Sony E3 2013 Conference: So close, but missed the target

Sony's E3 2013 Press Conference has concluded, and boy was much of it a direct slap in the face to Microsoft. I have to say in terms of effectiveness at building hype and rhetoric, they knocked it out of the park with their game lineup and hardware reveal.

You almost had me believing, Sony.

Keeping in line with Sony's previous strategy during their Playstation 4 reveal, their focus was very much on the games, and I found it especially pleasing to see such strong support for the indie scene, with Transistor of Supergiant Games being at the forefront of the bunch. This is definitely the right strategy for building momentum with their audience.

That said, I couldn't help but notice that for the majority of titles showcased--especially outside of their indie lineup--there was an overabundance of guns. Lots and lots of guns. We couldn't go for ten minutes without having another gun shoved in our faces. I understand the reasons for why this is the case, but nonetheless I really do wish there was more creativity in the industry today. I am starting to share some of the same sentiments as industry veteran Warren Spector regarding how cheap and easy it is to do violence in games. Not to say that I'm opposed to violence; just that it's certainly an overused gameplay device and we need to start offering more variety in our games again beyond mindless pointing and shooting. At the same time, I realize these design choices are largely out of Sony's control; they were just smartly picking games to showcase from developers that they thought would be most appealing, and furthermore, I'm willing to forgive them on this front simply because they made such a strong effort to support indie games as well.

Among some of the highlights of the conference, I was fairly impressed by the look of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and how they seamlessly mixed gunplay with swords and showed off some shipboard combat. I had been getting a little fatigued of the Assassin's Creed series at this point, and if they can keep the rest of the game as interesting and well-executed as this, I could be convinced to pick it up. However, there were some technical issues towards the end and the demonstration had to be cut off early, but this didn't bother me too much. Bugs can always be worked out in due time with a little software ingenuity.

We also had more gameplay footage of Watch_Dogs which is shaping up pretty nicely, and it appears Final Fantasy Versus XIII has finally been properly renamed to Final Fantasy XV, as it never really made sense to me to use a naming convention that implied relation to the original FFXIII despite sharing none of its characters or setting. Kingdom Hearts 3 was briefly announced which I'm sure has fans excited (though I personally have yet to get into this series), and finally we have Bungie's Destiny, which appears to be a Halo-meets-Borderlands experience with co-op loot-based shooter gameplay. To be honest it didn't look that impressive to me though. I like the character art design, and I know a lot of people are excited for this, but I couldn't ignore the overwhelming feeling that I've already played this game before since the gameplay mostly amounted to the same point-and-shoot monotony we've come to expect from Bungie, and it didn't at all delve into the lore to get me intrigued. After ODST and Reach, I've been burned out by Bungie's lack of creativity and inability to restore the magic that was the first time I played through Halo: Combat Evolved.

Last but not least, Sony couldn't resist taking a gigantic jab at Microsoft with the sudden reveal of their used game and DRM policy, which is to say they have no DRM whatsoever and used games are fully supported. It's incredibly sad that this is something to get excited about when normally these features should be taken for granted as a standard part of any decent console worth its two cents, but regardless this was the most pleasing news of the day for me, as I could breathe a sigh of relief that the industry hasn't totally fallen into darkness with gross abuses of online functionality. To add further insult to injury, Sony announced their price point for the PS4 to be at just $399 USD; a full $100 cheaper than Microsoft's Xbox One. At this point I was getting giddy with excitement. Sony was playing nearly all their cards right and this almost seemed like it could be the perfect next-gen console.

Almost.

Unfortunately, while I see many gamers cheering victory and feeling vindicated that there is an option in the market that isn't totally anti-consumer, Sony has gone and cleverly snuck in subscription fees for online play behind our backs right when we were all most vulnerable. This was the main feature that convinced me to sell my Xbox360 to pick up a Playstation 3 in the first place. I found the practice to be a shallow nickel-and-dime measure considering that my gaming PC has been doing online play free for over a decade now and counting.

But alas, the hype train has already taken off at full throttle and can't be stopped, so already I am forced to address the many excuses being laid out for Sony's dubious decisions. Let's get crackin' folks.

"But it comes with a bunch of free games!"

They're not free if you have to pay a subscription for them, and more importantly, if I wanted those games, I would just go buy them myself, so woohoo! Congratulations! I get a bunch of random games I don't want. In the meantime, my PC still lets me play for free, and I don't have to feel obligated to play in order to get my money's worth.

"It's only $50."

A year. $50 per year. This generation has been running... what? About 7 years at least? So let's do the math. 7 x 50 = $350 I could have better spent on other games I actually wanted, or better yet, $350 I could have saved for more important things. This effectively puts the console's true price at $750 minimum if you want it to offer all the same functionality that the PS3 originally had during its lifecycle (to put things into proper perspective). Even if you still find this acceptable, it should be opposed at the very least on principle, as it sets a bad precedent and leaves an open invitation for them to continue to find ways to short change you because they know they can get away with it.

"Sony has to make up for the manufacturing costs of the console."

Yes, it's true that at its price point (and likely the Xbox One's as well) it will probably be sold at a net loss for Sony. But guess what? That's what the *games* are for! Every game sold on the system has to pay royalties to Sony for being distributed through their platform, and traditionally that has always been how they could recover the costs. Now they're doing that... PLUS nickel-and-diming you extra through PSN. The Playstation 3 was able to survive just fine on the old model even despite its rocky launch, so please, let's stop pretending here like Sony has no other choice or else they'd go broke.

"The money can be used to improve the service."

I've been told many times that Sony's online service is lacking in comparison to Xbox Live, but truth be told, while I do agree that XBL's feature set is more robust, PSN did do its core function well enough; it lets me play my games online, and I'd take it in its current state any day over needing to suddenly pay for the service only to receive arguably marginal improvements.

