Microsoft Xbox One - George Orwell`s Nightmare

[seehas]

Yesterday Microsoft gave a preview on their new flagship-gaming-console "Xbox" this new Version will be called "Xbox ONE" and will be released at the end of this year.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/streams/2013/May/130521/6C7512049-new-image-consoles.blocks_desktop_large.jpg

But its not only a gaming console anymore they call it a mediacentre that also includes a new version of the Cinect-Camera-Sensor, with this second version sensor its possible to see the heartbeat of a person caused by pulsing infrared signals aswell as normal videostream and the intigrated microphone never turns off.

The Console wont start if the cinect adapter is unplugged to guarentee most entertainment comfort, oh and if youre not online the thing wont work either.

Brave New "Gaming" World.



Quote from 1984 About Telescreens
"The telescreen recieved and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever the wanted to. You had to live- did live, from habit that became instinct- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
-1984, Book 1, Chapter One, George Orwell

[iNtrPrsnL aLcHmSt --0-o--]

I don't have much to add, but the quote when reading about the Xbox One is they tout that, "you will have a relationship with your TV". Language like that is going to turn some people off I think. I'd like to hope that as people begin to realize that these powerful cameras and microphones (which doesn't turn off) could potentially monitor them, that they will turn away from this stuff.

[Limor Wolf]

Interesting. I posted earlier on Wade Frazier's thread:

" This reminds of the constant war between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia in Orwell's
'1984', a perpetual never ending war, also the three slogans of the Big Brother party:

War is peace,
Freedom is slavery,
Ignorance is streangth

soon the Telescreen? "

[william r sanford72]

im writing on and through my kids xbox.computers went haywire.went through 2 of em.dont have the kinect camera.i would be more worried but i think orwells vision arrived sometime ago.with cell phones i pads home computers and lab tops and gps ect...ect.seems there already in our homes.

[seehas]

im writing on and through my kids xbox.computers went haywire.went through 2 of em.dont have the kinect camera.i would be more worried but i think orwells vision arrived sometime ago.with cell phones i pads home computers and lab tops and gps ect...ect.seems there already in our homes.

you are right but there is one big difference i can pull out the battery off my cellphone and the ipad without wifi is a pretty useless observer isnt it - this xbox wont work without beeing online or the camera module plugged in - its like they are testing a new version on their sheeps.

[william r sanford72]

and unplug the wifi and xbox.but i do agree seechas.many will buy it and love it.and will never once think about what they really brought into there homes.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

I am not in the least surprised that a Gestapo family would make a Gestapo product.

All hail the Fuhrer Bill Gates and his mighty Kinect!

Kids, eat your vaccines,
and Jimbo, buy your overpriced poison mosquito net,
because the Future is Here!tm

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a483849/xbox-one-is-phenomenal-says-microsofts-bill-gates.html

Bill Gates has praised the "phenomenal" Xbox One.

The Microsoft founder took to Twitter to congratulate the Xbox team on its newly announced next-generation console.

"#XboxOne is phenomenal," he wrote alongside an image of the new console. "@Xbox team is making a great product even better."

Announced this week, Xbox One - described as an all-in-one "ultimate home entertainment system" - will be launched later this year.

Microsoft has confirmed that while Xbox One won't require an always-on connection, it will need to be connected every 24 hours.

There will also be a fee to play used games.


Read more: http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a483849/xbox-one-is-phenomenal-says-microsofts-bill-gates.html#ixzz2U47f717d
Follow us: @digitalspy on Twitter | digitalspyuk on Facebook

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

I would like to think this will go down like a lead balloon, though there are alot of people wanting the latest shiniest thing that don't particularly care about it. No backward compatibility and fees to play borrowed games is silly and wont help.

Re infrared: what would happen if you suspended a mirror right outside the signal so it focuses straight back on itself? :)

[DouglasDanger]

The Zeople who buy this crap don't know and don't care... They just want to have something that you put disk in and play.. they don't want to worry about program instillations or a thought process towards this sort of entertainment.. These gaming consoles truly keep people dumb and unaware.. I am a gaming snob, I computer game only, consoles are for children and special minded people..... ha!. :) . It does have me curious to see if I can pull it appart and put manual switches on the camera and microphone though... so you can game without being watched or listened to... ;) ..

