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Weekly News Roundup (15 November 2015)

Sunday, November 15th, 2015

First things first. Our hearts and thoughts are with all of those affected by the tragic events in Paris. It’s times like this that makes you truly reflect what’s important in your life, and makes you appreciated all the little things that make life a simple joy. As for what happens now, I really don’t know, but I do hope that we start discussing the tough questions, the ones about why it has become too easy for young people to want to be, and to actually be radicalized, and also to seriously examine what the best course of action is when you’re fighting an enemy that’s mostly just an idea. An insidious, evil idea, that somehow has become far too attractive for far too many.

It’s hard to still consider anything that I usually write here important after the events in Paris, but we all have to continue doing what we have to do, what we want to do, to continue to love, to show compassion, to be kind and understanding – that’s how we show those that want to divide us that they will never win.

There’s no room for privacy concerns according to the MPAA

Now, I’ve written a lot over the years about the piracy issue. From time to time, when I’m especially tired or drunk or both, I accidentally write ‘privacy’ instead of piracy. So instead of writing “The MPAA hates piracy”, I might write “The MPAA hates privacy”. Fortunately, this is now much less of a problem because the MPAA now also hates privacy (not a typo).

Those pesky Europeans and their privacy laws that protect their citizen’s rights, are giving the MPAA a headache when it comes to going after the pirates. The MPAA made the complaint to the USTR, something they do every year to let the US Trade Representative know all the things that annoy Hollywood around the world. But the EU’s new directives that adds extra privacy protection to IP addresses and the removal of mandatory data retention, means that the MPAA now has to work a lot harder to get what they want. Just exactly what that is, I’m not sure, because it sounds like the MPAA is mad they’re no longer able to go after individual downloaders, but that has never worked to stop piracy, and to be fair, the MPAA has never engaged in this kind of legal activity. If they wanted to go after the piracy site operators, then they already have the tools to do that (see the Popcorn Time/YIFY story last week).

So basically, it’s just the MPAA trying to blame someone or something else for their woes. Something they’ll do again this time next year.

4K is gaining momentum, but discs are on the slide

Moving on to digital video stuff, it appears that sales of Ultra HD TVs have gotten off to a good start, despite the relatively small amount of available Ultra HD/4K content.

(While I’m here, I would just like to further clarify the differences between the term “Ultra HD”, which is more of a marketing term, and 4K. 4K refers to 4000 horizontal pixels of resolution, most commonly available in the resolution 4096 x 2160. Ultra HD is actually just shy of 4K, in the more accessible 16:9 resolution of 3840 x 2160 – basically double both the horizontal and vertical resolution of 1080p. The more you know!)

There definitely doesn’t seem to be the kind of price premium you usually associated with new tech that’s with 4K TV (I managed to pick up one, albeit a budget crappy one, for less than $300 just recently), and while the much needed content hasn’t yet arrived in disc form, it’s already available via streaming.

And that’s exactly the problem facing discs at the moment, with the latest Q3 home entertainment earnings report showing that, for the first time ever, revenue from streaming has risen above that for packaged media. In fact, almost everything related to digital was on the up, while almost everything related to packaged media was on the slide.

When everything was added up together, total revenue was little changed, which just goes to show that the transition seems to be going smoothly.

Halo 5 has helped the Xbox One beat the PS4 in October

The October NPD results are in and once again the PS4 was the best .. wait a second, that’s not what actually happened. The Xbox One has finally managed to break the PS4’s winning streak by becoming October’s best selling console in the US market. The win was largely due to the release of Halo 5, a Xbox exclusive that always helps to drive console sales. With Forza Motorsport 6, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, and with backwards compatibility and a major dashboard update all coming, there’s definitely some momentum building for the Xbox One. Microsoft will be hoping that these new additions in these established franchises, and the BC, will help convince the huge number of Xbox 360 owners who haven’t upgraded to upgrade.