Sigh, it was just too good to be true. This is really disappointing, and yet so masterfully handled by Sony (and I don't mean that as a good thing). They have covertly gone and stripped away a basic staple feature of their console, and now they're charging you extra for it, and no one cares because they're just happy to not be even more thoroughly abused by Microsoft. This is why lack of competition is bad for the industry. Microsoft is currently unable to offer anything to compete with them, so Sony is allowed to get away with stripping away features we should be able to take for granted. The fact of the matter is, the PS3 already offered no DRM, no used game restrictions, *and* online play for free, and now they're downgrading it. This is a slippery slope if I ever saw one folks; now let's wait until Microsoft announces their *next* next-gen console with fully always online every-second check-ins, and then suddenly everyone will be OK with it when Sony comes out with their check-in being "only" every 24 hours. What? What's the big deal? It's still better than Microsoft!

Don't be fooled by it. You are getting less for more. And look, I get it. I know it sucks that with the seemingly constant stream of bad news in the game industry as of late, you want to have someone in the industry that you can glean a shred of hope from; someone that can offer you an alternative out of the endless river of corporate BS, but currently that someone just isn't Sony. Not yet. But the good news is this: you can make them into that someone. All you have to do is vote with your wallet and your voice; the same as you would with the Xbox One. Let them know that you don't tolerate being nickel-and-dimed for services that have always previously been provided free, and they will listen when they see their money drying up. And once again, when the software is patched back to normal, you can go out and buy your PS4 anyway. I want to reiterate as I have done in my previous blog entry that this isn't about hating on any one company or being a negative Nancy. This is about holding the industry accountable and preserving its integrity for the future. I'm afraid though that with the current hype now generated around Sony, this message will probably fall on deaf ears, and so it appears that though the industry may have temporarily staved off the Internet dark age, it still seems poised toward an age of nickels and dimes at the very least.

And with all that said, I now give my rating for the conference. I was thinking of giving them a B since they came out initially opposed to Microsoft's practices and had a solid game lineup (though nothing totally groundbreaking to get my jimmies rustled), but given how despicable I found their move with PSN and how cleverly they shielded it from us, I'm going with a D. Bad Sony. Please try again, and stop pretending to be the good guy until you actually are.

The worst console announcement in gaming history

Lots of hate has been thrown in Microsoft's direction lately following the announcement of the Xbox One, and even many longtime fans of the Xbox consoles have been abandoning ship in the wake of Microsoft's PR mess. Quite frankly though, I'm actually surprised and even pleased to see this level of vitriol being leveled against the console. Anyone who has read my previous blog editorials would know that for some time now I've been speaking out against anti-consumer practices in the market even on popular platforms like Steam, and for the most part I have felt largely alone and isolated in fighting this battle. I see the industry going down the path toward an "Internet dark age" as boogie2988 has recently described it, and by my estimation prior to this console announcement no one really seemed to care. As you can imagine then, when I started seeing the public outcry pouring forth from the community following Microsoft's press conference on the new Xbox, I was pleasantly shocked to see such a sudden emergence in concern for the issue.

So what exactly is the big deal that is making the Xbox One turn out to be the worst console announcement in gaming history? Let's take a moment to examine the problem in-depth; because in spite of the large outcry against it, there still remains a plethora of gamers that continue to behave apathetically or dismissively toward the outrage, and I can't help but be bothered by it. Now, I could talk about how the Kinect 2.0 requirement poses many privacy concerns, or how there will be inevitable restrictions on used games as a result of granting publishers the power to control their distribution, but these issues really pale in comparison to the Xbox One's most crippling feature; the mandatory online check-in every 24 hours. This issue alone should be a deal-breaker for anyone.

O how backward things have gotten.

I already know what the apologists are thinking though. "So what? Obviously you have a good enough Internet connection to be posting this blog right now, so why should you be concerned about your Xbox One?"

This question demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of how the server/client system works when you require an Internet connection for a product; because something that is continually forgotten when apologists pose this question is that it's not *just* the Internet connection that is required once you implement this feature. It also becomes a requirement that you be able to communicate with Microsoft's servers; servers which can be hacked into and/or taken down for maintenance, and which will likely not exist in a few years once the next console cycle has started. Let's not forget the time when PSN was down for months following a hacking intrusion. In any one of these scenarios, your entire game collection would be rendered totally inaccessible whether you have the most stable and blazing fast Internet connection in the world or you're even just lucky to have 56k, so this is *NOT* just a simple problem for people who have no Internet. It's a problem for everyone. It's a problem for people running on Google fiber; for people running on high-speed cable and DSL; for people who care about the preservation of gaming history; for soldiers fighting for us overseas; for you and me. No one is exempt from the damning effects of this design model.

If all that isn't enough to get you riled up, I honestly don't know what could. I guess it's time for the next step in the evolution of the game industry with microchip implants into the base of your skull? I dunno, maybe Microsoft will find some marketing use for tracking GPS statistics of every location you visit. Are we ever going to draw the line in the sand? I understand that I'm being somewhat melodramatic here because in the grand scheme of things there are more important things than video games, but nonetheless I truly do view the medium as an artform and I'd really hate to see it be reduced to nothing more than a brain-dead corporate cash cow.

TV. SPORTS. CALL OF DUTY.

There is no reason you should be required to connect online to access content that can function otherwise perfectly fine offline. This is pure corporate greed running amok; plain and simple, and it's disheartening to see how easily people are still willing to give up their consumer rights for it. I realize the industry has to make money to survive, but there are bounds of reason, and sometimes the only way to enforce them is for consumers to make informed purchasing decisions, which brings us to my final point on the matter.

The launch of the Xbox One will be a pivotal test for gamers and a crucial moment for gaming history; not just because it's another brand new console generation that will be open for exploration, but because it will be a test of our restraint and will to resist corporations dictating the course of the industry unchecked. Are we going to allow ourselves to turn games into disposable entertainment to be tossed away after a few months for temporary gratification, or do we care about our rights as consumers and the preservation of gaming history for future generations?

The saddest thing about this whole affair is that we will probably lose this fight if sales numbers for SimCity and Diablo III have been any indicator so far, and yet it's not even that hard to have our voices heard. All we have to do is resist the temptation to buy the system. That's it. There's nothing that makes a giant corporation cave in to pressure faster than seeing their bottom line collapse under its foundations, and seeing as all these issues are software-related, it can all be patched away and corrected out of the system easily within a couple months, and then we can all go out, buy our Xbox Ones, and enjoy the system anyway. See, this isn't about getting on the hate train and bashing Microsoft because it's the hip and cool thing to do right now. This is about protecting the future of the game industry, and whether it's Microsoft doing this, or Sony, or Nintendo, or anyone else, we all have to stand opposed to overreaching DRM no matter who's doing it if we want to put an end to this nonsense.

