Tag Archives: Amazon

April 27, 2023 · 23:41

Slapping a giant

Yup, that’s me, but not in the way that we saw in comic books. This is real. I set up the setting for Microsoft to lose out a few times. And with Amazon staying asleep at the wheel, the option is now with Tencent technologies in one direction, but there are a few more directions to consider. So now it is time to take care of Bethesda, or hat was Bethesda, it is now Microsoft. I saw the claims that it might come to PS5, it might not, yet the reality is that this is stalling technique. It is not the first time that Microsoft did this. They made similar settings in the 90’s. As such some developers out there will have the option to grow in amazing ways. You see, it is time to create two new games. The first is already on my blog. Search for “lawlordtobe + RPG” and you will get most of it immediately. There is one condition, the simple fact that the game will be made for PS5 and Amazon Luna only, optionally later on Tencent, but that is still some time away. You see Microsoft paid 23 billion for Bethesda, as such making them bleed is a nice present for messing with gamers. 

The RPG game
A lot of it is already on this blog, yet I considered a few more items. One setting is that you could get a lot more out of a new era. Between 1568 and 1748 the Dutch had over a dozen wars which involved Spain, Germany, Portugal, England, Sweden and Austria. It would also involve the Golden age of the Netherlands. People like Rembrandt would show the world what the Dutch were capable of. 

My issue here comes from a setting in the Ezio collection. Ubisoft was great in those days and I just replayed these games learning that they are still massively good. But there are issues, nothing against Ubisoft on those titles. But the setting of Brotherhood gives the stage a much larger setting when you apply those graphics to Dutch settings and adjust it for the 17th and 18th century. When we consider that outfits were merely cosmetic, that could alter. You see someone in German garbs would be massively distrusted, but not in Germany. The same for the Spanish but not the French. Outfits matter and that gave me the idea to have tailors with several layers. Three levels of tailor and you could help these tailors out to gain a level. They could only gain ONE level, as such choices become important. Yet a level two tailor would not talk to you until you are dressed as a level 2 person (and live in that city, or have fame). The same for weapons and in some places you cannot walk with a sword, but you could have a dagger. All things that were assumed in Assassins Creed, but now the systems are powerful enough to deal with it (the Xbox 360 and PS3 could not). It allows for new kinds of stealth. Yet line of sight is important, but so is minimal distance and unless you are correctly attired you get all the attention that you never wanted. Also there was no ‘police’ or protection in every corner. There were a lot more in high society places but that was about it. Still the police was not the worst opponent. Cutthroats were that and now we have an entirely new kind of stealth. When we apply that to an RPG it becomes a challenge, no doubt about that. And when you apply this to cities in the Netherlands it matters. You see, the big places were Utrecht, Deventer, Zwolle, Kampen, Haarlem, Leiden, and Amsterdam. The Hague would not get its city rights until 1800. 

Yet this setting towards an RPG would create a new era of gaming. Like the other settings I mentioned you get to have the first two games with similar mechanics, merely a totally different side towards gaming. The Dutch side is often ignored because of its size, yet they had a war that lasted 80 years, in those days that spanned 5-6 generations, then Napoleon made a mess of things and that setting reflects into a nice setting to RPG gaming with optional stealth settings. 

As we start the game we get an choice of three

The initial option is Killer, Soldier and Thief. Each with strengths, but there are three more. You can grow in both sides, so the thief can also become a Brigand or a robber (they are not the same and as you can grow to lets say 5 degrees in the first choice, you can only grow 3 degrees in the second and third options. It allows for a lot more playability. But a good RPG game will have limitations. For example, the Thief will never be allowed in the Merchant guild, as such he cannot grow shops, but he can steal art and become really wealthy that way. The brigand has opportunity there as a smuggler, the robber does not. It is that interaction of styles that allows for the play style a person prefers, or they can really leave their comfort zone and do the opposite. The thief robber and brigand will have much better stealth options than the other styles, the soldier side will have better weapon skills and the killer will be equal if not better with some weapons and have better stealth than the soldier, but less resistance to attacks. That is merely one side. The Dutch had the golden age and as such they had all kinds of art and in those days it was very cheap (by our standards). As the Bethesda games have their own niche, the time to create a new niche becomes important. From a Bethesda point of view the time is right, no matter what they claim, they have time restrictions and Microsoft is making it harder for them and there is the option for the new developer and when you get it right with Sony, you get a new hardcore fan group with up to 32 million fans, no matter what some Microsoft driven guru states. This game was played before and you will have to stick to your guns. The options are clear. Are you a real developer or a wannabe? These ideas are free for exclusive Sony and Amazon Luna developers. 

I talked about one side and gave you another. Yer when you do the search I stated at the beginning you get a lot more and it all fits together in a few ways. When we connect the points you see so much more and you got it without investing time or money. As I stated before, lets collapse Microsoft before December 2026. Lets show Ubisoft that the claim of every year an Assassins Creed game is a BI setting and not an art setting. Is a game business intelligence of art? I see it as art with added mathematics (at times). Let’s teach some of them a lesson by yanking away their markets and in case of Microsoft, who just (apparently) lost their Blizzard/Activision deal. Lets show them that messing with gamers and yanking away gaming pleasure for $7,500,000,000 comes at a price, one they never counted on. The shareholders meeting of Microsoft could end up being massive fun in 2024/2025.

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April 14, 2023 · 01:14

Stupidity of principles?

