The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 11th May 2013 is in. Jack Reacher was the week's best selling Blu-ray title.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

In an event at Redmond, Microsoft has unveiled its successor to the Xbox 360: Xbox One.

Unlike the launch of Sony's rival console, the PS4, Microsoft was able to show off the hardware at their launch event, but details like the release date and pricing are not yet available.

The squarish shiny black box is more reminiscent of a home theater device, and it appears this is exactly how Microsoft plans to market the box, as an "all-in-one home entertainment system".

The Xbox 360's media credentials, for an 8 year old game console, is remarkably sound, but Microsoft improves upon this by including Blu-ray playback for the first time. Microsoft has previously backed Toshiba's HD DVD format in the early days of the HD wars via an add-on drive to the console that allowed for HD DVD movie playback. But the demise of the format left Microsoft's console without support for a HD disc format, giving the advantage to Sony's PS3, which had built-in Blu-ray support from day one.

The console will be powered by an AMD made 'Jaguar' based 8-core x86 processor, with 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB HDD. This makes the specs remarkably similar to that of the PS4, which also has an 8-core 'Jaguar' based CPU, and 8GB of RAM, although Sony will use the higher bandwidth GDDR5 variety.

The Xbox controller, widely acknowledged as one of the best controllers on the market, has been redesigned too, along with Kinect. The new Kinect system, to be included with every Xbox One console, now interacts with the new Xbox One controller, allowing Kinect to instantly track who is holding the controller. While Microsoft claims 40 changes to the controller, the changes appear to be far less dramatic than that of the PS4's new controller, of the Wii U's tablet style controller. The Xbox One lacks the PS4's trackpad function, for one, and does not feature built-in speakers and a headphone jack like the PS4's new controller. 

The new Kinect does seem more major changes. The more precise system now requires less free playing space to operate, and operates better in low light. It will also now be able to track joint rotations, individual finger movements, and even facial expressions. It can even track your heart rate, and calculate how many calories you're burning while you play Kinect.

Despite being a game console first and foremost, Microsoft wants consumers to treat the Xbox One as much more than just a game console. New will be an integrated Live TV module (which may require an external STB to be connnected to the Xbox One via the built-in HDMI input port), and using Kinect's voice commands, users will be able to seamlessly switch between media functionalities, and between media consumption and gaming. For example, speaking the command "What's on HBO" will bring up the built-in program guide for the channel, and speaking the name of the show will allow you to switch to the channel that is currently broadcasting the show.

"No more memorising channels or hunting for the remote control," explained Microsoft's senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi.

The Internet will also be key to the Xbox One's strategy. While "always-on" DRM is not on the cards (and despite rumors to the contrary, Microsoft will not be restricting the trading and selling of second hand games), an Internet connection will become increasingly important as developers take advantage of the console's integration with Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. Potential applications could include anything from cloud storage, to games offloading complicated calculations to the 300,000 servers available to the console (more servers than what was available in 1999 for the whole world, Microsoft says), and even recording your gameplay videos directly to the cloud for easy sharing.

The event did not include as many details on the game line-up as one would have expected. Microsoft demoed the Xbox One running Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA 14, Forza Motorsport 5 and the original Quantum Break. More titles will be unveiled at E3 next month. Microsoft says that 15 platform exclusives, including 8 new franchises, will be available on the console during its first year. Microsoft also confirmed that the new console will not be offering backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games.

The Xbox One is expected to launch worldwide before the end of 2013 and will retail for around the same price as the PS4, estimated to be around USD $400.

Nintendo has taken the controversial step to submit a YouTube copyright claim on "Let's Play" gaming videos, causing at least one popular video creator to launch a boycott of Nintendo games.

While Nintendo has chosen not to block videos that it says features it copyrighted content, the same videos will now features ads before the start of the video, with all the revenue going to Nintendo.

This move then allows Nintendo to regulate "Let's Play" videos, with the option to remove videos they do not agree with, and at the same time, denying revenue to "Let's Play" video creators.

The move has made at least one creator choose to boycott Nintendo. Zack Scott of the ZackScottGames channel posted on Facebook: "I love Nintendo, so I've included their games in my line-up. But until their claims are straightened out, I won't be playing their games. I won't because it jeopardizes my channel's copyright standing and the livelihood of all LPers." The ZackScottGames has over 3,000 videos, and nearly 200,000 subscribers.

Nintendo played down the issue. In a statement made to Game Front, Nintendo stated their right to these videos, and their continuing support for the "Let's Play" phenomenon.

"As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property," the statement read.

Nintendo's most recent console, the Wii U, has suffered in early sales leading some commentators to question the direction of the company.

Hollyweb here we come, as the MPAA touts legal web alternatives to piracy. Is the Wii U doomed? All of this and more for the week ending 19 May 2013

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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Hollywood's premier trade group, is trying out a new strategy in their war against web piracy.

