Tag Archives: Activision

October 11, 2025 · 18:36

The dams are cracking

Yes, that is the setting I saw coming, but there is always ‘space’ for interpretation and at present we see two stories that seem to illustrate this. The first one is given by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly17834524o0 where we see ‘Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we all be worried?’ It is a question to have, but what does the article ‘bare’ out? It is not that basic or simple. First we are given “Mark Zuckerberg is said to have started work on Koolau Ranch, his sprawling 1,400-acre compound on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as far back as 2014.” So, he had 11 years? Seems like overly ‘doom prepping to me’ (is this sarcasm or satire?) The additional setting is “The underground space spanning some 5,000 square feet is, he explained, “just like a little shelter, it’s like a basement”” which seems like the average floor of a mall to me. I think that when the ‘basement’ extends well beyond 1000 Sqft, we can ignore the ‘basement’ label and whatever it is, it is his to do. He might be buying up vats of wine or Cognac, whatever it is. It will be his setting. Then we are given “his decision to buy 11 properties in the Crescent Park neighbourhood of Palo Alto in California, apparently adding a 7,000 square feet underground space beneath.” So here again we get the ‘speculating’ media for the setting of a story. So he might have bought the 11 properties, but what happened to them? What evidence is there? He could have bought this for his nearest and dearest. There are many options. Then we get more ‘famous’ names and locations like New Zealand come up. Yet about halfway we get a clarion call (as the expression goes), we are given “Neil Lawrence is a professor of machine learning at Cambridge University. To him, this whole debate in itself is nonsense. “The notion of Artificial General Intelligence is as absurd as the notion of an ‘Artificial General Vehicle’,” he argues. “The right vehicle is dependent on the context. I used an Airbus A350 to fly to Kenya, I use a car to get to the university each day, I walk to the cafeteria… There’s no vehicle that could ever do all of this.” For him, talk about AGI is a distraction.” And as far as I can tell, I feel like Neil Lawrence does with an addendum, and ad the very end we are given ““LLMs also do not have meta-cognition, which means they don’t quite know what they know. Humans seem to have an introspective capacity, sometimes referred to as consciousness, that allows them to know what they know.” It is a fundamental part of human intelligence – and one that is yet to be replicated in a lab.” And it is part of what I have been saying all along. And we get the larger setting from a second source. It is SBS (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australians-living-in-america-anxiety/p88o60wos) that give us ‘Saving money and packing ‘go bags’: How Australians in the US are preparing for the worst’ where we see “But she says the attitude towards foreign nationals under the current administration has made life in the US feel “scary”. Kate says these fears were brought to the surface during her green card interview. “They grilled me in the interview and asked me questions not even related to our marriage but about my previous visa and time in the US,” she says.” As well as “Many Australians living in the US are reporting experiencing high levels of anxiety and feelings of instability due to the possibility of rapid political change under US President Donald Trump.”

These are the settings that matter. In the first there is the BBC article that is making the ‘doom lecture’ but that is not the setting. When AI collapses like a near empty shell, people will all be tuning for their incomes and playing the blame game, but as we are given ‘Wall Street crashes after Trump announces 100% tariffs on China; $1.5 trillion wiped out’ consider what happens when all these AI ‘vendors’ fall flat, the damage will be more than 10 times worse, America loses 15 trillion. Can you even fathom that kind of loss? That will be the sounding implosion that leads to civil war when 90% of 340 million people lose whatever they had, retirements wiped out, other savings gone, they will get angry. President Trump will have to run for his life to air-force one as quick as his legs can carry him. Evading to Russia or anyone that will have him and his billions? Mostly gone, if not already abroad. Those who bought large mansions outside of the US are likely safe for two generations in France, Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, New Zealand, you name it, some will evade and this is the setting we see. I reckon that people in California will need high walls to keep others out, optionally armed defenses as well. 

Foreigners are now seeing the scary reality they signed on for and they are getting ready a ‘go bag’ to evade to wherever they can as quickly they can. Is this doom speak?

That is a valid question. You see, the AI setting is merely one, President trump soured the waters on tourism which is down in many ways and no reflective view is given by anyone in media. That amount of bad news they find likely ‘irresponsible’ and the media has no business using that excuse as they have been one of the most irresponsible parties ever. Then foreign retail. Canada pulled all the alcoholic beverages from the shelves in Canada. How much is that costing? One source (Source: Global News) gives us that the decline is 85%, that amounts to how much? These three settings is almost a certainty of recession and there is a lot more declines in the papers but the media will not give you the proper numbers. Several sources all giving different partially overlapping numbers. As such the economic dams of America are cracking. And they will lose a massive amount of revenue and while some will give some of the numbers. Most of us aren’t given the full view. I have some of the views as I have been keeping an eye on some of the numbers. But even I do not have the full view. So whilst some give us “The sell-off erased more than USD 1.5 trillion in market value from US stocks. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market faced record liquidations of USD 19 billion. This is the largest single-day figure ever recorded.” The part no one talks about is where are the billionaires set at? We see the wins of Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, but where are the other billionaires? How are they doing? And that disjointed Microsoft view.

Why the Windows maker?
That is a fair question. You see, they were all ‘heralding’ how good they were doing, but the shimmer in the shadows is different. We are given “Microsoft is currently losing money on AI development, having spent an estimated $19 billion in one quarter on AI infrastructure, with no significant revenue from it yet. The company also experienced a reported loss of $300 million in Call of Duty sales due to the Game Pass subscription model” all whilst Activision and Bethesda was bought for over $100,000,000,000 and that has an interest setting. They might be ‘offloading’ staff (over 9,000 according to some numbers) and whilst they and Adecco (firing into the thousands) are all set to AI, there is a hidden snag. When this falls short they will face a setting that is a lot more dangerous. People will not consider them in the future. So when the non-existing AI is set to the need of engineers it goes flat and when there is no one around (an exaggeration) to program your LLM, consider where your firm will be. ZDNet gave us “Microsoft’s CEO loves to talk about ’empathy.’ But everything that is coming out of Redmond these days is perilously close to turning the company into the Borg.” Basically a non-existent setting of people that cannot live in a vacuum and that is an additional side I never saw coming. I was focussed on Microsoft turning into an empty shell and when the substance is gone, the shell collapses. That is what I saw in Microsoft Games and Microsoft Office. It started in 2012 when their service devisions were no longer up to scrap and when support goes, so does sales and when we consider the over 100 billion for two companies its, whilst they weren’t making enough to even afford the interest on that, the picture of failure starts to evolve into a nightmare setting and sacking 9,000 people will not safe it. They are telling us now that AI is the future, but at present it does not exist and what does exist requires engineers (remember Builder dot AI?) It is a fictive setting that is showing up all over America and the ‘import’ people are seeing the cracks evolve and they want out as fast as they can. Which is good news for Aramco and ADNOC as they now get the choice of the litter, but for America it is bad news. So there is no doom speak. It is the returning story of a country who think it is too big to go bankrupt. I heard that story before (SNS Bank for one) then a few more banks and they are all part of something else. And America? Parts of America could be added to Canada and Mexico would be relieved to get Texas (the latter part is speculation) and that is the dangerous reality that others are facing. The question is what does it take to throw this around and whilst Wall Street is in denial. Others, those who can afford it, will be making a new household out of American clutches (like the non-tax countries mentioned earlier) also Saudi Arabia becomes an option, but the is reserved for the chosen few (and American Muslims of course). 