Git 'em boys!

Don't buy the Xbox One.

Don't be fooled: The Xbox One is still DRM-locked

"Hey man, I'm gonna bring my Xbox over tonight."

"Cool! Your 360?"

"No, the Xbox One."

"Awesome, we can play Halo 2 then."

"No I mean the Xbox ONE."

"...Yeah. We heard you. So we'll plan for some Halo 2 tonight."

"NO. I MEAN THE XBOX ONE. AS IN NOT THE FIRST XBOX BUT THE NEW XBOX ONE."

"...Huh?"

Well the next Xbox has finally been revealed, and joking about its naming conventions aside, already fans holding out for good news against the onslaught of always online accusations have quickly jumped to Microsoft's defense, claiming "victory" over the naysayers now that the always online requirement has been officially shot down.

Unfortunately while it may be true that the always online mandate is dead in the water, the system is still far from DRM-free, contrary to what many may think. That is, assuming the initial reports coming from Microsoft employees remain true until its expected launch date later this year. According to several sources that have spoken with Microsoft now including Wired and IGN, it has been revealed that used games will likely require an additional fee in order to unlock and play on your console once you have purchased them. One Destructoid article reports that, "Xbox One games will come with a unique redeemable code which will require Internet access to activate and as part of this setup, the software you purchase will be installed from the disc to your system's hard drive. While the redemption process links the titles to your Xbox Live account, anyone playing on the same Xbox One as you won't have to pay for a second copy."

Why thank you Microsoft, that's so reassuring. Thank heavens we can all breathe a sigh of relief now because we don't need to buy a second copy. Never mind the fact that I'm still required to connect to the Internet to access single player offline content. It's only a top-down draconian DRM policy that has thus far been unheard of in the console market. No big deal. This is the near-equivalent of Origin/Uplay/Steam DRM now brought to your home console, and while for some this may seem like only a minor inconvenience currently, I refer you to my previous blog entries discussing why you should still be concerned about this form of DRM. I would also like to take this time to call out any Xbox fans supporting this who previously criticized Steam and PC gaming for having the same faults. If you are among these people I strongly urge you to reevaluate your position on the issue to be more consistent.

I guess calling it Xbox One makes sense, seeing as it is 359 steps backward for gaming.

The Destructoid article also reports in its conversation with Microsoft Studios VP Phil Spencer that when asked how this would impact single player titles, Spencer said he believes "the user would need to go online with their console at least once per day."

Well, this just keeps getting better and better. So, it's not really always online; it's just as close as you can get to always online without actually having to admit to it. Clever Microsoft, very clever. Either way though, players still need to be connected to the Internet pretty much every day on their Xbox in order to get any decent functionality out of it. But don't worry, because see! It's not "always online"! Everything is going to be OK! We've got you covered!

No you don't. This is still anti-consumer tap dancing, and no one should tolerate it. If this is the future of gaming, it is a very depressing one.

A Conversation with an Anarchist

So in addition to gaming it turns out *gasp* I have other interests; one of them being politics. Political junkies unite, because it's time to dive into some overlong philosophical rambling.

Just recently I had a discussion for the first time with an anarchist. Previously I've never gotten to hear their side of the story in politics, so I knew this would be an interesting debate. I've always generally disagreed with the philosophy because I feel that no matter what there will exist conflicts of interest that need to be resolved and under an anarchist system inevitably in the absence of laws that enforce nonviolent resolutions to conflicts, there will be violence and societal decay similar to what we see in Africa where in the absence of government, many people form various gangs and mafias for protection and security that invariably result in lots of bloodshed over disputes.

Because it would fail instantly.

So one of the key things I learned from this discussion is that there are in fact varying forms of anarchy, which seems a bit strange to me as I always thought anarchy was simply the absence of government period and there were no other alternatives, but the way this anarchist described her beliefs sounded more to me like a very extreme form of libertarianism wherein some type of government still exists in some sense but it is extremely minimal. She called it voluntary anarchism, which is sort of an anarcho-pacifism where everyone peacefully enters into voluntary contracts for all their interactions with other people. There are no taxes, there is no military, and there is no police force. All of this sounds just peachy in theory because I am very pacifistic myself, and in many ways I like the idea of people having as many choices as possible so long as all parties involved agree, but I fail to see how this system offers a superior alternative to current forms of democratic governments, which I will explain my reasons for shortly.

So this anarchist constantly alluded to this idea that government is a form of coercion that "forces" people to follow terms and agreements that they don't necessarily agree to, and to that I must say, yes, it forces everyone to play fair despite that some people would rather not. In particular, she claimed that government is the biggest monopoly on mafias there is. She repeatedly used the word "force" to make her case, implying that her own system of "government" so-to-speak solves this issue. However, I find this a very dubious argument especially from my own experience having dealt with many licenses and contracts throughout my own life.

Almost as dubious as this recruitment poster.

First of all, I dispute her claim that democratic governments are any more "forceful" or "coercive" than her own system of governance. For example, in a functioning democracy, if there is a particular law that you take dispute with, you have the right and ability to vote for a representative who falls more in line with your beliefs on that particular issue, and if none such candidates exist, you can opt to be that representative yourself. In this sense, democratic government is very much voluntary in that you have options you can pursue if you don't like certain laws that your government imposes. If enough people seek the changes you want, you can bring about those changes through like-minded interests similar to her contract system. Of course the immediate argument an anarchist might make here is that still inevitably no politician will fall perfectly in line with your views and there will be laws that you will be forced to follow against your will. But then I have to ask, how is this any different under a contract system that she proposes? She might say, "It's a contract, you don't have to agree to its terms." This is true. However, contracts can be just as coercive and contain terms that you don't necessarily agree with, but you technically "agree" to them anyway because overall you might feel that the benefits of the parts that you do agree with outweigh the cons. Of course, you could say at this point, "Then I just won't agree with any terms that don't fall exactly in line with my views," but anyone should be able to realize that contracts can very much be an exercise in compromise. You are communicating with another party after all who inevitably has their own interests at heart over yours. If you unflinchingly refuse to make any compromises in your agreements, then you will be left isolated and unable to do business with anyone. Let's suppose for a moment that the economy is doing very poorly and few businesses are hiring except for ones that will pay you at minimum wage despite that you know with your expertise you qualify for better pay. Nonetheless, you agree to a minimum wage contract because you don't have any other choice. Oh wait, except there's another problem. There is no government, so there is no guaranteed minimum wage either. Therefore, they could easily end up paying you even less than what the minimum wage would otherwise be as well. So now with all this in mind I can simply point out that ultimately you will be forced to follow terms that you don't necessarily agree with in order to further your own goals overall, just like democratic government, only now you have a slew of other problems on top of it.