That is what I was confronted with, and it is not out there, it is in me. It all started this afternoon when I got wind of an issue via the Human Right Watch. The article (at https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/13/saudi-arabia-microsoft-should-hold-data-center) gives us ‘Saudi Arabia: Microsoft Should Hold Off On Data Center’, I tried to convince Amazon to go there and it would smooth things over for my IP and of course their setting would be billions per year, in this I was certain and that was merely the beginning of it. They could have chiseled in stone a strafe of progress (for Amazon) and I got my purse of coins. Amazon did not react and the Saudi government only does business through partners. Now Microsoft has an advantage and I am not certain how aware they are, but I will not accept them or their purse with 30 pieces of silver. This now beckons the thought, is Tencent aware what they could gain? For me it is a serious question. You see, the HRW gives us “Microsoft should suspend its investment in a new cloud data center region in Saudi Arabia until it can clearly demonstrate how it will mitigate the risk of facilitating serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today.” Well that might seem nice, but corporations ignore privacy parts all over the planet, so the HRW setting is slightly naive. Does Tencent know what thy could gain? And it is also interesting that I get this through HRW, Microsoft hasn’t been spinning this all over the field. As such I wonder what their goals are. Mine are long term and going well beyond 10 billion a year (in phase 2), but I do not trust Microsoft. Their goals are greed and the limitation of options pushing them to more revenue. That is a simple truth and nothing (no kind of spin) from people like Phil Spencer will me contemplate their words.

But Tencent is an option. I know too little about them, yet I have learned that they are embracing at least one of the essential solutions I need to rely on, making the conversation (for me) a lot easier. So are my principles stupid? The fact that I do not cater to some American corporation is actually trivial. Where are the principles on making sure that your IP gets the best coin, the best value for money. As I stated before, I will hand my IP to the Saudi government at 35% of its value before I would ever consider selling it to Microsoft at 165% of its value. It is more than principle. I saw Microsoft destroy IP in many ways and I want my IP to flourish, it is more than ego (ego is not innocent here), it is the simple stage here the IP is flagged with my name and seeing that IP rise high is important to me (which is weird because after death no one cares). There is still the sweet dream of handing Microsoft the wooden spoon, but if they continue with it, they might not collapse in 2026 (my personal goal) and Tencent could assist in that matter. 

So is Tencent any better than Microsoft? That is my impression, but I do not know enough of Tencent to make that call. Still in this case the beast you do not know is to be preferred to the one you do know and that sets me in the stage of ‘stupidity of principles?’ Where I need to wonder what drives the choices. And knowing that Tencent will offer cloud services in Saudi Arabia yet whether there will be a center in Saudi Arabia, or if the center in Bahrain will service all nations around it is currently unknown to me, but that is off less importance to me at presence. What matters is that Microsoft will not get that level of advantage. And to think that the downfall of Microsoft (as I personally see it) all started with them betraying gamers. That should shape a nice epitaph on their tombstone. Of course it will not be me, but the stage that they lost against Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Google, Sony and Tencent is just too juicy to pass up. This is what happens when you set the stage to a group of fakers, they never made it and those who did (the other six) is a nice end to a company that went from greatness to massively substandard. 

Still the questions mulls in my head, what is the stupidity of principle and how much value does that have in the field of Business Intelligence?

Enjoy the day.

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April 13, 2023 · 04:17

The song remains the same

Yes, that is the setting we hear at times. We think that we are hearing something different, but when we listen closely, it is merely the same song we are hearing and this concert is all about ‘Oil in the family’ (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5vrWeHvErQ) yes, the song actually exists and it was created by Jan Akkerman (Dutch musician) a long time ago.

Yet the news comes from different sides. There is Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2285261/saudi-arabia) who gives us ‘Saudi crown prince and US Senator Lindsey Graham discuss bilateral ties’, wasn’t he one of these people who would not discuss things whilst his Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was in office? I remember something of that nature. So whilst we see “Graham, a member of the Republican party, has served as a senator since 2002. His visit was said to reflect a continuation of Saudi-US bilateral ties and reciprocal visits through the years” make no mistake, this was about restoring lost oil settings, it has the ability to set the stage I saw yesterday (previous article) I dreamt of. I reckon the Iranian setting would be raised as well. A setting that defines the coming end of the United States as the middle eastern power player is now in discussion and for the US it sucks, the ally they shorthanded for too long now has the US (as some younglings state) by the short and hairy and the US does not like that. They will do almost whatever they can to restore settings, but they are as I personally see it too late. There is every change they can restore 500K barrels a day, but they will pay for that, they will have to pay top dollar and the energy shortages head of them will make them pay. Oil rules the world at present as it has the last few decades. So whilst they mull over their options lets take a short sidestep The US and its people were all (including media) so set on letting Jack Dorsey pass by and hammer Elon Musk, his power-cell solution could have lessened the impact of oil in energy for a massive amount three years ago, now there isn’t enough times and they keep on hammering Elon Musk. Now, this is their western ‘right’ but it also largely enables oil and therefor Saudi Arabia (Aramco). 