So am I delusional or do I have a point? I reckon that one of the larger issues (still setting) is how America deals with Alex Jones. Because if he gets his ‘blockage’ Americans will go insane, they will not accept that this Conspiracy theorist is allowed his fortune after he went after dead children (saying they were actors, who were not dead according to sources). I wonder where that will go, because as I see it, it will be the tinder spark America will be set on fire. At that point all bets are off and I reckon that most ‘New-Americans’ will run to the nearest airport. This might merely be my speculation and optionally a wrong one. But that is how I see it.

Beyond that, the losses that America is having and when all the numbers come out, the second stage is reached and whomever thought they had a retirement, they will all try to collect on whatever possible. 

It is a hard setting and I hope I am wring, because this collapse will fall over Japan and Europe pretty much soon thereafter. Connected currencies will take a massive tumble.

Have a great day, if that is presently at all possible. 

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October 3, 2025 · 21:23

Falling Cards 

That is what happens when you piss of a gamer. And the setting that we see is given to us by the BBC. The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgepkwpkg4o) gives us ‘Xbox Game Pass price increase angers players’ where we see “The company announced that the most popular tier of its Netflix-style video games system – available to PC and Xbox players – would rise by more than 50% from £14.99 to £22.99 per month.” That implies that the Game Pass is setting a gamer back to £276 per year. An annual fee of £276? That’s A$565 that comes down to a PS5 console a year. So what is the issue of pricing ones self out of a market? The Xbox is well over A$700, but this is starting to look ridiculous. The setting of Game Pass was pretty brilliant, but as it is showing to be a new form of gaming suicide. We are given “Reacting on social media, loads of fans said they had cancelled their Game Pass subscriptions, with some reporting the service’s cancellation page had crashed due to demand. BBC Newsbeat has asked Microsoft if the outage was linked to a surge in visits.” And in other news we were given “Ultimate – the most expensive tier – allows players to access new games from Microsoft-owned studios on the day of their release. These titles, which include series like Call of Duty, can retail for about £70 if purchased individually. As part of the changes, blockbuster games including Hogwarts Legacy and various Assassin’s Creed entries have been added to the Game Pass library. Microsoft said the new system would “offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players”. But not everyone sees it that way.” I reckon that pretty much no one would see it that way (except for Microsoft sycophants). Consider that most people buy 1-3 games (to own) for about £200, as such the £76 to play ‘all’ the games? With what is released on Microsoft systems? There is still some appeal if you have both the PC and the Xbox, but I partially fail to see that. 

And there is another setting. You see, Activision was bought for $100 billion. And a few others for a lot less, but the setting is that Microsoft needs to make at least $4 billion to just pay for the interest and that is no longer happening and it is a lot less likely with these changes. Microsoft will be bleeding money for decades because of this. And as some are dropping Microsoft (Denmark and Austria) there will be a much larger setting that Microsoft needs to move on. I never saw the particulars, but I saw this and I saw the implosion within Microsoft at the end of 2026 and that is seemingly happening at this very moment. The fact that “the service’s cancellation page had crashed due to demand” is setting the shift out of gaming for Microsoft, because if that system cannot meet demands, there is a chance that millions might be dropping that system, good news for Sone and Nintendo. Gamers need their space and these two remain. I had seen a new system with a starting set of 50 million subscribers and that is now looking very appealing to the new players Amazon and the Kingdom Holdings. I reckon that renewed contact might become essential. 

As I see it, Microsoft eyes on their ‘price’ became too big and now they end up with a nearly empty eggshell. 

So how much of this is set in stone? I reckon that the pressure of the borrowed $100 billion is driving the upper echelons of Microsoft nearly insane, they bought into this and now their bottom line is drained (as I see it) and that is perhaps the saddest thing of all. Their setting that Don Mattrick started in 2013 would be the undoing of Microsoft, after the run they had with the XBOX360, they threw it all away. more than that. Fable was really big and after Fable III, Fable 4 was announced, then delayed and delayed which is now set to 2026. Chances are that this too will be canceled. An Amazing setting that started in 2004 saw massive flocking by the RPG community, then Fable 2 and Fable 3 (2010) and the people were sold on the Fable story and it was quite a story, but some come in and likely state that it could be bigger, and bigger and now it is as I see it gone, because if the Xbox community vanishes, the need for that game vanishes. The PC world alone will not maintain it. So as I see it the cards for Microsoft are falling and not in a good place. This is exactly why I put some of my Gaming IP out there for non-Microsoft developers. As I saw it, they could grow and whilst I am not a programmer, I do see gaming as the power it is. It can invigorate people in many ways. And now as Microsoft is about to fail, if they took up the setting of the games I offered, they could set out their new terrain in gaming. There is still Bethesda, but as I see it, it is part of Microsoft and as such their games get delays too and the new players will get to carve their name in stone in the vacant places of that stone. 

So whilst we see “Microsoft Gaming revenue was $5.5 billion” And that is great, but the Nintendo revenue is set to be approximately $13.1 billion, as such Microsoft is a mere small fish in gaming, no matter how they slice it. And others are about to carve up a piece of Microsoft in the process. Because Microsoft still has to deal with the $100,000,000,000 invoice. So where will this money come from? And whilst their arsenal of gaming outlets is diminishing, the appeal for their products goes the same way. As such, we might seem to think it will be okay for Microsoft, what products did it actually release? And on what systems were the returns given for the Remaster of Oblivion? 

It might have taken some time, but after 10 years I get to laugh deriving howl of laughter. Microsoft took on too big a chunk of arrogance and they are not turning it into dollars, merely into delays and canceled games and canceled subscribers. All the way until Microsoft gaming is canceled. 

Have a great day and If you are on a PS5 have fun catching the ghost of Yokai and on the Nintendo feel free to Kart around the world. Those victories are the moments you will cherish as long as you live.

