Tag Archives: Tencent

May 31, 2023 · 07:42

The Gimmick

Every game needs to have one and during the night I contemplated how much more important it is to have one when you are replaying a game. This was all set in motion when I was replaying an RPG (which one does not matter), as such to enjoy replayability the game is either massive or (I will say AND) it needs a gimmick. Not something that the game has, but a gimmick it can hand to you to make it yours. You see, we all have these recollections whilst playing a game and we sometimes make notes. Yet what happens when the game is intelligent enough to make YOU a notebook whilst in the game? Your journey is set to paper every time you play that game again? Not just text, but drawn illustrations of what YOU saw in the game? One drawing that is added with every day of playing and that text can be saved to a USB in PDF form? Literally no RPG game has this and you can print it at home, n a much better printer in the office or at university or something like that. The font will be some version of Dancing script, Caveat or Pacifico and that too changes every time you replay the game, with make and female versions, small changes that make it unique. As such you and your neighbour would get two very different versions of their notebook. A story that is a journal and is added to the game as you play with you deciding how social you want to be with that journey. No game has it and if Microsoft  or one of its houses copy this idea, you will see what a losers they are (internal LOL added). 

My main thought is why no one considered this. It isn’t a hard thought to have and I feel certain I am not the first to think it, but no one added this to their game (not in all the RPG games I ever played). So is this a fluke and the idea is bad? Consider all the notes you make on games you play. Now you have a journal that keeps track on your progress, and in the game I designed here (title: Generations) that step makes more sense. The added evolution your as a gamer face in the game would benefit even more. As such the next generation (in the game) would start book 2 and you create a chronicle. Even more when we add mapping to the equation. No matter how you see it, one gimmick is nice but not enough. So where is gimmick number two? Well, I have to sleep on that one, but if my mind can evolve one gimmick, it can do so again and as I evolve this game and leave it for designers and programmers to make a new unique RPG for Sony Playstation/Amazon Luna/Logitech G Cloud and optionally Nintendo Switch. Microsoft will then have a new problem. It also supports my setting with Microsoft getting the Wooden spoon for being dead last. Even though I though it would finish behind the Google Stadia, now we have Tencent in the mix and that could spell more disaster for Microsoft. There is nothing like a console and a game pass (which is a good product) to be left on the road as the others have no need for it. For that you need GOOD exclusive games and over the last few years Microsoft didn’t add any and Redfall is apparently seen by a lot (I never played it) as wasted hard-drive space, which would equally apply to cloud space.

I just had another idea, but more about that hopefully tomorrow. I need to mull a few things over for that. You see, I wrote about part of it (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/02/25/the-stage-of-commerce/) when I wrote ‘The stage of commerce’, but what happens when we have a select group of NPC that we can evolve? We could apply it to all, but the game would become too messy. What if some NPC’s become cogs in the commerce machine? What happens when we enable them to be more by OUR actions? Not just a shop having more cash, but some NPC’s that become more powerful as we enable them to get education or skills? We would enable a larger dynamic in the game. How? That is the part I am mulling over at present. Schooling and buying business (or upgrading it) is merely one side and I think more could be done. Yet the how is in my mind at present. I feel pretty proud. I added several sides to RPG gaming that do not exist at present, as such the new developer could really come to the game with a massive bat to wield. A good stage to be in I believe, but that is what every innovator believes, the believe that self will prevail, I am in that regard no exception. We all have a similar stage to see this.

Enjoy the day (it is almost the middle of the week).

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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 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 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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February 19, 2023 · 11:55

The stage between two stages

Sounds weird and perhaps that is a little true. You see, I saw the article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64178956) ‘Staff must be free to work for employer’s rivals – US regulator’, the article was from January 5th and I did see it, but I was unsure how I felt. You see, that setting allows for poaching and there Microsoft has been a little too active in the past. Now they are in the process of trimming the fat by well over 10,000 people and so are the others, so you would think that this is a moot process. But it is not. Microsoft is pretty much done for and their setting (a personal view) is to create shortages everywhere else so that they can get an extension on life. So we would see hundreds of essential workers at Amazon and Google now being offered a nice cushy position in Microsoft. IBM is also on that list, but IBM and Microsoft have too much alike, so there will be issues. They both preferred image above creativity and that is on them, it is also their right. As I personally see it IBM has a setting and poaching might happen, but it is often directly in league of what they are trying to design, so there is less of an issue and their stage of representation does not feel the same. I have less of an issue with IBM on that horse (which is seemingly rare), Microsoft however has a different setting. Just like their acquisition of Bethesda and Activision. It is not that they needed them (well they did in one way), it was to take away choice from Sony players and that is just not on with me. It would be nice if Amazon bought my IP, so I can really stick it to Microsoft, but that is another matter. The case is poaching. 

