Even in Elizabethan England some areas of the country had a hard R, others didn't. The same remains true to this day, if you think the UK has no rhotic accents then you've obviously never heard someone from the South West, Ireland, or Scotland speak.
If you've only ever listened to BBC presenters or the Queen speak then you can be forgiven for thinking there are no English accents in the UK that don't pronounce there Rs but that's not representative of even close to the whole population, and that's exactly my point.
If you want an explanation then I'd offer the fact that places like Bristol harbour, a city which very much has a rhotic accent was one of (if not the) most important harbour for departure to the new world from England (It's at the Western side of the country and was the second biggest harbour after London which is in the South East at the time) and so it's not that American English is born of some generic old English accent (which doesn't exist, there was no singular generic old English accent across the country) but that it was born of the large amount of migrants that departed from the region that is associated with Britain's south western accent that was rhotic in nature and still is to this day.
"As to US English sounding more original, I've seen a lot of debate on this. Some say particular UK accents are closer to Old English and the US is closer to Modern English (16th century), whereas others claim the idea is simply part of American mythology."
The whole argument doesn't make sense, the view is that American English never really evolved much but British English changed a lot, yet the problem with such theories is they don't explain why American English is magically the one that didn't change. What about Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African English and so on? They diverged in their own ways.
But there's another more fundamental reason why it's stupid, there is no such thing as "British English" by way of the spoken word and there never has been, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, but even in England itself, Liverpudlian, Bristolian, Geordie, Cockney accents are all as different from each other as most American accents are from Queen's English and it's not just accents but local words and terms too. A bread roll in Bristol is a bun in Yorkshire, but a bun in Bristol is normally something sweeter and glazed.
Ultimately the idea that American English is some pure form of English with the closest historic ties is just stupid, America is a country born of mass immigration and if anyone seriously believes that the earlier English accents were retained in the face of mass immigration from countries like Germany and Ireland then they're having a laugh. It's not like British English immigrants were anything other than a minority of the population in the face of many other immigrants all with different accents and languages ultimately distorting the English that was originally taken across.
This also explains why Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and so forth didn't retain the same supposed classic English accent either, because accents were all ultimately immigration driven - South Africa's English accent being influenced by the dutch for example.
But ultimately the country least effected by immigration forces on accent is still going to be England, yet even there it depends where. London has seen far more immigration over the centuries and seen it's accents change as such as a result than somewhere like Cornwall, or Scotland where classic accents are retained much more closely.
So yes if you compare some American accents from areas of America that retained the heaviest balance of early English immigrants against somewhere like London that's been hammered by immigration from every area of the globe you may indeed find that their accent is closer. But if you compare even those places to somewhere like Scotland or Cornwall then you'll be a lot further off any old English accents than Scotland/Cornwall are off their old British accents.
So long story short, what you're saying is that as long as there are tiny irrelevant little technicalities, in your world Apple is a completely innocent little puppy?
Get a grip. It doesn't take a genius to realise you're just a fanboy.
I had heard of it but hadn't tried doing anything with it. Does Monogame switch to OpenGL for rendering on other platforms? I did quite like the XNA APIs they were quite pleasing to use (especially compared to plain old DirectX and OpenGL!) providing you weren't doing something that encroached upon it's limitations.
Maybe I'll give it a go but I'm tending more towards OpenGL now given that with an OpenGL engine you can target Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, PS3, PS4, Android, iOS. The XBox 360 being the only platform it doesn't target, and the XBox One not supporting it kind of leaves the question as to why bother with Direct3D now.
"Or, everyone is going to conclude that this console is exceedingly anti-consumer, and not worth buying.
But as I say it was the exact same thing with Bluray and with the iPod, and the iPhone. Yet still customers bought them in droves.
I agree with you on everything else you said, but I'm not confident that being anti-consumer necessarily means product failure. There are a number of devices in the past that have won out despite being the most anti-consumer choice, which is rather sad.
No, it didn't. There seems to be some confusion in this thread. The patch publishing fee was for XBox Live Arcade or retail games.
I think the reason Microsoft has ditched indie games is that they turned it into a failure themselves.
All the really really good indie games got given full Live Arcade publishing rights by Microsoft. XNA ran on a version of the.NET CLR but Microsoft ended up creating an implementation of it that worked for Live Arcade games and a simple API that extended XNA to allow for achievements and so forth so that indie games could be ported to Live Arcade extremely trivially.
The net result was that the only thing that ended up in indie games was complete and utter shit and as such it wont have made Microsoft even close to the amount of money required to maintain it and to maintain XNA too, hence what is I suspect the whole reason XNA has been EOL'd for a while and indie games is going too on the new XBox. It wasn't helped by the fact that in one of the dashboard updates Microsoft hid indie games so far out the way in the menus few people found it.
But what's stupid is that Microsoft seem to have forgotten that even though it wasn't profitable in itself it was still the catalyst for the creation of all those games that got turned into fully fledged Live Arcade titles.