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September 15, 2025 · 11:54

Cracks are showing

That is the setting of this day. In under 5 minutes three articles passed by my eyes and it is a clear sign that cracks are showing. I will give you an article first. The article (at https://www.cbr.com/xbox-game-pass-end-of-era/) gives us ‘It’s Officially the End of an Era for Xbox Game Pass’, I am in the meddle of that settings. I cannot disagree and I cannot completely agree. We are given “Game Pass might be a great deal for players, but unfortunately, it comes at the cost of devaluing developers and their work. If the system keeps running the way it does now, it’ll only get less sustainable over time, and if Game Pass crashes, a lot of people are going down with it.” Yes I agree with that statement, however “it comes at the cost of devaluing developers and their work” is a little validating what a fool hands for their games. Consider Hogwarts Legacy, the devoted Harry Potter fan goes ‘Take my money…now!’ whilst plenty of other gamers go ‘Not in 999,999 years, 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 50 seconds’, as I see it ‘Not in a million years’ sounds so crass (big smiley). So the statement is out there and lets be clear Game Pass was a great idea. But it comes at a cost. You see, Microsoft needs the game pass to give validation of the Blizzard/Activision deal, together with Bethesda they spend a little over  $100,000,000,000 and as it stands and as I see it, to cross that deal they have to make over $6.5 billion dollars a year just to make the interest go away and last year it merely banked 5 billion an change. This is a loss of well over a billion a year just for the interest of this caper. I thought it was a bad deal the moment it was announced and I wrote about it in 2022/2023. So with the end of game pass this deal gets to be the sour apple that gives Microsoft indigestion. But like the infomercials say “There is more” and there is. 

You see we are also given ‘Microsoft Is Axing This Android App. You Have 3 Weeks to Find a Replacement’ (at https://au.pcmag.com/hosted-email-providers/113075/microsoft-is-axing-this-android-app-you-have-3-weeks-to-find-a-replacement) and you know, there is and there has always been a replacer ent from the day that thing was called into service. It is called GMAIL. It has always worked well and it is not riddled with hidden Microsoft snags. So whilst we are given “A year ago, Microsoft celebrated 10 million Outlook Lite downloads. Effective Oct. 6, however, Redmond says it’s being retired ‘so we can focus our investments’ on the main Outlook app.” I will counter that that this setting was in play since 1998, so the investments should be there and in order. But when you see “so we can focus our investments” and consider the previous article, we see the beginning of cracks in the armor of Microsoft. Cracks in its spin settings and telling the world how great it is doing as a 3.79 trillion company. You see, there is a lot more bad news ahead  for them and none of it is great. Yet that is beyond the third article and it comes with speculations.

You see, the third article is one I have issues with (I’m on the side of Microsoft here). The article (at https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-elder-scrolls/after-4-months-oblivion-remastered-falls-to-mixed-reviews-on-steam-after-reports-of-poor-and-unstable-performance-on-pc-it-is-still-well-and-truly-a-bethesda-game/) gives us ‘After 4 months, Oblivion Remastered falls to “Mixed” reviews on Steam after reports of “poor and unstable” performance on PC: “It is still well and truly a Bethesda game”’ There are a few issues here. I played it on the PS5 (as one should) and I believe it was a truly great remaster. I found one glitch (optional a bug) and I got around this. Whilst we see that Cyrodil is massively shown in the greatness that it deserves and better than the Xbox360 edition, I got the same feeling of amazement here as I did in the original. And I have a few issues with the “poor and unstable” side of the matter. Yes a steam system and most PC’s do not allow for a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (and neither does the wallet of these gamers), as such they are playing with the overclocking left, right and centre. And not every application allows for that and becomes ‘unstable’. But the term overclocking sells systems and as long as the warnings are there, they allow for it, but software tends to be tricky and I believe that this is shown here. I never did that and I found one glitch (optional bug) in my PS5 edition of Oblivion and I think that this is amazing quality. So there is a larger audience who will ‘convict’ Microsoft in falsehood. 

As I see it, these settings will optionally call for Google to bring back to life the Stadia and I have a setting that will nearly guarantee a starting setting of 6 billion a year and past that stage one an increase to $10-$15 billion annually. I merely don’t want Microsoft to get that part, they tinkered with the freedom of gamers, so they are out. Amazon had the inside track for over two year and they didn’t take me seriously (my speculation of them seeing my idea) and now as the Microsoft cracks are showing we see a larger workspace of gaining over 15 million gamers and a whole lot more in other places. That warrants a new look at the stadia. I thought it was a great idea for the Kingdom Holdings to gain the hand on the Stadia, but as I see it, they seemingly lacked vision there too. As such Google now has a new upper hand and as I accused them of leaving billions on the floor, it is their turn to pick this up, fair is fair.

So whilst the cracks are showing others can gain the leverage of Microsoft (and make it fall at least a third in total value and the would make buy words golden too (and I get to hand a wooden spoon with gold engravings to Phil Spencer) as such my ego is at present a little unbearable to me as well. 

A setting that was foreseen at least two years ago and now there is a new stage in that setting, or better stated a remastered setting of the same stage and that is a nice touch on silly old me.

So have a great Monday, which at present feels like a new Friday to me.

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August 1, 2025 · 23:28

The Nintendo Charge

Nintendo makes another blitz record, it is not the first one, but this one is one for the record books. The story (at https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-has-sold-6-million-switch-2-consoles-and-almost-the-same-number-of-mario-kart-world/) gives us ‘Nintendo has sold 6 million Switch 2 consoles and almost the same number of Mario Kart World’ as for my excuse not being part of that cluster is simple. I just don’t have the money at present. Nintendo played a near perfect awareness game. They went global with the teaser, they followed up with YouTube video’s and gave online presence. When Zero-hour was here. The streets were aligned around shops who sold it with people. We all wanted one, even the ones that couldn’t afford one. And there was a lot of interest. The expanded memory, larger screen, higher resolution, snap click controllers with magnets and the controller was also used as a mouse. 256GB against the 32GB of the original Switch. Basically everything was stronger. One exception, the battery life seemingly is not. I run my Switch on the TV, so I won’t ever see this one issue. And on the TV, you now get 4K. Cheaper than either Xbox or PS5 (not by that much) Nintendo made the record books yet again. In the first 7 weeks the Nintendo sold 6 million Switch 2 consoles and the real screamer is that nearly all of them got Mario Kart World, it sold 5.63 million copies. That is huge. I saw the videos and I would get that as my first game too. 

So when we se all this we tend to think, what is next? But that is it, this setting will hurt Sony as well as Microsoft to some degree. People can no longer afford it all and when they get a Switch 2, their coffers are nearly empty as such, no direct sales for either Sony or Microsoft. Microsoft with its Game Pass will have an advantage over Sony (for the first time) and it will not be as hindered by Nintendo as Sony is, but they too will feel the pain. I reckon that this will continue straight through Christmas 2025. Because those who can not afford it at present, will work harder to get one before or at this Christmas (hopefully me too). 

