in the ocean".

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[RogueyWon]

£60/month covers broadband, phone (including all calls except international) and TV package. Not cheap, not extortionate either. If you live in the right area, the UK's actually very good for broadband. The problem is that most of the country doesn't count as "the right area" yet.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[yoshi_mon]

They are mad because they were not able to frame the always on DRM connection in PR terms. It is not a very winnable battle since that bullshit does not fool many people but that is the goal.

Look at the PR statement from EA's CEO (I think it was the CEO, some high level EA exec.) in response to EA being named worst company again. They spouted the same PR line that their always on connection requirement for Simcity is not a form of DRM, period!

Caught in so many lies and screw ups about that whole game they were limited to just brazen lies for their damage control moves. We are just gonna say it is not DRM and that is final!

The game of PR/Risk Management is very much a game of playing with people's psyche. If MS was allowed to have their PR team get in the 1st shot about how GREAT their always on connection would be then that would be the framework that the discussion would start at. Does not matter if there much truth to that, it still would be the starting point of the conversation. Instead now they will have to play from behind...to a degree.

They still, when they begin their marketing for the new console, talk about how GREAT the always on connection will be and try to frame the discussion that way. And with some shills from the "press", fanboys, and noobs they will fool some of the people. We will see how well it goes for them.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[instagib]

Very well said. And in addition to all this, people living outside of the cities are the worst polluters due to the large distances they drive with their own cars (incl. into and out of the city for work/shopping/entertainment/etc.), plus the transport of goods.

To those worrying about farmers: forget it, they're subsidized heavily already.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[RogueyWon]

Christ almighty. You really are utterly fucking thick.

You must have missed the part where I said I lived in London and had a perfectly good net connection myself.

Judging by the stats you quote, I'm guessing you also missed the part where I said that I was primarily talking about parts of the world other than the US and Western Europe.

But don't let that get in the way of a good angry rant.

Re:The summary doesn't mention

[Opportunist]

So it's not a form of DRM, whatever. Repainting the turd doesn't make it smell any nicer, and renaming it certainly won't do the trick either. I don't care what EA wants to call it, I am not in the name calling business, I let PR find some lovely sounding name. Let's call the turd manure and promote its ability to increase harvest. But being no farmer, for me it's just waste that stinks.

That's what you have to keep in mind if you point out the various "benefits" your great innovation has. Sim City has an "always on" connection requirement. The claim is that this is necessary for multiplayer. I can see that. But I don't give a shit about multiplayer in Sim City, so that "benefit" EA points out to me is none to me. What remains for me is that I'd have to have a stable internet connection to play that game, a game that I would only want to play as a single player game. And there simply is no good reason for this requirement.

Now, if you say that it is a "multiplayer only" game, I can see that. But then you should also MARKET it as such. Of course they won't, since then people like me who don't want to play something like Sim City as multiplayer will not buy it.

I have an X360. I think as far as I can judge it was never connected to the internet. Multiplayer on a console is not my kind of game.

So, if the X720 discussion will be around the great online connectivity it will have, my response will probably be "Don't care. What else you got?" If nothing else comes along and they keep touting the online capabilities without giving me a good reason why else I should get one, I guess I'll abstain.

Ah yes, the "the customer centric approach"

[robbak]

That explains why we are all being pushed onto a schizophrenic mess that nobody wants called Windows 8.

Re:Ah yes, the "the customer centric approach"

[Opportunist]

Old joke: Why does MS put the customer at the center of their efforts?

So they can fleece him from every possible direction.

Re:Ah yes, the "the customer centric approach"

[Opportunist]

Every MS OS is faster than its predecessor, at least it seems to be. Given time, every MS OS slows down to molasses speed. I have no idea where it comes from, is it the patches... because even after reinstalling it just doesn't get to the same benchmark it has gotten to when it was installed the first time.

I should probably do a check, install a clean Win7 and see how much faster it is without the latest service pack.

Re:Ah yes, the "the customer centric approach"

[Zontar The Mindless]

I wouldn't say I love Windows 8, but after running it at home and work I'd say overall it's not worse than Windows 7.

This could be construed by some as "damning with faint praise".

Re:Ah yes, the "the customer centric approach"

[silviuc]

So where exactly are those heaven vs. earth diffs? Booting up and shutting down? Have computers turned into LEDs that blink all the time?

The only significant tests made by those people are the gaming ones where the diffs in FPS are in the margin of error (3 or 5 frames/sec) and some others that do real life workloads and where W8 and W7 perfrom basically the same.

The so called benchmarking suites like PCMark, 3dMak and mark don't represent any real work that computers do. Sorry.

Re:Ah yes, the "the customer centric approach"

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically no net reason at all to upgrade. That's pretty much my evaluation as well.

What a winner, given the huge sums of money Microsoft poured into its development and into advertising to convince people it was the next great thing. All Microsoft had to do to make it better, in my view, would be to offer an easy, official OPTION of running in a "classic" mode without Metro (yes, I know there are third-party tools to do that). They didn't. Obviously they didn't care much about their customers, because Microsoft was more interested in indoctrinating them with the new tablet-style interface than giving them choices.

Anyway, under the circumstances, equal to Win 7 == fail.

customer centric approach

[Nyder]

lol, that made me laugh. Customer Centric Approach. I think that means they didn't actually plan on telling anyone, you'd have to find it out for yourself when you buy the systems and the games. I'm sure on the back of the game box, in small letters, will say, "Requires an Always On Internet Connection".