I suspect someone from finance has looked at the balance sheet and seen that indie games/XNA wasn't profitable in itself without having even the slightest understanding of how important it was for driving XBox Live Arcade revenues. Had those Live Arcade revenues from games ported from Indie games to Live Arcade been attributed to Indie rather than Live Arcade I'd wager it was profitable, just not on paper.
To be fair on Microsoft I think they really do have a much better line up of games than Sony, but I suspect they've achieved this precisely by offering to block second hand sales and push strict DRM.
I think Microsoft's card this time is that they'll fuck the users rights, but get better publisher support and hence better exclusives and hence hope to lure users over that way.
The worrying thing is that this may well work, because this worked for Sony with Bluray - Bluray was the more restrictive format and less consumer friendly format without a doubt, it too required users to update their players over the internet or using discs to be able to view content and so forth but it slaughtered HD-DVD, why? Because all the publishers backed the format that gave them DRM and HD-DVD was dead as soon as all the content went to Bluray.
It's no surprise that Microsoft is touting exclusives like Dead Rising 3 and put quite an emphasis on Metal Gear Solid 5 which used to be one of Sony's most prized exclusive flagship titles.
Personally I liked playing the Dead Rising series coop, but if the PS4 isn't going to get games like this then I'll by neither console. Many normal consumers however would just say "fuck it, I'll buy the XBox One" because most of them don't even know what DRM is and wont even care until it bites them on the ass. I saw a similar thing many years back with Apple products and iTunes, I've known a number of people buy an iPod, build up a music collection, have their device battery go or the device fail and not be aware you could get it replaced and realise that they basically had little choice but to buy a new Apple device or lose hundreds of pounds of content - they were in effect through their own naivety tied to Apple's platform.
This is really what separates us geeks from the average consumer - we're well aware of how stupid DRM is technically, but also what issues it can cause. Most consumers neither know what it is nor care until it causes them a problem, by which time they're already a customer and already tied to the platform. There's more awareness of DRM now than there used to be but I don't think there's enough to necessary cause the XBox One to be a complete flop - if anything does that I'd wager it's the higher price point that will hurt it more than anything else.
What about backwards compatibility then? They said they'd support that by including necessary hardware and software patches where necessary and then just stopped with the software fixes to make some games work half way through, eventually just removing the feature in hardware altogether.
Some people with original systems can still play some of the games but there are plenty who bought a system expecting it given that it was an advertised feature (just like Linux was) only to find the first they know of it being removed is when they tried to use it.
I'll take your inability to explain the nonsensical unexplained elements of your conspiracy theory as you saying "Yes, I was just trolling" then I guess seeing as rather than offer any explanation that would make your argument make sense you just take the ad hominem route and leave your argument making absolutely no sense whatsoever.
"A main differences are that you don't have to use any or all of Apple's ecosystem. You want a digital music player that's not Apple; buy someone else. You want music that's not iTunes; buy someone else. You want some OS other than Windows when you buy a PC from Dell, HP, IBM, etc; No."
That argument doesn't make sense because Linux, Unix, OS/2 and Mac OS were all available as alternatives during the anti-trust investigation. Microsoft having 90% of the market didn't change the fact 10% was comprised of alternatives, just as Apple having 90% of the portable media player market didn't change the fact 10% was comprised of alternatives. There were alternatives available in both cases, they just weren't used as much. You didn't have to use Windows, the problem was simply that most people did, just like you didn't have to use an iPod, or iTunes, even though most people did. It doesn't matter that Dell/HP didn't supply non-Windows machines, that was never an issue in itself of the original anti-trust investigation - there were plenty of stores that only sold Apple media players because of exclusivity agreements, but again, it's not really relevant to the fact of what really got Microsoft hauled in for, which was almost identical to what Apple got away with.
"Are you implying that MS was improperly investigated?"
Not in the slightest, I'm saying that Apple wasn't correctly and properly investigated, which is kind of why I typed exactly that.
"The problem is "absusive". Monopolies can exist; where companies like MS were sued was how they treated partners and competitors. It isn't abusive to offer an advantage like vertical integration."
I think you may have a rather one-sided pro-Apple view of the world. Have you forgotten how Apple treated Adobe effectively killing off Flash? Have you forgotten how Apple was rapped by the European courts by not charging fair pricing to the UK market on iTunes music? Have you forgotten how Apple is currently being run through the courts because of the way they acted with eBooks against Amazon? If you think Apple hasn't engaged in abusive practices then you've been living under a rock. Some of what they have done is frankly arguably even worse than what Microsoft did - they killed off Flash which was akin to killing off Netscape, and then went and fixed eBook prices and the like on top.
You're only looking at half the picture, you're blanking from your mind rather important incidents of abuse by Apple that are rather well documented. If you blank those out then of course things look different, but if you live outside the reality distortion field and in reality like the rest of us then it's kind of hard to miss the blatant similarities and contradictions.