So whilst we get the quote “Despite being a launch title and being constrained by its user base, Mario Kart World is the series’ second biggest launch behind Mario Kart Wii.” And that makes sense. I see the improvements and the plusses that Mario Kart World is bringing and I reckon that this game alone is the largest push to get the Nintendo Camera as well. It goes further, As of June 30, 2025, the Nintendo Switch has sold a total of 153.10 million units worldwide. This makes it the third best-selling video game console of all time and now add the 6 million Switch 2 systems and we see that Nintendo is overtaking Microsoft by storm. Consider that at present Xbox Series X/S (2020): Estimated over 28 million units as of June 2024. This implies that Switch 2 is already at 21% of Xbox Series X/S lifetime sales. And the Switch already surpassed that. This sets the  Microsoft systems in third position and should Amazon agree to my terms Microsoft becomes the 4th player. Not bad after spending Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. That was money well spend wasn’t it? And should Amazon agree to surpass Microsoft too, that 68 billion dollar anchor will weigh harshly on their actions. The funny part is that neither Sony or Nintendo had to pay that much for anything they bought (as far as I know). And there is more (there always is) Nintendo is should of breaking its own record of the Nintendo DS which sold 154 million consoles. The Switch is now less then a million away from that record. It is anyones guess how far the Switch 2 will make it, but as I see it the numbers are in favor of Switch replacing a lot of systems within the next year. Nintendo said there were no changes to its financial forecast for this fiscal year, which is to sell 15 million consoles by March 2026. I tend to think that this number will be broken in several ways by Christmas 2024. That is before we consider the pleasing notions of all the Harry Potter fans who will be driven to this game on the Switch 2 as well. Yes, Nintendo is about to break record and this is the first time that I am saying this, but Nintendo is now approaching the pole position that Sony holds, as such they will have to up their game considerably if they do not want to be taken over by Nintendo, because that is no longer impossible. I don’t think Sony was ready to see the Switch family as a threat to their number one position, but that is the setting that they face in 2026, as such I wonder what Sony will come up with next. 

The armistice race on consoles tends to be a fulfilling one and there is the second step. When Nintendo get that done, it will find more gamers switching to their side. Although I have always stated that the Nintendo is the system you get next to your usual console, I still believe that and as such Nintendo tends to have great options. I merely wonder when Hogwarts Legacy 2 is released will it be released on day one for Switch 2 too? You might think that this doesn’t matter, but it does. It will be the first moment when Nintendo will have surpassed Sony and that is the kind of news that is massive in its own right. Sony released its PlayStation on December 3, 1994, it went straight to the top from the start and it will have taken Nintendo 32 years to overtake Sony and that is not something to think lightly of. I certainly am not. 

So, I merely have this to say “Well done Nintendo”

Have a great day today 

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March 22, 2025 · 11:21

Twinkletoes

Yup, this happens to us all. Even the non-dancers. Twinkletoes means “used to refer to someone who is a good dancer or who moves lightly on their feet”, I accept that, but as I personally see it, it Also stages the person who has the situation that the person “who is a thinker or who moves swiftly in their brain” the same situation applies. I have been iterating new IP through existing games for over two days now (and it is really exhausting). I have been making new iterations to my version of Elder Scrolls 6: Restoration, a new FarCry (based on the legendary FarCry 3), the new RPG I have set on paper here, new iterations of commerce (in the RPG’s) and added a setting to a new stealth RPG (not a new Assassins Creed) and a very new approach to Watchdogs 5: Observations (in its earliest infancy), I had already commenced Watchdogs 4 to paper (somewhere on this blog) and it plays in modern day Japan. I changed the setting to Sapporo, as this is relatively new in gaming and as such there is novelty in new locations and the story requires a harbor setting. And this has been merely the last two days, although the original setting were created up to 5 years ago, with the setting of Restoration (TES6) almost 10 years ago. So as I am driven to near exhaustion as my brain is in twinkletoe mode, I can assure you that it is merely my version of overly active brain syndrome (perhaps there is a medical term for it) and it is leaving me a little tired. As it the case, it did give me the setting of Watchdogs 5, the issue here that it is a networking setting as the game goes in pairs. 

It is also less action driven, but more activity driven, as such you can be the hacker or the Agent in this game, there is a larger setting that you as one or the other can give clues to a fellow on the other side of the isle and the goal is to create a more robust observation and detection system. The frail setting of certain systems allows for actions to be monitored on CCTV, the internet and personal observations. The thought came to me as I was remembering 1985 video game Hacker by Activision. It was designed by Steve Cartwright and he got it done on a system with a mere 64KB, too what happens when we throw some real power to it? What happens when we unite agents and hackers and run the system from both ends? Can this result in a much more robust system? What happened when the game adds zero day faults (Apple has a few, Microsoft has tons as I personally see it). So what happens when we set these stages in motion and it is not merely point and click, so why happens when a Palantir (Gotham) system is thrown into the mix? I am merely postulating now, the reasoning that games could also instruct or teach people on how vulnerable they are in real life. 

As we move from station to station, some might remember the game V (based on the 1983 TV series), you merely run to a point and activate that system to let the red fumes inhabit the space station (I think that was what I was supposed to do), but add a section based on Portal (by Rob Swigart, 1986) you can get a lot more. That is the setting that I see when we set a game like Hacker to a much larger stage and at that point it is new IP, not merely some variation of IP, but a much larger stage and totally new. A game that teaches, informs and trains the next stage. As we now see that programmers are programming bots to keep scammers uselessly busy, we can grow more mundane and more intense in almost any direction. And it is a new endeavor, not some wannabe drip drip copy, but something totally new. Just like the makers of Chipwits (by Epyx, 1984) made a new version a larger and more enticing version on these newer systems, we can grow many games in new jackets and larger premises to new heights. And these systems have the computation powers to net the stage much larger. We can use the setting of the Balance of Power and add a few cogs to make it a much larger machine. And as Chipwits has a new version 42 years later in a much larger setting, we can do this in many ways and I wrote about them around 4 years ago. The new IP set on original ideas and stupidly discarded by this who thought the new horizons require better games, all whilst these games are the timeless golden oldies. We saw and forgot what Millennium 2.2 brought on the Commodore Amiga with 1024 KB on 150ns. Now we have systems (and mobiles) with 32000 times more memory and more than 15000 times more storage whilst the processors are over 250,000 times faster. You can really go to town on those merits and create the larger setting on several stages. I said that this was part of the 50 million Amazon Luna sales that I foresaw and some are in such stages now, but as I saw it Amazon stayed asleep and like Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin (1864) they went with that setting in the trend of “There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them” and the left billion on the floor all relying on the AI hype. I was thinking on that last week, there is no AI and I see it as NIP, Near Intelligent Parsing (making it NIP avoiding the confusion with IP). A setting that is overlooked, because as there is no AI, they all shout, so what is it then? Well, it is near intelligent, there is no real intelligence at present and it is set to the programmers who are parsing data and ideas into new (flawed) data. You see, a lot of this is intelligence and it almost get you there, but not entirely, the training models are set to more and more likely outcomes but there are percentages that are off and that is where the shoe becomes the wrong fit and I reckon that when these errors hit ADNOC and ARAMCO both will want some legal satisfaction and it might be a few years away, but it will happen, because the distance between real AI and NIP will be the size of the Grand Canyon (which these AI proclaimers will deny) and as they throw more complex legal documents at the customers they will get out to ‘their’ field retired and non-accountable to any legal discourse. It is almost like bad mortgages sold (or swapped) to new owners and they get out. Yet this field is the new wild west and I refuse to become part of it. And what happens, I saw the new stages of income based on old software. The Atari 600/800, Atari ST, CBM64 and CBM Amiga gave us over 10,000 games between 1983 and 1999. So if we only take the highest scoring 10% we get 1000 games. Now 30%-50% have IP protection, but I saw the override in new IP in a few ways and these are valid options as I see it and that implies that that ‘great’ (not really) game brand Microsoft, left thousands of options on the floor whilst they went to spend billions on something that I not panning out. You see, where it all becomes a new kind of hustle, all whilst for over two years I have written on other means to get revenue? And I am not done yet, because as I see it, the more I write here, the more revenue I show and the more IP I give here, the weaker the bog tech firms show themselves to be. A simple setting with simple outcomes and the best gig becomes that should someone copy the IP I set here, the bigger the losers biotech becomes. A simple equation to the question what makes for a good game?