Slow News Day

[Anonymous Coward]

People at large corporates not realising their personal views carry the weight of the company they work for, we know it's not official but social media embraces the teenage minded journo who'd lose their job for reporting the same crap, which in turns creates enough hype that the real journo's end up needing to report on it, making it news about something that isn't news, and an apology made when not needed.

I love the internet.

Re:Slow News Day

[Opportunist]

In this special case the personal view of him does carry over into the company. He's not some no-name programmer who can do little but execute what is decided further up. He's one of those making the decisions.

Indy Games

[the eric conspiracy]

Coming soon to a console/computer near me.

Re:Indy Games

[darkshot117]

But if it was made by Lucasarts it wouldn't be indie... oh I see what you did there...

Corp. Comm.

[ebonum]

So the Microsoft Studios Creative Director's views have no impact on what he does at work? He has nothing to do with Microsoft. Wow. Then why is he a director? These Microsoft Corp. Comm. people are more disconnected from reality than I expected.

By the way, the new Windows 360 Office for 2013 ( or whatever it is called ) is moving towards always on cloud connectivity. And directors at Microsoft are actually idiots who have no impact on product direction. Give me a break. First, fire the Creative Director for speaking the truth. Next fire the Microsoft Corp. Comm. for regurgitating canned responses that makes the company look dumb.

Re:Corp. Comm.

[humblepie]

So the Microsoft Studios Creative Director's views have no impact on what he does at work? He has nothing to do with Microsoft. Wow. Then why is he a director? These Microsoft Corp. Comm. people are more disconnected from reality than I expected.

By the way, the new Windows 360 Office for 2013 ( or whatever it is called ) is moving towards always on cloud connectivity. And directors at Microsoft are actually idiots who have no impact on product direction. Give me a break. First, fire the Creative Director for speaking the truth. Next fire the Microsoft Corp. Comm. for regurgitating canned responses that makes the company look dumb.

Of course, the previous observation is only stating the obvious, which needs repeating. Microsoft, has always been managed by arrogance, and continues. They'll do whatever they want, and customers will have nothing to say about it, unless they vote with their dollars, in droves. Lest you think I'm a Sony troll, I say much the same about them -- I have a bricked Playstation III, which will stay bricked.

Re:Corp. Comm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Home of TuxRacer and other fabulous games.

Re:Corp. Comm.

[psnyder]

These Microsoft Corp. Comm. people are more disconnected from reality than I expected.

No, I think they know what's going on, even though the things they say are carefully crafted attempts at making us think the opposite. When I was a kid, we called that "lying".

Re:Corp. Comm.

[tlhIngan]

So the Microsoft Studios Creative Director's views have no impact on what he does at work? He has nothing to do with Microsoft. Wow. Then why is he a director? These Microsoft Corp. Comm. people are more disconnected from reality than I expected.

By the way, the new Windows 360 Office for 2013 ( or whatever it is called ) is moving towards always on cloud connectivity. And directors at Microsoft are actually idiots who have no impact on product direction. Give me a break. First, fire the Creative Director for speaking the truth. Next fire the Microsoft Corp. Comm. for regurgitating canned responses that makes the company look dumb.

Or perhaps he was speaking what HE wants to see. Microsoft Studios is Microsoft's first party games publisher - so he's speaking what he'd like to see in the Xbox. Which will probably be similar to what other people at EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc. wants.

They want always-on DRM. They don't see the bigger picture. They run independent of Entertainment and Devices (who go under the Microsoft label). They don't speak for anyone's interest except their own as a game publisher.

Larry Hyrb ("Major Nelson") works for the Xbox division, so he knows what is probably in the next Xbox. And he also knows that division is having to balance a ton of competing interests - some publishers (like Microsoft Studios) will want always-on DRM. Some will want one-time codes. Others want an easy way to be indie. And then there's the other competing interests - the Online division wants web browsers, Bing, and other services in by default. The Windows group would want Windows Media Center extender.

So yes, the director is speaking frankly. Because he runs that group, which is pretty much isolated from the core Xbox team. Even more so at Microsoft because of the way it's run - Microsoft is a HEAVILY silo'd operation - the people from one team rarely speak with people from another team - and sometimes the lines of communications rise from the engineer through a half-dozen managers (probably a couple of steps below Ballmer), over to the counterpart in the other division, then down a half-dozen managers, to the responsible engineer. I've known people who got in trouble for trying to speak directly to their counterpart.

It's why the various divisions often have their own toolsets - Windows team have their own compilers and maintain their own compilation tools (and may pull now and again from the Visual Studio team but never are allowed to contribute nor ask about stuff like bugs). Likewise, the Xbox team probably have cloned a copy of the compilers as well and have inhouse people maintaining them as well (because the Xbox director would get a serious chewing out if they even asked a question about the compiler code - as far as the development tools team go - they've done Xbox a favor by giving them a code drop).

Fiefdoms, is probably the better word. And the Xbox team probably haven't decided how the DRM is supposed to work.

