Tag Archives: Amazon

January 20, 2022 · 07:18

Supporting Sony and Amazon

There is a time when it is not about the dough (aka money), there is a time when it is about the principle of protecting the game and the gamer. And when it is supported by a civic duty to kick Microsoft in the mouth (for civic duty and personal pleasure) the money issue does not add up to much. You see, we can toss and turn over. Few coins now, but when gaming is slaughtered by Microsoft, what does that add up to in the end? 

So in support of what I wrote yesterday in ‘At it again’ I have decided that all gaming idea’s on my site are now free to use for both Sony and Amazon. I do hope that they will give me a bonus if the 50,000,000 consoles for Amazon becomes a reality, but that is not out of bounds is it? So I already created the foundation of an entirely new RPG (as I wrote earlier), so now I need to come up with an idea for something to counter Blizzard. I reckon that the Activision problem will solve itself soon enough.

This is seen in a few articles like ‘CoD Vanguard players expose ‘pay to win’ Double Barrel Blueprint after nerfs’, as well as ‘Call of Duty Acknowledges Problems With Warzone and Vanguard’, a setting that shows that with “The publisher released a statement on the official Call of Duty Twitter account, acknowledging the struggles these games have had, and its intention to move things in the right direction. Activision plans to fix as many of these issues as quickly as it can”, this indicates that the troubles brewing are not resolved, more important, they have been going on for some time and that tends to be disastrous. Even as game makers ‘hide’ behind ‘best selling in the US’ we see another flavour of “most powerful console”, which was done away easily enough by Nintendo and its “weakest of all consoles” to bash it, surpass it in sales in almost half the time. Now with Microsoft buying software houses for a total of $37,000,000,000 (most of it for Blizzard and Activision), we are introduced to “The bigger worry is that Sony is no match against its far-larger rival as gamers look beyond consoles” (source: Reuters), yet but the statement is not correctly given, is it? With “as gamers look beyond consoles”, we see the article catering to Microsoft and its advertisement budget, but the truth is that gamers always look beyond consoles, they look for the best gaming experience and so far Microsoft has disappointed too much and too often, as did Ubisoft, as did a few others. Looking beyond consoles makes sense, there is a case for both the Google Stadia and Amazon Luna, but Google does not develop games. As such the Amazon Luna has the better advantage and handing them (as well as Sony) free access to my IP works for me as a gamer and works for gamers in total. And I have always been protective of gamers. Not to mention that there is a surprisingly satisfying feeling if my RPG idea gains traction, when Microsoft Paid $7,500,000,000 for Bethesda, only to see that Sony and Amazon can bring a new competitive RPG at a fraction of the cost, not to mention the undisclosed option for Amazon to sell an additional 50,000,000 (or more) consoles on an idea Microsoft never saw coming in the first place. The idea to surpass Microsoft left, right and centre on their shortsightedness is massively satisfying and as I am considering now a Diablo like game where the stage is a combined Gauntlet like game, as well as a first person action slice and dice game, we see (in the earliest stage) that they got an additional lemon at $27,000,000,000. A stage that makes me laugh. Microsoft has the ‘lets throw money against the shortcomings we have’ and I countered it by handing over IP to Sony and Amazon that is new, fresh and optionally grows to be the equal of what they paid for at top dollar. It might not make me rich (never a priority to me), but I can fall asleep with the biggest grin knowing I pulled the carpet from under the feet of one of the biggest software companies on the planet. 

So when we look at “Microsoft will be looking to gradually lure PlayStation gamers to its own console with new content down the line.” We see subterfuge. And I feel 98.3245% certain (roughly) that my creativity can trump their subterfuge. So when we see the two parts namely “the huge bet on Activision signals the company is serious about building a virtual world beyond a console or device”, as well as “Sony is doubling down on games exclusive to PlayStation. It may have the air of a David and Goliath match-up, but Microsoft looks to be on a whole other level.” We see the courtesan move towards advertisement. Consoles have for the longest time aimed for exclusives, the Sony exclusives have proven to be exquisite masterpieces again and again. You see, THEY might tell you that gamers want “a virtual world beyond a console or device”, yet it is not gaming, it is a world of cheats, cheating and hacks and in that world there is a larger benefit for the maker to set the ‘pay to win’ environment by selling weapons and other micro transactions to fill the war-chest of its board of directors. At some point (sooner than anyone expects) the gamer will have had enough and dump these games. With the Sony games, with gaming on a console, the only cheat you get is on yourself.  But that part will not make the media, will it? Gamers will too often feel the need to chill and play the story, enjoy the world they are in, a setting that the Microsoft games will not offer. They will make lofty promises like “Activision has announced the worst punishment yet. In short, if you’re caught cheating in Call of Duty: Vanguard, you can be banned from every CoD game in the franchise.” A statement made in
November 2021. This in response to “Numerous players reported running into blatant cheaters on Vanguard on the very first day of the release.” And no one is asking the question why cheating was made so easy, so easy that it was ready on the first day of release. But I cannot find any media asking that part, and then the response ‘you can be banned’, not ‘you will be banned’, a subtle but unmistakingly difference that they are considering action, not promising that action will be taken and when the gamers get a few more of those issues, they will walk away. A good spending of 27 billion. So whilst we cannot deny that there will be a desire for virtual world combat, until you deal with the cheaters that world will be as appealing as a tax form. In this with the cheater active from day one, it seems to me that a lot more fixing is required. Darn and I was having so much fun surpassing Microsoft with creativity, all whilst common sense might defeat them before that. Because in the end it will be common sense. The common sense that gamers want to have fun, they want to exchange blows on an honest field so that s gamers they feel enabled and the last time I checked in a game filed with cheaters no one feels enabled, merely insulted and attacked on a false premise. 