Yes, that's right, Google, the firm that publicises all DMCA requests it receives and flags up when it's been forced to censor search results by linking to the request on relevant searches, Google, that publishes the source code for many of it's products, Google, that produces a regular transparency report stating as much as it can about what data it's been requested to hand over, what it's been requested to censor and so forth has just arbitrarily decided one day that it wants to censor images. We don't know what images it'll censor after child porn or why, you didn't explain that in your crackpot conspiracy theory, but when it comes to images, they've just out and out decided to go against everything they've ever stood for.
Care to explain why they'd want to arbitrarily censor images? care to explain what images you think they're desperate to censor? care to explain why they'd be so keen to put themselves at a commercial advantage against existing and future competitors?
Alternatively, rather than mash your mind trying to answer those questions which you've obviously not padded out to make your conspiracy theory at least make some semblance of sense, care to simply consider that maybe you're just trolling Google and are full of shit?
They're doing this because doing something voluntarily in a half arsed manner is easier than having it forced on you in a brutal, draconian and difficult to implement manner by government, which is the current alternative in the UK. They also just gave £1million to the IWF which is the UK's child porn censor. It's entirely about appeasing the politicians who are on yet another "think of the children" mission right now.
"MS was/is in the 90 percent range of the OS market share and Apple was/is still only in the single digit market share."
In what market? The crux of the problem is that Microsoft used it's operating system monopoly to push into the browser market.
But is this really any different than Apple using it's digital music player (iPod) or digital music store (iTunes) monopolies that were in the 90% marketshare range to push into the Smartphone and digital video and eBooks markets?
I think there's a fair point to be made that Apple has definitely leveraged monopolies it has had to enter new markets in exactly the same way Microsoft leveraged it's operating system monopoly to try and take browser marketshare.
This has become pretty prominent with eBooks in that they are being investigated for illegal market manipulation, but this isn't the same as anti-trust legislation used against Microsoft. In fact, one might argue that if Apple had been properly and correctly investigated for anti-trust violations it may not have ever engaged in eBook price fixing that led to increased eBook prices for consumers in the first place.
I really don't think there's a reasonable argument that Apple is somehow different from Microsoft, it clearly has had monopolies in some markets, and it clearly has leveraged those monopolies to gain advantages in others, sometimes abusively so.
Then why are so many saying "Fuck the XBox One and it's DRM, use Steam!"
It makes absolutely zero sense, they're pretending they hate DRM, then saying use someone else's almost identical DRM.
I think most of those supposedly against DRM really aren't against DRM, they actually don't give a shit about it, they're just feigning hatred of DRM to further what they're really doing - playing platform fanboy which is annoying as fuck as it detracts and discredits those of us making legitimate arguments against DRM itself because those legitimate complaints are lost amongst the nonsensical fanboyism.
I agree it was always an issue, that's really my point, but the vast majority of those saying "I wont buy the XBox One because of the DRM" are also those who have freely admitted to loving and buying from the likes of Steam previously. It's just sheer hypocrisy, and that's the problem - they're applying double standards and it's got nothing to do with DRM and everything to do with their childish fanboy mindsets. If they genuinely hated the sort of DRM Microsoft has proposed then they'd be boycotting everything from Steam to iTunes, to Google Play and so on but they don't, they make it about one specific product from one specific company.
The point is that the DRM phone home will work on less than broadband (at least, there's no reason why it wouldn't), but the broadband minimum requirement is there to make use of half the features of what is ultimately a connected device. Like with Diablo 3 and the new Sim City they want to do online processing.
Or in other words, the DRM argument is completely separate from the broadband argument. The broadband thing is an issue when consuming any modern online content whatever device you do it on.
I've been saying this for years, why should I even give up 1 watt, or even one cycle of CPU power for something that doesn't benefit me whatsoever as a legitimate customer? Why should I give up anything for DRM? It's my CPU, it's my broadband connections, it's my RAM, my hard disk, and so on?
So why is it suddenly an issue now when Microsoft does it with their new console? Steam has been doing this for what, a decade now? but because it has a legion of fanboys on Slashdot it's given a free pass.
It's so stupid to be complaining about it now when so many people have just tolerated it and let it slip on by on the PC. Where were they screaming, kicking and moaning like they are now about the XBox One when Valve continued to push it? They were out in force when EA did it, when Ubisoft did it, but meanwhile they continued to let Valve do it and because Valve got away with it every other company was just saying well, Valve does, why shouldn't we? This is the problem with fanboyism, rather than recognising all DRM is bad they let their pet company whether it was Apple, or Valve get away with it and then wonder why the fuck everyone else starts doing it. Gee, why do you think? Because they can.
Whilst Steam still keeps making record sales and has an active army of fanboys defending it's exact same practices of online verification, prevention of second hand resale and so forth, do you think any other company is going to listen?