After all, the tweet was about why he felt always-on DRM was good and didn't see why people would care otherwise. The Xbox team simply said "we can't comment because we've not announced anything". It's likely yes, there will be the option. Or maybe it'll be like the Xbox is now - if you download it, the DRM license is for that console, or if you're signed into Xbox Live (the latter is "always on" as disconnecting will end the game).

At Microsoft, one hand literally does not know what the other hand is doing.

Re:Corp. Comm.

[Opportunist]

Get with the times, it's "public relations" now.

Re:Corp. Comm.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Don't knock LBreakout2 until you've tried it. :P

Sure

[Waveguide04]

Riiight. holding my breath now. News at 11. /sarcasm

Re:Sure

[Zontar The Mindless]

The phrase is "Film at 11", or if you're a Brit, "Pictures at 11".

(Yes, Grasshopper, I do know what I'm talking about, as I worked in the industry for some years.)

Re:Sure

[Waveguide04]

Well, you are correct, but sort of missed the point. 'News at 11' is a backhanded slap at the news outlets in general, being that they think they can create it, rather (especially in the case of Dan) report it.

Re:Sure

[Zontar The Mindless]

I think it sounds a lot like what would be said by someone making up excuses to cover for his ignorance after the fact.

But, yeah, whatever.

Re:Sure

[Waveguide04]

Ok, believe whatever you want. It makes no difference to me.

Because there is no on/off switch?

[NemoinSpace]

average intelligence does not mean what you think it means. The autonomic nervous system is there to ensure stupidity's survival.

always-on DRM

[girlintraining]

... Well, here's a thought: Not everybody has internet. I know this is shocking, but some people actually take their XBox, etc, on road trips, to friends houses, etc. Shocking, I know. So unless something really needs internet, it shouldn't have it because there are perfectly legitimate reasons beyond "zomg, piracy!" to not have internet. Secondly, always-on internet means when your servers crap, or you decide the game isn't popular enough, the people who paid for that game get screwed -- they can't play it anymore.

And for the second reason, I'll never buy a game that needs a DRM server to play. I play an MMO, and I can understand that the server is the game in that case, but unless you can make a compelling case that the game simply can't be played without it, I'm not buying it. Ever. And take a page from EA's playbook, Microsoft: Their stocks just took a big dive because of DRM and now one of your idiot employees is saying your company supports it. Do you want your stock prices to plunge too?

Re:always-on DRM

[symbolset]

So don't buy it. There is nothing wrong with designing a product for a specific subset of the market, like people who have always on connections.

Re:always-on DRM

[Comen]

I actually have a PS3 and XBOX360 and tons of games I almost never finish, but buy them only when I go on vacation and take a console. I always play PC games when at home.

Re:always-on DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't buy it.

Yeah, I won't.

There is nothing wrong with designing a product for a specific subset of the market, like people who have always on connections.

I agree. And there is nothing wrong in me posting a comment on Slashdot, telling people that I think their product is irrelevant DRMd crap (as far as I'm concerned) and I'm not buying it AND explaining exactly the underlying reason for not buying it.

In the immortal words of Adam Orth: #dealwithit

Re:always-on DRM

[symbolset]

I'm not a fan of DRM nor the company. The company had done so many things to get my knickers in a twist 25 years ago and since that I'm in no danger of contributing to their top line ever, and they've not changed a whit since on ethics. Being schooled in the art I know that DRM is a fool's game that makes the biggest fool the buyer, so I'm in no danger of buying DRM'd content either - except for Netflix and Hulu+, who have managed to find a service model I can deal with though I'm not entirely pleased. Certainly designing the system this way limits the scope to people who not only demand online interactive content, but demand only that.

My only issue was with the notion that designing an always-connected game is a bad thing morally, ethically or practically. You can't even play Words With Friends at a reasonable pace unless your friends are reliably online. The potentials for an immersive massively multiplayer socially interactive game between always-on folk is there and it is real, has a market and it will be served. It would be really cool. It has vast potentials. It doesn't need DRM or Microsoft to make it cool. Do I think that is the broad market they want? No. But it is a market so somebody will serve it.

I'm not one to defend Microsoft here as anyone regular here will know. No matter how hard I try I can't find a problem with this particular thing.

And of course you're entitled to your opinion too.

Non-apology

[bmo]

We are very sorry if this offended anyone,

Typical non-apology apology. "I'm sorry you were offended"

Someone needs to listen to the This American Life episode "Mistakes Were Made"

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/354/mistakes-were-made

--
BMO

Re:Non-apology

[JabberWokky]

I absolutely agree with you. But I'm also not really sure what they need to apologize for. An employee stated an opinion on the net.

The opinion might have been stupid, and you might even be able to connect it to prevailing attitudes at Microsoft. That said, I'm not sure what Microsoft actually needs to apologize for, so this whole thing started off on a purely invented media vs. public relations theater footing. Nothing actually apology-worthy was done, so the "apology" being flaccid is unsurprising. At most they could say, "The opinions expressed on private Twitter accounts do not necessarily represent those of Microsoft." Although you kind of have to be fairly naive to think that a private twitter feed spoke for the company. If one employee spouting off in public dictated the official stance, then I can say from experience that Bank of America's corporate policy is that the moon landing was faked, and Burger King officially believes in ghosts.

Re:Non-apology

[rst123]

I absolutely agree with you. But I'm also not really sure what they need to apologize for. An employee stated an opinion on the net.

true, if said employee is a low level grunt, but when that employee is high level management, don't you think that changes things?