As such the article gives us “The FTC, which enforces competition law, said a ban would foster a more dynamic economy. The proposal was immediately challenged by the business community. It will now enter a long rule-making process. Non-compete clauses were developed to prevent leavers from joining rivals and sharing trade secrets”, it is not untrue, but to have people trained by Google, or Amazon (Web services) leave after a year (or two) of training and then use all that know how in the service of a player like Microsoft is a dangerous step. I understand and to some degree support non-compete clauses. The problem is that some of the players abused that non-compete setting in a much wider scale that should have been allowed for. So I am on the fence here and there is another stage that the US now opens up for. These people can due to this change now join a player like Tencent, who can open up European markets to a much larger degree. I wonder if they thought of that? Yes, we see the US limiting their workforce from joining Chinese players. Yet the EU has different stages and there these players are still shedding thousands of people and the UK is ripe for Tencent to come in and create a new workforce. If they weren’t becoming a hazard to my pension, I would not care, but they could be and as such I would care.

You see, I have in part opposition to “Lina Khan, who leads the agency and made her name criticising the might of big tech firms such as Amazon, on Thursday called the ability to switch jobs “core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy”. “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand”, in this my opposition is that we see the clear mention of Amazon, and the weirdly avoidance of mentioning Microsoft (or Google) in this and that matters. Amazon has one of the most complete Web Services solutions including cloud solutions. Both Google and massively more Microsoft need people with these skills. I am not sure where Apple is with that but they all have some return to office setting and the noises we hear all over the place, they all have extensive needs soon enough, but Linda Khan is mentioned with her opposition of Amazon, who is leading that trump with most than a nose-length advantage. A player like Microsoft wants to get ahead and getting their hands on senior developers at Amazon is for them the way to go (Azure sucks too much according to some). 

As such with these elements in play, the need for a diminished non-competition clause is not entirely wrong, but the timing sucks and would luck have it, the timing would work for Microsoft and Tencent alike, a setting I am actually not happy about. Yet, I will admit that parts of this are personal views and personal settings I saw evolve over the last 30 years. And that is not all, in the last week we were given two parts. The first is “Microsoft last week laid off around 150 employees from a team tasked with convincing medium-size companies to adopt cloud services such as Azure server rentals and Microsoft 365 productivity apps, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter”, which in part makes sense, but when you add the next view that came 2 days later “Microsoft has officially joined the FinOps Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes financial management in cloud technology.” Consider that they need to promote that with 150 less staff, does that make sense? It makes a lot more sense when you poach the Amazon AWS staff pool and replace 150 narrow minded watchers by people with a much wider cloud view. It is pure speculation on my side, but they did a similar track in the Netscape days, as such I worry and you should too. A choice by a lack of options is not a choice and that is where Microsoft has been playing the field a little too long as I see it, which is why I am on the fence a lot more on the non-compete clause as I personally see it.

You should watch too because when your choices are lowered and Microsoft is clearly in the ‘surviving’ pool of choices. We see the power of stakeholders and they were never there for you, merely for their own wallets. But I might be seeing it too dark as some will respond.

My view is merely one view, make sure you learn all the elements in play when you go one direction. Its almost like the life of Harry the Hermit (Harry Styles), he makes an album of his house and the 13th track is about the love of his life (Remy “Thirteen” Hadley, M.D) which makes sense, but when you make 12 songs about your house and one about Olivia Wilde (mucho LOL), you do have your priorities wrong. It is all about the glasses you wear when you see the events unfold. This is nearly always true as is my view on Microsoft. They wanted to be the IBM clone, they played there games and they played it on Netscape and others alike and those who have been in IT long enough see the bitter taste that Microsoft leaves behind and that is before you add the Microsoft failures, they have become obsolete and in this I much rather support Amazon and what they could bring to the table of tomorrow than Microsoft who is merely copying the plate settings of yesterday. Yet that is a personal view, believe me or not but make sure you get a good view on where you stand, that is worth a lot more than merely following me. I want you all to be your own leader, not my follower. I am not some shepherd, I never was.