That leaves me with the question, is there a mental setting to Twinkletoes? It is merely a mental thing in me, the question I cannot answer has a larger appeal than most other things in life. Have a great day and if you wonder what bag I left here? I do some things with intent, you can’t give away the game and here is the setting. In November 2018 I wrote ‘It’s about time, slappers only’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/11/29/its-about-time-slappers-only/) the premise to Watchdogs 4, and the larger player would be the one with Meta Glasses, before Meta even had glasses, I call them Google Glasses. As such I was ahead from META by years. And as I see it, I have done so a few times with games and when we see Software companies make ‘innovative’ claims (hardware suppliers too) I get to be front and central in their claims showing them what I had created years ago. I reckon that I am mere steps to show what I had months if not years from what Bernard Arnault apparently had created whilst I had the setup in my bog (and more) close to a year before they made their AR (Augmented Reality) claims through LVMH. I was a few steps ahead of them and I made it common goods in my blog before March 21st 2023 in ‘The unplanned story’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/21/the-unplanned-story/) and all the wannabe innovators (no referral to Bernard Arnault) can go suck an egg. As I said, have a great day with an optional game or two, because gaming makes the brain go in innovative mode.

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January 16, 2025 · 04:28

Giggling is the better medicine

This morning (around 03:00) I felt the need to check my mobile (a compact version of the invention by James Alexander Bell) or something of the sort. Inaccurate? Perhaps, but everything comes from somewhere. And as we all look towards roots, I looked at the screen and suddenly stopped. You see, I saw a Microsoft header with layoffs pass by. This is nothing to worry about, or new. They are all laying off people, all the big ones, so that is not cause for concern. Microsoft employs 224000 people, so they might cast a few more away. But I had not actually seen the details of the news, as such my trusty Chrome looked at the news of Microsoft and there a few things came up. And the count is important (for later)

  1. We see all kinds of advertisements with the Surface Pro being reduced $300 in one direction, $400 in another. There are all kinds of ‘offers’ but why would you want to discount THAT much? 
  2. Layoffs. We see ‘Microsoft lays off employees in security, experiences and devices, sales, and gaming’ (source; Business insider), ‘Microsoft staff face second round of layoffs as firm continues cost-cutting measures’ (source: ITPro) several sources claim that the layoffs will be small, but no numbers are given. Now this makes sense in light of the ‘redundancies’ at Google, Amazon, Meta (say Facebook) and a few others. Another source gave us “Microsoft plans to pause hiring in part of its U.S. consulting business and said last week that it would lay off less than 1% of its workforce”, still that could be up to 2200 people, when you are one of them percentages really don’t make a difference. 
  3. The information gives us ‘Microsoft’s Gaming Business Falls Short, Despite Activision’, This is fun. You see in 2023 Activision Blizzard had a market cap of A$120.08 Billion. Microsoft only paid 75 billion for the company and in early days I stated that a gaming company is only as valuable as the last game, and in 2022 Activision Blizzard’s annual revenue amounted to 7.53 billion U.S. dollars, as such Microsoft needs this to go on for 10 years just to break even. I warned for that and now we got ‘Microsoft’s Gaming Business Falls Short’, the Information (at https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsofts-gaming-business-falls-short-despite-activision) gives us also “In the year to June, Microsoft’s gaming business revenue grew 5.8%, well below the 11% target set for the purpose of calculating part of Nadella’s compensation, according to securities filings. (That growth excludes revenue of Activision since its acquisition but includes Game Pass)”, it amounts to the fact that ‘gaming’ revenue is 50% short. Not good news I say. And when others come with complex stories that it has a few more sides. I say revenue is revenue and it is 50% short, that is the part others look at. And Newsweek gives us ‘Activision Hasn’t Helped Microsoft Grow Xbox Game Pass, Says Report’ (at https://www.newsweek.com/entertainment/activision-hasnt-helped-microsoft-grow-xbox-game-pass-says-report-2015392) where we also see “Microsoft was hoping that acquiring Activision would lure other game developers to rent its Azure servers, which hasn’t happened” not surprising. Developers like numbers and with a 3:1 margin Sony is a much more appealing choice for the first stage of any development. And the bad news doesn’t end there, we see at TechRadar (at  https://www.techradar.com/computing/gaming-pcs/theres-one-handheld-gaming-pc-that-went-under-the-radar-at-ces-2025-and-its-got-a-secret-weapon-to-beat-the-competition#) that Tencent now released the Tencent Sunday Dragon 3D One at CES 2025, a setting that was (kinda) clear over a year ago and my IP was set to that device and if successful (here’s hoping) it will cost Microsoft a lot more, well at least they bought Activision at $10 per $1 (OK, not entirely accurate, but I’ll go with that feeling). 

So three points, all relate to revenue. Lack of two, lack of innovation in one (spin stories aren’t innovative) and whilst we are ‘given’ ‘Xbox Game Pass expected to make $5.5 billion in 2025’ expected isn’t something that is achieved and there might be more bad news on the horizon, which will set the spin engines to overdrive. To compare, Nintendo reported in September 2024 a Revenue of 276.66B, can you see why I giggle? Microsoft ‘sickofans’ are elated on the optionally coming revenue of Microsoft Game Pass that is merely 2% of Nintendo’s revenue. And that is next year whilst Nintendo is already slaying the revenue dragon. The revenues of Microsoft are likely to lack visibility for some time to come. Some of the reviews of the 2024 Surface Pro aren’t anywhere near stellar (and it needs to be) as such my predictions for the downfall of Microsoft are still achievable. I reckon that when the first AI milestones start failing the domino’s will take a tumble making Microsoft cut more and more meat of their bones. All this whist more and more people see through the presented spin (as I tend to call it) You see, with the promise of tomorrow you better deliver tomorrow and certain parties bought into that and as such when delivery stays short of achieving. The dice get cast in a very different direction. For me it’s easy. I merely have to wait for the predictions too fall short and Microsoft is lacking in more and more fields and as such as Tencent makes larger gains the stage doesn’t just change, it crumbles. I wonder where Amazon is, because with their Luna they had options. I initially designed for that track (merely because Google dropped their stadia) and should Amazon get on top of the Unreal Engine 5, the stage is seeded with Amazon opportunities. A setting Microsoft totally ignored (also they were not invited to my IP clambake). As such I reckon that there will be a hiatus until Microsoft announces more lay offs. And I have seen that before. They will ‘call’ it streamlining and what I see is an empty egg. The shell of the egg looks smooth, but you cannot eat it. In 2023 we got ‘Microsoft outage worsened by staff shortage’, so before you cut your less than 1%, was your staff shortage secured? And when that happens, where are the other shortages? Where one source gave us ‘Microsoft has published a preliminary report into an incident on 30 August that finds insufficient data centre staffing levels contributed to an outage’ and another gave us ‘Microsoft had three staff at Australian data centre campus’, a data centre with 3 staff members? I reckon Microsoft has a few more problems (I reckon planning being one of them). 