Most notably, let's talk about the absence of any law enforcement. I posed this hypothetical scenario to her: Suppose someone decides to make a purchase of a rather expensive item from a shop and they come to discover the item is broken and defective upon arriving home, so they return to the store to ask for a refund. The shopkeeper then simply replies, "Sorry, but no." Now how does one go about resolving this conflict fairly under her system? She replied that most likely both parties would have entered into a contract beforehand wherein they either agreed to provide refunds or not and so if the contract said they didn't have to offer refunds, then that is a sad day for the consumer because they already agreed to those terms and they will need to consider those terms more carefully in the future. Fair enough, but then I proposed, "So what if the terms said the shop was obligated to provide a refund but they decided not to honor it anyway? Since there is an absence of any law enforcement, they are under no pressure to uphold those terms after all." She then replied that the business' reputation would be tarnished and it would come back to hurt them. This is similar to libertarian and conservative arguments I've heard about regarding free markets before and I find it highly simplistic and ignores nuances in the market that allow bad businesses to continue thriving. Consider Electronic Arts for example, despite receiving 2 Golden Poo Awards in a row from Consumerist and being voted worst company in America, they continue to make money producing games regardless through--that's right--COERCIVE marketing methods, which I might add, don't involve a need for government at all, but DO ironically involve consumers agreeing to license contracts. For example, their intrusive anti-consumer DRM service called Origin is often required to be installed in order to play some of their latest games, so many gamers will be forced to agree to its terms and services if they want to experience the latest game in one of their beloved franchises. Even though many gamers may find this practice despicable, they will overwhelmingly be unable to resist the temptation of playing the game and will agree to the terms anyway, and thus EA's cycle of discontent continues despite that their bad reputation should supposedly lead to their downfall under a free market system.

Or more likely most gamers won't even know they just agreed to screw themselves.

So her next argument was that there would also be "third party mediators" involved, but she did not elaborate on who exactly these third party mediators would be and how their decisions would not be influenced through bias, since in this particular system almost everything is run entirely through private interests which will inevitably follow the money trails rather than necessarily what's fair. Furthermore, since these "third party mediators" must be nonviolent and nonbinding, there is again no pressure on the shopkeeper to honor their agreement since he won't be forcefully taken into custody anyway if he just continues to ignore the mediators' rulings.

A "third party mediator" at work.

Her final argument was that the consumer would have also likely bought into some sort of insurance for protection against incidents like this, but in many ways this just loops back to the same problems I've already outlined; insurance companies are under no real obligation to honor their contracts with you and even if they did, this would tremendously increase the cost of living on everyone because they would have to resort to buying into insurance for every conceivable product since any company can potentially just ignore their agreements and obligations to provide you quality goods.

One thing I'd like to quickly note before continuing was that she also said that while government might be able to resolve these issues adequately through the court system, it's not really as effective as it could be under her own system, likening the trial system to raising a child by whipping it whenever it does something wrong rather than making it understand why it did something wrong. It's an interesting analogy, and while I generally agree with this philosophy in many instances, by handling all disputes this way it ignores the very real existence of sociopaths who couldn't care less about morality in the first place and can frequently end up in high positions at businesses because they know how to make money but not necessarily how to treat other human beings fairly.

In a system that is entirely "free market" driven, the reality is that it isn't free at all. You simply trade your deference from one evil to another; in this case, from government to corporations, which can in many ways be just as evil, if not more so than government. Money becomes the ultimate rule of law, and morality is not even computed into the equation. Hello again, child labor and no vacations. You don't think businesses would bring such practices back? Why wouldn't they? These practices existed before when government didn't bother to step in and regulate. See, this is one of my largest criticisms of libertarianism and by extension voluntary anarchism. In a perfect world, these would probably be ideal philosophies to live by, but the problem is we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world full of assholes, and granted, I would say that the number of caring and empathetic people probably outnumber the assholes by a significant margin, but it only takes an exceedingly small 1% to ruin it for the other 99. Less than 1% of the world's population currently holds over a third of the entire world's resources, and among that 1% are Wall Street bankers who were responsible for the 2008 global economic crash. Through their fraudulent practices, they were able to significantly and negatively affect people to the tune of billions; all just to further their own personal interests. This is one of the main reasons I stopped considering myself a libertarian; I assumed too much that other people would behave as empathetically, rationally, and responsibly as me, but the fact of the matter is that they don't, and that's really the only way that such an idealistic system could work.

I always wanted to work for a real-life Jeremiah Fink.

Of course, an anarchist might say that my Wall Street example is actually a perfect counter-example to having a government in place, as it was the government itself that aided and abetted Wall Street in doing this. While it may be true that government contributed to the problem, this is still actually an example of pure free market capitalism running amok, because we currently don't live in a functioning democracy anymore; we are ruled by a government that is bought out by private business through legalized bribery, which is why the government was aiding Wall Street in the first place. That is to say, it is the free market itself that took over and is now calling the shots. Under a properly-functioning democratic government, representatives actually represent their constituents, not their donors. This is where I believe the true root of our problems lies. By taking away unlimited corporate spending on government, banning corporate personhood, and publicly financing all political campaigns through campaign finance reform, we can properly restore a functioning democracy that works for the benefit of its constituents. Cue shameless plug for Wolf-PAC, the organization you can join right now to help fight this battle. I've already donated to the cause, and I highly recommend you consider it yourself.

We're comin'.