When you create one rule for one, and another for everyone else then of course everyone else isn't going to listen to you.
I'm certainly not defending these restrictions, but I am questioning why the fuck people are only complaining now, and I am asking the question "Where the fuck were you when this started to become more and more commonplace on the PC?" - it'd be a rhetorical question though because I know the answer - they were busy funding it, enjoying it, and defending it on forums. That's called hypocrisy.
Look I'm not trying to defend Microsoft here but why are you making this point now? Why are we having this discussion now? Steam, every Blizzard game in recent years, and a number of Ubisoft/EA games for the PC have been doing this for a long while already.
Why is it suddenly an issue when Microsoft does it with their console?
People still bought the likes of Diablo 3 en-masse, so do you think people really give a shit? Do you think people will really not buy it because of the DRM?
Bitching about XBox One DRM is like shutting the barn door when the horse has already bolted. You're about 5 years too late complaining about the whole always online thing, it's already standard throughout the world of PC gaming, it's not surprising that consoles will follow suit given how PC developers have been allowed to get away with it.
Do you have a reference saying the world isn't actually made a chocolate ice cream and that you're just perceiving the whole of reality incorrectly in your mind?
Obviously you don't, so it must be true.
As GP said, citation needed or stop making shit up because it discredits your whole argument.
This hasn't changed. The XBox 360 had a 2mb broadband connection as a minimum requirement for Gold, it's really not a new thing.
It was there not because it was required for any kind of DRM but because half the things you'd do on Live like online gaming and video streaming need that as a minimum nowadays.
Yeah, because of course Britain is the only country that spies on conference delegates.
You really think this doesn't happen in every single country? You really think delegates aren't aware of this?
Hell, I ran for a run of the mill not particularly large engineering firm for some time and we got enough memos round reminding people when they're overseas to be cautious of where they plug there laptops in and so forth for precisely this reason.
This wont change a thing because everyone that mattered for this sort of decision making already knew.
It's not really even about PR men but entirely to do with the fact that an absolute minority (I'd wager you could count them on two hands) of Britain's politicians are willing to make policy based on the facts, as opposed to what they think should be the case based on gut instinct/religious leanings/other bias.
Our politicians just do not have the capacity to comprehend why policy is best made based on evidence and facts as opposed to personal bias.
It's really not anymore complicated than that. If I was a politician before decided to vote on something or build policy I'd go and and ask the experts in the field for some arguments either way and find out which path made most sense based on the evidence and their advice. I'd want sound reasoning behind any decision. Contrast this to actual politicians and what they do is make the decision and then dig for anyone who will back up that position (usually Rupert Murdoch if you give some favours back) and then criticise/silence any experts or anyone else who points out why you're wrnog.
Well that depends how much power you're drawing doesn't it? If you're using 390 watts on a 400 watt power supply then of course it does.
Requiring different coolers is about efficiency and AMD CPUs have always run hotter and yes, it's enough that you can get away with less cooling on an Intel CPU. 30 watts at any one moment isn't enough to cause any much noticeable heat if that's what you're referring to but the amount of heat it can create at any one moment is not the problem, it's about heat build up and dissipation and this has pretty much always been more of an issue with AMD CPUs.
No, it's tinfoil believing that Kinect or any other webcam is a conduit for it.
Writing the other things off as "dissected and rooted" which is patently false is just evidence that you're more interested in having a pop at Microsoft than rationally discussing the threat of cameras and microphones to our privacy.
I'm not really interested in having this discussion with someone whose more interested in partisan fanboyism than talking about anything worthwhile, especially as the ToS stuff you quote is commonplace in other services and devices also, so have fun with that tinfoil hat with "I hate Microsoft" written on it - you could at least be honest and just get to the point and admit that all you're interested in is having a pop at Microsoft.
It's not as if Apple and Google weren't implicated in Prism and don't have devices with cameras and microphones being carried around by millions of people with similar suggestions in their user agreements, but I guess they get a free ride because again, you're just busy being an AC fanboy.
Yep, agreed, that's why I think the used games argument is the least of the problems with the XBox One - if people hadn't noticed most publishers have been doing this anyway with one time use codes tied to some kind of account - whether it's tied to your XBox Live gamer tag on the 360, your Playstation Plus account on the PS3 or your Steam account on the PC - it's a widespread issue regardless and Microsoft are far from the first to implement this blocking of used games idea, it's been going on for years already, the best part of a decade now with Steam I believe?
It's more the always online have to be connected every 24 hrs thing that offends me. What if I move house and haven't got a connection for a week? I'm not allowed to entertain myself playing offline? That's stupid and unacceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
But that's exactly my point, which Brits exactly?
Even in Elizabethan England some areas of the country had a hard R, others didn't. The same remains true to this day, if you think the UK has no rhotic accents then you've obviously never heard someone from the South West, Ireland, or Scotland speak.
