Bleszinki told the website that there are no plans for a PC version. “Here’s the problem right now,” he said, “the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software.”

via TVG

I can speculate about the real reasons Epic would do this, like, millions of dollars from Microsoft to keep it on the console only. To actually come out and say that the smart people who can build a gamer PC and have the wherewithal to do it will just pirate your game is pretty insulting. Way to drive another nail into the coffin of PC gaming!

Two years (and several replacements) later, the honeymoon is over. We’ve gotten used to one another and even taught each other a few new tricks. The 360 can play videos streamed from my computers, music, has an HD-DVD drive sitting on the floor beside it. But wait, the drive isn’t even plugged in. The noises that come out of the 360 even when it’s working well are at the least annoying, at worst alarming. Sometimes these noises signal a “disc unreadable” error that’ll require a reboot. Each time that happens I half expect the machine to not boot. And then there’s the hard-drive making those clicking noises usually followed by a crash. It’s getting old.

And that interface? Man is that thing tired. Every time I turn on my Xbox it’s like a kick in the nuts. Those goddamned sliding interface panels annoy the hell out of me every time I see them. I want to go back to the dashboard. Click the big X. A panel slides out (delaying me by a couple of seconds). I press the Y button. The panel slides back, another panel slides out from the other side asking me if I’m sure because it’ll unload whatever awesome game of Halo I’m playing. (another 2-4 seconds) I click “OK”, the panel slides away and then the dashboard comes up. Total elapsed time? Somewhere around 10s.

Every operation is like this. Chat with a friend. Pick some music. Eject a disc. Most operations come with helpful “Are you sure?” panels. This is without a doubt, my most frustrated and frequent complaint about this device. Oh, and the noises.

Let’s paint a hypothetical picture, 5 years down the road:

del.icio.us: Five years from now, the yahoo! acquired bookmarks service has been rebranded as Microsoft Windows Live Favorites and is tightly-integrated with IE9. Users have options to sync their bookmarks with the Live service and can view bookmarks in the Xbox 720′s Xplorer browser (for a low-per-use cost of only .05 points per visit). Microsoft Windows Live Favorites only provides legacy support for “alternative” browsers (outdated versions of Firefox, Safari, Opera) and users refusing to use a Windows Live Passport are unable to access their bookmarks. RSS reading has been dropped in favor of Microsoft’s Live Channels format.

flickr: Gone are the somewhat clumsy, but usable Flash components of flickr (rebranded as Microsoft Live Photo.net), replaced by all new Silverlight components. After the initial roll-out of Silverlight 1.0, the subsequent version 2.0 saw little support for Firefox, Safari and users of Mac and Linux, despite the best efforts to implement an open source version on those platforms. Feature parity is expected sometime around Q2 2014. New features include online photo editing with photopaint.net and the addition of home movies. Users also have access to their photo libraries on their Xbox 720 and Zune players and can upload photos directly from their Microsoft-powered smart-phones. Former users of flickr from before the acquisition have largely moved on after a considerable legal battle to force Microsoft to have their pictures removed after a number of people complained about seeing their photos show up in Microsoft ads on MSNBC. The new Microsoft Live Photo.NET EULA is 27 pages long and no longer provides CC-Licensing support as an option.

Yahoo/flickr Groups: Yahoo Groups and flickr have had vibrant user communities dating back over 10 years. Some suggested that these were the real reasons Microsoft put in its bid 5 years ago to purchase the Yahoo! machinery. Now, 5 years later, Yahoo and flickr groups have become tightly-integrated with MSN Messenger and members of groups can easily chat with one another online, share pictures, home movies and discuss topics of interest. Of course, most groups are also havens for spammers and automated bot systems that fire messages soliciting users to visit penis-enlargement sites, online casinos and adult match-making services. Then there are the viruses…

Zimbra: Just before MSFT acquired Yahoo!, Yahoo had acquired Zimbra. The little online mail and calendaring system that won the hearts of many and the inboxes of more than a few companies. Zimbra’s server tools, now rebranded as Outlook Online has been wedged into Exchange server. The web-front end has been remodeled using Silverlight and is now Windows only. Previous versions of the tools have been end-of-lifed. Windows Smartphone users can access Outlook Online services through Outlook Mobile. Other office apps have been integrated online as well and Yahoo/Microsoft have a subscription service for hosting all of your online office documents which can be shared with other Yahoo.net users and groups.