Re:Non-apology

[Opportunist]

The difference is maybe that this isn't just anyone making a comment. It's not like some bank teller complaining that he can't understand how people could get loans they can't pay back when everyone knows that management tried their best to convince everyone that everyone should have another mortgage running and that nothing can happen. It's the bank manager talking.

Re:Non-apology

[JabberWokky]

I absolutely agree with you. But I'm also not really sure what they need to apologize for. An employee stated an opinion on the net.

true, if said employee is a low level grunt, but when that employee is high level management, don't you think that changes things?

"director something" is very very very far from "high level management" at a company like Microsoft. Somebody else here posted that "creative director" at Microsoft was one small step up from the art school intern, you get to decide both colors and fonts. That is perhaps exaggerating a bit, but closer to truth than calling it a high level management position.

Right, that's how I'm viewing this. I could certainly have the wrong context here (which would change my view). Opportunist replied to my post saying "if it wasn't a clerk, and instead a bank manager" (paraphrased). No, I still wouldn't care if a branch manager was saying stupid things, even related to finance. There are between five thousand and six thousand bank managers at Bank of America. Some of them are going to say things on their private social media that doesn't jibe with BoA policies. That should not be surprising: that should be assumed. Knowing a bit about the finance industry, I wouldn't care if it was a vice-president: there are a ton of those at every bank as well.

I do think that they needed to put out a notice, "He doesn't speak for Microsoft", but that's only because it was being picked up as if he was doing so. Which is disingenuous of the media (including anybody on social media who should have known better).

Re:Non-apology

[terjeber]

Really? That's what you read from the MS press release? If so I'g go and demand a refund from your primary school since they clearly failed to teach you basic reading skills.

Re:Creative directo?

[ShaunC]

Maybe we should ask Dice.com, surely they know how many Creative Directos are out there.

no apology like firing adam orth

[Dan667]

I understand the xbox is circling the bowl, but if they had any hope to change course firing adam orth would seem a natural choice.

Re:no apology like firing adam orth

[geek]

He'll probably get a raise. Like the Hollywierd people always say, there's no such thing as bad press. Pretty much every shitty company on the planet is making money hand over fist right now.

Re:no apology like firing adam orth

[wisnoskij]

Then instead of this article we would get one condemning MS for firing an employee because of a personal tweet.

Re:no apology like firing adam orth

[Dan667]

nice try microsoft damage control. Now fire orth.

Re:no apology like firing adam orth

[Dan667]

firing an employee who does not really care about their Customers would not be very controversial.

Re: no apology like firing adam orth

[0123456]

On what planet is the Xbox circling the bowl?

Consoles are dying. The people who used to play console games are increasingly playing games on a phone or tablet.

The Xbox is a tremendous success

As far as I'm aware the Xbox has still cost a couple of billion dollars more than it's made. If that's a 'tremendous success', I'd hate to see a failure.

and is an example of Microsoft's ability to gain marketshare in a difficult environment.

Buying your way into a market isn't hard if you can throw enough money at it. Shame it's not a market that actually matters any more.

Re: no apology like firing adam orth

[0123456]

You get your information from like minded idiots who reinforce your view.

There's a psychological term called 'projection'. You might want to look it up sometime.

The Xbox has finally been making an operating profit after years of losses, but unless I'm much mistaken, it's still billions away from making a real, actual, profit over the life of the product. And now they have to blow a lot more money making a new console, while casual gamers are moving to tablet and phone games.

Re: no apology like firing adam orth

[Zontar The Mindless]

And you've given yourself away as a shill.

0123456: 1
AC: 0

Re: no apology like firing adam orth

[Zontar The Mindless]

No, but one is very likely to be a shill whose ulterior motives are readily apparent when they are reduced to swipes at 'your kind' in lieu of fact or logic.

That's incredibly obvious AND lame. Better luck next time.

Re: no apology like firing adam orth

[Culture20]

That's true for Wii, but not for other consoles.

Re: no apology like firing adam orth

[TWiTfan]

Consoles are dying.

No, *Current gen* consoles are dying--because they're showing their age and because this console generation lasted way longer than it should have. I suspect when the next gen comes along, we'll see a resurgence, followed by the inevitable predictions that PC gaming is dieing again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Microsoft isnt as stupid as Electronic Arts

[voss]

Admittedly that is a low threshold to cross.

Definition of customer centric

[wbr1]

From the Microsoft dictionary, 3rd ed.

Customer Centric adj. Pertaining to any system in which the customer is trapped in the center and cannot easily remove himself. Originally this was accomplished through vendor lock-in and market share, due to changing market conditions it is now largely realized using various IP protection methods, including lawsuits against wayward users, DRM platforms, and DMCA crackdowns. If the newest legislation passes congress this month, we may should be able to add to our customer cenrtic portfolio by having over-zealous prosecutors press criminal charges on customers who stray beyond the bounds of the impenetrable EULA or any TOS we care to write. Currently customers are also kept centralized by the fact that there is no possible legal recourse to any malfeasance or negligence on our part due to the fact that all our customer-facing contracts specify that all disputes must be settled by arbitration, using arbitrators of our choosing.

See also: Coopetition, survival strategy.

Re:Definition of customer centric

[sjwt]

From the Linux dictionary, 2864rd ed.

