I'm not the one to believe in most conspiracy theories but this kinect gimmick is just creepy. The whole concept of a device that is watching my every move at home is very disturbing.

Besides it's all to complicated for me. Voice and gesture control? I'll stick with my trusty remote control, thank you very much.

Creepy is a great way to describe it. I actually think the technology that enables the voice and gesture control is kinda neat, and impressive...real sci-fi stuff coming into existence, so to speak. That said, like you, I am fine with the old archaic ways of the remote, especially in lieu of the fact that there is currently software/apps out there available that allow one to use the camera on another persons laptop or phone, and view/capture/broadcast through it without that persons knowledge. The Kinect camera is basically the same thing...you can Skype and VC with it, therefore it potentially can be used to spy with. To me, that's a bit unnerving. While I am not a conspiracy theory proponent myself, this ability IMO certainly seems to lead itself to exploitation by those nefarious enough, and have the means to do it. Who's to say Microsoft may not exploit this themselves under the guise of "collecting information to better our customer's experience" ? While surely this is a violation of privacy, who knows what may happen, or where this will go. As I said, perhaps I am a bit paranoid, but as my old man used to say: "Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me", lol. It'll be interesting to follow this, and see where it all leads. History shows we can't stop technology, but I for one won't be jumping blindly into the fray until I am 100% comfortable with it. Besides, I have the PC, and plenty of games yet to play on my poor old, ancient 360 in the meantime :)

How is saying "Xbox, launch The Witcher 3" more complicated than navigating though controls and menus?

This whole One and PS4 business is a PR disaster.
Are Sony and MS both so boneheaded that they can't see the people are talking about their console but not in a nice
way. Rumors denials (some half-hearted) follows the next rumors and denials. Wouldn't it be better to say: People, look
these are the facts.......
At the moment all i can think is that the facts must be worse than the rumors.

A little update....MS has stopped the commentary function under their official youtube videos.
Here in Germany the Federal Privacy Commissioner talks about that the One comes close to Orwell's monitoring system.
Oh, and Sony has started their advertising for the PS4 coming 2013
On the posters you can see.....the gamepad.....wonders if there is real a console around.

Jim Sterling in da' house, once again. The Jimquisition:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7370-When-The-Starscreams-Kill-Used-Games

Enjoy!

Is it trolls doing unofficial advertising, or official advertisers trolling ?
Fun nevertheless.
Don't worry, AoD has his thread here. It is known.

No matter how often publishers and their Stockholm-Syndrome supporters repeat this mantra, it doesn't make it true. A physical product is sold as a unit, comprising physical media, data, licence and documentation. That unit is transferrable between individuals, with possession of the physical media representing possession of the overall package. This principle cannot be subverted, neither in the United States, nor in Europe. I suspect the same applies in many other countries as well.

And yet no matter how much this obvious fact is stated, we still have an industry that puts its hands over its ears and screams "LALALALALA".

Heh. He's pointed out a few facts in there that I've pointed out on these here forums in the past (including the fact that retailers get very low profit margins on game sales) and yet people refused to believe, because "hur-dur retailers are evil money-grubbers".

And if they think eliminating the used game market will reduce game prices, well:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/22320
http://store.steampowered.com/app/7940
http://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/
http://store.origin.com/store/eade/de_DE/html/pbPage.crysis3_de_DE/
http://store.origin.com/store/eade/de_DE/html/pbPage.SimCityDE/

Pathetic sales lasting one or two days do not equate to "lower prices".

And he makes another interesting point. Publishers call the GameSpot model 'evil', and yet companies like Microsoft and EA don't want to 'eliminate' it as they claim. They want to control it. They don't like competition. They want to fix prices. They don't want to be subject to the usual market forces of supply and demand. They don't want to play fair.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is the reason why the mainstream industry is essentially made up of cunts.

He asks in the end, what will the publishers use as a scapegoat for their financial problems(?) (like EA making only gazillion dollars of profit) if and when used games sales are killed.

I think the obvious next step is to complain how the whole family, or even one user, can play a purchased game unrestricted several times, without the publisher getting a dime from each replay. Not fair!

So next they'll start pushing pay-per-play, the arcade coin-op model, to homes. Anyone who opposes it is a damn cheapskate who is trying to play the poor publishers' games FOR FREE!

TotalBiscuit released a video on the new Xbox:

Content Patch - May 27th, 2013 - Ep. 086 [Xbox One]

You have got to see this Roman 5, it is hilarious :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMYso30L9zI

I was honestly expecting him to bring his fists down harder. I wanted to see a blowup like he did to Nintendo.

They should simply say it out loud that they want laws that make us buy their stuff. There, problem solved. One game per family member. Fuck it! One for every pet too. The ones that do not buy go to jail. Effin' criminals!

I too understand how hard it is to get BC done. Still doesn't make it any less disappointing that they couldn't come up with a working solution that doesn't rely on cloud services and a good internet connection like what Sony's planning for the PS4.

Have you bought a non GOG.com game for PC in oh the last 5 years? You are so out of date it's funny the disc meaning nothing has become the norm. All this means is consoles and PC will soon be on similar footings except that on console you'll be able to trade them in still unlike PC games.