Finally, she also failed to understand the basic recognition that due to the unique lack of profit motive involved in the institution of government, this potentially allows it to streamline and increase efficiency with certain services through providing wider access to them at cheaper cost. Consider for example the public healthcare systems of many first world countries which are able to provide better quality healthcare than through privatized systems at cheaper cost and to greater amounts of people than the United States. This can be statistically demonstrated through various economic indicators like mortality rates and percentage of healthcare coverage. Putting healthcare aside though, I gave her the example of roads being just one service that is best handled through government. She claimed that roads existed before there were governments, a statement that I am skeptical of, especially in particular if we're considering roads as they exist today which aren't just simple dirt paths but made of pavement that requires special materials and frequent maintenance to upkeep. The only way these could reasonably be maintained under an anarchist system is again through private business which will inevitably cost more through tolls as opposed to taxes. Again, she failed to understand why, due to a basic misunderstanding about profit motive whichs adds extra administrative cost to any service.

So to me, no matter how you look at it, again this all comes back to the fact that inevitably there will be conflicts of interest that need resolution, and voluntary anarchism fails to adequately address how it would solve these disputes without ultimately resulting in violence or coercion potentially to more extreme degrees than through traditional democratic governments, as there exists no real protections to enforce fair contracts for all parties involved. Furthermore, the lack of government regulation in the economy would quickly lead to pure monetary interests becoming the new rule of law, and therefore human rights and dignity would become irrelevant if they don't lead to greater profits. It seems to me that rather than seeking to address problems individually with government as issues should be handled on a case-by-case basis, anarchists simply seek to go to the extreme end of the spectrum and toss government out almost entirely, which in all likelihood creates more problems than it solves.

Brace yourselves, the Revolution is coming...

With Nintendo already having released their next-gen console and Sony and Microsoft soon to follow suit, the next generation of console wars is on the horizon. There's plenty of fancy corporate speak, rhetoric, and big ideas being tossed around, but are the Big Three really delivering on all the best features that they could be offering?

To find out, I've decided to invent my own hypothetical "perfect" console design and compare and contrast its specifications with what we can expect from the new and upcoming consoles. I say "perfect" in quotations because of course there truly is no such thing, as there will always be hardware advancements or new ways discovered in which the software could be improved or streamlined with each passing year. There's also necessary sacrifices to consider in order to bring cost under control. My goal with this console's design is ultimately to aim for the most meaningful and robust feature set as possible while trimming the fat as needed in order to make it into an affordable and elegant product.

As a longtime gamer who has owned nearly every major gaming hardware platform since the NES and enjoys just about every genre, I would like to think I have a lot of experience and insight to draw from, so hopefully this should be an interesting read if nothing else. Now what would this console be like you ask? Prepare yourselves mortals, as I shall now unveil...

Brace yourself.

The Derpalon Revolution!

...Yeah OK, so I basically just stole the old codename of the Nintendo Wii, but hey, it's Nintendo's loss because it's a pretty sexy name if I may say so, and it aint my problem they decided to drop it in favor of a less attractive name, so DEAL WITH IT.

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite blog on the Extranet.

Moving on, let's take a look at its general feature set.

Starting with the hardware, the Revolution would house an x64-based chipset, taking advantage of the latest 64-bit computing technology. In fact while we're on the subject, let's just get the biggest cat out of the bag right now. The system's overall architecture would basically resemble a PC with no real significant proprietary deviations. Why this decision? I have a number of reasons. Traditionally, consoles have used proprietary architectures that may offer several advantages, but most of those advantages only benefit the company and not necessarily consumers or developers. For example, proprietary architectures make it more difficult for developers to code for the system as well as port their titles to other systems, so if the Revolution was hypothetically stomping the competition in sales, developers would feel more inclined to make their titles exclusive to my system and consider porting it to others later if at all. This would benefit me, but not really the developer. In general, proprietary designs are just restrictive and limit creative potential. Besides, consoles have been slowly moving toward becoming comprehensive media centers anyway, and they've always been at least one step behind PCs in their feature set because of their restrictive nature, so rather than constantly playing catch-up with PCs, why not essentially *be* a PC from the get-go?

Know your place, peons.

That all being said, the system is more than just a glorified gaming PC; the overall hardware architecture is only PC-based to eliminate unnecessary restrictions, but the system will still deviate from traditional gaming PCs in several significant ways as I will elaborate on later. For now, let's just say my goal with this system is to make it as open and accessible as possible, which is the main reasoning behind this design.

Continuing onward, let's finally get into specifics:

The Processor: An Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge Quad Core CPU. The reasons behind this should be fairly obvious. It's a powerful mid range CPU that generally offers the best performance for your buck without getting too excessively expensive for the average consumer.

The RAM: 8GB DDR3 @1600 Mhz. I thought about reducing this to 4GB because in truth you don't really need the extra space. What's more important is the speed. Consider all the performance the Playstation 3 was able to push out of merely a combined 512 MB of RAM between its GPU and main RAM. However, with RAM being so inexpensive these days, you might as well go the extra mile in this case.

Internal Storage: 320 GB 7200 RPM 32MB cache SATA hard drive. I thought about doing a solid state drive but here was where I felt the system could seriously afford to trim some fat. While it's true that solid state drives are significantly faster, they're a lot more expensive for a lot less storage space, and they generally have higher failure rates than standard hard drives, so ultimately I felt it would be more beneficial overall to cut down on the price with an additional bonus of getting more storage space out of it.

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti. With 384 CUDA cores running at 830 Mhz, the GTX 560 Ti is a suitably powerful mid range card that won't empty your wallet while still delivering smooth and crisp 1080p graphics. It was tempting to go for an AMD card instead, but the NVIDIA drivers come with some useful bonus features like adaptive VSYNC for more stable framerates without having to put up with screen tearing, and FXAA, which handles anti-aliasing at better performance than the traditional MSAA method.

Physical Media: Blu-ray Burner Drive. The system will be able to play Blu-ray and DVD movies in addition to games, and the ability to burn discs is supported so you can create physical backup copies of games you download digitally.