[MargueriteBee]

Only if we buy it Limor, only if we buy it.


Interesting. I posted earlier on Wade Frazier's thread:

" This reminds of the constant war between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia in Orwell's
'1984', a perpetual never ending war, also the three slogans of the Big Brother party:

War is peace,
Freedom is slavery,
Ignorance is streangth

soon the Telescreen? "

[InCiDeR]

Only if we buy it Limor, only if we buy it.


Interesting. I posted earlier on Wade Frazier's thread:

" This reminds of the constant war between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia in Orwell's
'1984', a perpetual never ending war, also the three slogans of the Big Brother party:

War is peace,
Freedom is slavery,
Ignorance is streangth

soon the Telescreen? "

,,,and we will...

[Limor Wolf]

Only if we buy it Limor, only if we buy it.


Interesting. I posted earlier on Wade Frazier's thread:

" This reminds of the constant war between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia in Orwell's
'1984', a perpetual never ending war, also the three slogans of the Big Brother party:

War is peace,
Freedom is slavery,
Ignorance is streangth

soon the Telescreen? "

,,,and we will...

We are good wholesalers, We so often buy in bulk even what we don't need..

But I rather keep the thought that common sense WILL get to the picture and a smell of fire will rise in our noses and the warning bell will start to ring

[TigaHawk]

There is a huge backlash at this new Xbox, not because of the Spying, but because of the copy protection. A disc once installed is tied to that single console, if you give the disc to anyone else it forces them to pay for the game (full price) before allowing them to install and play. They will also make it so you can only have 1 sign in per Xbox without having to reset the system to factory default, to prevent people from simply logging in on different machines with eachothers accounts as a workaround.

That is why it must allways be connected to the internet, along with the microphone and camera's quiet little stream going on in the background.


There will be similar backlash when Sony Playstation admits that they have the same technology's in reference to copy protection ready to go on their system too, they were slightly smarter and knew being the first to announce it will attract the most hatred and outcry from the public. The PS3 will have its own camera/mic components like the Xbox.


This is brilliant, in my eyes. If they do release both of these consoles packed with these features, it will not be long untill the people whom have pushed so long and hard for such copy protection, along with the console makers, start killing themselves off. The games distributors will not drop prices on games. Imagine, no cheap 2nd hand games, allways full price ($80+ a pop - welcome to Aus) is going to alienate a huge number of people whom only buy, or can only afford the 2nd hand games. With the quality of games being so crap, the people that have been buying will slow down.

They are going to take a massive income hit becuase of this.

I work in IT - full of gamers, alot on the console. All of them are treating the new Xbox like a plague because of it, and are only considering the PS3 if it does not containe the same fun filled features as the Xbox.

Bring it on, it will be beautifull to watch the hydra cut off its own head in greed.

[ThePythonicCow]

Bring it on, it will be beautifull to watch the hydra cut off its own head in greed.
Good !

[GrnEggsNHam]

There was another thread about this some time ago. When these things were being talked about but nothing officially confirmed.
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?57373-New-Xbox-Reportedly-Won--t-Let-You-Play--Unless-It-Can-Spy-On-You-&p=654112#post654112


"
Posted by conk (here)
Sorry if this was mentioned, but this constant connection to the internet will preclude the use of used games. Don't register your game, it won't play. Didn't buy it new, it won't work. Gotcha! A whole industry goes up in smoke. Watch the little corner game stores go puff.


Ah, superb foresight conk. I agree 100% although just like any other product the demand is facilitated by the masses. When and if this change goes live a new market will see huge growth. Because obviously the patrons of the used game market are not suddenly going to have more income to purchase new games.

The free to play PC game market will most likely see a large influx. This model is driven by in game purchases instead of the purchase of the game itself. However you are not required to purchase anything to play and enjoy the game. Most wimpy laptops can play these games, albeit at low settings. One of my favorites is League of Legends.