Customer Centric adj. The point where most newbies end up being surrounded by Linux fanboys and yelled at for anything and everything untill they go back to where they came from.

err...

[redneckmother]

"...or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers..."

I know that others snapped to this, but it bears emphasis - M$ regards their "customers" as "consumers". That says a lot about their motives and attitudes.

Re:Archer?

[crafty.munchkin]

I read those tweets and felt the sheer contempt burning through the internet, as did many other people.

If the always-on thing is required for the Xbox720, effectively Microsoft are saying "we don't care if you can't use your product you purchased from us because of a hundred possible reasons". Moving house can mean a month of downtime to get internet connectivity back up, nope, can't play games during that month. Recently an Australian telephone exchange burned down in Warrnambool - the entire area had no internet connectivity for a few weeks - yep, no gaming during that time either. A tree took out my phone line and Telstra took 2 weeks to get it repaired - yep, no gaming during that time. These are just the examples I can quickly think of.

We currently own 67 Xbox 360 games in this house, and have two of the consoles (one for my wife and I and one for our kids). If having the internet permanently connected for the purposes of DRM is a requirement of the Xbox 720, I guarantee we will purchase exactly zero consoles and games for that generation.

our bad

[jameshofo]

Dear payment drones, we apologize. Ok we're good put in the DRM.

Re:Archer?

[ohnocitizen]

No idea why your comment is modded down. I read the tweets in the voice of Coach McGuirk.

Re:Archer?

[jellyfoo]

Obviously someone cares, otherwise Valve wouldn't be throwing resources at an apparently dead market. Oh, and I care. That's at least one person.

As for the Dell-Alienwar announcement, ArsTechnica covered it. They're ultimately a far better tech site than Slashdot is, but I think Slashdot has a better selection of commenters.

An apology is not sufficient.

[QuietLagoon]

Microsoft needs to prove to its customers that those comments were in jest. Unfortunately for Microsoft, in order to prove something like that, Microsoft requires credibility.

.
Such a conundrum for Redmond.....

Re:Archer?

[twistedsymphony]

I'm a game collector myself, I've bought 3 Xbox 360 consoles and over 150 games on that platform this generation. I will also buy exactly ZERO if the always on DRM is implemented.

For me the biggest problem is the the fact that the games have a finite time after which they will not work. The servers will not be available forever and if I'm spending money on game I want to know that I'll still be able to play them 10 years, 20 years or even further in the future. I have games that I bought in the late 80s and early 90s that I still play, it stands to reason that if I buy games next generation I will want to play them again in the distant future, but that's not going to happen if "Always on" becomes a reality. Given a long enough time frame my having an internet connection is more guaranteed than MS supporting their server for the remainder of my lifespan.

This doesn't even take into consideration people like my friends who serve in the military, and play games in their down time despite not having access to broadband while deployed, or those friends who lost their jobs due to the economy and had to cancel their internet and TV service but kept their gaming consoles as a meager source of entertainment in an otherwise shitty period in their life.

Microsoft earned the lions share of my gaming budget the last two generations and if I were to receive similar gaming experiences in the next generation I have no problem continuing to spend money that way, but if they required an internet connection I will not be giving them any money what-so-ever. I have no interest in purchasing games with an expiration date.

Re:Archer?

[GaratNW]

I saw the reactions to his posts, and felt the overwhelming overreaction and hypocrisy to his comments. Now, before slashdot votes this to -20, stop and think for a second. While he actually is correct, sadly that is the way things are moving, I think not being able to play games if your connection is down is stupid and bad to a insane degree. But stop and think about how the whole game playing internet reacted to him. They basically tried to destroy a persons career - someone who has no involvement in the not actually officially announced product - over a stated opinion with a friend.

The reaction to his posts, however, are skin to the Christian conservatives reactions to Cesar Chavez on Google. The people fucking bitching the loudest.. NEVER FUCKING LOG OFF. It doesn't make their core point wrong, but assigning "burning contempt" to a guy fucking around with his friend in twitter is hubris, hyperbole, and hyprocrisy that only normally comes from people with an extreme politcal agenda.

Seriously. People need to fucking GROW UP. IF, and I state again, IF, Microsoft is stupid enough to require an always on connection, guess what? Flame the hell out of them. Frankly, they'll deserve it. But the shit I saw made up about a guy on Reddit and random other sites.. because a bunch of self righteous, outrage point seeking entitled assholes wanted to burn down someone that.. they FUCKING DISAGREED WITH. Makes me goddamn sick.

Re:Archer?

[crafty.munchkin]

Awesome to hear Dell and Alienware getting behind linux gaming... I love my dell u2311h monitor, but there's no way in hell I'd buy an alienware system, I'll just build my own. As for Slashdot not covering it... well they have lagged behind getting tech news out for quite a while now.

Best blurb of the week

[proca]

Any article posting containing references to Archer gives it legendary status in my book

Re:Archer?

[Anonymous Coward]

(3) Slashdot's advertising money comes from Microsoft, Apple, Facebook et al, and they see the Linux aricles purely as an opportunity to smear competition.

It's not like there's ever much positive said here about FOSS. It's all just sly astroturfing and FUD.

Support 24/7 tax & SEC auditing for MS & o

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're not doing anything wrong, then why would they object?

Re:Archer?