While I’m here, I guess I also have to mention Fallout 4, considering my preoccupation/obsession with the previous game in the series. I haven’t played the game yet, haven’t even purchased it (other than the Xbox One Pip-Boy edition in order to get the Pip-Boy – the PS4 and PC editions were sold out when I found out about it, so I had to make do with the Xbox One edition even though I don’t own a Xbox One) – I will do both when I get some free time, and if I managed to get more free time, I might even play it on my brand new dream gaming PC that I plan to build from scratch (a side project that I’ve been eyeing for some time now).

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That’s it for the week. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, DVD, Electronics, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), Movies, News Roundup, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (15 November 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (25 October 2015)

Sunday, October 25th, 2015

How can I start this intro without mentioning the release of the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. Wow! Wow! Wow! I feel like crying!!

Now it has to be said that the Phantom Menace trailer was also awe-inspiring, so there’s still plenty of room for disappointment when the movie hits cinemas screens on the 17th of next month. But if they’ve even learned half of the lessons from the prequel disasters (lesson one: write better dialog), then this new Star Wars movie, one that I’ve been personally awaiting since my teenage days, will be a huge hit.

But there’s still plenty of time to hype up the new movie, because right now, we have to look at this week’s news stories.

It came, it saw, and it was shut down. BrowserPopcorn just wasn’t meant for this world …

Popcorn Time is the one headache for rights-holders that refuses to go away, and this week, the headache appears to have gotten just a little bit worse. Introducing BrowserPopcorn, a web app that gives you the full functionality of Popcorn Time (ie. Netflix for pirates) without having to install a damn thing. Well at least that was supposed to be the case before the MPAA got wind of it and took swift action, threatening the developer with lawsuits unless the site was pulled down. And it was.

Not that BrowserPopcorn, based on how it actually works, would have been a serious threat anyway – the way it worked by proxying torrent download via its own dedicated servers, meant that it could only support a few hundred users at a time without borking under the pressure.

A further confusing week for Popcorn Time continued when one of the main variant of the popular app (there are many variants due to the open source nature of the application) was permanently taken offline due to developers, fearing lawsuits themselves, left the project and when the app’s domain name was lost (perhaps only temporarily). It appears that someone (I think we can all guess who) was messing with the site’s domain name services as well.

And to make matters even more complicated, the website of torrent site and release group YTS/YIFY has been down for most of the week (possibly due to a DDoS attack). And because it was the main torrent source for most Popcorn Time variants, this meant that many apps simply refused to work.

It’s all very confusing, and it’s hard to believe this sustained and multi-pronged attack on anything Popcorn Time related isn’t coordinated at some level (although it really could be just a coincidence, who knows).

For others seeking a little bit more morally acceptable way to watch content for free, there was bad news too this week in the wake of the BBC blocking VPN access to its iPlayer catchup service. The BBC seems unconcerned that the blanket ban will block access to UK users using VPNs for reasons other than geo-unblocking. The BBC makes money by licensing content to overseas providers such as Netflix, and with the Beeb announcing plans to launch their own subscription streaming service in the US, I guess the time was right to crackdown on overseas iPlayer usage.

The Xbox One might have to get used to playing second fiddle to the PS4

The September NPD results has the PS4 winning yet again, and with the PS4 price cut, it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon. Microsoft is still holding onto their “solid year-over-year growth in console sales and strong engagement on Xbox Live”, which I guess is better than nothing. The Redmond based firm needs to start getting used to coming second in this generation, maintaining a solid platform so they can try again next-gen, hopefully this time without any DRM snafus.

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That’s it for the week. Look out for my re-upload of the new Star Wars trailer on Digital Digest. Not that it’s really needed, since I believe it’s available to watch, stream or download on literally every single website on the web right now, but how can I call myself a Star Wars fan if I don’t make the trailer available right here?

Update: The trailer has been uploaded. As a bonus, I also have the HEVC version of the trailer here.

See you next week!

Posted in Copyright, News Roundup, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (25 October 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (13 September 2015)

Sunday, September 13th, 2015

Not a lot of news this week, which might be related to the Labor Day holiday in the US. Or the fact that the quota for news stories might have all been used up (during the the very busy) last week.