This week, the MPAA launched a new website WheretoWatch.org that advertises all the ways legal content can be obtained online. The simple one page website links to website where legal movies and TV shows can be viewed or searched, along with a brief description of each service.

Some of the major criticisms against Hollywood's war on piracy has been on the industry's perceived less than enthusiastic support for the web and web based entertainment services, which leads to the lack of legal options. The MPAA believe this isn't the case and wants to use WhereToWatch.org to set the record straight.

"There have never been more ways to access movies and television legitimately online, and those platforms continue to grow and develop thanks in large part to a copyright system that encourages innovation, risk and growth," said current MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd. "The companies I represent are committed to continuing to create and develop the best ways for audiences to enjoy the entertainment they love."

But critics will still argue that delayed release dates, the arbitrary nature of what is and isn't available on services like Netflix, and the way content expires and disappears without any real pattern, all things that are the result of direct intervention by Hollywood studios, still plague the very services that the MPAA is touting as real alternatives to piracy.

Others will point to the US-centric nature of the website, despite the web piracy problem being anything but, as most of the services listed on the website are not available outside of the United States.

A new joint study by researchers from Aalborg University and the Copenhagen Business School has found that the gaming industry's piracy claims may be exaggerated.

The ESA (Entertainment Software Association), an industry lobby group that represents the industry's voice on the contentious piracy issue, previously noted that in December 2009 alone, there were 10 million illegal downloads of 200 unique games.

But the new study by Professors Anders Drachen and Robert Veitch found that, in the three month monitored by the study, 12.6 million unique users downloaded 173 unique games.

The pair were motivated to produce what they claim are the most objective figures so far for game piracy by the way the industry often exaggerates the piracy problem to further self interests.

The report states: "The data reported by the industry are potentially biased, partially due to the interest of the industry to reduce piracy and thus potentially over-estimate the problem. Also, industry reports often lack methodological transparency". 

The study also looked at the types of games being pirated, and found that far from the previously accepted truth that shooters were the most popular type of game, almost all games were nearly equally popular on BitTorrent networks. 18.9% of games pirated were RPGs, compared with 12.7% for third-party shooters.

And despite 173 games being pirated, 42.7% of unique peers were only interested in the the top 10 most popular games, with the European countries of Romania, Croatia, Greece, Portugal and Hungary being the top countries for piracy.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 4th May 2013 is in. Silver Linings Playbook topped both the DVD and Blu-ray charts for the week, but otherwise it was another quiet week for new releases.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

Despite widespread concerns and protests, the consortium responsible for managing web standards has chosen to add Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) to the HTML5 standard. EME will allow for a standardized way to add DRM to HTML5 based videos, something that a coalition of tech leaders including Google, Netflix and Microsoft had petitioned for.

While EME does not handle the actual the encryption process or the actual Digital Rights Management system, it will allow third-party plug-ins to be officially supported by HTML5 videos.

The W3C said that the decision to give the go ahead to EME ironically largely fell upon their desire to ensure the future of the open web. The alternative, they say, would not be a web without DRM protected videos, but rather, those videos being served using proprietary and closed off systems.

W3C Chief Executive Jeff Jaffe explained the decision: "There is going to be protected content on the Web. We should we have one Web with as much commonality as possible where one is able to access free content as well as protected content. The other approach is to say if someone wants to have DRM content, that should be its own walled garden, cordoned off. We don't want the Web to be a bunch of cordoned-off apps."

This move should eventually ween the web off the use add-ons such as Flash or Silverlight, which in recent times have become an increasingly problematic barrier to standardization efforts, particular on portable devices. For example, Apple's iOS and the most recent incarnation of Android do not support Flash, which has meant that specialized apps has had to be developed for each platform to transmit copy protected videos.

Digital rights advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation expressed their disappointment of the decision on Twitter. "Shame on the W3C: today's standards decision paves the way for DRM in the fabric of the open web," the tweet stated.

BitTorrent Inc strikes back at Netflix over nothing, Spotify flaw allowed piracy, and Xbox 'Infinity' 720 DRM debunked. All of this and more for the week ending 12 May 2013

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It came, it saw, it didn't exactly conquer, but was banned and now it's fixed. That's what happened this week when a Chrome browser add-on called Downloadify exploited a flaw in the Spotify web player and allowed people to download any song streamed by Spotify.

The flaw meant that songs being streamed by the Spotify web player were not encrypted properly, and the Downloadify add-on simply exploited this fact to allow users to download songs temporarily stored in the browser cache.

Google, who manages Chrome browser add-ons, quickly took action and removed the add-on, but the open source nature of Downloadify still meant that anyone who wanted to get it still could.

So it was up to Spotify to fix the flaw, and they finally did this week.