If you've only ever listened to BBC presenters or the Queen speak then you can be forgiven for thinking there are no English accents in the UK that don't pronounce there Rs but that's not representative of even close to the whole population, and that's exactly my point.
If you want an explanation then I'd offer the fact that places like Bristol harbour, a city which very much has a rhotic accent was one of (if not the) most important harbour for departure to the new world from England (It's at the Western side of the country and was the second biggest harbour after London which is in the South East at the time) and so it's not that American English is born of some generic old English accent (which doesn't exist, there was no singular generic old English accent across the country) but that it was born of the large amount of migrants that departed from the region that is associated with Britain's south western accent that was rhotic in nature and still is to this day.
"As to US English sounding more original, I've seen a lot of debate on this. Some say particular UK accents are closer to Old English and the US is closer to Modern English (16th century), whereas others claim the idea is simply part of American mythology."
The whole argument doesn't make sense, the view is that American English never really evolved much but British English changed a lot, yet the problem with such theories is they don't explain why American English is magically the one that didn't change. What about Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African English and so on? They diverged in their own ways.
But there's another more fundamental reason why it's stupid, there is no such thing as "British English" by way of the spoken word and there never has been, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, but even in England itself, Liverpudlian, Bristolian, Geordie, Cockney accents are all as different from each other as most American accents are from Queen's English and it's not just accents but local words and terms too. A bread roll in Bristol is a bun in Yorkshire, but a bun in Bristol is normally something sweeter and glazed.
Ultimately the idea that American English is some pure form of English with the closest historic ties is just stupid, America is a country born of mass immigration and if anyone seriously believes that the earlier English accents were retained in the face of mass immigration from countries like Germany and Ireland then they're having a laugh. It's not like British English immigrants were anything other than a minority of the population in the face of many other immigrants all with different accents and languages ultimately distorting the English that was originally taken across.
This also explains why Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and so forth didn't retain the same supposed classic English accent either, because accents were all ultimately immigration driven - South Africa's English accent being influenced by the dutch for example.
But ultimately the country least effected by immigration forces on accent is still going to be England, yet even there it depends where. London has seen far more immigration over the centuries and seen it's accents change as such as a result than somewhere like Cornwall, or Scotland where classic accents are retained much more closely.
So yes if you compare some American accents from areas of America that retained the heaviest balance of early English immigrants against somewhere like London that's been hammered by immigration from every area of the globe you may indeed find that their accent is closer. But if you compare even those places to somewhere like Scotland or Cornwall then you'll be a lot further off any old English accents than Scotland/Cornwall are off their old British accents.
So long story short, what you're saying is that as long as there are tiny irrelevant little technicalities, in your world Apple is a completely innocent little puppy?
Get a grip. It doesn't take a genius to realise you're just a fanboy.
"Please present some evidence of abuse in the market other than Apple making decisions about their own products."
Flash and eBooks are Apple's own products? Since when?
I had heard of it but hadn't tried doing anything with it. Does Monogame switch to OpenGL for rendering on other platforms? I did quite like the XNA APIs they were quite pleasing to use (especially compared to plain old DirectX and OpenGL!) providing you weren't doing something that encroached upon it's limitations.
Maybe I'll give it a go but I'm tending more towards OpenGL now given that with an OpenGL engine you can target Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, PS3, PS4, Android, iOS. The XBox 360 being the only platform it doesn't target, and the XBox One not supporting it kind of leaves the question as to why bother with Direct3D now.
"Or, everyone is going to conclude that this console is exceedingly anti-consumer, and not worth buying.
But as I say it was the exact same thing with Bluray and with the iPod, and the iPhone. Yet still customers bought them in droves.
I agree with you on everything else you said, but I'm not confident that being anti-consumer necessarily means product failure. There are a number of devices in the past that have won out despite being the most anti-consumer choice, which is rather sad.
No, it didn't. There seems to be some confusion in this thread. The patch publishing fee was for XBox Live Arcade or retail games.
I think the reason Microsoft has ditched indie games is that they turned it into a failure themselves.
All the really really good indie games got given full Live Arcade publishing rights by Microsoft. XNA ran on a version of the .NET CLR but Microsoft ended up creating an implementation of it that worked for Live Arcade games and a simple API that extended XNA to allow for achievements and so forth so that indie games could be ported to Live Arcade extremely trivially.
The net result was that the only thing that ended up in indie games was complete and utter shit and as such it wont have made Microsoft even close to the amount of money required to maintain it and to maintain XNA too, hence what is I suspect the whole reason XNA has been EOL'd for a while and indie games is going too on the new XBox. It wasn't helped by the fact that in one of the dashboard updates Microsoft hid indie games so far out the way in the menus few people found it.
But what's stupid is that Microsoft seem to have forgotten that even though it wasn't profitable in itself it was still the catalyst for the creation of all those games that got turned into fully fledged Live Arcade titles.