So I do not disagree with Reuters on “Microsoft looks to be on a whole other level”, especially when that is set to the stage that the Microsoft level is an inferior one. Now, you are free to disagree, but consider if you go into a virtual world and there are a dozen cheaters waiting for you, how much fun will you have as a gamer? Not that much I reckon.

Enjoy the day! I am going to mull the new Diablo station a little more, the idea is taking form, but I do know it will not be easy to offer a Diablo alternative, that franchise is a really solid one. 

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January 16, 2022 · 22:25

The images came

Yes, they came, the images. My mind played out the beginning of a new movie, one with Owen Wilson in the lead. I am not ready to tell that story yet. During that escape I also saw a few other things, it is there that we find ourselves. In the middle of a story not to be told, but with images that make sense in gaming. You see, in the early years (1993) Origin made a game that had potential, the game did not really exploit it, but it had created an optional new wave and even as the finale implied things in the end, they never came. Yet it is only one side. Games are always about options, but nothing ever comes from the tail side of that coin. What if choices are set upon us? More important what if the other side has equally strong negative sides? We can select the internet to do our work for us, or we can go forwards embracing the choices we have made. Too many games forget about that. I believe it was the wrong take to make on gaming. We grow and we get clever through adversarial settings. That as been proven for the longest time, yet we overlook it because it is not what the gaming community wants. By whose standards? Players like Ubisoft and Microsoft have no idea what gamers actually want and they have shown that lack over and over agains for at least 10 years. So let’s take this up a notch. You are at a shrine, there is a camera, a book and a potion. You can only select one, what do you take? When the clue is unfolded it makes sense to take one of them, yet each give a formidable advantage, yet you lose the other two. In the age of Gauntlet and Diablo based games we might take that part later, but what happens when the choice if final and the others are removed from choice? As I see it it enables replayability, it grows a much larger value in any game. You see a game that does everything will basically please no one. We forgot that the founders of gaming like Infocom with Zork enabled us to think things through, a side in gaming we tend to forget. And I did too, for the longest time I merely went from achievement to achievement. I forgot to have fun, I forgot what replayability enables, not the same track again, but another path towards the same destination. More to see, more to experience and more the encounter. Most game makers are about story experience and one story fits all, but that is seldom if ever the case. For the same reason two role playing gamers might select different races (orc, dwarf, human, elf). All part of the package, all part of 4 learning experiences. Yet most people stick with the one choice and work from there, yet I believe that they take the one path because no one explained that they can get more by taking another path the next time around. It does not fill the revenue bill and that is a shame, yet in the new stages, in streaming stages that option will become increasingly important. Streamers have a monthly fee, so if one game can be played 4 times the revenue meter fill up larger. More importantly the games would have to become a lot better, a lot more immersive and the stories would need to become a whole lot better. I do not believe this to be a bad thing, this is how evolution of gaming starts and it does need to start, you see fully deployed 5G is no more than 3 years away and at that point the console wars will go into a new dimension with the streamers (Google Stadia, Amazon Luna) will become fierce and a lot more decisive. I do not believe that they will replace the Nintendo Switch or the Sony PlayStation 5. Yet they will be next to a lot of these systems and that is where the $200,000,000,000 revenue ticket for 2022 is at, and with the Amazon Luna with an optional 50,000,000 more consoles that war takes a hard turn into better gaming and the ones not ready for upgrading gaming will lose out to a lot of revenue clambakes. It will not start drastically, it will be all nice, but it sets the stage for 2024 and there the numbers do add up to failure or success and none of the players are embracing failure, or so they seem to think, but which of these systems have truly embraced upgraded gaming?
Not many, I can tell you that much and that is merely the first wave, the second wave will add the previous revenue success to the next one and those who missed out on pile one, have little to no option for an increased pile two. That is where they all are, in denial. Phrases like ‘We are working on it’ or ‘this will sort itself out’ but behind the curtains they sweat, they have no idea where to take it next and I wrote about at least half a dozen options, and they all laughed, but in November 2023 they will stop laughing. They will face the shortcomings of choice and the lack of options they left their gaming community with, so these people will dump that system and cancel that prescription. So these people will face 2024 with limited revenue and no plan of implementation. That will be the losing streamer. The other one will take a bow and head for revenue piles two and three, at that point Sony will face a true contender for the first position in console wars, the field is wide open, but I believe that Microsoft has already lost, they did this to themselves. To be honest, as the information goes at present the Amazon Luna is the most likely winner in that direction, but I have no idea where Netflix is going, so there are options in a race where some horses cannot compete and some horses are unknown. In that race I see Nintendo in third position, with their gaming attitude they could go higher and they have what it takes, but they work on a formula that is almost guaranteed to keep them in the race, yet like any formula, it has limits and that is not a bad thing, it is what they chose and so far they kept 93,000,000 gamers happy with the Switch overtaking Microsoft by a lot, the weakest system defeated the strongest console in the world. Why is that? Technology? No, Nintendo listened to their gamers, gave their gamers what they needed. That was the simple truth since before the Switch arrived and when it did in 2017 the world saw a winner and Microsoft became the number one loser. This is about to happen again yet in 2023/2024 it will be the streamers who fight over the initial number three position, but some will have it within them to get to second place. And good games is where they get the winning positions, the better the games, the more the gamer wins and that is my stage,
I want gamers to win, because if they win, I win. I am after all a gamer.

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January 12, 2022 · 08:20

The next challenge

Gaming IP is always a challenge. There is the iterative challenge of getting a sequel or a remaster into play. Even as the innovative charge does not hold up for too long, a great game remastered can fill the coffers of a software house rather fast and nicely. We have seen it in the past, we could optionally see it when someone decides to take SEGA Dreamcast IP to a new setting. I personally think that both Fur Fighters and Wacky Races are undervalued and cast aside. Fur Fighters has its own challenge and graphically on the Dreamcast it would be able to hold itself up against most of the IP we see today. It had the quirks that made us wonder what else would be possible, and that is a good thing.