The Controller: Wii U Pro Controller design, which technically is just a further refinement of the Xbox360 controller design, but so far out of all the controllers I've used before, this one is unmatched. The curvature of the controller fits snugly in your hands and the button layout is as perfect as you could ask for. The new placement of the right joystick might take some getting used to if you've been using an Xbox360 controller for a while, but I think in the end the new location makes more sense. In addition, the controller has a mini-USB slot so you can plug it into the console for the rechargeable battery like the PS3 controller. As some personal tweaks to the design that I would make, the controller would also support a 3.5mm jack so you can easily plug in your standard PC microphone for voice chat. Furthermore, the recharge cable will be a full 10 feet long, so unlike the PS3's cables, if you get stuck running low on battery while playing, you won't have to sit up close to your TV. And finally, I would ditch the rumble pack feature but include a motion gyroscope. The rumble pack was an interesting experiment but ultimately it's just always felt gimmicky and it's especially annoying when you set your controller down and suddenly it just vibrates off the table and falls to the floor because somebody thought it was a good idea to use it during cutscenes. As for motion controls, I seriously considered a more fully-featured motion controller, and while I did feel the Wii's motion controls improved the gameplay experience for some games, most of the time it only offered marginal improvements at best or felt like a shoehorned nuisance at worst. Nonetheless I really wanted to give developers a wide range of freedom with this console, so I also considered bundling a motion controller in addition to a standard controller with it, but in the end I feel this is another necessary area where fat must be trimmed. I still include the motion gyroscope though because I saw some decent uses of it in PS3 titles like Uncharted where it was put to good use for balancing obstacles and the like. Also, the system would still have a built-in bluetooth adapter, so motion controllers can be easily adapted to it down the road. The Revolution has mouse and keyboard support too; though it wouldn't come included with them, but who doesn't have these already laying around somewhere anyways?

The Case: 4 USB 3.0 ports on the front for controllers and 4 more ports on the back for whatever other peripherals you might feel inclined to use. There's a power button, and there's an eject button for the disc drive. Nothing fancy really. The outer design isn't that important to me. The big spectacle here is about what's underneath. The case would have a modular, easily-disassembled design so that parts can be upgraded with little effort. Much like the Xi3 Piston, the goal here is to give the system the capability to upgrade like a PC but without all the hassle if you aren't as tech savvy. Internally, most of the parts all snap together neatly with connections being mostly cordless, so even a novice can follow the simple instructions for installation. However, where this system deviates from the Piston is in its form factor. It's no grapefruit-sized PC unfortunately, being significantly larger than the Piston. The reasoning behind this is mostly a cost-saving measure. It's more expensive to manufacture smaller parts, and additionally, the larger size makes it less cluttered and more spacious inside, which again makes it easier for novices to work with when upgrading parts. It may not look quite as pretty in your living room, but you'll save a pretty penny in the process, and maybe even a headache too.

I have no idea what you just said, so here's a bunny with an Oreo on its head.

Finally, we've covered all the hardware basics, but what does the Revolution have to offer in terms of software?

Naturally, as the Revolution would be the most open console to date, it would utilize a modified version of the free and open source operating system, Linux. Built on top of the Linux operating system is the Revolution Dashboard--your basic equivalent to Steam's "Big Picture" mode for Windows PCs. This would be the first interface you would be greeted with upon powering up your console.

The Revolution Dashboard: Here you can easily navigate through your games list and start jumping into whatever you want to play. You can buy games physically or download them from the Revolution Store that is built into the dashboard. It also comes with a number of other features built into it right from the get-go. If you download a game digitally, you can create physical backup copies on blu-ray or DVD, and you can do the same for DLC and patch updates as well. You can create a friends list through your Revolution Network account and easily invite them to a party where you can text or voice chat with them. You can browse through your video library and listen to your favorite music while playing your games. You can likewise access shared media over the network and stream it to your Revolution if other networked PCs have media sharing enabled, and finally, online play is free of charge with the exclusion of subscription-based MMOs.

Blah blah, these are all standard features we've seen in consoles before. Well now, let's get into some of the more interesting stuff.

For any additional software needs, you can now tap the Revolution Button at the center of your controller and bam, the dashboard now minimizes to your Linux desktop. Want to watch YouTube or Netflix? Fire up your foxy Mozilla web browser and head on over to their website. Want to do word processing on your TV? Download LibreOffice. Want to Skype someone? You can download an app for that too. If it runs on Linux, it runs on the Revolution. New services and applications don't have to go through any approval process to run on my system; if someone's made an application for it, you can just go download it. If you're feeling too lazy to switch to your mouse and keyboard, you can navigate your entire desktop with your controller too, with drivers built-in to allow you to control the cursor with your joystick and prompt you with a digital keyboard interface on-screen when you need to type something.

But there's still more. When I was playing Halo 2 Vista on my PC, I noticed that the game automatically disables the Windows Aero interface to conserve system resources while the game is playing, but a lot of other games for PC don't do this out-of-box. Thus, the idea came to me for "Performance Mode". Just tap one of your shoulder buttons on your controller while in the Revolution Dashboard and quickly enable Performance Mode to automatically disable graphics rendering of any unnecessary visuals running in the background on your Linux desktop, thus maximizing your gaming performance. Or, you can even go a step further with Full Performance Mode, and the Dashboard will automatically close any non-essential programs and processes altogether in addition to the previous steps, leaving only the necessary processes for gaming. Just make sure you've saved any data that you don't want to lose in those open programs before enabling it (a warning prompt would be displayed before confirming it).

I'll show YOU performance, Loco!

Last but not least, the Revolution Store would enforce a strict "No Connection Required" policy for all single player content. If a game is capable of being played by yourself, there's no reason you should be forced to connect to the Internet. This is the key differentiation that separates the Revolution service from Steam. Even with Steam's offline mode, you are still required to temporarily connect to the service upon installation to authenticate your copy before you can play offline. In other words, even if you created a physical backup copy of your game, you still can't play it after installation until you authenticate through your Steam account online. While this may only seem like a minor inconvenience now, this still effectively translates to a ticking time bomb, or perhaps more aptly put, an extended rental for all your games. If the Steam service ever shuts down, changes its terms, or drops support for games among your library, you can no longer play them. Not so for the Revolution. The fact of the matter is, when you put DRM in your games like this, all it does is hurt the legitimate consumer and to some extent even legitimizes what pirates are doing, because now they are offering a superior version of the product wherein your ownership is not only free of charge but is also free of online restrictions. And that's just it: Steam's DRM measures don't really stop pirates either. As I write this, nearly every single player game you see on Steam can be found cracked online and downloaded within minutes if you just know where to look. So the question is, why do publishers insist on treating the legitimate customer as guilty until proven innocent while this sort of backwards draconian regulation isn't even actually effective at curbing piracy? That's why when you add this all up, I simply can't justify supporting this approach to DRM.