I suspect someone from finance has looked at the balance sheet and seen that indie games/XNA wasn't profitable in itself without having even the slightest understanding of how important it was for driving XBox Live Arcade revenues. Had those Live Arcade revenues from games ported from Indie games to Live Arcade been attributed to Indie rather than Live Arcade I'd wager it was profitable, just not on paper.
Rather than continuing to make a fool of yourself, you could just admit you were wrong and accept it.
You know, just saying, just throwing that out there in case you decide you don't want to keep looking stupid.
To be fair on Microsoft I think they really do have a much better line up of games than Sony, but I suspect they've achieved this precisely by offering to block second hand sales and push strict DRM.
I think Microsoft's card this time is that they'll fuck the users rights, but get better publisher support and hence better exclusives and hence hope to lure users over that way.
The worrying thing is that this may well work, because this worked for Sony with Bluray - Bluray was the more restrictive format and less consumer friendly format without a doubt, it too required users to update their players over the internet or using discs to be able to view content and so forth but it slaughtered HD-DVD, why? Because all the publishers backed the format that gave them DRM and HD-DVD was dead as soon as all the content went to Bluray.
It's no surprise that Microsoft is touting exclusives like Dead Rising 3 and put quite an emphasis on Metal Gear Solid 5 which used to be one of Sony's most prized exclusive flagship titles.
Personally I liked playing the Dead Rising series coop, but if the PS4 isn't going to get games like this then I'll by neither console. Many normal consumers however would just say "fuck it, I'll buy the XBox One" because most of them don't even know what DRM is and wont even care until it bites them on the ass. I saw a similar thing many years back with Apple products and iTunes, I've known a number of people buy an iPod, build up a music collection, have their device battery go or the device fail and not be aware you could get it replaced and realise that they basically had little choice but to buy a new Apple device or lose hundreds of pounds of content - they were in effect through their own naivety tied to Apple's platform.
This is really what separates us geeks from the average consumer - we're well aware of how stupid DRM is technically, but also what issues it can cause. Most consumers neither know what it is nor care until it causes them a problem, by which time they're already a customer and already tied to the platform. There's more awareness of DRM now than there used to be but I don't think there's enough to necessary cause the XBox One to be a complete flop - if anything does that I'd wager it's the higher price point that will hurt it more than anything else.
What about backwards compatibility then? They said they'd support that by including necessary hardware and software patches where necessary and then just stopped with the software fixes to make some games work half way through, eventually just removing the feature in hardware altogether.
Some people with original systems can still play some of the games but there are plenty who bought a system expecting it given that it was an advertised feature (just like Linux was) only to find the first they know of it being removed is when they tried to use it.
I'll take your inability to explain the nonsensical unexplained elements of your conspiracy theory as you saying "Yes, I was just trolling" then I guess seeing as rather than offer any explanation that would make your argument make sense you just take the ad hominem route and leave your argument making absolutely no sense whatsoever.
"A main differences are that you don't have to use any or all of Apple's ecosystem. You want a digital music player that's not Apple; buy someone else. You want music that's not iTunes; buy someone else. You want some OS other than Windows when you buy a PC from Dell, HP, IBM, etc; No."
That argument doesn't make sense because Linux, Unix, OS/2 and Mac OS were all available as alternatives during the anti-trust investigation. Microsoft having 90% of the market didn't change the fact 10% was comprised of alternatives, just as Apple having 90% of the portable media player market didn't change the fact 10% was comprised of alternatives. There were alternatives available in both cases, they just weren't used as much. You didn't have to use Windows, the problem was simply that most people did, just like you didn't have to use an iPod, or iTunes, even though most people did. It doesn't matter that Dell/HP didn't supply non-Windows machines, that was never an issue in itself of the original anti-trust investigation - there were plenty of stores that only sold Apple media players because of exclusivity agreements, but again, it's not really relevant to the fact of what really got Microsoft hauled in for, which was almost identical to what Apple got away with.
"Are you implying that MS was improperly investigated?"
Not in the slightest, I'm saying that Apple wasn't correctly and properly investigated, which is kind of why I typed exactly that.
"The problem is "absusive". Monopolies can exist; where companies like MS were sued was how they treated partners and competitors. It isn't abusive to offer an advantage like vertical integration."
I think you may have a rather one-sided pro-Apple view of the world. Have you forgotten how Apple treated Adobe effectively killing off Flash? Have you forgotten how Apple was rapped by the European courts by not charging fair pricing to the UK market on iTunes music? Have you forgotten how Apple is currently being run through the courts because of the way they acted with eBooks against Amazon? If you think Apple hasn't engaged in abusive practices then you've been living under a rock. Some of what they have done is frankly arguably even worse than what Microsoft did - they killed off Flash which was akin to killing off Netscape, and then went and fixed eBook prices and the like on top.