ABC4 news (at https://abcnews4.com//senator-lindsay-graham-meets-with-crown-prince-of-saudi-arabia-mohammad-bin-salman-jeddah-international-relations-boeing-airline-money-wach) gives us ‘Sen. Lindsay Graham meets with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia’ with the added “I just had a very productive, candid meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince and his senior leadership team. The opportunity to enhance the U.S.-Saudi relationship is real and the reforms going on in Saudi Arabia are equally real”, with the added “I also expressed deep appreciation to the Kingdom for purchasing $37 billion worth of Boeing 787s – which are made in South Carolina – for the new Saudi airline. Investments like this are game changers” all whilst the topic oil is never mentioned and mostly because that part was handled behind closed doors. Iran is avoided as the US needs the lollipop named Oil (most likely a liquorice lollipop). The more it is avoided, the stronger it pushes to the foreground. Just like the 1981 song that rocked disco’s all over Europe. A good song can never be held down, just ask Mozart, the man is dead and requiem (1791) still shines on. No matter whether it is for you of for someone you know, that song remains a hit in every funeral parlour. Last there is Politico (at https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/graham-senate-rebuke-saudi-arabia-1041379) that gives us ‘Graham on Senate rebuke of Saudi Arabia: ‘Someone’s got to do it’’ there we see “Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday championed the Senate’s willingness to publicly rebuke the Saudi Arabian government despite the White House’s unwillingness to do the same, slamming the Gulf monarchy and calling out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by name for accusing senators of grandstanding on the issue” there we see the larger problem and it is not that the White Houses unwillingness to do something, it is that they and others remain in denial. And guess what if the energy crises goes south and places like Google, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon see the impact of losing around 70% of the abilities during summer to do business because there isn’t enough energy to keep the equipment running, that is when the economic meltdown starts and panic hits several states. I think my early prediction of 90 days is right on the nose. At that point the US sees waves of panic it never faced before and China will be on the sidelines laughing. Their game worked perfectly. In my assessment (a purely personal one) action trumps inaction EVERY SINGLE TIME and that is what we see, and that is not nearly the end of it. Politico also hands us “the president, secretary of State and secretary of Defense have all said there is no definitive proof that the Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi killed. Multiple media outlets have reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that the crown prince ordered the journalist’s murder.” The takeaway here is “there is no definitive proof”, something I mentioned several times, the gameplay via the United Nations (via someone called Eggy Calamari), its essay writer is falling flat and that goes back to February 2021  (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/27/that-was-easy/), more than two years ago, I already saw the failings of a United Nations being the useless tool of whomever. I even attached the document that shows their failings. It is so much easier to attach their folly, makes reading it easier. I don’t think the most powerful element that NO ONE investigated and forensically investigated the tape, there is mention of the tape, but when you read closely you see it surrounds things as ‘possible’ and ‘could’ the effect of forensic lacks. So this game was continued for over two years and that is what the US needs to claw back and they can not. 

Then the article ends with “Responding to Pompeo’s insistence that Congress breaking with the administration over Yemen would undermine the possibility for peaceful resolution there, Graham retorted in his op-ed that Congress is “a coequal branch of government exercising leadership to safeguard the country’s long-term interests, values and reputation.”” This shows that the US is still all about the discord, the denial and that is why the US is about to fail massively. The media played along and now they are caught between two difficult situations, because when they lose the energy and they cannot produce they will cry like the little girls they were all along. And there we see the final part of what I stated in the beginning, the song remains the same.

Have a great days and consider whatever you can upgrade to systems that rely on chargers, because soon enough for many hours a day, you will not have any options. The wealthier people will embrace the Elon Musk energy solution, but it will cost them top dollar. The others (like me) we will not be that fortunate, it is the consequence of an inactive political engine on a near global level. 

Enjoy the day and the working lightbulbs (for now).

 

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April 2, 2023 · 02:03

Fortune cookies

This is not the food stuff (which I love), these are phrases that appear on social media. I dislike them for the most, they tend to be snippets of a much larger framework, as such the message is trying to lure in an audience on an incomplete part. This is the main reason why I dislike them and life cookies shouldn’t be on LinkedIn, but that might merely be me. I will happily admit to that flaw in me.

Yet in the last 24 hours I got two messages that did make a ring to me, that made appeal which instilled something in me. OK, it happens. I am not without flaws or without wonder if need be.

Music is what feelings sound like
That was the first phrase. It seems shallow, but it is not. Is this why older people tend to appreciate classical music? And if music is the noise of feelings, how complex does music needs to become before some are struck by it? And there is no alternative, as such those who do not appreciate or accept music, what of them? I do not know, I am asking. I went from the young need of pop music, I felt connection to Jean Michel Jarre and David Bowie from the 70’s onwards.

I became a Jean Michel Jarre fan when Oxygène (Part IV) became a hit in the Netherlands in 1977. I am still a fan to this day and I tend to play his albums at least once a month. My introduction to David Bowie was in the same year with Sound and Vision, which was on the album Low.

Yet the first album I bought on CD was Lodger (1979), after that, over time I got most of his albums. If they appeal to our feelings, what are our feelings? Even now (decades later) my appreciation of Bowie is a lot larger than it was 45 years earlier. How come? I have other music I really like. Kate Bush, Alan Parsons and Kraftwerk. Music I still love decades later. There is new music too, but these 5 never wavered. Is it because I cannot identify the feelings? Is it something else? I honestly do not know. We could take these feelings in other directions too. Like thanking Ridley Scott for creating a movie so that Starman finally has a perfect video, and lets not forget that the movie was pretty phenomenal as well. I took this side-road to emphasise that this could become a chicken and egg setting. What was first, the feeling, or the identity of the sound that is seemingly connected? 

To see this to some degree, we ned to take a sidestep to the Troubadour, who was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry from 1100 onwards. He would be replaced to a larger degree in the 12th century by the minstrel. Yet they did not translate our feelings, they instilled the feelings of courage and victory in whatever stage is presented itself. The minstrel was more into getting a gold piece (and food) from the castle lord who he was performing to, as such he tended to play what they wanted to hear and it usually came with clerical sides too, because in those days the church was almighty and as such speaking of biblical virtues would go over well with the clergy in that place and as such with the lord too (who might have preferred songs of adulterous women). 

So when did music became the sound of our hearts? I am not attacking the phrase, it made me think, I wonder how we see music and how we value it and we do value it, consider the best songs from the last 10 years, what song has meaning to you? And it can be for the simplest or most direct reason.