I think the creators of the next gen consoles should really think about how cheap a decently powerful computer is these days. If they are going to charge 300-500 for these new consoles they are going to kill the platform. I purchased a cheapo laptop for my parents for $400 and that plays Diablo III and Starcraft 2. Meaning it could easily play any of the console games with a USB controller plugged in(the current console gfx and cpu are from 2005). Game developers are going to jump ship on Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo will probably be the only one with some brains to see this coming. They generally have done much better with keeping costs down in their consoles.
"

[johnf]

Another step in advancing "The Cloud". I don't understand why this isn't seen and talked about by computer experts as an inherently bad idea. Perhaps there will be the cloud for consumer computers, and secure networks for the elite?

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

Well I think $80 per game is a pretty conservative estimation. I am thinking $100 + for brand new games. its clearly a cash grab, and it is going to spell the near death of the gaming console industry. How many small stores do console rentals and pre-sale games? Some retails have announced their pricing for the X-Box One, here in Oz (melbourne at least) RRP from a retailer is $899. I'm going to assume its the higher end of the scale, but as with previous comments, you can get a powerful desktop which does everything else - the spying to a degree for $500.

Nintendo again will be the leader soon. Their games have always been of higher quality also.

[InCiDeR]

Another thing to keep in mind is that they can't stop peoples creativity. It will not take long before someone have found a workaround for this control system.

For example, all the major firewall software and antivirus is cracked the very same day they are released on the market. If the majority of the people would know this they might not buy them. Because it is a bit hilarious that the very same software that are supposed to protect you from hackers are the ones that are cracked first...

[MadMax1]

I have been a long time gamer and have had an xbox since they were first released and if you look into the gaming community this new version got very bad ratings amongst gamers because of it's new features. I have no doubt that it can be used to moniter peoples homes the xbox 360 itself with kinect can be used to do the same thing if they want to. And Incider is right they always get hacked by gamers as well so camera view on kinect can be tapped into. The big change with this xbox is it's 8 times more powerfull and they have increased from 15000 servers to 300000 servers across the globe to run xbox live. They have made this one as an all in one entertainment system to lure people into buying it and become the supreme leaders in gaming and entertainment technology but don't forget if you have a mobile phone or some call them cell phones they can pin point your position quite easily at any time they want to. I would be more worried about that smart phones ipad and ipods as every where you look people have their heads buried in them. I am shocked when i walk to school every day and go past the students coming out they all have there heads buried in one of these items and do not seem to notice anything going on around them. Kids are becoming stupider because technologiy is stopping them from thinking for themselves and having a creative mind they are almost like drones, going through life doing the daily routines with their heads buried in their smart phone or ipad or ipod.

[WhiteFeather]

I am not in the least surprised that a Gestapo family would make a Gestapo product.

All hail the Fuhrer Bill Gates and his mighty Kinect!

Kids, eat your vaccines,
and Jimbo, buy your overpriced poison mosquito net,
because the Future is Here!tm

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a483849/xbox-one-is-phenomenal-says-microsofts-bill-gates.html

Bill Gates has praised the "phenomenal" Xbox One.

The Microsoft founder took to Twitter to congratulate the Xbox team on its newly announced next-generation console.

"#XboxOne is phenomenal," he wrote alongside an image of the new console. "@Xbox team is making a great product even better."

Announced this week, Xbox One - described as an all-in-one "ultimate home entertainment system" - will be launched later this year.

Microsoft has confirmed that while Xbox One won't require an always-on connection, it will need to be connected every 24 hours.

There will also be a fee to play used games.


Read more: http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a483849/xbox-one-is-phenomenal-says-microsofts-bill-gates.html#ixzz2U47f717d
Follow us: @digitalspy on Twitter | digitalspyuk on Facebook

I heard this Xbox 1 is so technologically advanced that it can even administer vaccines as well. It connects directly to The FDA Server and gets an approval from the network packet token by your family doctor, and Bam your innoculated......Kudos Bill. Your a genius!

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

P.s.!

Xbox one can see you naked

no joke!

[G.Deluca]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/22/4354796/xbox-one-always-online-requirement-used-games-confusion

here some news about xbox one,btw i expected more innovation,i don't watch tv so i don't care

[grannyfranny100]

Bill Gates, et al, are clever enough to get people to pay for their own home surveillance system rather than have the gov't. install it at gun point. Hopefully, most gamers are technically sophisticated enough not fall for Gates' Orwellian mind set.