You're only looking at half the picture, you're blanking from your mind rather important incidents of abuse by Apple that are rather well documented. If you blank those out then of course things look different, but if you live outside the reality distortion field and in reality like the rest of us then it's kind of hard to miss the blatant similarities and contradictions.
Yes, that's right, Google, the firm that publicises all DMCA requests it receives and flags up when it's been forced to censor search results by linking to the request on relevant searches, Google, that publishes the source code for many of it's products, Google, that produces a regular transparency report stating as much as it can about what data it's been requested to hand over, what it's been requested to censor and so forth has just arbitrarily decided one day that it wants to censor images. We don't know what images it'll censor after child porn or why, you didn't explain that in your crackpot conspiracy theory, but when it comes to images, they've just out and out decided to go against everything they've ever stood for.
Care to explain why they'd want to arbitrarily censor images? care to explain what images you think they're desperate to censor? care to explain why they'd be so keen to put themselves at a commercial advantage against existing and future competitors?
Alternatively, rather than mash your mind trying to answer those questions which you've obviously not padded out to make your conspiracy theory at least make some semblance of sense, care to simply consider that maybe you're just trolling Google and are full of shit?
They're doing this because doing something voluntarily in a half arsed manner is easier than having it forced on you in a brutal, draconian and difficult to implement manner by government, which is the current alternative in the UK. They also just gave £1million to the IWF which is the UK's child porn censor. It's entirely about appeasing the politicians who are on yet another "think of the children" mission right now.
"MS was/is in the 90 percent range of the OS market share and Apple was/is still only in the single digit market share."
In what market? The crux of the problem is that Microsoft used it's operating system monopoly to push into the browser market.
But is this really any different than Apple using it's digital music player (iPod) or digital music store (iTunes) monopolies that were in the 90% marketshare range to push into the Smartphone and digital video and eBooks markets?
I think there's a fair point to be made that Apple has definitely leveraged monopolies it has had to enter new markets in exactly the same way Microsoft leveraged it's operating system monopoly to try and take browser marketshare.
This has become pretty prominent with eBooks in that they are being investigated for illegal market manipulation, but this isn't the same as anti-trust legislation used against Microsoft. In fact, one might argue that if Apple had been properly and correctly investigated for anti-trust violations it may not have ever engaged in eBook price fixing that led to increased eBook prices for consumers in the first place.
I really don't think there's a reasonable argument that Apple is somehow different from Microsoft, it clearly has had monopolies in some markets, and it clearly has leveraged those monopolies to gain advantages in others, sometimes abusively so.
Then why are so many saying "Fuck the XBox One and it's DRM, use Steam!"
It makes absolutely zero sense, they're pretending they hate DRM, then saying use someone else's almost identical DRM.
I think most of those supposedly against DRM really aren't against DRM, they actually don't give a shit about it, they're just feigning hatred of DRM to further what they're really doing - playing platform fanboy which is annoying as fuck as it detracts and discredits those of us making legitimate arguments against DRM itself because those legitimate complaints are lost amongst the nonsensical fanboyism.
I agree it was always an issue, that's really my point, but the vast majority of those saying "I wont buy the XBox One because of the DRM" are also those who have freely admitted to loving and buying from the likes of Steam previously. It's just sheer hypocrisy, and that's the problem - they're applying double standards and it's got nothing to do with DRM and everything to do with their childish fanboy mindsets. If they genuinely hated the sort of DRM Microsoft has proposed then they'd be boycotting everything from Steam to iTunes, to Google Play and so on but they don't, they make it about one specific product from one specific company.
Neither does the new console.
The point is that the DRM phone home will work on less than broadband (at least, there's no reason why it wouldn't), but the broadband minimum requirement is there to make use of half the features of what is ultimately a connected device. Like with Diablo 3 and the new Sim City they want to do online processing.
Or in other words, the DRM argument is completely separate from the broadband argument. The broadband thing is an issue when consuming any modern online content whatever device you do it on.
I've been saying this for years, why should I even give up 1 watt, or even one cycle of CPU power for something that doesn't benefit me whatsoever as a legitimate customer? Why should I give up anything for DRM? It's my CPU, it's my broadband connections, it's my RAM, my hard disk, and so on?
So why is it suddenly an issue now when Microsoft does it with their new console? Steam has been doing this for what, a decade now? but because it has a legion of fanboys on Slashdot it's given a free pass.
It's so stupid to be complaining about it now when so many people have just tolerated it and let it slip on by on the PC. Where were they screaming, kicking and moaning like they are now about the XBox One when Valve continued to push it? They were out in force when EA did it, when Ubisoft did it, but meanwhile they continued to let Valve do it and because Valve got away with it every other company was just saying well, Valve does, why shouldn't we? This is the problem with fanboyism, rather than recognising all DRM is bad they let their pet company whether it was Apple, or Valve get away with it and then wonder why the fuck everyone else starts doing it. Gee, why do you think? Because they can.