[Zontar The Mindless]

I wasn't aware that Slashdot had an obligation to proselytise for Linux or anything else.

Welcome to Slashdot. We're here because we're here, and because we want to be here.

If you are not here, you are not reading this.

If you are here, and you would prefer to be somewhere else, you are welcome to go there.

It's all good, mate.

Somewhat stupid question...

[jamstar7]

If a Creative Director, a corporate officer of a subsidary isn't considered to be a spokesmutant for said subsidary, who the fuck is?????

Re:Archer?

[Penguinisto]

If you are not here, you are not reading this.

Wait - we need to rename the site Schrödingerdot. Who do I yell at to get this done?

Re:Archer?

[Penguinisto]

I agree about the need for folks to do a head-check before reacting to something said off-the-cuff, but there's one sticking point... ...why did he use Twitter to verbally horse around with a buddy on such a touchy-assed subject? I mean, there are many, many less public means of doing that.

I play Devil's Advocate on a lot of subjects. I work with fellow sysadmins and developers, and I often say some incredibly crazy/provocative things (err, even at work) - usually to force someone into thinking through a blockage. But, what I don't do is use a publicly-viewable means to do any of that.

One other bit I should mention; it's not that the loudest gripers are bitching about the always-on aspect per se, but the unstated-yet obvious reason it torques them is that they want to retain control over the stuff they paid for. The always-on requirement implies that they won't have that control. When I was younger (I know...) I'd play Quake (1, 2 and 3, usually a CTF mod) at all hours, and between that plus goofing off on USENET, I practically never logged off.

I don't game anymore (well, almost never), but the very thought of keeping a connection open just to get permission to use a product I paid for? Hell, my skin crawls at the thought.

Little wonder the more passionate gamers are up in arms at the idea.

Just food for thought.

Re:Archer?

[Anonymous Coward]

But stop and think about how the whole game playing internet reacted to him. They basically tried to destroy a persons career - someone who has no involvement in the not actually officially announced product - over a stated opinion with a friend.

That guy is the fucking Creative Director of Microsoft, if he has no involvement with the direction the XBox at all, he is not doing his fucking job and he deserved to be fucking fired.

What he said publicly (yes, those tweets are public, even though he might have intended otherwise) does reflect on his company. This may be news to kids living the basement, but many companies have code of conducts for employees that have explicit clause for disciplinary action or even termination for employees behaving badly in public and damaging the company's image.

Re:Archer?

[Anonymous Coward]

We've got two xbox 360's at home and 2 crates of games. My son plays his xbox in his room sometimes but it has no xbox live account or internet connection. With always-on DRM he wouldn't be able to play games on his system. I think always on DRM will alienate paying customers.

Stop the pirates

[Dorianny]

As usual DRM has little to do with stopping piracy and everything to do with controlling what people can do with their legally purchased products. In this case stopping them from being able to resell their used games that through DRM will now be tied to their console.

Re:Microsoft and /. sitting in a tree...

[Zontar The Mindless]

New logo proposal: THE ALL SEEING EYE.

Yeah, too bad for them that they bought the wrong TV network...

Re:Archer?

[ShakaUVM]

>Recently an Australian telephone exchange burned down in Warrnambool

Move.

-Xbox Creative Director

Re:Archer?

[thegarbz]

For me the biggest problem is the the fact that the games have a finite time after which they will not work.

Here Here! Only a few days ago we pulled out our PS2 to play Burnout during a party. That didn't even had retro appeal, but the game was simply damn fun. I was just prompted by your post to look it up. It's more than 12 years old now!

Any DRM scheme which requires some activation from a server whether it be always-on or just a check at first install is an instant no-no for me.

Re:Archer?

[mlookaba]

"I have no interest in purchasing games with an expiration date."

Although in reality you always have. Any game constructed for a specific platform has a limited lifespan. And that's all games.

With the brilliant advances in emulation recently, I find it hard to believe that an always on server couldn't be emulated just as easily as the hardware of an 80s arcade machine. Just saying.

Re:Archer?

[oldhack]

Fuck you, dumbass. You're a player in a high profile outfit like MS, especially in a noisy arena of computer games, and you shoot your mouth off in public with tweeter and god-knows-what-else, you deserve to get fired. Twice.

Loyal "consumers"

[X.25]

The most important thing I've noticed, in this whole charade, is this:

"loyal consumers"

You are not citizens anymore. Or customers.

You are consumers, please get used to it.

Re:Archer?

[Jappus]

"I have no interest in purchasing games with an expiration date."

Although in reality you always have. Any game constructed for a specific platform has a limited lifespan. And that's all games.

With the brilliant advances in emulation recently, I find it hard to believe that an always on server couldn't be emulated just as easily as the hardware of an 80s arcade machine. Just saying.

I get the feeling that you seem to be engaging in a from of double-think.

Just so I get it right: You say that all games have an expiration date, as the hardware/software they run on will not be available permanently. You equate that to the identical impermanence of the remote servers in always-on games. Then you say that the latter can be emulated quite easily, just like the old hardware is.

But does that not mean that your first point is totally moot? Because as long as you have reliable emulation, offline games do not have an expiration date; especially if the emulators are Open-Source and thus easily (depending in the code) convertible between platforms.

I for one strictly believe that one of the very first software tools that is going to be written for the first off-the-shelf quantum computer will be an SNES emulator.