A mind is like a parachute, it doesn’t work if it isn’t open
That was the second phrase, it was not related to the first, but I feel it is connected. It is an important distinguish as I am still working on other IP and a closed mind doesn’t get me there. Even as I have several pieces in play, the larger stage is where else I can go, and I wonder where I can take myself. I believe that there are hard and for some even harder times ahead. As such I need to see where I will go next, where I can be a return on investment and where I will be properly valued, not the wankers near me who make claims and like always, they will never deliver, they want a free ride and I have made 2-3 of these works public domain, so they get nothing and now they are afraid, they never considered that I would make it public domain and never get anything myself. It was their very stupid mistake. I have seen these stupid people trying to weasel fake promise after fake promise only to come with the lamest of excuses afterwards. As such more will become public domain soon enough. Especially some of the Augmented Reality settings. I saw the field and I saw it grow beyond the big 3D screen with Versace. I saw the field where they could set a new age on Android and iOS, but I reckon they missed that boat and now it is about to become Public Domain, the open mind sees what more there could be, it sees that greed is the dampening of an open mind, as such I decided to make some of it PD. So what happens when they miss out more and the 6G ideas become an open field for anyone in that approaching stage? Suddenly some of the larger firms will see that shedding jobs was a clear choice, but not the best one. That is how I see it. 

And before you think I am kidding, consider the stories from the last two weeks. I showed to be correct with articles that are months old, so how much more convincing would anyone need? I do not care, I still have a few ideas in the barrel and as I make some PD, other ideas are added to the barrel. Amazon left well over $5,000,000,000 a year on the floor (as did Google), so what contracting economy were they looking at? I get it Microsoft is a lot cause, but the other two are actual innovators, they should be running circles around me, that is not the case, it is almost the reverse (in some ways only). Yet the thinker would come to the same conclusion I came to a year ago. How am I running circles around them in even one field? That is what the open mind is trying to figure out and as I listen to Iggy Pop I will finish my sandwich and after that snore like a sawmill.

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April 1, 2023 · 18:54

Focal and blinders

We all face them at times, I am no different. The problem is when is what what. Let me be a little more clear, in my case Microsoft is an issue, as I personally see it, if they buy Blizzard, they will need $92,000,000 of profit a day just to break even with the purchase of 3 houses (Mojang, Bethesda and Blizzard), now this is not set correctly, they bought Mojang some time ago, as such the amount is a few million less, but it is not less by much. They already crashed Redfall PS5, which they are allowed to do. They are allowed to do whatever they need to with what they own. Yet, consider that the PS5 has well over 30,000,000 consoles in the field and they allegedly need $92 million a day, does the act make sense? So am I concentrating on a focal, or a blinder. Consider that a blinder lets you NOT see in a specific direction. We attribute all kinds of ‘evil’ towards Microsoft, are they blinders or are they seen as the result of a focal? That is actually a lot harder to answer than you think. When is one could also be the other.

As such I have been concentrating on my two IP projects. Project Graveyard and Project Cluster. Two very different software and hardware IP settings. They both fit the Amazon Luna and optionally whomever buys the Google Stadia, which is why Kingdom Holdings was on my radar. One will be a decent downfall for Microsoft the other no less, but also takes the steam out of Facebook, and as such Amazon was the logical path to take and not just merely logical, Amazon was about to get a whole new range of revenue because of it. Yet I try not to be smitten by either blinders or focal (no matter how much fun they are). As such I saw the appearance of Tencent on time and even as several players are willing to ignore Tencent, I cannot and I will not. Tencent has seemingly the ability to unite gamers. In addition it allows China to grow in one additional industry where Americans thought they would not exist and now Microsoft in particular will have a problem because of the required $92 million a day will become a nose grounded with an anchor around the neck of American economy. And there are plenty of nay sayer spinners on the internet. It is all Microsoft and they are all getting on top of things. So lets have a go at that list 

1. Microsoft would acquire Mandiant to solve their solarwinds issue
There was one news cycle and then suddenly it went dark, there was no more news. I raised it in ‘What we hope for’ on March 7th 2022 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/07/what-we-hope-for/). It became part of Google and it is a Google solution now. After that Microsoft and cyber solutions went a little dark on the matter.

2. Microsoft had a new Tablet to WOW the world. No, it didn’t never got close to the Apple iPad and it got even less close to the iPad Air, two devices that were more able and had a larger following and it still does. It still has a lot more to offer, but the spinners came with the ‘with the keyboard it was a more complete laptop’. No, it was not and it will never be that more. I saw people howling with agony as they saw failure after failure on their Surface. I still see some people trying to spin that thing. A $1650 solution trying to win over a $500 iPad, all whilst Apple has the more versatile device.

3. Microsoft has the cloud solution, Azure. Smell it, it smells nice. Which is laughingly the biggest loser of them all. In clarity, Azure is not bad, it lacks and it has no business in gaming. Azure is the Microsoft solution and after 3 years it is nowhere near ready to take on the AWS (Amazon Cloud solution). Last month someone wrote (not me) “Azure is more costly. Azure is the finest alternative for a robust Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider and even a Windows integration. If a company needs infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or a wide range of tools, AWS may be the ideal option”, so where are the SAAS and GAAS comparisons? And when I look, there is always a hidden issue where the people are promoting THEIR solution, no matter whether it involves AWS or Azure (Google is falling behind too much). At the moment the marketshare of AWS is a lot larger and in some reports it seems like Google cloud and IBM cloud are underreported. What matters is that this is another field where Microsoft is not ahead. 

4. The Microsoft gaming console is the most powerful in the world. It might be true, but the weakest console of them all (Nintendo Switch) surpassed the Microsoft sales numbers by a lot and did it in half the time Microsoft with their X/S console were in the field. Even now, these numbers of X and S series consoles are aggregated, the loss is that defining. They are way behind  the PS5 with their X series console, but it is the most powerful in the world. In addition the PS5 has a whole range of next generation titles that goes into the dozen and the Microsoft console is lacking there, even after two years it is still lacking in Next generation titles. 