So this won’t take long at all, I suppose …

The Norwegian Pirate Party is ready to counter the country’s new censorship regime

Norway has started blocking The Pirate Bay, but they’ve chosen to do it on the DNS level, which makes bypassing the filter as easy as changing from your ISP’s DNS servers to a public one (like the ones from Google – this is probably recommended even if you’re not subject to draconian censorship regimes, from performance, reliability and security points of view). And to make users aware of how easy it is to ignore this latest misguided censorship effort, the Norwegian Pirate Party has launched their own public DNS server.

Okay, I admit, this isn’t the most enticing of news stories. But I was scraping the bottom of the barrel, and this story about rights-holders pursuing an utterly futile course of action that sets a dangerous precedent at the same time as having no positive consequences for anybody involved, was the best I could do this week.

That was until yesterday, when I glanced upon this story about a new app called Aurous that’s set to make music piracy as easy as Spotify. Not that Spotify is hard to use, and of course, you can use it without paying – but it’s also not as perfect as it could be, with not all songs being available and no offline/download mode unless you pay. This is what Aurous promises to make up, that and to also be pain in the ass for the music industry.

Aurous wants to make music piracy easier than using Spotify

The early alpha versions of Aurous, available on pretty much all the major platforms including mobile ones, is still lacking many of the features that makes Spotify really cool – like discovery and radios, so from a usability perspective, Spotify does still have a few cards up its sleeve, even for the free version.

And there’s the “good enough” factor to consider. While Spotify may not be perfect, it might be “good enough” for most people to not have to bother going down the piracy route, even with something as easy to use as Aurous. The same cannot be said for movies and TV shows – as good as Netflix is, it just doesn’t have most of things you want to watch. This is why Popcorn Time, a similar concept except for video content, is such a hit and such a disruptive force for the industry, whereas Aurous may never achieve the same effect (and notoriety).

Speaking of offline/download mode, and following last week story about Amazon Prime adding this feature to its streaming service, Netflix has responded this week by confirming that they’re not considering adding the same feature.

No offline mode coming, says Netflix

But I’m not sure I buy their reason for not adding this feature, which is that while users want the feature, most won’t use it because it’s too complex (since users will have to manage local storage, queue downloads, you lose the instant play ability, and since not all titles will support downloads, it adds to further user confusion). Users can always choose to not use the download feature if they find it too complex, so I don’t see what Netflix has to lose by adding the feature.

Actually, I do see what Netflix has to lose – money. Rights-holders will want more for the licensing rights to downloads, and licensing costs is something Netflix has been trying to reduce, either through producing their own original content and by ending content deals with the likes of Epix.

But users also have plenty of gain if they had access to an offline playback mode, even if it’s just for selected titles. Being able to queue up a few offline titles to watch could be a godsend for vacations to places with poor to non-existent Internet connections, for example. So perhaps Netflix should reconsider, and give users what they want (even if most might not actually use it, all the time).

The August NPD results are in and the PS4 has won yet again. As usual, all the companies spun the results into something super positive for themselves (Sony didn’t have to do as much spinning, to be fair). Microsoft bigged up the Xbox One’s sales increase and its big release slate for the rest of the year, while Nintendo talked about the 3DS, Amiibo and Splatoon, but failed to mention the Wii U at all, which is probably for the best.

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So that was the week that was. A nice and quiet week, hopefully leading up to a nice and not so quiet week next week. See you soon.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (13 September 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (23 August 2015)

Sunday, August 23rd, 2015

So a week and a bit more back from vacay, and what happens? I get the flu, or some hideous mutated version of it. Eurgh. So this week’s WNR is going to be a bit more abbreviated than usual, since it’s very hard to type legible words when you’re coughing and sneezing at the screen all the time.

The RIAA has a new target in its sights …

While this humble webmaster has difficulty writing coherent sentences, the RIAA apparently doesn’t have the same problem, as the copyright lobbyists for the music industry have written yet another letter (after writing one to CBS/CNET last week), this time to BitTorrent Inc, the makers of uTorrent.