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January 24, 2023 · 21:09

As I aid timing

There is a stage that is coming. I have stated it before and I am stating it again. I believe that the end of Microsoft is near. I myself am banking on 2026. They did this to themselves, it is all on them. They pushed for borders they had no business being on and they got beat three times over. Yes, I saw the news, they are buying more (in this case ChatGPT) and they will pay billions over a several years, but that is not what is killing them (it is not aiding them). The stupid people (aka their board of directors) don’t seem to learn and it is about to end the existence of Microsoft and my personal vies is ‘And so it should!’ You see, I have seen this before. A place called Infotheek in the 90’s, growth through acquisition. It did not end well for those wannabe’s. And that was in the 90’s when there was no real competition. It was the start of Asus, it was the start of a lot of things. China was nowhere near it was not in IT, now it is a powerhouse. There are a few powerhouses and a lot of them are not American. So as Microsoft spends a billion here and there it is now starting to end up being real money. They are in the process of firing 10,000 people, so there will be a brain drain and player like Tencent are waiting for that to happen. And the added parts are merely clogging all and bringing instability. Before the end of the year We get a speech on how ChatGPT will be everywhere and the massive bugs and holes in security will merely double or more. So after they got slapped in the Tablet market with their Surface joke (by Apple with the iPad), after they got slapped in the data market with their Azure (by Amazon with their AWS) and after they got slapped in the console market with their Xbox System X (by Sony with their PS5) they are about to get beat with over 20% of their cornerstone market as Adobe gets to move in soon and show Microsoft and their PowerPoint how inferior they have become (which I presume will happen after Meta launches their new Meta) Microsoft will have been beaten four times over and I am now trying to find a way to get another idea to the Amazon Luna people.

This all started today as I remembered something I told a blogger and that turned into an idea and here I am committing this to a setting that is for the eyes of Amazon Luna only. No prying Microsoft eyes. I have been searching mind and systems and I cannot find anywhere where this has been done before, a novel idea and in gaming these are rare, very rare. When adding the parts that I did write about before, I get a new stage, one that shows Microsoft the folly of buying billions of game designers and none of them have what I am about to hand Microsoft. If I have to aid a little hand to make 2026 the year of doom for Microsoft, I will. I am simply that kind of a guy. They did this all to themselves. I was a simple guy, merely awaiting the next game, the next dose of fun and Microsoft decided to buy Bethesda, which was their right. So there I was designing and thinking through new ways to bring them down and that was before I found the 50 million new accounts for the Amazon Luna (with the reservation that they can run Unreal Engine 5) and that idea grew a hell of a lot more. All stations that Microsoft could never buy, they needed committed people, committed people who can dream new solutions, not the ideas that get purchased. You see, I am certain that the existence of ChatGPT relied on a few people who are no longer there. That is no ones fault, these thing happen everywhere. Yet, when you decide to push it into existing software and existing cloud solutions, the shortcomings will start showing ever so slowly. A little here and a little there and they will overcome these issues, they really will, but they will leave a little hole in place and that is where others will find a way to have some fun. I expect that the issue with Solarwinds started in similar ways. In that instance hackers targeted SolarWinds by deploying malicious code into its Orion IT monitoring and management software. What are the chances that the Orion IT monitoring part had a similar issue? It is highly speculative, I will say that upfront, but am I right? Could I be right?

That is the question and Microsoft has made a gamble and invested more and more billions in other solutions whilst they are firing 10,000 employees. At some point these issues start working in unison making life especially hard for a lot of remaining employees at Microsoft, time will tell. I have time, do they?

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January 8, 2023 · 23:38

Is it me? It could be.