There there was the Hanna Barbera classic Wacky Races. It was a race game that held up against Mario Kart and it was unique, a setting where the racers all had special abilities and overall each racer was gifted with all kinds of options, it was when the game was done against one another when it truly started to shine. There are of course more, but a lot of them were done in new ways and with new options. Yet these two were forgotten and in the age of play that is a shame.

When we look at the innovation station, the setting becomes oblique, there is a lack of clarity, in almost everyone and I am no exception. You see, we look at the games that exist and how we might do better or how we might change the way we play and that is hard, it really is, I do not deny it. I created several pieces of IP, yet I am also gifted with the weakness of looking to those who did make amazing games. I believe that is a problem, not a big one, but one none the less. I tend to look at the age that stands between the CBM-64 and the CBM Amiga (Including Atari ST). That era gave us so many games and so many could be upgraded and improved upon. Not  because the makers failed, they did not. But what is possible in 2022 was not an option in 1986, moreover there is every chance that the makers never considered it in those days. In this David Braben might have been one of the few to move Elite (1985) into Elite Dangerous (2014), it was great then and it became overwhelmingly amazing in 2014. It is one of the few games that made a multi generation leap and the best part is that there are dozens of games that could have that ability. I wrote about it in the past. The 1983 EA game ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ could be the next thing. In this that it could be revamped, set to a larger stage and it gave me the idea to set the streamers (Google Stadia and Amazon Luna) to a new set of achievements one that could transfer into other games. Setting a new premise towards gaming and optionally trying new games. Yet that does not make it innovative. I believe my generation RPG, see previous story ‘Recap to the intro’ on September 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) for details. The question becomes how many original new parts are required to move from iterative to innovative? I actually do not know. An RPG is not like other RPG’s and I avoided to copy the settings that Bethesda had, and I added options that Ubisoft ignored in the Assassins Creed. Sucks to be them! I ended up with more than 1 IP and a setting where Amazon could grow its population by 50,000,000 (not a typo). All settings that Microsoft just overlooked and ignored. The strongest console in the world? My ass! A ship is only as good as its captain and their board of directors are pushing ideas for self preservation whilst they do not understand what gamers want and need, as such they tend to lose battle after battle and it was Nintendo (the weakest console) that overtook them in less than half the time Microsoft had to grow its population. 

Yet the station remains valid. If we need more gamers, the need for innovation is adamant. Yes, we ca add iterative new games and that keeps the interest going for a little whilst, but it is long term games that a console need to gain real traction with consumers and that is why innovation remains key. Innovation is the next thing that drives hardware sales and that is what Ubisoft forgot about long before their 11th hour was up. And now that we see partnerships and all kinds of marketing messages (all whilst they lost another creative director), we can see that players like Ubisoft is trying to make their life last a little longer, all whilst the gamers know and see that their game is done. My prediction given last year was a lot more on the nose than most expected it to be and it matters. There is every chance that the headlines of Ubisoft that left become the new indie designers we hoped for and in this both Google and Amazon have a need to set that directive to their systems as fast as they can.

Time is running out and when gamers look around for a good game, it would be really nice if they are ready to support those gamers. Sony is ready, yet as a gamer I feel that a good gaming environment requires more than one platform and Microsoft is no longer a contender, so who will be the number two? Nintendo? Will the the people at Google and Amazon take this console war serious? We will let them decide.

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January 10, 2022 · 00:40

Early Christmas for China

Yes, it is not the headline you wanted to see, but there is a not unrealistic chance that Christmas for China is coming 10 months early. It is seen in the first in ‘Saudi Arabia may run out of interceptor missiles in ‘months’’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/9/saudi-arabia-may-run-out-of-interceptor-missiles-in-months-ft). Al Jazeera tells us here “As Houthi rebel attacks escalate, Riyadh has ‘an urgent situation’ as it runs out of missiles for its air-defence system, Financial Times newspaper reports” this is the wake up call. It is “There is an interceptor shortage. Saudi Arabia has asked its friends for loans, but there are not many to be had,” one of the people told the publication” that takes the cake. Terrorists are firing missiles (with Iranian support) on Saudi Arabia and civilian targets and we have to be serious on “there are not many to be had”?  Are you freaking kidding me? Well, there is an alternative, a Chinese alternative and when someone states that the interceptor is better, I cannot really counter that with other than “You have no stock, so what do you care?” A stage where the Americans decided to upheave their arms sales, first planes, then Navy and now Interceptor missiles. Well, the Chinese have the HQ-9, or Sea Red Banner-9 missile. There are a few alternatives so the Chinese will have a few versions for Saudi Arabia. So when we see “In February last year, Biden said he would end US support for Saudi Arabia’s “offensive operations” in Yemen, including “relevant arms sales”” we can all nod or realise that the interceptor has a defensive nature. But that might be me. In all fairness, my goal is still to get the 3.75% commission, and on sales that now could extend well beyond the $300,000,000,000 ends up being a really nice sum of money and as I see it, America does not need that revenue, they can go bankrupt with or without it. And there is the other side that Saudi Arabia would enable a much larger set of infrastructures to go via China, the EU seemingly not needing international revenue to go their way either.

When will people realise that it is too late for some high moral point of view? It is nice if you have the coffers to feed nations, but the US and the EU nations gave that away to banks and meaningless spending, as such they have to chose whether it is a population going hungry. It is just like these politicians having a go at Google and Amazon, all whilst Microsoft is overlooked as they install bloatware after bloatware interaction reducing the options and rights of billions. So when will these people take the proper scope in sight? For me there is a selfish reason. I am not Saudi, but I am massively anti-stupid and anti-enabling. So when the media gives us “in light of the October 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives in Istanbul” all whilst no clear evidence has ever been reported or presented is just too stupid for words. So if I can get a few crumbs of billions by high lighting that, why would I not do that?