Nonetheless, I understand the developer's desire to protect their product and ensure they get paid what they deserve. I am not opposed to all DRM for this reason. The Revolution Network service would still allow and support online authentication for multiplayer content since players require a connection to access it anyway. Developers can choose to use a CD key method or have the Revolution Network detect when two instances of your account are logged in at once and automatically boot you from the game. Of course this is by no means a comprehensive solution to the problem, but so far it's the only solution that comes at no extra cost to the legitimate consumer, and with pirates being effectively shut out of at least half of a typical game's content, it should be enough incentive to encourage purchasing a genuine copy.

And that about wraps up the general overview of major features I'd like to see in my ideal console. In truth, the Revolution doesn't really make that many big innovations. It's just about being as straightforward, open, and accessible as possible without needing to rely on any fancy gimmicks or rhetoric. The overwhelming message I've picked up from gamers is that they like their standard button controllers and their mice and keyboards, and they don't really need a bunch of souped up social networking distractions to enjoy their games. This console is about offering a blank canvas to developers with as little obstruction as possible, so they can craft the games they want and players can enjoy them to the fullest potential; because really when it comes down to it, what good is any console without its games? At the end of the day, it's the games themselves that drive the console, not some glorified piece of hardware or clever new software feature, so the design should be built around improving that experience primarily above all else. Think of the Revolution sort of like the Sony version of the Ouya console; it's all about being free and open like the Ouya, but with the added bonus of a more robust feature set and powerhouse of hardware typical of Sony. On top of this, I wanted to combine the flexibility of a PC with the accessibility of a console, and I think the Revolution would be able to effectively accomplish that.

Who am I kidding though? This is starting to sound like a big advertisement for it as if this console will ever get made. Too bad really, because I think it would be pretty sweet, but a guy can dream, right?

Oh, and did I say I was going to compare and contrast this design with the Big Three? Yeah... about that. This is starting to get pretty TL;DR-ish as it is, so I'll just stick to a very short commentary on this last part. As you can see, there are a number of features this console would possess that neither Nintendo, Sony, nor Microsoft will likely be offering in their next-gen consoles anytime in the near-future. The flexible PC-based design allows for user-created mods, hardware upgradeability, and backwards compatibility for old games on a level that their systems just couldn't offer. Then if we branch out to the new competitors up and coming this console season, Valve wouldn't touch my populist "No Connection Required" policy with a 10-foot pole, and the Ouya lacks the hardware horsepower to compete on my level, so I think this places the Revolution in a very attractive position. It should be clear now that there's still quite a few things that the big wigs could do to improve their systems, but for now we'll just have to be content with what we've been dealt. Thanks for reading if by some off-chance you made it to the end of this long-winded wall of text, and let me know what you think of this idea for a console. ;)

Revisiting the Xi3 Piston

Interestingly enough, just days after posting my commentary on the upcoming game console in development from Valve, marketing director Doug Lombardi of Valve Corporation issued a statement clarifying some misconceptions about its development. In his statement, he explained that the Xi3 Piston is not in fact the official "Steam Box" console, and that Valve only did some exploratory work with Xi3 last year before ultimately breaking off involvement for the time being. Now the Piston has become Xi3's own pet project unrelated to Valve, and they are moving forward with plans to launch it at a starting price point of $999.99 USD, with higher tier models available at additional cost.

Nope, aint our console folks.

With these facts now disclosed, I feel it necessary to do some reflections on my previous editorial. I was originally writing under the assumption that the Piston was the official Steam Box, but now it appears this is clearly not the case. In addition, it has been revealed that the Piston will likely run on Windows OS, not Linux as was also a part of my previous assumptions. For the most part, this doesn't change my opinions in relation to how I feel about Valve's upcoming Steam Box, as most if not all of my points still apply to it, but this does significantly change my perspective on the Piston.

Most notably, now that it seems the Piston will be running on Windows, this means that gamers should be able to have other options besides Steam DRM-locked games for the system. This would make me much more supportive of it if it weren't for the introduction of a new caveat; the price point.

$$$

At roughly $1000 for its starting price, this puts the system at a significant disadvantage against other upcoming living room media centers from the Big Three, which will likely be priced at half the cost of the Piston at maximum, if not certainly even less.

Nintendo has already launched their next-gen system the Wii U at the price point of ~$300 and they have had difficulty staying afloat. Considering that this is Xi3's first attempt at directly competing with the console market, they also have no real devoted following of fans to rely upon as Nintendo does if all else fails. With all this in mind, the Piston is likely destined for failure if they can't at least find some way to bring the cost under control.

Sony made the mistake of being too arrogant with the loyalty of their fanbase last round during the launch of the PS3, and they assumed that people would still buy their console anyway despite its hefty price point of $500 at launch. As it turned out, they were wrong, and the system suffered from slow adoption for quite some time before they were able to pick up some strong exclusives and drive down costs. With as steep a price as we're looking at with the Piston and no fanbase whatsoever, it's poised to fall off the sales charts immediately beyond the point of no return.

Yeah, well I'm still the only console that can grill your hamburgers.

Of course being that the Piston is essentially still a PC at its core, its one saving grace is that gamers will already have access to a large library of excellent games for it at launch, but regardless, at a minimum price point of $1000, it's only going to appeal to the hardcore PC gamer market, which would rather custom build their PCs to get more bang for their buck anyway. The large majority of console gamers will likely take little interest in the Piston when they're typically on a tight budget and they're looking for a fully-equipped media center for their living room, which they can get from the other consoles for much cheaper.

I suspect that the main culprit behind the Piston's large cost is its small form factor in conjunction with its powerful hardware. As a general rule for PCs, the more power you try to cram into a smaller space results in exponentially higher costs. This is why laptops nearly always are outperformed by desktop PCs in terms of price versus performance gained. For these reasons, if I were in Xi3's position, I would consider expanding the size of the platform to drive down the cost of the hardware, as well as consider providing an option without the solid state hard drive, as it is mostly an unneeded luxury to the average console gamer that the system would be best targeted to. With just a few simple trimmings to its base design like this, I think it could be quite competitively priced as a living room media center that can rival the Big Three and potentially pull in a new market to the PC gaming scene. As it currently stands however, the Piston is just too highly-priced to justify its existence.