Today I saw (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64171008) the article ‘Amazon to axe 18,000 jobs as it cuts costs’. OK, they published it 2 days ago and I do not watch every site every moment of the day (I have an actual life). So consider that I wrote ‘Girdle your loins’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/11/30/girdle-your-loins/) which was roughly 3 months after it was offered to three parties. It represents $6 billion in the first phase and up to $20-$40 billion in the second phase. Can anyone tell me why two days ago we get to see “Amazon plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs, the largest number in the firm’s history, as it battles to save costs”, here I was thinking that my idea could have saved these jobs and now that Tencent is 9-15 months away the options for Amazon are diminishing. Then there was ‘Overlooking the obvious’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/22/overlooking-the-obvious/) which actually also refers to an earlier article. There I set a stage with optional close to a billion in revenue with optional new corridors for AWS to grow, and with a new stage where we see a new need fro hardware and advertisement in new directions, Google isn’t even there yet. That billion was based on almost 200,000 malls globally, 116,000 of them in the US and that is before you realise how many stores players like Zara, Gap, Sephora, Apple, Victoria Secrets, Country life and that list goes on and on. So is it me or are these players too lazy, too cowardly and not in the right stage of play? And that is not even considering the hardware people might want, the options that are related to it and even several IP options that are not on anyones dance card at present. What are they doing? They are axing 18,000 jobs and they leave billions on the floor? What kind of technology firm is that? 

Now, you might think that I am delusional and I would think that too, but I refer to things I wrote in the past, something that could grow into a $20 to $40 billion A YEAR market. So tell me, how delusional am I? So I could be crazy, but I see clearly where this is going and even as there is some small risk (there always is), the fact that Amazon left it on the street gives me pause to think that they have a lot more problems and optionally different ones. Optionally it is in a direction I never considered. That is not their fault, it is not my fault, but they left billions on the street (as I personally see it) and there is even more IP (a little more risk), but as Meta becomes a reality it represents an optional $2.3 billion (my initial max assessment of the IP) as well. So as I take notice of “Boss Andy Jassy cited the “uncertain economy” for the cuts, saying it had “hired rapidly over several years.”” And there was me thinking he was on the ball. So even as I am not debating that decision, the idea of leaving that much on the floor, enough to give most of them an alternative and an alternative setting towards the future on a global scale implies that someone is not drinking the proper gatorade and they are going for the dodgy stuff, but that is my view on the matter and I could be wrong. I admit that part. When certain Big Tech (not Microsoft), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kingdom Holdings give no response it is time to consider that I am the one who is wrong, but I feel that I am not, my mind is still mauling the designs over and over and seeing more and more improvements, even with Real estate sides, with 5G wearables that are not on any list at present. I believe that either I am a bigger dreamer than Jules Verne, or I am onto something. OK, lets be clear Jules Verne came up with the idea of a rocket to the moon long before WW2, as well as a submarine when it was still not possible to have one for such trips. The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine was launched in 1954, half a century AFTER Jules Verne passed away. So I might be a bit arrogant, but I see solutions that could impact the Line (KSA), malls and new forms of advertisement and none of those are part of the up to $40 billion (my maximum expectation), but that too is under debate. Yet that number is based on part of a 1.8 billion Muslim population and Tencent is a mere 15 months away at the most to do what I foresaw was going to happen one way or another. 

So, is it me? It could be. Yet I personally feel that this is not the case. As I see it some people have no idea what is possible and they are merely faking it for now. So what will they do when Tencent comes in and takes it all? Give you a lame excuse that they do not understand the technology? I will let you decide, but consider what we clearly see and what I published over the last two years. Yet, feel free to consider that it is alas, but these 18,000 people will have to go. There is no shortage for workers, is there? 