And in the second setting. The fact that Houthi forces have anything left to fire on Saudi Arabia and no one has stock to replenish, what does that tell you? When will these idiots act against Iran? Whilst we are treated two hours ago to ‘Iran denies interim nuclear deal reached – report’ (source: Jerusalem Post), so why are we getting denials, deferences and deflection in a stage where one player is becoming more and more dangerous. There is now an actual stage where at least one nation is willing to go to war. I tried to avoid that by making an idea to melt down the Iranian reactors without the need for bombs, so I did my bit and it is growing ever more likely that China will do their bit to, so where does all the inactions leave President Biden with the USA and his administration when inaction is all that they can offer? It is the worst political stage of enabling a competitive nation (China) I have ever seen and the EU is in a stage not much better at present. 

So where do they go when they have nothing left? I reckon it will be the path of the Chihuahua, but that might just be me.

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January 6, 2022 · 17:48

The Community Nexus

This is not the first time I get here, but it is not a repetition either. Some things struck me and I reckon it is time for Sony, Google (Stadia) and Amazon (Luna) to wake up. To be honest, when I saw the earliest presentations by Sony I reckoned that they would be the first to take social networking to a new level, but no. I do not know whether they wanted Facebook to chip in, but after all the settings we saw pass by our screens, the setting is changing that either they start thinking things through, or they will be surpassed by others and it will cost them. Not unlike the Cocoon Network, it needs to have limitations, it needs to be advertisement free and it needs to service the gamers. Anything different might be seen as treason by these gamers and that would be disastrous. In this the idea that mimics Google Plus the most is the most appealing, yet it is not set in stone.

They need to consider a few things. Copy/Paste should be disabled, so that something stated on that cluster stays on that cluster (there will always be workarounds), but that is not the goal. You see the A-social network (Facebook) is full of flamers, trolls and shit stirrers and these networks can do without those. It needs to be clusters where gamers INVITE other gamers, and until the invitation is accepted no one has access. A person can only see other conversations in that cluster, they can copy what THEY added to other clusters, but it is cluster based. Then there are ‘commercial’ clusters. People who keep track of the game-makers like Microsoft, Ubisoft (if it still exists by them), Bethesda and so on. People want to keep track of their favourite games and game makers. People can add achievements and so on, but there needs to be a filter where we only see the achievements by a person that we also have. There should be more, but it needs to be a push station, if we include other means of social networking. It is the one flaw that is still not dealt with and no one has decent option. I reckon that Amazon has the greatest need, so that they can grow faster, but Google should not be sitting on their hands, not on this one. The visibility and growth of a console is versatility and Google dropped the ball twice already. In the first they decided not to produce games, it is not a real failing, but it is a weakness and therefor a threat. Then they let Amazon get close, in a field where they should have had a superior setting they ended up merely on par with Amazon, it still strikes me as odd. And in all this I do not care what Microsoft does, I simply do not trust them. 

And when we think about it, a console with community clusters leading to a nexus or a collection of nexuses was simply the next step and when Facebook screwed themselves over with Cambridge Analytica the others should have made a larger effort, as such Sony dropped the ball with the PS4Pro and the others are till not there, they need to because then Facebook launches Meta all over the place it will be too late for the other players to start and sitting on ones hands in a $200,000,000,000 market is folly even in the most conservative setting. In this Amazon clearly has advantages, but we should not rule out Sony. They need to do something and so far there is no indication that they are getting ready, making their advantage shrink, not by too much, yet any lagging lead is a win for the number 2 through number 5 consoles. That has always been the case and now will be no different.

That station is on the roll, and I reckon that the lack of that choice will hurt the players not ready in 2024. And when we see the carefully phrased denials, as well as the cautiously stated ‘We are working on it’ will be seen by gamers as a negative side in all this, do not take my word, merely watch how the gamers will ask in flammable ways why they were ignored (yet again). I cannot stress this enough. It is time for the consoles and streaming systems to consider what gamers need and where gamers would like to be. In this Twitter and Facebook might be nice, but the people are more and more weary of both of them and that is not a good place to set your console.

We all want to talk about our games and our achievements, but so far the people trying to flame what we do is running into the thousands, and that is causing a larger stage of doubt with gamers. Giving them a safe space is becoming increasingly essential. I see all over Facebook pages where a 17 year old proudly brags what he got done in FIFA and I see dozen hammer that person seconds later. Wouldn’t it be great if that person had a cluster with school and gaming friends and that person could share it just to them? That is the station for an invitation clusters only, and that need is fast and vastly growing, so why Sony never picked up that ball is a little beyond me. The streamers will not have that luxury, that much is clear to me.

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January 1, 2022 · 10:16

That lucky blow

Yes, these things happen, the point where luck is a factor and in some games they do happen, but the factor is not as profound as a Ravenclaw boy hoping he gets noticed by Emma Granger, or was that Hermione Watson? No here we apply the Skyrim principle. Instead of grinding, later in the game, I enter the embershard mine wearing dragon plate and before the bridge there are two miners, I walk up to them and let them have a go at me, with Dragon plate my armour rating is well above 550, so they can pound on me whilst I have dinner, read a magazine and at the end I am up 1-3 levels and my heavy armour is now legendary 100. A simple solution.

Yet what happens when we change the premise? What happens when the bad guys get a lucky blow as well? Consider:

  • Bandit
  • Bandit Marauder / Plunderer
  • Bandit Chief

There lucky blow rating starts at 1%-3%-5%, yet as levels go they can go up to 5% – 15% and 25%. Now that game changes a lot, but we can introduce negative influx. A 25%-50% and 75% protection through blocking and defence parameters. A stage that alters the game somewhat. So my approach of walking into their midst would no longer work (well likely a very limited version). It is the old battle setting that all attack without defence is pointless and all defence without attack is useless. A setting we all forgot about, or at least too many of us forgot about it. Oh, and their lucky blow is a blow that does 300% of the normal damage.