I will ignore issues 5,6 and 7. 4 fields where Microsoft will need to do a lot better and for years they were not able to do so. So where is that $92 million a day profit coming from? I cannot see it, can you? And that was merely to claw back the investments on gaming alone. Amazon is hungry and they are driving their AWS (and optionally their Amazon Luna too) making the pain for Microsoft larger. Apple has a firm grip on their devices and even as we might not like Apple, their devices are solid and Microsoft has no chance of driving a wedge there. And as I see it, they already lost the console war. In that environment Microsoft is bleeding revenue all over the field, their books are red with blood and red ink. And for their security I have not seen an alternative for Mandiant (owned by Google). So where are they now? When will we see another Solarwinds? It is not a given, but they lack in cyber security, so I fail to see how they will stop the next wave. 

And now the battle field changes further, Tencent is about to arrive, I merely wonder if that was one of the reasons why the E3 was cancelled (I honestly do not know). If Tencent arrives, it arrives with more options and more settings than the Microsoft console field will allow for, no matter how that plays out, it makes the Blizzard $65,000,000,000 a massive anchor around the neck of Microsoft and it will hurt them, no matter what ideas they have. Tencent has been funding a lot of Unreal engine 5 stuff, as such they could wow the gaming community and if they are going the direction I am speculating on, it will hurt both Microsoft and Amazon to a larger degree, in this the pain to Apple remains unknown, or it might be minor. And that is all before some figure out that Project Cluster will enable a lot more than anyone considered, it was meant for that, to be ready for national 5G implementations. How many of them did that off the bat and how many (implying Microsoft) stated “We will get to that when it is ready”, it is the short term focal point of a quarter by quarter BI person. In this none of them have a real long term focal point and that is why Tencent is a danger to them all, they are focussing on 2025 and 2026 (the year Microsoft allegedly collapses).

So is Microsoft my blinder? Is it my focal, or did I see the stage for what it was one that offers great options for some and not that much for others. They limited their abilities by hanging an additional $65,000,000,000 anchor around their necks. I am calling it as I saw it. Perhaps I am wrong, you tell me. I gave you the numbers and the works, you can do your own research.

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March 31, 2023 · 20:09

Those cordially invited

That is a setting that is not merely an evolving one, it sort of fits several stages and it all revolves around the choices that some make. As such when the Gaming Bafta’s were on, there were two considerations. The first one was how well did Sony do, the second one is how bad Microsoft is doing. I will get to the logic a little later. Sony sort of won a few times. There was God of War who was a winner, of course the music by Bear McCreary won and Christopher Judge as the voice of Kratos won. It won 6 awards in the Gaming Bafta’s and had 15 nominations, including EE game of the year, best game went to Vampire Survivors by Luca Galante. Horizon Forbidden West by Guerrilla games, a Sony exclusive won best technical achievement. One out of 5 nominations. This maters as these two games are gaming achievements of the highest order. God of War is given a 94% score, HFW an 88% score (I personally believe it should have been a 92%). Microsoft and their acquired houses had 4 nominations and zero wins. OK, I will grant that Bethesda had bad luck having to go up against one of the Final Fantasy kids, but still as I see it, no bang for seven and a half billion spend on purchases? Perhaps next year. The big titles were not here and I was missing Hogwarts Legacy, but they might have missed the cut off point. As such Microsoft has additional issues next year and that is before the storm hits. You see, the E3 was cancelled. It does not matter what the reason is, they cancelled it for some of the players having their own spin presentation, where they can intentionally not invite those critical of them. It makes sense and it is a valid and acceptable choice to make (even as I am spinning this in personal ways too). You see, I do not know the individual reasons and that means I merely do not know. But the hardships that Bethesda presently has, the lack of releases by Microsoft houses and whatever Ubisoft has to remain absent, they might all be perfectly valid in Business Intelligence, but gamers will spin this. One source gave us in January “Ubisoft’s Project Q has now been reportedly cancelled. The PvP battle arena game was announced less than a year ago in April 2022. They’ve already delayed Skull and Bones six times now and the recent comments by CEO Yves Guillemot haven’t helped.” Another source gave us that Assassin’s Creed Mirage and The Crew: Project Orlando will not come before Q1 2024, implying that they miss the summer haul and the Christmas revenue haul (including thanksgiving), two massive revenue moment. As such it makes sense to give E3 a miss, yet I personally would have spun this into ‘We will get a better result when we take more time’ even though one game has had 6 setbacks. They basically face a lose lose proposition. In all this I set the groundworks for new IP and that actually matters this time. You see there is an element missing at present. That element is Tencent. They are giving a miss for now, but they are pouring buckets of gold into their Unreal engine 5 design teams, this implies that they could grow big next year, they could pull the carpet from under Microsoft legs. 

I did not give Tencent the consideration I could have, mainly because Amazon is a better fit, but in the setting that they are in. I am sitting on a totally new form of gaming on one hand (a small exaggeration), on the other hand the other IP in phase one could represent five billion and a lot more after that. Tencent could be the direction to grow my setting and even as I prefer Amazon as a first choice, one needs to go where the gold is (a small personal greedy direction). And as long as Microsoft is rejected as a contender, I am happy, even if Tencent ends with the IP. It still is important for me to assist in sending Microsoft to some revenue graveyard by December 2026. You think I am serious, and I am, but there is a hidden egg in the graveyard part. 