So have a great day and consider where you are now and where you optionally could be.

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September 13, 2024 · 05:31

As the walls start to crumble

Yes, this is a little speculative, but the story is not. I just learned of the BBC story that they released 4 hours ago, 17 hours after I wrote the previous story. The BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq82852kkz8o) is giving us ‘Microsoft lays off more gaming staff in new cuts’ with the subtext “It laid off 1,900 staff in January and, in May, closed four studios bought before its purchase of Call of Duty maker Activision-Blizzard”, as well as “He said the decision to cut more jobs – about 3% of its gaming staff – was made “as part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure” and organising the business “for long-term success””. The ‘he’ in this story is Phil Spencer, and that long-term success? As I personally see it Microsoft will implode within the next 30 month, so that long term is relatively short (as I see it). And as for the layoffs being towards post-acquisition team structure. That might be the intention, yet the issue remains that the interest alone on a $69,000,000,000 purchase should be no less then 4.5 billion dollars and the gaming stage brought Microsoft (according to several sources) no more than 2 billion dollars. As such Microsoft is coming up short around 50% of the interest alone and that is before we factor in what more is needed to take care of the principle. And as Microsoft is dealing with all kind of fines and several angry people suing for what they think they are due, the numbers will not come up nice, more like tainted and covered in blood covered red. We then get “Xbox boss Mr Spencer told gaming website IGN he was expected to run a “sustainable” gaming business and show growth during a June interview”, so what does this Spencer person think what ‘sustainable’ means? In my book it means able to be maintained at a certain level, and how does that work when you lay off over 2000 people? Support? Managers? One gives relief to hardship and buggy environment to the customers (something that Microsoft is intimate familiar with) and the managers are often the creative part of the company and they have had the ears of their staff. Now these fired people could optionally use my freebees and create these games on NON-Microsoft systems. Giving Microsoft even more hardship. A game that makes perfect sense in the business mind of Microsoft, but gaming is mostly art and that is a setting that they seem to misunderstand. I like it when the unworthy give me resources and tools that can be used against them. Karma tends to be a bitch. The quote we see is “In its latest finance report Microsoft said its gaming revenues had increased, mostly due to its ownership of Activision-Blizzard, which also produces World of Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch” what we do not see are the issues that Diablo 4 still has (on whatever system). It might have been the big cash cow (over $666M in the first 5 days) but what did it cost to develop Diablo 4? It took 6 years, that is nearly all we know about it and Microsoft is really happy to hide a lot of numbers and merely focus on the good stories which is to be expected, but as we now see that thousands have been cast out, there is every chance that these people could become their worst competitor and not in a good way. Another setting is seen (at https://www.inverse.com/gaming/xbox-enotria-delay-microsoft-ps5) where inverse tells us ‘Enotria Is Just the Latest Game to Hit A Mysterious Snag With Its Xbox Launch’ with the byline “Something’s amiss at Microsoft”, I think that it is a lot more. How is it possible that Phil Spencer can smilingly visit the board of directors as we are given things like “it was canceling the Xbox release of HAAK. According to the developer, it spent over 14 months attempting to register the game for release on Xbox, when it estimated it needed only about two weeks of porting work. However, bugs in Microsoft’s Partner Center and Support site prevented it from applying”, as such I wonder, when a we see registration issues and bugs. What is Microsoft doing, or better asked, not doing? 14 months? There seems to be an increasing issue with transparency and in gaming it is damaging, as such what is Microsoft doing? I see it as a setting where the walls come crumbling, but what if I am wrong? What if Microsoft has a more insidious plan? I have no idea what it is and I have no clue what they are doing but there is a setting where Microsoft is all about all games online and in the cloud. So what happens when gamers are all controlled from a singular place? I have no idea what is going on, it was a mere speculation, but the increasing amount of issues (including bugs all over the place) does not fill me with comfort. Consider this and wonder why they were willing to pay 69 billion, all whilst there is a lack of revenue. There is more going on and I think it is becoming more and more imperative to create games on OTHER systems and bleed Microsoft dry. The other part is that the (speculated) intentional lack of clarity in regards to the numbers we see reports of 160% year on year growth, but with gaming it is merely based on the next game and so far quality has been lacking. The failures that Redfall brought, the lack of issues in Starfield is one side, the lacking sales of the Xbox is the other part. When you see the list of issues we must understand that there are plenty of intelligent people at Microsoft, so what is this about? We can wait to find out, or we can create a wave of excellent games and give the gamers an option to select the Amazon Luna, the Sony PS5 (PS4 too), the Nintendo Switch or the Tencent Handheld as their new home. At this point China becomes a contender in the gaming industry. That should be a hard sell to the US government, would it not be? As such I set the gaming IP I designed as Freebee to non-Microsoft systems. I might not know what Microsoft is up to, but I do know that they are greed/revenue driven, and as such I know what would hurt them and should Kingdom Holding accept my offer the hardship of Microsoft merely increases. A nice way to end my career, by partially saving the gaming world (a bit presumptuous perhaps). Microsoft should never have done what they did, they wanted to become absolute ruler and that didn’t sit well with me, a such I created IP and stories for game developers. The one rule was, ‘not for Microsoft systems’. Making the ideas public domain made the most sense to me. Or as Frank Herbert wrote in 1965 ‘He who destroys a thing, controls a thing’ as such I went to work. Now I believe that the BBC is merely handing me a partial confirmation (as I see it) that I was right all along. When the staff leaves it becomes a problem. 

Oh and as this becomes a new reality, China gets a real chance to pick up hundreds of people with a good grasp of gaming. That is merely my point of view and I could be wrong. 

Have a great day, the day before the weekend. 

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October 14, 2023 · 21:24

The sides of different matters

We all have this, we all have moments when we combine things that are separate, we all do this. At times it amounts to making a balance, a balance of issues. I have had that today. Today I am disgusted beyond believe. It is because of the most disgusting shit Australia has ever known, Peter Dutton. 

In his case there is no right, there is no honourable, he is just pure shit. A pure shit with his “If you don’t know, vote no”, with that in mind, the Australians crossed and deceived the aboriginals yet another time. The larger issue started to form in my mind. 