The programmer of Downloadify says that he created the add-on purely as a way to force Spotify to fix the flaw, which he says has been there for at least "four or five months".

Just a week after trying to distance themselves from piracy, BitTorrent Inc has launched a bizarre defense against claims made by Netflix. 

Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos last week stated that BitTorrent traffic drops whenever Netflix traffic rises, obviously in reference to piracy related BitTorrent traffic. BitTorrent Inc this week chose to attack these claims by claiming Netflix's interpretation of the statistics are wrong, and at the same time also denying the piracy connection altogether.

In the curiously titled blog post Reports Of Our Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, BitTorrent Inc's VP of Marketing Matt Mason disagreed with Sarandos's use of the term "BitTorrent" to refer to piracy in general, and also said that the Netflix Chief Content Officer's claims about dropping BitTorrent traffic is wrong. Mason says that the traffic drop is more likely to do with BitTorrent's "Micro Transport Protocol", launched in 2009 to help mitigate Internet traffic congestion issues by dialing back BitTorrent traffic during peak usage times.

Mason disagrees with the notion that Netflix and BitTorrent were in competition. Instead, Mason says that BitTorrent is nothing more than a tool, and a tool that can help Netflix and Hollywood in general.

A leaked internal email sent to all Microsoft employees working on the next Xbox console apparently confirms the existence of Blu-ray playback, but also denied that the console will feature an 'always-on' style DRM that forces gamers to be online at all times.

But the inclusion of Blu-ray playback may see the console miss the 2013 holidays release window, according to another rumor.

Arstechnica was first to reveal the contents of the internal Microsoft email regarding 'Durango', the project code name for Microsoft's next console, which read:

"Durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today's Internet. There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should 'just work' regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game."

If true, this latest information will calm down gamers worried about being forced to have a constant Internet connection in order to play even single player games.

While rumors suggesting the inclusion of a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 720, or whatever it will be called, has been making the rounds for the best part of a year, it has been unclear so far whether the inclusion of a drive would also allow for Blu-ray movie playback. The Nintendo Wii U console, for example, features a Blu-ray like disc format but does not support BD movie playback, but if the leaked email is to be believed, then Blu-ray playback will be a feature of the next Microsoft console.

However, the inclusion of Blu-ray may be the very reason why the Xbox 720 will miss out on having a 2013 release. According to MondoXbox, issues related to Blu-ray licensing may mean the console will get an early 2014 release date instead, missing the crucial holiday sales period.

The delay is apparently due to an exclusivity agreement that permits Blu-ray playback only on Sony's consoles, including the PS4, which will be released before the end of the year.

Such a delay could be a huge setback for Microsoft as it attempts to build on the success of the Xbox 360.

Microsoft is expected to officially launch the Xbox 720 at an event on May 21, where the console's official name may be unveiled as 'Xbox Infinity'.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 27th April 2013 is in. Gangster Squad was the best selling new Blu-ray release for the week, despite not coming first on the Blu-ray top 10 sales charts.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

Netflix, Netflix everywhere. Game pirates lampooned with game prank .And conclusive evidence that DRM doesn't work. All of this and more for the week ending the 5 May 2013

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An interview conducted by Stuff magazine with Netflix's Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos has yielded some very interesting tidbits about the streaming service.

Sarandos confirmed what many had suspected, that whenever Netflix moves into a new territory, the piracy rate drops to reflect the changing behavior of users. "When we launch in a territory the Bittorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows," Sarandos explains.

The reason Sarandos says for the shift from free to paying legit is all about giving people what they want, and that, he says, is the best way to fight piracy. "The best way to combat piracy isn't legislatively or criminally but by giving good options," says Sarandos.

One issue still bugging users is the differences in content between the various Netflix territories, with the US viewers seemingly getting the best deal in terms of variety and timeliness. One workaround is to get a geo-unblocking service like Unblock-Us, which then lets you bypass region locks and choose which Netflix region you want access to. But Sarandos is working hard behind the scenes to ensure this will not be an issue in the, perhaps distant, future. 

"The window of time between US broadcast and international availability is a gap and a problem everywhere. My goal is to make licensing much more global so the service has more global availability. All our original stuff is available on all our international sites and we're moving more towards ubiquitous global licencing. It'll take years, unfortunately – but that's what we're steering towards," said Sarandos. 

And as for whether 4K will be coming to Netflix soon, Sarandos said that it was perhaps a bit too early to speculate on the next evolution of HD. With Blu-ray discs currently unable to carry 4K content without breaking compatibility, and the industry reluctant to introduce yet another physical format, could 4K become a streaming only format? 

"If it evolves as a streaming only format it’ll be very interesting," Sarandos hinted.

A year after sci-fi publisher Tor changed the rule book by ditching DRM for its ebook titles, the publisher has hailed the move as a "hugely positive" one.