Whilst Steam still keeps making record sales and has an active army of fanboys defending it's exact same practices of online verification, prevention of second hand resale and so forth, do you think any other company is going to listen?
When you create one rule for one, and another for everyone else then of course everyone else isn't going to listen to you.
I'm certainly not defending these restrictions, but I am questioning why the fuck people are only complaining now, and I am asking the question "Where the fuck were you when this started to become more and more commonplace on the PC?" - it'd be a rhetorical question though because I know the answer - they were busy funding it, enjoying it, and defending it on forums. That's called hypocrisy.
Look I'm not trying to defend Microsoft here but why are you making this point now? Why are we having this discussion now? Steam, every Blizzard game in recent years, and a number of Ubisoft/EA games for the PC have been doing this for a long while already.
Why is it suddenly an issue when Microsoft does it with their console?
People still bought the likes of Diablo 3 en-masse, so do you think people really give a shit? Do you think people will really not buy it because of the DRM?
Bitching about XBox One DRM is like shutting the barn door when the horse has already bolted. You're about 5 years too late complaining about the whole always online thing, it's already standard throughout the world of PC gaming, it's not surprising that consoles will follow suit given how PC developers have been allowed to get away with it.
Do you have a reference saying the world isn't actually made a chocolate ice cream and that you're just perceiving the whole of reality incorrectly in your mind?
Obviously you don't, so it must be true.
As GP said, citation needed or stop making shit up because it discredits your whole argument.
This hasn't changed. The XBox 360 had a 2mb broadband connection as a minimum requirement for Gold, it's really not a new thing.
It was there not because it was required for any kind of DRM but because half the things you'd do on Live like online gaming and video streaming need that as a minimum nowadays.
Yeah, because of course Britain is the only country that spies on conference delegates.
You really think this doesn't happen in every single country? You really think delegates aren't aware of this?
Hell, I ran for a run of the mill not particularly large engineering firm for some time and we got enough memos round reminding people when they're overseas to be cautious of where they plug there laptops in and so forth for precisely this reason.
This wont change a thing because everyone that mattered for this sort of decision making already knew.
It's not really even about PR men but entirely to do with the fact that an absolute minority (I'd wager you could count them on two hands) of Britain's politicians are willing to make policy based on the facts, as opposed to what they think should be the case based on gut instinct/religious leanings/other bias.
Our politicians just do not have the capacity to comprehend why policy is best made based on evidence and facts as opposed to personal bias.
It's really not anymore complicated than that. If I was a politician before decided to vote on something or build policy I'd go and and ask the experts in the field for some arguments either way and find out which path made most sense based on the evidence and their advice. I'd want sound reasoning behind any decision. Contrast this to actual politicians and what they do is make the decision and then dig for anyone who will back up that position (usually Rupert Murdoch if you give some favours back) and then criticise/silence any experts or anyone else who points out why you're wrnog.
Well that depends how much power you're drawing doesn't it? If you're using 390 watts on a 400 watt power supply then of course it does.
Requiring different coolers is about efficiency and AMD CPUs have always run hotter and yes, it's enough that you can get away with less cooling on an Intel CPU. 30 watts at any one moment isn't enough to cause any much noticeable heat if that's what you're referring to but the amount of heat it can create at any one moment is not the problem, it's about heat build up and dissipation and this has pretty much always been more of an issue with AMD CPUs.
"So it's tinfoil believing that PRISM exists eh?"
No, it's tinfoil believing that Kinect or any other webcam is a conduit for it.
Writing the other things off as "dissected and rooted" which is patently false is just evidence that you're more interested in having a pop at Microsoft than rationally discussing the threat of cameras and microphones to our privacy.
I'm not really interested in having this discussion with someone whose more interested in partisan fanboyism than talking about anything worthwhile, especially as the ToS stuff you quote is commonplace in other services and devices also, so have fun with that tinfoil hat with "I hate Microsoft" written on it - you could at least be honest and just get to the point and admit that all you're interested in is having a pop at Microsoft.
It's not as if Apple and Google weren't implicated in Prism and don't have devices with cameras and microphones being carried around by millions of people with similar suggestions in their user agreements, but I guess they get a free ride because again, you're just busy being an AC fanboy.
Yep, agreed, that's why I think the used games argument is the least of the problems with the XBox One - if people hadn't noticed most publishers have been doing this anyway with one time use codes tied to some kind of account - whether it's tied to your XBox Live gamer tag on the 360, your Playstation Plus account on the PS3 or your Steam account on the PC - it's a widespread issue regardless and Microsoft are far from the first to implement this blocking of used games idea, it's been going on for years already, the best part of a decade now with Steam I believe?
It's more the always online have to be connected every 24 hrs thing that offends me. What if I move house and haven't got a connection for a week? I'm not allowed to entertain myself playing offline? That's stupid and unacceptable.