The second issue is Microsoft. They have been cleared to buy Activision and Blizzard. Now, I have remained on the fence. It is a dubious, yet not illegal business practice and Microsoft has too many media people trying to grab a few coins in their corner. You see, we get the spin from the media (spin, not lies) that they now own:

– Crash Bandicoot (2020)
– Spyro the Dragon (2008)
– Guitar Hero (2015)
– Hexen (1995)
– King’s Quest (1998)
– Space Quest (1995)
– Quest for Glory (1998)
– Tenchu (2006)
– Pitfall (1982)
– Tony Hawk Pro Skater (2020)
– Zork (1991)

And a whole range more. The problem is that this is spin. It is true, that much fits, but the total value of all that IP does not surpass 1 billion (if even that much). 

It is about data. Especially the data they can get when they focus on Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Diablo, and Overwatch. This was always about personal data and aggregated data. Minecraft with its 131 million players was the first step. The larger station is Candy Crush had 255 million users, Overwatch with its 23,544,632 monthly active users. Diablo was a let down for Microsoft with only 5 million monthly active users, Diablo 3 sold over 30 million copies and that is what Microsoft was hoping for. It is falling behind and like the losers they are they merely acquire to make up for the short fall. And now they have committed $69,000,000,000 to that cause. This also presents an unique option as I see it. As Microsoft committed to one side of the chess table, all of us, not just me have the ability to support its competitors (Amazon and Tencent Technologies) with our creativity allowing them to get the games to keep these two ahead of the game. This means that the pool of users all down for Microsoft and with that their data pool fails and they wasted sixty nine billion on that caper. I would have loved to have done this alone, but that is not my forte, it is too big for me alone. I am not alone in this. You see Microsoft still has Sony and Nintendo as competitors and they are stronger, optionally not strong enough, which is why we need the other streamers to have exclusive options. I do not think Netflix has what it takes and they will partner with Microsoft at the drop of a hat when Disney gets too close. 

But there are options and it is high time that Microsoft learns the hard way of intruding on the safe space of gamers. Microsoft might have pushed for the other loser (Ubisoft) to connect for the cloud gaming, but it is most likely too little, too late for them. There is a decent chance that Microsoft acquires this under another hat, or push enough business that way to avoid Ubisoft from collapsing. AC Mirage was a step in the right direction, but I fear that it was not enough. I reckon (extremely speculative) that Microsoft will make a portal for game pass towards Sony and Nintendo, so that they can capture data from those gamers too. It keeps them in the race and a lot closer to the data vaults Google has and that is how their own weakness becomes exposed. I also speculate that ‘repairs’ on games on Sony and Nintendo will find delays and we will get the acceptable answer “our system first”. I cannot fault the approach, but there are too many larger issues here. As such the weakness was exposed and if I can create enough waves with IP for Tencent Technologies and Amazon, Microsoft will be in a decent amount of trouble. They never considered creative minds handing over idea’s in gaming to competitors, it stops their millstones rather effectively. They will spin this in any way they can, but when the tally is made, they will see less and less revenue from an investment that was folly to begin with. 

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick leaves with Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard Lulu Cheng Meservey after testifying at the northern district of California during a trial as U.S. Federal Trade Commission seeks to stop Microsoft deal to buy Activision Blizzard, in Downtown San Francisco, California, U.S. June 28, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

And as I set forth the ideas in my mind, another thought occurs to me. I wonder if Microsoft ever considered that part of the equation. You see Reuters at some point gave us “Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco pressed FTC lawyers on where their economist got the data to show the deal would harm consumers.” And I get it, it was all about a shooter, well I figured out another path and now it will matter a grea deal. But I will let you figure that out yourselves. It is optional that Microsoft never saw that small detail either and now that part could cost them a lot. I need to consider how I set that information free. Perhaps places like the Khaleej Times, the Arab News, Al Jazeera or some other source where Microsoft does not control the narrative. It is not a given, merely a thought and an option.

Enjoy the weekend.

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August 15, 2023 · 19:04

When the marketshare is murder

That is the setting and at first I would not really believe it. It sounded correct, but to be honest. I did not think that a place like Microsoft would intentionally target victims, but then there was a second source, the Guardian no less and that’s hen the disgust set in.

You see we know advertisements, we know advertisers, but for a system like Xandr to intentionally target people with gambling problems is a new low, even for Microsoft. This is what the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/15/tab-gamblers-betting-australia-targeted-microsoft-xandr-advertising-database) gives us. The article heads the accusation with ‘‘Heavy TAB gamblers’ among groups targeted by online advertising database’, there we are told “The dataset of 650,000 international “audience segments” was discovered on the website of Microsoft’s advertising technology platform Xandr by Wolfie Christl, a privacy researcher at Cracked Labs. It listed dozens of data providers looking to offer advertisers the ability to reach certain types of people online”, so not only does the law seem unable to deal with drug pushers, now they are enabling a place like Microsoft to hit the internet by ‘gamble pushing’ victims of this event. As such we get “Of the more than 40 categories identified as related to Australian gamblers, the majority were split into subsets related to gambling interest, sport interest or a particular venue: “Gambling at Pub / Club”, “Spring Carnival Punters” and “Online Gaming – NRL”, for example”. I think it gives a new meaning to the slogan “Long may we play”, perhaps it should be “long may we exploit the gamer”, even though gamer is a stretch, the fact that I have seen scores of these advertising on on Apple, my thought might not be too far away from the reality that people face. Then we go into the unknown with “Everything from our location to our purchase history are data points that can be packaged and used to serve advertising, often through the creation of profiles based on assumptions about our demographics or potential interests. But we know remarkably little about how the ecosystem works.” So not only were we served all kinds of BS against Facebook and Google Ads. These same BS servers have no idea what Microsoft with its Xandr is up to? How is that for slow minded investigations? 

Even the excuse was ‘outdated’ and moronic. What we get is “Microsoft said in a statement to Guardian Australia that the document was inadvertently published on its website and was outdated. The spokesperson said Xandr’s data privacy practices were regularly evaluated “to ensure compliance with applicable data protection laws”.” The words inadvertently and outdated are stop words into nothing. The fact that this data existed was wrong to begin with, they were going after a marketshare, the desperate (as I see Microsoft) are so hungry for revenue that they are willing to look the other way in too many cases. I believe it was 10 years ago when I wrote an article with data that Microsoft was uploading xbox data in excess of 20GB in a month. So, why was that? It was also on dates when I never touched a multiplayer game, I checked the data and the amounts and they did not add up. Was that to feed Xandr? Was that to feed other needs? So what would have happened when Microsoft got to complete the Activision Blizzard deal? How much data would Microsoft get access to? I wonder how many people took a hard look at that, because in March that was 368 million gamers and all that data would be going somewhere, would it not? It might be nice for Activision, but I have some hardcore reservations when Microsoft gets involved. And now that we see the accusations by the Guardian, the show changes. The fact that Microsoft would allow to hammer the people with a weakness to gambling makes me wonder how they are getting the other $198.3 billion in 2022 with 6.8% more in 2023. So how many victims did Microsoft approach? All questions, but there is a downside there, the questions should not even exist and that it the disgusting part of this setting. Until today I never thought Microsoft could sink that low, but there is space to think they could do worse and that is an unsettling stage. So where are these high and mighty senators now? They were all willing to grill Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Where are they now? Does Satya Nadella have too many friends in the senate? Is that why they think they could avoid this? Inadvertently is not an excuse, outdated is no excuse, that dataset should never have existed in the first place and that is now the larger question. Why was that dataset created in the first place. One source gives us “Xandr is used by 0.8% of all the websites whose advertising network we know”, yet what we need to realise that there are (according to some) 1,986,154,062 websites, even at 0.4% that amounts to 7944616 websites and if even one of them is Yahoo or any media site, the damage gets to be astronomical. But I reckon those senators will gladly pass over those numbers, won’t they?