That same principle applies to sneak as well, we tend to see ‘a failed sneak’ as a side effect, whilst a failed sneak giving the opponent a free first hit is much more intense and optionally realistic? Many RPG games see a failed attempt at the stage of a loss of positive elements, whilst introducing no negative ones. That failing stopped the gamer from becoming clever at what they to, a setting that is a failing in the game because the game needs to contribute, always contribute. 

I believe that having a lucky blow element is nice for us, but it needs to contribute by being nice for them too (to coin a phrase).

We can never rely on more of the same, we can never rely on the easy path because it will undo gaming in the long run. And in this Skyrim is a perfect example as it has shown itself to be close to perfect for over a decade now. And the only way we get better games it to push that envelope. Did you think I was kidding when I stated that Amazon with its Luna has an option to sell 50,000,000 consoles? It isn’t that Google is not worthy, they decided not to develop games. And any clear and massive bodyblow to Microsoft is a winning punch for gamers everywhere. We gamers must stick together because Microsoft only stands for itself, it has shown that for well over a decade as well.

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December 24, 2021 · 20:04

Google and the militant woman

I was underway to consider and learn about the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon. I am till focussed on getting my 3.75% bonus from China and selling a heap of these to Saudi Arabia will seal the deal. I reckon that selling the goods amounting to $2,000,000,000 will seal my retirement deal, I will get a few additional services sold, but I am not greed driven. So whilst I was setting up the presentation on the versatility of the stealth systems, it was then that I saw the flaw in the Indian Indian Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa presentation on the Sukhoi Su-30MKI. I rechecked the files several times, someone there was tying the cat to the bacon! I reckon that unless the Chengdu was flying right in front of that Sukhoi, the Chengdu could never be seen, for me and my capitalistic nature, this is good. You see, Iran is all over those sexy Russian beasts and so they should; America and the UK will not do business with them, as such two remained and they chose Russia. Now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will end up with the better racehorse of the sky and I should get the bonus of my desire. So it was around that moment when my memory took me back to 1987. I got exposed to Framework 2, it was an interesting and short lived introduction. I was already on board with Ashton Tate, dBase 3+ was revered by me and in the two years that followed I created database systems, container systems and I found out how people in Rotterdam were cooking the books. All with one program and it was running on an IPM PC XT. Two years later with the Nantucket Clipper compiler I went off to the races to a much larger degree and that is where my programming skills stayed. I only blame myself, there was too much infighting, to much politics on software decisions, who had the best friends, not who had the superior software and in that era Frameworks 2 was lost to the crowd, what had the potential to crush Lotus, set limits on Microsoft Office and a few other beasties was drowned in marketing disasters. 

This matters, you will catch on soon enough. It was then that my mind took a leap. You see Apple, Google, Amazon, Disney, HBO and a few others are on the fence. They are in a spending setting that goes nowhere. They think it is, they claim that others will solve it and they are ignoring the larger danger that is staring them straight in the face.

You see they all make the claim that Final Draft is the bees knees. I agree it is good, it really is but it is set to the singular writer, I had version 6 at some point, it is now at version 12, so improvements will have been made and the industry calls it the standard. But what decides that standard? Final Draft, the writer or the industry and its needs? 

There is the rub, when you see that they are all relying on larger series, all hoping to be the next game of thrones. In that era you need a better solution, a much better solution. You need something that has the abilities of Frameworks 2, a Microsoft successor (OneNote) and take it all to the next level. A system where the writer writes and can set the backstory to any person, any object and any event. You can then set the view to a moment and see where everyone and everything is. The power is to add to the writer, not limit the writer. So the writer can or his writing to set text segmentations. He can flag people, he can flag objects and he can flag places, and so on.

The story book now gets an upgrade, the stage of 3+ people keeping track of it all one system does so and when that system passes the industry standard, places like Netflix and Disney will jump at the chance, you see whomever has THIS advantage gets to shape the industry. It is the one who is the most efficient and it is the one that shows that savings are made, As long as the producer sees the magic moment of 189% profit being passed that is the one who wins, you can make more money, or limit expenses and in this world the one who limits the expenses has the clearer field to win that game, go look for yourself, the knowledge is out there. I am simply amazed that no one thought this through. Not the militant woman (Amazon) and not Google. 

Me? I do not care, this is not the place where my strengths are, but if it is you take this idea and make it the new industry standard. My Christmas present to you. So enjoy the idea or throw it aside if it is not for you, which could be fair enough as well. And it is now 19:41 (pure coincidence), so it is your early Christmas present for the year. 

Getting back to my (upcoming) bonus, I just realised that intelligence analyst Robert Gates copied to some degree the deception that Air Marshall B.S. Dhanoa started in 2018 by downplaying the significance of the Chengdu J-20 by questioning how stealthy it would be, they all forgot how stealthy it could become and by downplaying that part, they optionally squandered funds to keep equal. That made me realise that it is possible that the fuel tanks were upgraded, consider two hardpoints that are weapons or auxiliary tanks, now consider a new kind of hardpoint that can have both. A fully armed J-20 with an additional 12% range, a side none of the adversaries considered. I cannot prove this part, but it made sense, and the images I saw 2-3 years ago gave me unwittingly the idea, the shapes were off, this was a way to have both, not aerodynamically reasoned, but a tactical choice. A side ignored by all, oh I hear the sleigh-bells ringing for me too (I am allowed to delusional at this point), for me it is about to be Christmas too. 