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December 27, 2022 · 14:18

Waterfall

It started this morning, actually it started last night. I have been working on a new premise in gaming IP. It is the merging of old ideas into a new game. Whilst that Westworld game was pulled as it was a weak copy of Fallout Shelter. I had already maximised that premise, but now no longer on the Westworld theme (they bashed their own window of opportunity). It is the stage where we create a new game (for example) on the foundation of Fallout shelter and Dungeon Keeper to create a new game that is themed to Blade (mere example). You control Blade and if there is no support you will get overrun over time. Yet like in the Dungeon Keeper game when we create certain rooms and rooms of certain sizes we get new troops, troops that support Blade. For example when we get the medical room and it is larger than 3×3 we get a new medic every few minutes. The medic dispenses serum for Blade to keep his humanity, if the Kitchen is large enough, there is enough food for Blade to regenerate faster. Instead of the flat presentation of a flat stage, the presentation of the house is isometric. And as we safe more people, the population of the safe house improves and we have more tinkerers to upgrade the house and more rooms, optionally create basements with even more rooms. Considering that there will be a new Blade movie in 2024, the timing is god enough to start now (hint hint). And this is merely one of several thoughts. Some extend to older (CBM64) games. Some extent to the newer versions (Atari ST/CBM Amiga). We seem to squander in the same directions, but what of the side roads available to all? Many are taking the same road, optionally fuelled by “Most historians consider the sermon preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont-Ferrand in November 1095 to have been the spark that fuelled a wave of military campaigns to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control”, yet many forget that greed took over, ego took over and short sightedness took over and as such we forget stages like Louis I of Anjou and his inherited claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. That part is not important right now, but it shows a larger stage of games that we forgot about and could be changed to fit the premise around 1387. So when we consider the new Blade game and we see what sort of support he ‘had’ we can set a new stage where the support is essential in making Blade successful. Like traits he gains, but these traits will need some sort of support and until we create that setting (like the forts in Magic Carpet, but place such a fortress in Oblivion), we get new games with new tasks and quests. A few years ago I used the premise of Battlehorn Castle and created the setting of a dozen of quests that gives the castle serious teeth. That setting can be applied nearly everywhere and we can use quests to merely give the person more to do, or we can create a pool of support. It was the foundation for Elder Scrolls VII: Restoration (seek the blog elsewhere, around 2018), all settings that can be applied to new games on streaming systems and Google never caught on and optionally Amazon did not take that path seriously as they rely on now mediocre Ubisoft to do the work for them, but as such they are losing out of billions because the market moved on and now it seems that Tencent is catching on and they are not wasting time. 

We can speculate and tinker all we can, but take 3 games Outrun, Pole position and Ultimate racing. Now combine them in an outrun look, with larger pole position blockades (tyres) and make it optional for design through an ultimate racing look. You now have a new piece of IP that combined is different enough to become new IP and many parts will not have IP protection. This took 10 minutes and You have another streaming game, like the dozen or so other titles I placed on my blog. Amazon had the making of 1-2 dozen additional new games and they just aren’t seeing the light. Add to this the new era of safe space and you see why Tencent becomes a danger to all streamers, they are catching on and they are catching on fast. The world does not wait for the big players (Google and Amazon) to catch on. You can trivialise what I wrote about all you want, but Tencent will not care, they are moving ahead and they are now primed to win. You think a wannabe like Microsoft can counter that? They want to leech from Tencent because it is easier and cheaper and just like that 3 out of 7 elements go to China. So when you see ‘Australia needs a long-term strategy to combat IP theft’ (source: ASPI) only part of it is true and it is true to some technologists in China. The larger stage is that the west became flaccid, lazy and content. The content Neanderthal got eaten by a dinosaur in the old days, I thought they had caught on by now, but they did not. 

I placed PD solutions on my blog. A 5G wearable solution is encrypted on 4Chan and becomes fetch able (by clever people only) on December 31st. There is a reason, attached to that are at least 3 solutions which I keep and it will drive IP value up. I am not completely mental (duh!!). Yet the larger stage is not that I am so clever (it could be), but the fact that I got there before Google, before Amazon, before IBM and before Apple (they have a decent excuse). They should have been where I was two years ago and they were not.

That is the setting no one is looking at, the side road ignored. Not what they could have had (well over $20 billion in revenue a year) no, they merely report on contracting economies and as I see it, it is because they hope for one more run with a horse that is regarded as too old and too tired. The new stage is ignored for too long and Tencent is (as I presume, based on certain parts) catching on. So there is another venue of revenue the west is losing to China. Why is that?

The waterfall is not merely lost because the location is not given, it is lost because the source of that water is not comprehended (or located), a loss ten times more dangerous. I always speculated that it was because too many relied on a population that lived by ‘fake it until you make it’. It might be a sales technique, but those fakers also will not know where to look at when it matters and they are all looking at each other whilst I saw the changing landscape and saw where the new business would be growing.

So look where no one else is looking and see what can be made of that terrain. You might find a nugget or two in the process as well.

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