Writing on the official blog, Julie Crisp, Editorial Director at Tor UK, explained the decision behind going DRM-free, and the positive reaction to the move from both authors and readers alike.

Having received negative feedback from both readers and authors regarding the use of DRM, Tor took the then controversial step of removing all DRM from its ebook titles. As Crisp explains: "Having been in direct contact with our readers, we were aware of how frustrated many of them were by DRM. Our authors had also expressed concerns at the restrictions imposed by the copyright coding applied to their ebooks. When both authors and readers are talking from the same page, it makes sense for the publishers to sit up, listen and take note—and we did!"

Crisp then continues to explain that the move away from DRM in no way meant that the publisher had relaxed or given up on the tough fight against piracy. Trusting its readers are just as much against piracy as they are, and DRM (which Crisp acknowledges isn't a foolproof protection against piracy anyway) was unfairly punishing them, Tor removed DRM in the hope that their readers would be responsible enough to respect the copyright of the author and not share copies around freely.

And Tor was proven right. "As it is, we've seen no discernible increase in piracy on any of our titles, despite them being DRM-free for nearly a year," Crisp writes.

So no regrets at all from a company that took a bold step.

An executive from a Hollywood studio has described BitTorrent Inc's recent promotional deal with independent studio Cinedigm as "a deal with the devil".

The executive, who spoke to The Wrap anonymously, called out Cinedigm for working together with BitTorrent Inc. to promote the new Emily Blunt, Colin Firth indie "Arthur Newman".

The first seven minutes of the new film will be offered exclusively as a download on BitTorrent.

But BitTorrent's move into the heart of the film industry may have incensed studios who have long associated the company with online piracy.

While BitTorrent transfer protocol is indeed an important conduit for web piracy, the actual protocol itself is not actually owned by BitTorrent Inc. Instead, the protocol is an open sourced one that any company or individual can use, for free.

What BitTorrent Inc does produce is the popular uTorrent client, the most popular software for downloading content shared by the BitTorrent protocol. And this is enough to get Hollywood studios, or at least one executive, to call out Cinedigm on this "deal with the devil".

"It's great for BitTorrent and disingenuous of Cinedigm," said the executive. "The fact of the matter is BitTorrent is in it for themselves, they're not in it for the health of the industry."

Executives from Warner Brothers and Sony also expressed similar views when speaking to The Wrap, blaming Cinedigm for selling out just to get some much needed attention for its new film.

Cinedigm defended the marketing partnership, with chief marketing officer Jill Calcaterra urging for the creation of a workable truce between Hollywood and BitTorrent. 

"Blaming BitTorrent for piracy is like blaming a freeway for drunk drivers," said Calcaterra. "How people use it can be positive for the industry or it can hurt the industry. We want it help us make this indie film successful."

BitTorrent Inc's vice president of marketing Matt Mason, also speaking to The Wrap, said that Hollywood has wrongly blamed the company for its piracy woes. 

"We have never endorsed piracy," said Mason. "We'll be working with all of [the studios] one day. It's really up to them how quickly they come to the table and realize we're not the villain, we're the heroes."

But the anonymous executive did not agree, and blamed BitTorrent Inc for not doing enough to distance itself from the technology's piracy problems. "They don’t give a shit," the executive is said to have told The Wrap.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 20th April 2013 is in. Django Unchained was easily the top selling Blu-ray title of the week, considering it was the only new release that made the top 10.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

The simulation game Game Dev Tycoon has a new novel way to combat the piracy of the game - by increasing piracy in the game itself.

Game Dev Tycoon allows players to create and run their own game development company. Priced at only $7.99, the game lets the player experience the ups and downs of game development, starting in a clichéd garage office.

Despite the low price of the game, many still chose to pirate the game, with 93.6% of players using the pirated version a day after the game went on sale, according to stats published by the game makers, Greenheart Games.

But Greenheart Games had anticipated the piracy problem, and solved it in their own unique way. When the game detects the gamer is using an unauthorised copy of the game, game piracy is introduced into the game itself and the companies that gamers created with their pirated version of the game eventually goes bankrupt.

More intriguingly, the pirated version was actually uploaded by one of the game's creators, using this method to hold "a mirror in front of [pirates] and showing them what piracy can do to game developers."

"We are not wealthy and it's unlikely that we will be anytime soon, so stop pretending like we don’t need your 8 dollars!' Patrick Klug wrote on the game's blog.

The responses from pirates seeking help for this crippling issue was also more than ironic, with one asking if DRM could be researched, and another cursing pirates for ruining his company.

DRM in HTML5? Pirated content filtering via your anti-virus software? Are Australians Game of Thrones fans thieves? And more Wii U ramblings. All of this and more for the week ending the 28 April 2013

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