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December 20, 2021 · 01:15

Restricted, Redacted, Removed

That is how COVID feels to a lot of people, it is not their fault. The last true epidemic was around WW1 and most people from that er bit the big one a long time ago. Even the few that are still around, they might not have seen the impact of the Spanish Flu, the fear that was out there. Yet now we get to go over these fears all over again and now the fears are more surreal. You see most (like me) grew up in an age of vaccinations. We saw the eradication of Polio, Cholera and Diphtheria. Diphtheria still exists but went from 15 cases per 100.000 in 1945 to 8 cases per 10,000,000 2017, so we can say it is almost eradicated. Now we have COVID which pushes the cases to 3.1% of the entire planets population, with now 5,368,821 deaths. This implies that 6% of 1% of the entire planets population died of this disease, so yes. People are scared and the noises we see on collapsing health care systems, systems that were never designed to deal with pressure of this kind is making people crazy. As such the entire BBC setting of ‘Travellers ‘devastated’ over French restrictions’, and it does not stop there. We also see “Anna Baldwin wanted to take her two boys to Disneyland as a Christmas surprise” I merely wonder how stupid she is. This is not bravery, this is reckless endangerment. 

I get it, we are bored, we are going crazy watching our walls and considering whether our teeth could scrape of the concrete. Yet the UK now has 100,000 new cases, the Netherlands is in tight lockdown with an (estimated) additional 248,000 new cases in the last 24 hours alone, and that is a cautious number, the number might be higher. As such we are looking at a few million new cases BEFORE Christmas, yet we all want the family together. Fortunate for me, mine are already dead. So I can focus on work whilst others focus on whatever they think is important. So when you gather around to wish grandma and grandpa a happy holidays and they get it from one of the relatives, consider that you killed your own grandparents (or parents). Yes that goes over real well in Disney world. Some will escape to Harry Potter World because magical beings cannot get sick from muggle diseases (which might be a speculation). 

Then we get “The worst part is that we just won’t be going. Nobody is prepared in my family for Christmas now. Even to the extent that my parents only put up a small Christmas tree this year, and they usually go over the top”, so how about them having a toast on January 10th, as well as February 14th and March 1st if they are still alive? I reckon that an additional 1,000,000 will not be alive on March 1st. But that is speculation, I admit that, there are no clear numbers, but the speed at which Omicron is replicating itself on the population is scaring a lot of governments, even the Russians are now nervous. Omicron is now detected in 89 countries, as such travel is a pretty big no no. And I am getting bored here, so I will optionally create more IP in the public domain and publish it here. So far I have a nice caliber of public domain works, so should I kick the bucket I left something for plenty of people, it was all I could do. We might be restricted, at some point some of us will be redacted (in some antivax cases not the worst idea), yet in all of this my thoughts are not to be removed, I made them online available to many. I merely wonder if (where ever I end up, most likely hell) I ever get to see what someone did with the printable TV idea, if someone was able to work out what I created, I reckon Black and White first, but from there the idea becomes the (optionally) first true RAW quality TV, something Sony never considered and it makes me happy that I was able to match souls with true innovators (Sony, Google, Huawei and Amazon), so as this world goes down the drain from opposition and disbelieve, at least some of us made contributions. In this day and age, that remains an important part, because innovation drives other ideas and optionally solutions to the mess we have now. 

We seem to watch the flames of doctors versus anti vaxxers. To be honest, I have so far over the last two years not seen ANYONE with a valid excuse. I am careful not to upset those who do it for religious reasons. I get it, I do not agree with their point of view, but I get it. And those who got it and died in that track never complained (as far as I could tell). In all that they end up merely a few thousand versus the millions of anti vaxxers who actually have no valid reason as I personally see it. 

And in all this we see the world removing anti vaxxers from consideration. I cannot say that I completely agree with the actions some take, but I get them. We all get the reasoning as vaccines are a proven solution. And yet all those people ignoring scientists, ignoring healthcare workers. I have never seen such a level of opposition, but there is a simple solution. We can just watch them getting removed from life, we can watch them die and as I see it, by the time it is Christmas we will see a new wave, a wave of people not allowed into hospitals as they refused to get vaccinated. It will allow the hospitals to go on a little longer, but as the situation takes a much more grim term, I reckon all the hospitals are out of beds and collapsing of pressures before the first week of January is up, in the US that will be fun as at that point it could default in loans and at that point the health care workers will consider themselves and the ones they care for (their family) number one. At that point you will see a new level of stupid, the anti vaxxers demanding health care, in a time when they caused the larger problem, so in the good spirit of Christmas I will give, I give them the right to die.

In the spirit of Restricted, Redacted, and Removed we will reach the days when it is time for what the Americans call tough love. We get it, they have rights and we accept that, but it also comes with the right to die, the stupid do not get to make claims on the people they endangered in the first place, it is a choice towards a station we should never accept and that is where the tough love comes in. Some will survive, some will not and perhaps the survivors will be stronger, but their systems got weakened and when the next disease hits, will they survive then? Time will tell, it always does. 

I apologise for the few repetitions, but I had to react to that BBC piece. 

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December 19, 2021 · 13:25

See for creativity

It makes sense, it really does and it all started this morning when I was confronted with an article (at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/search-engines-try-to-rival-google-by-offering-fewer-ads-more-privacy-1.6286925), the CBC is giving you all ‘Search engines try to rival Google by offering fewer ads, more privacy’, yes that is one approach, but that is the iterative approach, it comes from ‘What else can we do with this?’ And that leads nowhere, it will not lead to true innovation. True innovation is different, it goes where no one has gone before. To give you 5 examples lets take you on a little trip this morning.