We get it, advertisements are part of our daily life, but what happens when victims are intentionally targeted on their soft spots? Did you think that through?

Enjoy the week and remember the next gambling advertisement could be a mere click away if you are being targeted by Xandr.

 

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July 18, 2023 · 00:33

A partial view

We are at times given a partial view. We aren’t always aware, which is no ones fault, except the media. In this I saw things not add up when the BBC gave us ‘Xbox v PlayStation: The battle for control’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-65669480) where several things stood out. Before we begin, I am massively for Sony with a side order of Nintendo. Be aware, but Sony is not without faults. So lets begin. 

“Sony’s getting ready to announce the PlayStation 2 (PS2) – the powerful update to its game-changing PlayStation. Rivals Sega and Nintendo, who’ve struggled to fend off the new competitor, watch nervously.” This is not entirely correct. Sony played hardball, some ‘traders’ basically gave the shops the message. If you were showing a dreamcast, you would not be allowed to get the PS2. This scared a whole range of shops and Sony gained the upper hand. This was essential for Sony because SEGA had launched Soul Caliber on Dreamcast, which is until this day one of the most perfect games EVER created. It was so close to the arcade game that people went out of their way to get game and system. I know of the ‘persuasion techniques’ as I was a witness to them in Rotterdam (Netherlands). OK, we can accept that the BBC might never have been aware. 

In 2012 the battle was almost even, the Xbox 360 was phenomenal, no one denies that (and those who do are actual idiots). I had my Xbox360 next to the PS3 and I loved both systems. The 360 had a few release titles that made it a massive contender for Sony. Then the ground fell away with some Microsoft person stating that the next one (Xbox One) was always online, there would be no 2nd hand gaming and those who wanted to play offline could remain with the Xbox 360. The BBC article gives us “The 22-second clip, now widely seen as a legendary slap down, shows PlayStation CEO Shuhei Yoshida simply handing Sony exec Adam Boyes a copy of Killzone Shadow Fall.” Yet that was not it. For that we need to take a sidestep to an article named ‘No Press, No Facebook!’ Which I wrote on August 12th 2014 (at lawlordtobe.com/2014/08/12/no-press-no-facebook/) there I wrote “It is 7.1 that is the big issue, by agreeing to this (if you do not you lose your PSN account and online abilities) you confirm that you will not resell your games or buy second hand games. This was the big killer for Microsoft in the beginning in addition to the fact that this issue hits 80 million consumers. How is this not in EVERY newspaper? Perhaps their bosses where in the act of ‘hustle for advertisement coin’ (whoring seems like such a harsh word here).” The presentation by Sony was clever but they were on the same horse as Microsoft was. I gave the screenshots and evidence to several stations but they all ignored it, most probably too busy playing Geisha for Japanese industrials. Because Microsoft had the first presentation and they scuttled themselves Sony did a 180 before the presentation and as certain trade agreements never went through (Trans-Pacific Partnership) as such things went well for Sony. 

These elements were all missing. As such Microsoft lost more and more.

Then there was the storage issue. Sony set the rules on what was passible, Microsoft did not. As such for a mere $100 more you could double your storage by changing the hard drive, and for gamers that was a big deal. Microsoft did not allow for that and it went from bad to worse. There was hardware, but it was clumsy and expensive. Sony had the stronger setting here and these upgrades were possible from the PS3, as such Microsoft could have redesigned their Xbox One, but they were greedy and they left that part out in the open. As such the Sony was winning well over 2:1 and with the Nintendo Switch matters went from bad to worse. Microsoft kept on claiming that it was the strongest hardware of all and within a year they were surpassed by the weakest of all (Nintendo Switch). By that time the Xbox Series X had nothing to offer for gamers and they were in third position, what we are not shown that the Switch sold 125 million, the PS4 sold 117 million (in less than 10 years) and PS5 sold 38 million. Microsoft sold 22 million over 2 systems (series S and series X). They are in third position but lagging by a massive amount. And now for something that the BBC does not have. I am adding gaming IP to Amazon Luna and Tencent Technologies for free (to make Microsoft hurt more). You see there is a downside to owning Blizzard and Activision. You need to sell a lot to make up to that $69 billion and making it more appealing to create for the other two systems (Sony and Nintendo have a good arsenal and they do not need help) as such these streamers will have additional options and it slows down Microsoft more and more (but that is for another day and I wrote about that before). 

The article also gives us the deceptive “Meanwhile, the PlayStation 5 continues to dominate the next-gen console scene. But, two and a half years since launch, it still lacks the depth of truly exclusive games that have been seen as system-sellers for previous generations.” Which is utter BS. The PS5 has it range of exclusives and it has been breaking records God of War, Horizons, Ratchet and Clank, Spiderman, all previously released and the new versions broke records and made gamers gasp at the view of what was being released. Microsoft isn’t out of the race yet, but it needs to throw billions at this equation and that is still part of the discussion. Microsoft has a large advantage too. Game Pass is drawing in gamers, there is no denying it, yet after the $69 billion blood bank there will be consequences. Overly hyped games like Starfield need to deliver, if not the exodus from Microsoft will become stronger and the nice part of a $69 billion courtesan without gamers is a trophy no one looks at. There is of course more to the purchase, but it will show Microsoft in a state of defeat yet again and if I get my way it will end up behind Amazon and Tencent technologies too.

The final statement is the funniest one “But after a well-received showcase and Starfield, its biggest release of 2023, still to come, Xbox isn’t out of the game yet.” You see, after Redfall (its demise and joke) the pressure is not entirely validly on Starfield, in addition Bethesda games are implied to be a Microsoft exclusive, but without the millions of Sony fans they will not be making the numbers, the trust towards Microsoft is gone and people are shying away from Diablo 4, merely because Microsoft could endanger gaming fun, as such there is a lot more to fear, but those selling the $69 billion deal will be aware of that, not? 

In the mean time, the article was short several parts and not all pro Sony. Still there is also no battle for control, Microsoft lost by a fair bit, lagging in several ways and it will get worse, because the moment they get their deal and system errors prop up things will go south fast (and not in a good way). You see that is the part Microsoft never considered, games will look for EVERY fault they can find and hit Microsoft over the head with it and they have pissed off way too many gamers. They never considered a gaming population with an actively hostile setting. They forgot what it took to make the Xbox360 a real contender, something they threw away with pretty much one presentation and that matters, because it will show the lack of control too.

Enjoy the new week.

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