Always-on-games are a different beast though. Because instead of writing an emulator for a whole platform, thus covering almost all titles for it at the same time; you need to write a completely new emulator for every single always-on game, since they're all fundamentally different.

Re:Archer?

[VortexCortex]

The always-on requirement implies that they won't have that control. When I was younger (I know...) I'd play Quake (1, 2 and 3, usually a CTF mod) at all hours, and between that plus goofing off on USENET, I practically never logged off.

I don't game anymore (well, almost never), but the very thought of keeping a connection open just to get permission to use a product I paid for? Hell, my skin crawls at the thought.

Little wonder the more passionate gamers are up in arms at the idea.

Just food for thought.

Well, it doesn't look much better on the PC front, at least if you go with Valve's Steam Shenanigans.

I mean, imagine if you said something in the heat of battle that got you kicked from the Quake server, and could never play it again...

Re:Archer?

[DKlineburg]

But if you are not here, are you in a box. And if your in a box, and I can't see your, are you alive?

Re:Archer?

[Paradigma11]

I agree about the need for folks to do a head-check before reacting to something said off-the-cuff, but there's one sticking point... ...why did he use Twitter to verbally horse around with a buddy on such a touchy-assed subject? I mean, there are many, many less public means of doing that.

...

Because people fuck up sometimes?

Re:Archer?

[turp182]

Maybe he shouldn't have posted it for all the world to see, available to the public.

When I state my opinions to my friends, I don't use a public forum.

The console will not have an always on connection requirement. Oh wait, I said that in public... (my broken DVD drive first gen Xbox360 requires a constant connection, because it's only good for Neflix and Amazon streaming services)

If you post for everyone to see, everyone is entitled to respond with their opinion. If one creates a shitstorm that may impact one's employer, your job could/should be on the line. The company had to make a public response over a private opinion.

If the views are personal, why is MS apologising?

[wonkey_monkey]

We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers.

Then why are you apologising for him?

Re:Archer?

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI It's "Hear Hear" not "here here". You're asking the audience to take note, you are not befriending a cat.

What will happen..

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll release the machine without the requirement, first gen games, fine.. then a year down the line, once they have an established userbase push out an update that flips it. All games, always on, new games require an updated machine.

At this point, without assurances that NO game will EVER have an always-on to play single player modes I won't be buying the system, too many rumours flying around and as they say, no smoke without fire.

After Sony's PS3 debacle and promises that linux support would never be removed I'm not even sure I'd trust a promise either mind you, about time consumers were granted some iron cast assurances like MS / Sony seem to want with all the ridiculous ToS

Re: Archer?

[Aenoxi]

I see what you did there.

Wish I had mod points :)

Not enough

[GameboyRMH]

Fire the bastard, he's made his views clear. If Microsoft's apology is genuine then they can't continue to have that guy working in that position.

Re:Archer?

[AvitarX]

Presumably if the DRM is written into the console, it will be handled by ms, and there'd be only one always pn scheme to crack.

MS doesn't get it #dealwithit

[devforhire]

I'm sorry, but I don't get the drama around Microsoft not getting it. Microsoft has been nothing but fail recently. It's the world we live in. #dealwithit

Windows phone
Surface Tablets
Always on DRM
Charging $$$ to watch your paid for Netflix account on XBox
Windows 8

I wonder what they will add this year to the fail list

Thoughtcrimes and MSdemeanors

[xigxag]

That should be upvoted. A company like MS might have dozens or hundreds of "creative directors." It doesn't mean you're in charge of the creative direction the entire outfit will take. Somebody much higher up on the food chain would certainly be making all the important decisions.

Also, even if this guy were a bigwig voicing his personal opinion, so what? Yes, we know that practically speaking, he should realize his words, for better or worse, represent his organization. But do we really want to support the "corporate overlord" regime? Is that the way things ought to be? I for one would prefer to live in a world where I am not beholden to my employer while off the clock. I would hope that people are free to express themselves and their own personal points of view to the greatest extent possible. So, I'm not going to play a role in enforcing the unfortunate status quo -- in legitimizing it with this nonsense about "he should get fired." Does Orth deserve to get blasted? Yes, but not because he's speaking out of turn as a corporate slave. The fact is, he has a stupid, poorly thought out, dangerously cavalier personal opinion, which he placed on a public forum, and he should get called out for it, regardless of his title.

Re:Archer?

[justin12345]

Actually all the ad money comes from Google. Turn off adblock, hover over an ad, right click, hit "inspect element".

MS, Apple, etc might pay Google for advertising, but I don't think I've ever seen an Apple or MS banner ad on Google (probably because as a general rule businesses don't pay for their rival's services if the don't have to).

Sterling Archer quote is gold.

[Cha0sDreamer]

While re-reading the tweets with Sterling Archer in my head doing the voice, I almost peed a little. Gold. Thanks for a making the horrific thought that I need to be connected to everything all the f'n time a little lighter. I would like my gaming to have the same connectivity as a good book. If I want to be connected to everyone else, I'll connect. F social everything. F always connected. I'll choose when I want to be a part of your data set thankyou.

Suddenly OUYA is starting to look pretty good...