Yahoo! Maps are available directly on vehicles equipped with Microsoft’s SYNC (now known as Windows Auto) as well as on Zunes through the Windows Live Wifi services.

Alright, enough navel-gazing. Yahoo.NET is now People Ready. I get it. As a user of del.icio.us and flickr, I’m pretty concerned about my data and where it could end up. Currently it’s there and pretty easy to get at. Five years from now I can imagine it being much harder to extract. I don’t want Silverlight apps.

I should also say that Microsoft isn’t stupid. I have no doubt that the real reason they’re interested in Yahoo! is because of the users they already have. Driving them away en masse would be bad for business, and at the price they’re reportedly paying (upwards of $45b), they’re going to want Yahoo! to be a money-maker.

Finally, I’m just going to link to a funny blog post: What if Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?

Worse, I tried watching The Bourne Ultimatum on the HD-DVD player and it crapped-out halfway through the movie. There was an available update for the HD-DVD player which I didn’t dare apply because of all the wonkiness. After some cursing and wringing of the remote, I pulled the disc and watched it in standard def on my DVD player. The movie was OK.

So, thanks Major Nelson and the hard-working team(s) at Microsoft’s super-sekrit Xbox LIVE Server Haven and Data Barns. I’m sorry I dissed you a little. (Will we ever know what really happened? I doubt it).

Also, Happy New Year from all of us (me) at the n3wblog! It’s totally 2008.

It immediately occurred to me that the ‘Soft might have sold a few more Xbox 360s this holiday season and had saturated their network. This is still probably the case, though my overly-connected mind is already envisioning nightmare scenarios that are much much worse than that, and may well signal the end of technology itself, propelling us backwards through time to the dawn of humanity, leaving us struggling with two rocks trying to light a twig to get warm.

Engadget has a funny picture up describing the state of the service. This has apparently been the case for a couple of days now and Major Nelson has given us precious little by way of explanation. Of course, his site’s a little slow right now too, and full of comments (>570 last time I could get in). In classic Microsoft fashion, the Xbox LIVE status reads merely: Status: Up and running. I guess these problems I’m having signing in are a figment of my imagination.

So, since I can’t play Halo, I’m left to think of doomsday scenarios. My current fear is that the current iteration of the Storm worm has somehow infiltrated M$FT’s server farm and is currently wreaking havoc on their machinery and data. Of course, if that were true, they’d never actually admit it because they don’t actually tell people what goes on behind their closed doors. Everything’s peachy. Look elsewhere.

Ain’t the monoculture grand?

Jigsaw Falling Into Place from the album “In Rainbows” by Radiohead

“That’s really helpful!” I thought, and proceeded to google for the number. The results, if you follow that link, point to a lot of ASP.net crap that didn’t interest me. Then I found a support page on microsoft.com with a bit of not very helpful text:

When you are using a friend’s Xbox 360 console, Xbox Live Marketplace will allow you to again download the AAC codec. But if you have already downloaded the codec to your own console, the codec will not work on your friend’s console. This is because the codec is only valid the first time that it is downloaded by a specific gamer profile. You may receive the following error message if you try to download the codec more than one time by using a specific profile:
Can’t download – Optional Ipod Support
Status Code 8007005

What if I’m using my OWN Xbox 360, I screamed, shaking my bloody fists at the heavens.

What the above tells me is that the Optional iPod Support (available from the Xbox Live Marketplace in Media and Entertainment, scroll down to the bottom) is “protected” by DRM, permitting a single profile to download and install the optional update. You’re not allowed to carry your hard-drive around and install the update on any of the other Xbox 360s you might have lying around the house. Or take it to a friend’s place along with your iPod and hook up for awesome fun. No, your “friend” has to download the optional iPod support themselves and activate their own iPod (and figure out on their own how to enable the iPod support on all their other Xbox 360s).

If you want to install the update on another console, do as dirt junkie 77 suggests and navigate into your hard-drive (called “memory” on the System blade) and delete the file. Then you need to create a new profile on Xbox Live (a Silver account will suffice). Once you’ve gone through the agony of supplying all those character to Microsoft, they’ll let you download a new copy of the iPod support and you’ll be able to listen to music again with your own profile.

Daft!

Technorati Tags: DRM, Hardware, Microsoft, iPod, Xbox 360

Office 2008 revealed!

Technorati Tags: Apple, Computing, Microsoft, Software