If Microsoft had focused on quality instead of spin (which they in part might be) there could have ben a little hope, yet at present when we see the Xbox Series X and after two years we still see review (source: Tom’s guide) “Few next-gen launch games” a setting you can accept in year one, but not after two years, you see how Microsoft is desperate and now I add Project: Graveyard against that setting, without Microsoft being able to attend that game? It is nice to hand Microsoft the wooden spoon in 2024, especially when they could have spend a little over $100 billion by then (Mojang, Bethesda and Blizzard) and that is before the other IP is launched (if it is sold) and before the list of Sony releases get to be even larger. Ubisoft is important for Microsoft and their consoles as they were their biggest drive, no matter how we think of some games, Ubisoft has had moment of true greatness and one additional title could safe Microsoft. So when we set the larger stage and we see the gaming Bafta’s and the E3 cancellation, the larger stage of Microsoft is as I personally see it diminishing. And the stage is worsening in other ways too, but I will write about that should Microsoft acquire Blizzard, because that is expected, but not set in stone at present.

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March 29, 2023 · 23:46

By Jove, I did it

This is not how it started. It started with me being mad at Microsoft. The question is whether I had reason to be mad at them. They bought Bethesda (and stopped Redfall for PS5), now they are out to buy Blizzard and I am seeing the most BS issues get to the front of the line. OK, I can do something about that. You see, my imagination is a good one and I am going to make sure that this $65B investment is the one they choke on. There is also another part. Here we are sitting and we get the line ‘Microsoft says 10 years is ‘sufficient for Sony to develop Call of Duty alternatives’’ Wrong! I finished it today and it is a nice challenge, one no one never saw before. It will be exclusive to Amazon Luna and optionally Sony as well. A game where Microsoft is not welcome. The fun part, they do not have to pay 65 Billion for it. If Amazon buys the other IP (which bags them well over 50 million subscriptions) they get this one for FREE! It becomes their IP and I hope they share it with Sony. I know it is their call at that point, but to see Microsoft fall and implode by 2026 will matter to me (loud evil laughter to follow). 

I had part of the idea and then today, the other parts started to connect. The challenge, the levelling, the area, the environment and a few other parts. The price? Well the other IP is set to $50 million post taxation and a few extra’s, and that is one hell of a long way away from $65,000,000,000. For the non calculus people among us, it is less than a mere 0.1% of the amount, that is how you drown a corporation, by making them drown on their own futility and that is what I set in motion, a new way of gaming, a new challenge that no game streamer has ever seen and there is no cheating here. Any cheater will become a pig faced player (quite literally) and its pig appendages cannot hold a weapon any longer. It can merely run and oink a lot. So the CoD cheat people will run into the light and wonder what is happening. This game will be different and it is no easy reward either. It becomes you against 880,000 others (not all at once mind you). It felt good, to suddenly connect the pieces of the puzzle and let Microsoft eat crow. Yes, I knew I had it in me, yet in all honesty I expected it to take a little longer, optionally a few weeks longer. But there I was, it was a little past 16:00 and the puzzle was ready for presentation to Andy Jassy. The question becomes ‘Is he ready to take Microsoft down a few pegs?’ He might not be, and when that happens, it will be up to Sony, but to be honest. I prefer Amazon as the other IP can be qualified with a dollar value much faster and they would get this solution for free. A win-win I would say. 

What a lovely way to start Thursday!

Have a great day, dream big. Especially if it is about kicking Microsoft in the testies.

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March 23, 2023 · 09:14

One thought counters another

This is a case we sometimes face. My thought counters theirs and their thought counters mine. There is nothing unnatural about it. In a setting where we applaud, respect or even merely accept the scales of balance, we see that one side counters another. Balance is natural and that is important here. You see, players like Microsoft have been fighting balance for their own selfish little needs for the longest of times. Now, this does not mean that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are not like that, but they tend to go with the flow for most of the time (Facebook perhaps a little less than the other three). Apple might be the most in tune with the scales of balance, but that is from where I sit and might be incorrect. And this all started with ‘Microsoft says ten years is “sufficient” for Sony to create Call of Duty rival’, yes, I can do you one better. They can do it in half that time. More important it will not be some Call of Duty rival, it will be better. As Microsoft is becoming more and more of a hollow egg, the $69 billion more in the near future is also the face of a failing company. You see, You can buy all you like, but when the creative people walk away because they see the failing of a company who fails against Apple with their Surface, who fails with their Azure against AWS, who fails with their Bing against Google search is a company that is doomed and as I personally see it, it is in its last 1,375 days before it crumbles into a joke, that firm will lost a lot more soon enough. And it is not that hard an equation. To merely break even Microsoft will have to exceed 72.8 million of PROFIT every day between now and 31/12/2026 and that is merely to cover the last three spendings, not all their waste. That is why I know that Microsoft will fail. So I created in the past blogs the foundations of more RPG that I made freely available to people designing for the Amazon Luna. It is the final blow of failures for Microsoft. I don’t need to do anything for Sony. They have their horses in a row and they are ready to race. Nintendo has its own niche and they are doing fine. All settings that two gaming giants had racked up correctly. Microsoft betrayed their own gamers, blew its audience who is now taking a distance from Microsoft, and as such their population is dwindling down. Still think I was delusional?