F is for Facebook
Yes, there is Facebook muddying right along, having a new setting soon enough coming from Mark the Meta man Zuckerberg, it is a natural station forward and as others are all about dangers and all about warnings, the story behind them is fear, they never saw that this was coming (which is fair enough) and they are afraid to miss out twice in the digital environment. I for one saw the massive potential that TRUE Social Media could have. There is Cocoon (at https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/cocoons-social-app-for-close-friends-gets-vc-backing-to-chase-paths-dream/) which refers to a private social media, for your friends and family. They can take it a whole level further, but it seems that the people at Amazon (Luna) and Google (Stadia) are just not catching on. But now I do see wannabe’s making a chat and message version of that. Fair enough, yet the stage could grow further, will the see it?  I cannot tell and I actually do not care. It is up to them, but the stage of ‘There is more’ is missed by too many. Whether it is from a ‘How do I get rich fast?’ delimitation, whether they cannot see it, I do not care, not my battle, but options are missed all over the place.

A is for Apple
There is not too much that we can say on Apple. I can see a novel iteration that they are missing (Not the same as true innovation) but it is out there and it is larger than anyone thinks. I wrote about it almost a year ago and I will push the image below, perhaps someone will catch on, perhaps they will not. 

A station where an Apple/Nintendo partnership might appeal to both, but Apple does have what it takes to go it alone, in all this the setting is not what more is there, it becomes (to some degree) where else can we take this and there is a much larger station that is missed, because the wrong people are in charge. It reminds me of a thought I had for the longest time. You see Steve Jobs was clever, was bright yet was not the greatest innovative thinker, Steve Wozniak was but Steve Jobs (unlike some overpriced CEO’s) did recognise true innovation and that brought Apple where it is now. Still there is more that Apple can do, will it? I do not know.

A is for Amazon
Amazon is perhaps the largest power player with growth potential. I saw a potential to grown the Amazon Luna by 50,000,000 consoles (a conservative cautious number), I saw the potential of them becoming a 5G powerhouse. They have the potential to equal if not surpass Apple not merely because they started as an online book shop. They are set in a station where they could become the one powerhouse in Neom City (Saudi Arabia). Amazon has the ability to grow a lot more because they have an interesting balance of Manufacturing, retail and services. Microsoft wanted to focus and get rich fast, they there for hired people who were clueless on several matters. They lost the console world (from Sony and Nintendo) and optionally Amazon Luna if I have my way. To be honest, I fantasise on handing Phil Spencer (who is not to blame) a wooden spoon with engraved (in gold no less) Microsoft 2023. The year that Microsoft ended DEAD LAST in the console world. Their people will spin that, but consider the strongest, most powerful console in the world is behind Sony (PS5), Nintendo (Switch) already and when surpassed by Amazon (Luna), perhaps the people at Microsoft will start thinking instead of boasting Azure (blue) and their hardware when they were for the longest time clueless and there needs to be a penalty for that. Buying Bethesda for $8,500,000,000 might dull the pain and leave the people with the imagination that some good comes from it, yet the station of loss will increase and increase and If I have my way (and fantasy) Phil Spencer gets a wooden spoon in 2023 showing the board of directors at Microsoft that Amazon beat them there too. And that is before the people realise that the decision makers at plenty of places merely had a BS (not BU) presentation and that is when they realise that some made a bet on the wrong horse so whilst Amazon takes the lead, Microsoft becomes a ‘Horse no show’.

N is for Netflix
Netflix is the hardest case, they started being first, being true innovation, but over time they resorted to invest heavily in more and more scripts. Yet is that enough? Will that take the cake? It is hard to tell, you see we can all make claims, yet Netflix gave the people Love Hard (Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang) a hilarious approach to a Christmas movie and to be honest, it has been a while since I had that much fun watching a movie, then they also took the cake with Red Notice (Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds) a funny movie that is filled with fight scenes and clever situations. To be honest watching a youthful 98 pound young lady (Gal Gadot) slapping Deadpool and the Rock silly will never go out of style and that is merely the tip of an iceberg of fun and excitement. With these two titles alone Netflix rules 2021. I am not judging of making claims against Apple+, Disney+ or Amazon Prime. It is how things go at times. But more is needed and there we see that the Netflix IP division needs to diversify. I for one saw that a place like Netflix could be a great place for the comic books of François Craenhals (de Koene Ridder). 

The intro from Comic books is one thing, yet the transfer as they get to the second book (Les Loups de Rougecogne) the stage could be set for a new legendary franchise. 

I read these comics when I was young, but these comic books can be read at almost every age and the larger stage is there where plenty could be spend on the production and not all on IP to get forward. The comic books have almost everything any successful series need to have and there is more out there. Will Netflix take a leap into the untrodden places? I cannot tell, I do not work there, but there is potential.

G is for Google
There is not a lot of criticism on Google, they have pushed innovation again and again and they are the party to show others how good it can get when you are the innovative player. They are also the one innovative player that a power player like Huawei fears. I reckon that Huawei has the one essential directive stamped in their minds. ‘Get there before Google’, and they are happy that American politicians are so stupid, those politicians are doing the work of delaying the stage of Google again and again, so there is every chance that Huawei will get to a few stages (not all stages) before Google gets there. Can they do more? That is hard to say, Google is too big, too many parties playing and there are larger settings. I believe that not developing software on the Google Stadia (by Google) is not the greatest idea. Relying on Ubisoft will bite and that is where Amazon has the inside track, but there is more in play, so my thoughts make sense but could be wrong for Google. Consoles is not where their strength is and the idea that is in the Apple part could equally apply to Google, but not as wide as Apple can hand it. And all this relies on a free hand to play, all whilst these players are committed to moves, moves that also needs to take Microsoft, IBM and Oracle into consideration. There is no way that me ( or most people) are in the know on all those elements and there is a stage that states that Google is too big. I said it but I do not totally believe it, I believe that Google is too widespread. Apple is too much hardware, Google is too many services and Amazon has seemingly a much better balance, making growth easier (for now). And in this Google needs to consider where Apple and Amazon are going so they can avoid some tug of war in the field that many occupy. It is a rather nasty stage and there is no clear answer.