[bornagainpenguin]

You all remember OUYA, don't you? The 'Android console' destined to be a failure because Microsoft and SONY were going to crush them completely...remember?
Only now SONY and Microsoft have begun having a contest to see which one of them can completely tank their console sales the best and Microsoft just took a major lead in the competition... Not that I can really blame SONY as they're still smarting over how badly they got spanked when they removed OtherOS from the PS3.
Meanwhile with this latest salvo, Microsoft announcing a requirement for always on internet connectivity just to play the game, it looks like those triple A titles the fanboys were moaning about not being available on OUYA is a good thing. Instead of Planned Obsolesce games, the OUYA will offer games that will work darn near forever--and emulators will be available so you can still play all those old games you fell in love with gaming for in the first place!
Makes a nice HTPC with XBMC too I hear....what's not to love?

Gamepads on phones

[tepples]

Consoles are dying. The people who used to play console games are increasingly playing games on a phone or tablet.

How so? A lot of genres popular on consoles don't translate well to touch control, and though Bluetooth gamepads exist, I haven't read any evidence that many people have bought them. How would one make something like, say, Street Fighter or Smash Bros. for a phone or tablet? For a game like that, an on-screen gamepad would be a joke.

Re:Archer?

[Jarik C-Bol]

why did he use Twitter to verbally horse around with a buddy on such a touchy-assed subject? I mean, there are many, many less public means of doing that.

Because the whole thing was a microsoft ploy to see how bad the fallout will be when they ACTUALLY announce always on network requirements?

Re:Archer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Value only needs online authentication for when you install a title, they allow you to operated in an off-line mode for single player games.

Re:Archer?

[Jappus]

Or the existing emulators could use a plugin system for always-on titles where you need to supply the emulator with the relevant plugin to emulate the online server.

You seem to be missing the point here. It's not that you can't emulate the remote servers (you can, as pirates have proven for certain very popular games).
It's that you have to do it at all.

The SNES has between 700 and 1500 games (depending on what region you're in). The number of programs you need to emulate almost all of them: 1

In contrast, if every single one of those was an always-on game, you would need -- as you put it -- no less than 700-1500 plugins. How many people do you think will actually sit down and write all those? After all, some games might just need to send and receive a short decryption key. Others might need to load game assets from it. They're simply all too different.

Re:Suddenly OUYA is starting to look pretty good..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly OUYA does not ship with any meaningful hardware in it. Already-obsolete Tegra 3 that has OpenGL ES 2.0 level hardware (ie. DX9 in PC terms) paired with far too little RAM and Android OS...

It competes with cell phones and tablets in performance. And crappy ones at that. I'm sure it'll run Angry Birds but people will be up for a disappointment when they notice that ten year old real consoles trounce it in performance and there are already a veritable army of tablets and phones(!) that do graphics a lot better.

A nice toy, priced somewhat fairly considering the performance, incapable of running any real games.

Re:Archer?

[HiThere]

The problem is selection. I'd buy steam if Civilization III or IV was available for Linux. (I'm a *bit* less picky about DRM on games than on other applications....though I still don't like it. But Steam has over the years built up a decent reputation. I'm still willing to pay a LOT less for something that requires internet accessibility...like almost nothing. Registration is different. That's reasonable, I guess.)

OTOH, what I really want is CDs of games that I can play on virtual machines with NO internet connection. The things I been hearing recently make me nearly totally unwilling to trust the gaming companies. If a constant internet connection is required, or even a periodic one, as opposed to registration, then that item has a negative value.

Re:Archer?

[HiThere]

FWIW, I have a WIN95 game that I occasionally run under Wine, so while you are technically correct (the CD won't last forever), you aren't correct in your implication.

Re:Archer?

[HiThere]

That's my suspicion. It may be a bit paranoid, but given some of the recent activity by gaming houses I don't think so.

It seems plausible that even when games that I desire become available on Linux, they will come with strings that I am not willing to accept.

I don't *want* a multiplayer game. And I don't want to need an internet connection. Registration is acceptable, barely. A requirement for continued internet access is NOT. Too many games contain too much spyware.

Re:Archer?

[HiThere]

Do you *want* someone who so despises the end-users to have a management career in software?

He expressed the desire to injure an extremely large number of people, and when he was called on it he expressed not remorse. It's true that this is an attempt to injure him more severely, but the attempt is spread over a vastly smaller number of people.

Someone who intentionally injures a large number of people to a small amount deserves a punishment equal to the sum of the injuries done, plus a bit added, because it was intentional. If he would have injured 100,000 people an injury of, say $10 (we're talking about a purchased product, so dollars seems a reasonable measure), then he deserved a punishmen of, say, $1,500,000. I realize that this won't happen, and there is no judicial system means to cause it to happen, but he has no grounds for complaint unless he is injured unreasonably in return. Having his career damaged not only seems reasonable, it may get him out of management in software development, where he clearly doesn't belong.

Now this is a bit more difficult, because he hasn't yet done the $10 worth of damage to 100,000 people. He has just clearly indicated that he would intentionally do so if he had the chance. That, however, is sufficient to show that he should be OUT of any management position in software development. Maybe he would be a good manager in accounting.

No 720 for me

[BeadyEl]

Yeah, I think I'm gonna check out the PS4. Didn't they already say they wouldn't require constant connectivity ?

Re:Archer?

[TWiTfan]

I hear the voice of the video store clerk from Family Guy. To each his own, I guess.