It goes from bad to worse after that. Their own cornerstone is having more and more issues and people are willing to push away from that too. Microsoft office is too bulky and there is a lot of power in Open office and Google’s solution which apart from their spreadsheet is doing above OK, not to mention the fact that it is a free product. And in the graphic settings Adobe surpassed them in several ways all at once and in the age of Meta and their metaverse Microsoft will merely lose more and the need for the daily profit of 72.8 million that marker will merely bite more and more. With the Luna set to overtake (with a little help) the Microsoft streaming service they will get another opponent. It is Chinese Tencent who is already taking serious time to create Unreal Engine 5 applications. Another soft spot Microsoft was ignoring. Yes we are given all the spin in the media, but too many is created by ‘Microsoft Friends’ and we see AI claims all over and when we think things trough, we will realise that ‘their’ AI is data driven and they lack data. There is no way that some AI claim can create scripts. You see (deeper) machine learning can only react to data, react to events they HAVE and that means that they can copy and edit, but they cannot create. That is the first larger flaw. And now as I had another idea for Streaming gaming, there will be a much larger case for people to connect to systems that will deliver, not are bought and then altered to fit another need. That is a sure way to fail. One source (a few, but seemingly all from the same source) gave us “Redfall PS5 version was in development, but cancelled after the Xbox buyout”, so how does that align with a Microsoft statement that they would be everywhere? Now, lets be clear Microsoft is allowed to do what they do, they bought Bethesda, they are trying to own Blizzard. But what happens when we design new versions, new IP exclusive for Amazon Luna and Sony? What is their win when they spend $100,000,000,000 for a console that as some sources gives us 

As of June 2022, lifetime unit sales of Xbox One consoles in North America reached 31.58 million, while in Europe, lifetime unit sales surpassed 12.8 million with some partial addition of what was estimated that Microsoft had shipped at least 18.5 million units of the two consoles (series S and X) worldwide by December 2022. Now look at the Sony equation. PS5 sales have now climbed to 32 million, with 7.1 million consoles sold in the last three months alone, a dramatic increase over the 3.9 million sold in the same quarter last year. This means that the PS5 is almost equal on the Microsoft last 3 consoles, all whilst the PS4 has surpassed 117,000,000 consoles. Now they want to go to the cloud whilst their consoles are already doomed. So I am willing to set aside some creative time to make sure that they fail there too. 6 directions (tablet, SAAS, office, search, gaming and GAAS) where Microsoft fell short and keeps on failing, no purchase will counter that and the message merely gets to be worse soon thereafter. Now, do not discount some options. Microsoft will get some parts right, Starfield looks for all accounts amazing, but when there is an alternative people will go for the one solution that does not betray them. And should Amazon (or Apple) select my IP, they stand to get more than 50,000,000 more accounts making the failure of Microsoft even more dismal, especially as I predicted this setting for the better part of 2 years. No spin will work when there is a published article countering that. They are all about making a spin towards the future, but what happens when the ‘future spin’ becomes past and does not hold up to the numbers? That is the part Microsoft seemingly forgets about (again and again) and that wheel is merely spinning faster and not for Microsoft. They will merely lose more and more control. At some point they will need more money to repair the potholes of their shoddy road. Consider the Solarwinds issue and the fact that Microsoft was going to buy a cyber powerhouse (which became part of Google) and after that the media went dark, the spin failed, so darkness is all they had and the media complied. There were no questions on how Microsoft was going to deal with it after that. Weird he?

The list merely grows and at some point the media needs to do a 180 or accept that they are a Microsoft tool. So how many failures until the media actually turns on Microsoft? Perhaps the larger advertisement deals come through, but not for all and that is the counter that vanishes, especially when you consider that the world has 18,000 registered with the World Association of Newspapers (WAN). Some will lose and that is the beginning of a lot more pain for Microsoft. 

So whilst all of that is in play. I considered a new RPG, free for Amazon Luna and Sony developers. Consider the absolute hit the first 4 God of War games were. Now consider an RPG where Tartarus is actually mapped out. As such it is no God of War and you have no special powers, but a battlefield the actual size of America named Tartarus, the underworld where you need to keep standing, where you need to survive and each death restores you, but with the millions of opponents you cannot run into battle all the time. You need to find the relic weapons that have additional powers and perhaps you will at some point find an Olympian piece of armour or. weapon that gives you an edge. And it will be first person. So 9.9999 years before Microsoft imagined I gave Amazon and Sony a rival. That is the power of creativity, something Microsoft lacks, they surely lack it, because if blizzard is bought, many creative souls will retire with their part of billions and Microsoft end up with another near empty shell, product but without driving creativity. So how long until the makers at Bethesda will have had enough? How long until they think that Ubisoft is a better deal than Bethesda under new management? That is how I know that Microsoft is ticking away towards implosion and when that happens (within the next 1380 days) I will merely sit, sip a little Ice water and tell you ‘I told you so!’ Because I get to do that at that moment. Yay me!

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March 21, 2023 · 23:45

The unplanned story

That happens to us all and there are any number of reasons. I thought I was done with the subject for now, that is until CB gave me ‘Nordstrom Canada will launch sales at its closing stores starting Tuesday’ (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nordstrom-canada-liquidating-stores-1.6784540) about 11 hours ago. There was no surprise. I covered this in part in ‘It as one keyword’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/03/04/it-was-one-keyword/) and that story links to a few others. I casually captured the folly of Nordstrom but I left a few things out. You see, we can all agree if you have been working from a place of loss from day one, there is a weakness in your business model, but I do not think it was enough. Covid was too unexpected and the world reeled on it, but it was already to late as I saw it and even if my IP was accepted by the right people, for Nordstrom it was already too late, it would have merely given them a little more time, time they could not hand them a better result. Their business model and their prediction model was off by too much.

You see, to see this we need to look at a picture. The picture is below. 