So here is my view on the FAANG group and my response to the article that gives us “He bills Neeva as an ad-free, private search engine. Results won’t include advertisements, and the company says any information it does collect from users isn’t shared with third parties.” This is fair enough, but that is not the stage, the stage is: ‘What does the consumer need?’ The larger stage that too many avoid because it leads to elements that these players do not want to entertain at present. So you can either make claims that they (might) need it, or you can sail unsailed waters offering something entirely new that was never considered and the consumer suddenly realised that he or she never considered needing that (which I did a few times) and that is where TRUE innovation starts, the stage where a person states ‘That is so logical’ a stage that Microsoft had with releasing Windows 95, but it was forgotten soon thereafter. The idea is not to be complex, but to be simple and let the ship steer its course from there, and when it sails in the right direction without you interfering all the time, at that point you own the IP of an innovate game-changer.

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December 6, 2021 · 15:56

Jump into the deep part

I have a mission. In part I no longer need to look at the Sony side, they have theirs covered. Yet now I must focus on the Amazon Luna. Apart from a plan that will sell them 50,000,000 consoles. I also think it is important to fill the setting with more games. They have a selection, but not enough and in my mind. There will be no peace until I hand over the wooden spoon (with gold engraved Microsoft 2023) to Phil Spencer, I will not have done enough. I reckon it is time for the world to Microsoft to see them as they are, a mediocre organisation who ends up dead last whilst they have (by their own words) the most powerful system in the world. They are already surpassed by the weakest system (Nintendo Switch), and Google Stadia will not count as they do not develop games, but now only Amazon Luna needs to surpass them. One plan already gets them there, but more games will offer a much faster track and and the idea that shelling out $8,500,000,000 did not aid them will be the sweetest aftertaste for me. I just roll that way.

To set the stage, we need to take another gander at espionage games. Yet we need to be better and more refined (and larger) in this. We also need to make sure that there is enough variation to keep the need alive to play this game more and more. 

To take a few small steps, the first part is towards an old CBM64 game called the 4th Protocol after the book and the movie. As the image shows below, it was not much, but the idea was sound. Even for a system with 40KB of memory. Yet the idea is the dashboard, we should add a few items and set a larger station (like localisation), in the end it is more than a game, it should have an ‘educational’ side. In this we can grasp to some of the elements of the old Microprose game Covert Action. 

Here we see bugging and encryption. There is nothing to stop us from evolving these parts. Setting a much larger setting to include VOIP and normal telephones. (Still a game though). We see that as the game progresses we add more and more to the dashboard and the load of the operations spymaster. 

In the original game it was about setting up locks, but what if we take a gander to Hacker 2 (Activision, 1986) and add the camera feed? We now have a larger station than before and we have the technology to make it look really good. We can add the cross-over that as the hacks were more complete and better we see more camera views. 

And as we get operational settings underway and we add trainings we can up the agents efficiency, so in time settings we cannot do it all, we need to rely on agents, and as they are better the hacks and intrusions are more complete, so badly trained agents will give you access to less and no results. And in cities the size of London, Berlin, Washington DC, Paris, and Moscow we get two new additions. We can hack, but we can get hacked as well, then there are counter hacks and the danger of getting caught, so an agent with a 60% rating might float in Berlin, but not in Washington DC or Moscow. And as the agents get better (which requires you to get better), we get more access in more places. Then there is the allegiance side. What happens when we select to be the Spymaster of the UAE, Egypt or Italy? It will change the place where we are regarded as ally, neutral or optionally hostile. I do not think we can get a real live game (like Watchdogs, or Elder Scrolls), yet the setting that was once accepted could be upgraded and give us all a new challenge. The original hacking in Covert Action was the approach Julius Caesar used 2075 years ago. So what if we educate the players on encryption and as they get better we add encryption options? The nice part of Amazon is that a subscription service implies that they already paid for it, we merely need to add more, just like the addition of boardgames and achievements and rewards I wrote about a few months ago. The added value over time will entice more and more players to include the Amazon Luna, especially when it is only there that they can have it. 

Will this be for everyone? No off course not. The delusion of Ubisoft is that they make games for everyone, but a game that offer satisfaction to everyone is a game that basically pleases no one, that has been a truth for decades and it does not have to be that way, the stage becomes to offer games that pleases people in a niche and then make games to cover many niches, that is the only way to grow your population. A simple but harsh truth and why is my idea a good one? I do not know whether it is a good one, but it is one that others are not doing, to have something unique matters. Ask Sony if you disagree, they have a dozen games on that path. And yet we can do more, have more ‘hi-res’ games, but the larger truth is that until 5G is completely ready and rolled out, congestion will hit the Amazon Luna and other streaming consoles. So looking at the old games and seeing whether we can give them a new look, a fresh paint job and better rendering, w are merely digging our own grave if Amazon relies on Ubisoft they will be done for. Less then 2 weeks ago there was “Amazon Luna bug glitch” for Assassins Creed Valhalla. And when I search “Amazon Luna Ubisoft bugs”, I get pages of results. Now there might we an overlap with other systems, but the gamer wants a decent game and Ubisoft has been falling short of that, so Amazon needs a plan C (my 50M consoles solution is regarded, by me, as plan B). 

And it does matter, when there is a full 5G within the net 2-3 years, the streaming console war begins in earnest and that is when (my wish-list) comes to fruition and Microsoft wins (and earns) the wooden spoon. There are of course a lot more games they can work on, but I already covered several in earlier stories and I hate being overly repetitive. 

There is a time for waiting and a time for acting. It is my personal believe that the time for waiting is over, it now matters how Amazon will feel about winning that race. I know that Microsoft cannot afford loss there and that makes it more and more important (for me at least) for someone else to win it. 

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