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Gates' Company Microsoft Forced to Backpedal, Revise Security and Offline Playability Features

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/06/20/microsoft-xbox-the-damage-has-been-done/?iid=obnetwork

LOLOLOL

Microsoft Xbox: The damage has been done
June 20, 2013: 6:56 AM ET

However, the company's about-face on policies users found unbearable will help.
By John Gaudiosi

FORTUNE -- Anyone who questions the power of the crowd need only talk to Microsoft.

In a stunning reversal, the technology giant made an abrupt about-face on some of the controversial features of its upcoming Xbox One console. The company scrapped requirements that would have prevented users from playing offline games and made it difficult to sell used games in response to fierce online criticism. Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft's (MSFT) entertainment unit, made the announcement in a June 19 post on Xbox.com addressed to gamers: "You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world."

Michael Pachter, video game analyst at Wedbush Securities, said he not only thinks it's the right thing to do, but Microsoft is timing it well. "Microsoft was wounded by the reaction to its E3 press conference, and I think they genuinely want to do the right thing," said Pachter. "The 'always connected' requirement arose from their desire to provide instant access to games, rapid switching between games, TV, Skype, and Internet browsing, etc. However, to accomplish that, they required games to be written to the hard drive, which prompted a need to ensure that the same game wasn't copied multiple times to different Xbox Ones, hence the onerous DRM."

Pachter believes Microsoft will sell 3 million Xbox Ones by the end of this year worldwide and another 11 million consoles next year. He gives Sony (SNE) an edge in the next-gen battle with 3 million PlayStation 4s sold this year globally and 13 million next year. Short supply and the global markets will limit sales this November when the next-gen devices launch. While gamers spoke with their voices, they also voted with their wallets. Some sources point to PS4 outselling Xbox One by a rate of two to one on Amazon (AMZN) coming out of E3 last week.

P.J. McNealy, video game analyst for Digital World Research, believes Microsoft deserves credit for responding so quickly, but this also raises the question about what has happened with pre-orders. "Pre-order numbers couldn't have been pretty," said McNealy. "And this is the most important launch in the past 10 years for Microsoft."

Jeremy Miller, video game analyst for DFC Intelligence, said that while on the surface this reversal should help Microsoft regain at least some positive sentiment from consumers, it won't completely shift the perceived balance of power from PS4 to Xbox One. One reason is because Microsoft is still selling its console for $500, while Sony's device costs $400. "Microsoft, and Sony for that matter, have more complicated stories to tell this time around about features and value propositions as compared to the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 launches," said Miller. "Buying a new console can be a big financial and emotional commitment. Building confidence and trust in what your product will deliver is more important than ever. Microsoft's job now is to lock in the product plan and get the message out there in a consistent, clear way."

This move is good news for game rental companies like Gamefly and RedBox, which will be able to offer next-gen games alongside current PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Wii U titles. It's also a win for the used games market, which accounted for over $1 billion last year for top game specialty retailer GameStop (GME). In a statement, GameStop said, "This is great news for gamers, and we applaud Microsoft for understanding consumers and the importance of the pre-owned market."
MORE: Houses that flip and fold into place

Veteran game developer Lorne Lanning, founder of Oddworld Inhabitants and creator of the PS4 game, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee New N Tasty, said today's gamers view their game purchases as a commodity that they can use to offset the $60 price point of today's software. "It's a marketplace for individuals to trade their stockpile of games for newer titles," said Lanning. "Not listening to that audience today and trying to halt that ownership gamers feel for their games is damaging to one's own brand."
The damage has been done for Microsoft. Now it's trying to rebuild its relationship with the core gamers who are vital to the industry, even as the gaming demographic broadens with mobile and free-to-play games. Independent video game analyst Billy Pidgeon believes strong negative feedback from the gamer community directed toward Microsoft's statements regarding software authentication on Xbox One would not have significantly affected launch sales of either console, but ignoring gamer criticism could have slowed sales over 2014.

"Microsoft's failure to respond to gamer sentiment at E3 opened up a competitive advantage for PS4 that Sony was able to creatively exploit," said Pidgeon. "Microsoft's response may be a little late, but making an apparent turnaround on Xbox One's DRM and used games policy will likely gain back much ground lost to gamer dissent. Still, Sony was able to gain an edge that should boost PS4 sales well into 2014."