Implications of Valve's New Console

Long time no see. I've tentatively decided to continue updating this blog after a long hiatus. No idea how long this will last, but let's just see where it goes.

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, Valve has announced their first entry into the console market which they are calling Piston. They're backing hardware manufacturer Xi3 for production of the console, and they've already showed off a prototype model for it. There's a lot to like about its features that make it stand out compared to the other Big Three, but it also comes with one major drawback which I will get into later.

For now let's talk about the good stuff though. First of all it's really only a "console" in the sense that it's meant to be hooked up to your TV instead of your computer desk. Beyond that it is basically just a miniature PC. Now you might be thinking at this point, "So what? Big deal. Haven't you heard of HDMI cables?" And yes, it's true that you already can just run a cable from your computer to your TV to accomplish the same thing, but it's still really inconvenient unless you've dedicated an entire PC to your TV, because I don't know about anyone else, but lugging my desktop back and forth isn't exactly a one-step process with all those cables and accessories that I've got to attach to it. The nice thing about the Piston is that it will be a PC specifically built to work with your TV, so I can play my favorite PC games on the big screen with relative ease. But it goes much further than that. Because this is a system marketed toward console gamers, this could finally provide a window into the PC market that many budget gamers have been waiting for, as well as a window for those who aren't as tech savvy as the rest of us. That means more of your friends will finally be able to play with you in your favorite PC games. Another big deal about this system is the possibility that it will run on Linux, and that means we can finally expect to see a large library of AAA-quality games coming to the free and open source operating system. In the future PC gamers may at last have other options besides Windows as their operating system of choice thanks to this device, and that's a huge game changer right there that could really throw Microsoft for a loop. The Piston is also very upgradeable. In the demonstration Xi3 showed us, the system can be disassembled pretty easily into individual parts and replaced with new ones. However, because of the Piston's unique and small form factor, the price for parts could be more expensive than normal since you likely won't be able to buy any 3rd party PC parts for it. Still, the fact that it's upgradeable means that you never need to completely toss it out. You can keep upgrading it over time instead.

Well hello there, little guy.

Probably one of the most interesting possibilities with this system is the fact that it could make motion controls viable on PCs, because as far as I know, no one likes to flail their Wiimotes around at their computer desk. And then of course there's all the usual benefits you can expect from essentially being a PC. 60+ frames per second for most games, true 1080p resolution, user-created mods; it'll do your laundry, make you a sandwich, get you laid.

OK, maybe I made up a few of those.

So with all these positives going for it, what could possibly be so bad about it you might be asking. And the answer is Steam. This console could potentially serve as a death sentence to any remaining non-Steam options for game distribution, and that could have some very unsettling consequences for the industry. I seem to be the only one nowadays that still remembers Steam is a DRM platform. I know this has apparently become a radical idea these days, so brace yourself for what I'm about to say, but I still strongly believe we should be allowed to actually own our games when we buy them. Under Steam's distribution platform, we never truly own the games we buy. You can't resell them, and they all require an online activation even for single player content. And yes, it has an offline mode, but it doesn't matter because you still can't use it until you at least once go through online activation with your games. That means all your games are held hostage to Steam's authentication servers, so if the Steam service shuts down for any reason, the next time you try to install any game from your library, even if you created a backup physical copy you won't be able to play it because it can't be authenticated through Steam's servers. Of course some people might say at this point big deal, it's not like Steam is going to be shutting down any time soon. But there's still plenty that can go wrong by putting such blind trust into a corporation. Maybe down the road Valve might decide that the Steam store is just getting too big or some of the games are too old and it's just too much hassle for them to keep on their service, so they stop supporting them. If any of those games happen to be among your library, they're now gone. Or consider another scenario. Gabe Newell isn't going to be around as the benevolent dictator forever, what if he suddenly decides to step down? Maybe the new man in charge might make Valve go public with its assets, or worse sell it off to another faceless giant like EA. Since the Steam terms of service can be changed at any time, and you HAVE to accept them or else again you lose your entire library, do you really want to put your trust in EA dictating those terms to you? This isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility; EA has considered acquiring Valve before.

What? Nothing could possibly go wrong with me in charge.

But most importantly this principle of treating "games as a service" makes preserving the history of the industry so much harder. When all these games keep getting tied down by online services that fluctuate, change their terms, and shut down all the time, it's nearly impossible to be able to go back and revisit them several years later without just resorting to piracy. To me it seems like a really depressing future for the industry if we continue to view games as so disposable that we don't care to try and preserve the classics for future generations, because we're not going to be around forever to appreciate them. It just really frustrates me that gamers have so quickly become submissive to the encroachment of DRM and have almost completely forgotten that they used to despise Steam and for good reasons which are still valid to this day.

What all this boils down to is that I foresee this system continuing to erode consumer rights and taking away ownership of our games. After all, when PC developers look at how they want to distribute their game, why limit your market to just PC gamers as a standalone product when instead you can grab both that audience and console gamers by putting your product on Steam? To me this is a terrible prospect, but I'm sure most people probably won't even think twice about it.

But hey maybe I'm forgetting something. This is basically supposed to be a miniature PC isn't it? Then I can just buy non-Steam games for it anyway, right?

Nice try.

Except for one problem; there's no disc drive. But then you might say hey, no biggie, it's got a bunch of USB ports, I'll just buy a USB disc drive for it. Except for one problem; it runs on Linux. What PC games are you going to find on Linux besides those available on Steam? Not very many.

So as much as I'd love to get on board with this little experiment, I just can't as long as Valve insists on Steam being an anti-consumer DRM platform. No benefit is worth handing over all ownership of your games, and as much as Gabe has been a benevolent dictator so far, he's still a dictator. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there right now who will disagree with me on this, and I get that, because Valve has done a lot of other nice things for the industry as well, but I hope after considering these points you can at least understand where I'm coming from. Until next time folks.