As you see here, we see a mall and this time around it is not the Toronto Eaton Centre, this is the Hyat Mall in Riyadh and it show the same weakness, which is the problem for malls. Yet as I see it, the problem is a lot bigger for western malls (USA, UK, EU) they have the same touch, the tough of non identity. You can scream the name all you like, but these malls are all the same. Go to a mall anywhere in the US and you could not tell where you were from walking there. It was a formula that malls were based on and between 1990-2015 that made sense, but after Covid the world changed and that is where the problems starts for these malls, all 116,000 of them. Yet there is a solution and both Gucci and Tiffany is already tapping into that, but I reckon they are missing part of it and that is where Google, Samsung and Apple come in. I wonder if these two players figure out what I saw over 6 months ago and it is a juicy one. Optionally Elon Musk could use it to give more needs to his Pi Phone but in itself it is still an android solution. The image is based on identity and interaction. You see, that need is not effort, it is engagement. Market Research (at least a few of them) have seen that engagement is the metric that really matters and Augmented reality is the core of that and that is what is missing in malls. Lets be clear, for Nordstrom it is too late, the question becomes will malls change into retail graveyard places over the next 5-10 years or are they given a new lease on life and that matters. How much real estate is in 116,000 malls? When they die the local places will light up and I personally am a firm believer in ‘Support your local hooker’ which was an expression we used in the 70’s. 

So am I right because Gucci and Tiffany are tapping into that idea? No, I believe I am right because the nature of the beast (the consumer) has changed and is still changing. They are catching on that a new prerogative is required and AR gets them there. So when they are done with ageism and other forms of consumer categorisation, they will figure out that their predictive model is wrong on a few levels and that is where we see the larger stage change. I merely wonder if some of them will wake up in time. If not, I watch it all go to hell and when it does I can point to my previous articles and tell them “Told you so” and whatever excuse they have will not hold up, because I wrote it months ago and I wrote it in several stories over a span of about a year (perhaps a little longer). So when they wake up, I wonder if it is to the board directors who are fed up with the colour rd in their books, or the conveyancer trying to measure up the place for new usage. I can’t be to the smell of coffee, because it is too late for that and it will not be to me as Amazon, Apple and Google all decided they never needed me. Fine, whatever.

So when we complete the consideration of “In approving Dacks’ liquidation request, Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz agreed, saying Nordstrom is facing a “difficult time, but this process is unfolding in a very co-operative manner.””

At least I kept it out of the hands of Microsoft, not a bad stage to consider. Yet consider two final things. The first is Nordstroms liquidation actual liquidation or euthanasia? The second is, is Nordstrom alone? How many other places are on the brink of really bad times in the next 5 years? 

Have a great day.

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March 17, 2023 · 05:23

Confirmation and standards

That is what I was confronted with over the last 5 hours. I got a message a little before that and we will talk about it. I mentioned it in my previous article. It connects to more, but that is not important right now. What set me off was the article (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2268696/saudi-arabia) where we are given ‘Saudi energy minister: Kingdom will not sell oil to any country that imposes a price cap’. In this I agree, even if it hurts me badly. You see the US has been crying on expensive oil, but the price is set as well by Brent oil, an American firm. One that has the BIGGEST production of oil on the planet.

So when we are given “Spare capacity and global emergency stocks are the ultimate safety net for the oil market in face of potential shocks. I have repeatedly warned that global demand growth will outpace current global spare capacity, while emergency reserves are at a historic low.” I have no other thought but to agree. This has been going on for the better part of 2 decades. No one was complaining when oil was $40, but the setting differs. The US will not buy from Russia (which makes sense) and neither is Venezuela an option. The Arab nations are united in getting the best deal FOR THEM, which is done on a global scale in many commodities, but oil is not the US point of trade, it is THEIR anchor, yet no one looks at Brent oil and what it does, weird, isn’t it? We have seen the massive need to drop dependency on oil and in 2 decades nothing was done. The blame is all on governments for not acting, then 5 years ago an optional sidestep could be made, but the US government pissed of Elon Musk, whilst giving a free ride to that previous Twitter owner, that Dorsey thingamajig. But the Media on a global level REFUSED to ask him the hard questions. And now that it is too late, now that we see that a battery change was required 3-4 years ago, the Governments (especially America) start crying like little bitches. 

When a well can pump 10 cups of water an hour, and there are at any given moment 25 people needing water, some will go thirsty and that setting has been clearly there for over 2 decades. Why was nothing done? So when I see “NOPEC refers to a No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels bill, proposed US legislation that could leave members of OPEC+ open to prosecution under American antitrust laws. The bill, which has been periodically proposed for several years, was revived this month by a bipartisan group of senators in Washington amid ongoing concern about high energy prices.” And here the thought “Are you insane?” pops up. In the first why is Brent Oil not mentioned? And it is so easily fixed. Saudi Arabia (Aramco) could deliver 20% less oil to the US and Europe and sell that to China, everyone happy, or not? It is not a concern for high energy prices, it is the bloody mess of inaction which can be clearly shown for well over a decade and when there was a solution, you pissed off the industrial that could have aided you. So how is that for stupidity?

The second reel
The second reel is different, it is not connected to oil, but optionally to stupidity (as I personally see it). I have seen now confirmation on two of the branches that this will work and due to a few changes, there would be a growing need for the third branch as well. For me it could be good, and could is the operative word as Google was asleep at the wheel and let it pass and Amazon doesn’t seen to be waking up to the billions they can get in this. At present my hope lies with Kingdom Holdings and one other party. That one might not give me the full price, but it is better than nothing, in addition, keeping Microsoft away from there is prime concern, they can only screw up the IP, blame others, point fingers and then refer to miscommunications. I can do without that. There is a small option that Apple might pick it up, but it is not really their turf, so I feel uncertain about that thought. So it is in some regard inverted from oil. Oil everyone wants, and seemingly my IP no one wants. I reckon that the first one that buys it and see what they stand to gain, at that point everyone will come calling, like a Credit Suisse banker with an empty wallet, but that is my weird sense of humour.

The idea that I am right is nice, but I have seen enough confirmations in several directions to know I am right, but that is just me. I still check all forms of verifications, not merely to proof that I am right, but to confirm I was never wrong. That too matters, because I am where banks and oil consumers needed to be, in a place of checks and balances, something both parties require very very fast.

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