Thursday Next

It doesn't matter if people know what his name is. You just do a public "The guy who came up with this has gone." Consumers will know that the bad man is gone, investors will be a bit more informed. Also, you keep using ETA, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Yup. Hence, baby, bathwater. Would love for Sony to steal a march by saying "That sharing digital games idea is pretty cool yo. We'll do that!"

http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update "Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold." Seems pretty unequivocal to me.

I'd be calling for his head. If only to be able to draw a line under this. MS can then foist all the blame on to him and regain some of their consumer trust.

Precisely, it's a cost benefit. I get to borrow a game for nothing. The payback is that I have to be connected while I do it. There's a clear value proposition there. Contrast with Xbox One essentially saying that you have really just paid to borrow their games from them.

I get changing to disc based DRM for retail games, but really what they should have done is kept the family sharing and friend loaning stuff for digital games. I don't want to check in every x hours / days / whatever. But, if I want to play a shared game that I don't own, I'm fine with an online check in on starting that game. This would have given digital games a genuine benefit over retail which would move more of the consumer base to digital and then later in the generation (or next generation), once discs are done with, they could release a PSPGo style device that only does digital and the destruction of specialist game retailers will be complete. Removing the sharing features for digital purchases is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Hope that's true. Well, I don't really mind when before xmas it arrives. I just want to know really.

Oh right I see. In that respect yes. But I have nothing but disdain for professional football so I don't care about that stuff. The act of a bunch of people kicking a ball about is nice and all, but the millionaire idiots who play it, the destitute idiots who get into brawls over it, all that crap can piss off. Along with FIFA and the rest of the organisations.

But then he buys it and comes in to help and his "friend" says "Shiiiiit! You suck at this game. Look at how awesome I am at it! Even though I needed your help... or whatever."

Does that mean it's actually pronounced 'erb?

Those 5 got cut down to 2 iirc.

- Yo! Dude bro! I need help with this game essay! - In a moment ethnic friend! I'm currently receiving gaming tips from a girl. Hey girl-who-is-a-friend. Would you like to join me and ethnic friend in a demographic covering gaming clan? - No standard cookie cutter pretty boy! But not because I am sexist. Instead I would invite you to join my clan, which probably has some European and Eastern members to round out our all encompassing stock photo clique. Blegh. People like this do not exist, and the ones that do don't talk like that.

If we're talking on this point, it's not half as shameful as the World Cup going to Qatar. Qatar has the number one or two GDP per capita in the world. Compared to Brazil who are ranked ~75th - 85th. Qatar can afford it. Brazil cannot.

Nope. You may now remove your tin-foil hat. EA dropped online pass because it wasn't popular. Believe me, or don't. Whatever.

In retrospect, I don't really get why chickens coming home to roost is a bad thing, isn't having lots of chickens good, and the reason we shouldn't put all the eggs in one basket and count them before they hatch..?

I've always thought Brazil was a bit of a powder keg. Huge poor / rich divide and all that jazz. Hosts the Formula 1, but drivers can't leave the circuit for fear of being kidnapped or robbed or stabbed...

Perhaps US and UK. Mainland Europe seems to miss out on some stuff. But UK is pretty well served imho.

Playing Mirror's Edge at work. Ni No Kuni at home.

Stands to reason. If my buddy, parent, child or sibling is in the forces then chances are I'll want to game with them. It might even be the only time we get to talk to each other. So if they can't get an Xbone then I'll have what they're having. Which means more PS4s for everyone involved.

I reckon this will have a huge amount to do with release dates. If there's so much as a month's difference between the two consoles it could swing the early market leader which will give one side or the other the momentum and the ability to define the generation (gaming focused or multimedia generalist). MS and Sony are probably waiting to see the other's date before announcing theirs. It's a game of chicken. EDIT: I'm over 30 with money. I sometimes game on PC, but I'm a PlayStation gamer first and foremost. PS4 day one.

Yeah. It'll sell fine. Ass loads of marketing and an established fan base will see to that.

Good question. Sony seem to be quite open with their system, however, they might want to keep that stuff under lock and key since if the sale is through the PS wallet they can easily take a cut. If it goes through the pubs own channel then it's harder to track and they may not even get a cut of the microtransaction revenue.

Surely this does more harm than good?

It's also short on memory due to running the OS, side apps and it has to have enough memory left over to put the console in standby within one second. Depending on what else the console is doing you can have as little as 30% memory to work with. Also, total BS that they claim you have to check in every 24 hours because The Power of the Cloud. If the Xbone needed the cloud to operate checking in once a day wouldn't do shit.