The RIAA wants the company that developed the BitTorrent protocol to do more to fight piracy, which may includes building in a filter system for its popular uTorrent client in order to filter out pirated downloads. The RIAA’s letter cited all sorts of stats, all of which basically points to there being lots of piracy going on via BitTorrent. But in classic RIAA style blame shifting, they claim that BitTorrent Inc is somehow responsible for this.

BitTorrent Inc did invent the BitTorrent protocol, and they do publish one of the most popular BitTorrent clients out there, but at the end of the day, it’s just a file transfer protocol. HTTP is also just another file transfer protocol, and there’s a lot of pirated files being transferred via HTTP too, and downloaded via the most popular browser on the market, Google’s Chrome. This does not, however, mean that Tim Berners-Lee/CERN and Google should be made responsible for this, even if the ratio of legal/pirated content may be less of an issue on HTTP than on BitTorrent.

None of this finger pointing, whether at BitTorrent or CNET, actually addresses the question of why people pirate. And the answer to this question is a lot more complicated than “because they’re thieves” (especially when some the same “thieves” are also their best customers).

Microsoft’s ominous user policy changes may be a storm in a teacup, or something more sinister

Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to make it less easy to “steal” games with an updated user agreement that apparently gives the Redmond firm the power to scan and disable “counterfeit games”. After our article on this was published, Microsoft issued a clarification that the newly added clause was mainly for security reasons, to allow Microsoft to remove “apps or content” whenever the company “deems your security is at risk”. I don’t know about you, but this statement seems even more ominous to me, especially the part about Microsoft affecting my “content”. Not to mention the fact hat security was not mentioned anywhere in the updated clause either.

One company that wish it had the legal authority and technical ability to disable content right now is Avid Life Media, the company behind Ashley Madison. The site’s data was hacked, posted online and exposed many who used the service to cheat on their partners. ALM is now using copyright law to try and remove the leaked data from online postings (sponge, a flood, trying to stop, etc…) – good luck with that!

What do I make of this whole situation? I guess it’s easy to sit here and laugh (plus cough and sneeze uncontrollably) at cheaters getting what they deserve, but the bigger issue for me is about the right to privacy. Those who cheat on their spouses may deserve the worst, but they may also have an expectation of privacy that we have to respect. Or do they give up this right because online data is well known for not being secure, and that users need to re-adjust their expectations as a result? This is something that I think deserves further debate.

Another month, another NPD, and the PS4 once again beat the Xbox One, both in hardware and game sales. I think it’s safe to say that this will be the ongoing trend, and it’s probably not even worth mentioning NPD results unless something changes from this norm.

It looks like the real deal, but don’t expect to play Call of Duty on this console

You might think all these monthly wins for the PS4 would be seriously depressing for the Microsoft camp, but it’s worth noting that the Xbox One is still selling better than the Xbox 360 at the same stage of their life-cycles. So it may be the case of the Xbox One being an excellent console, but up against an even better one in the PS4. The real losers in this generation, if the Wii U can even be considered to be in the same generation as the XBO/PS4, is Nintendo.

But what if you could combine the Xbox One and PS4 into the same console? Meet China’s OUYE, which rips off the outer casing of the PS4, rips off the Xbox One’s controller, and rips off the name and concept of Android microconsole OUYA. Note that Chinese company responsible for this monstrosity didn’t even bother to try and rip off the Wii U. Ouch.

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67 coughs, 32 sneezes later, we come to the end of this WNR. Oh I’m sure there will be more news next week, but whether I’ll be healthy enough to write them up is another matter. Eurgh.

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (23 August 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (14 June 2015)

Sunday, June 14th, 2015

Another week gone, and we’re mid way through June, which is mid-way through the year. 2015 has gone by pretty quickly, I have to say, maybe too quick at times. Much like this somewhat shorter than usual WNR, which I’m sure you’ll get through pretty quickly (maybe too quickly) too.

Here it is …

The EU wants to remove copyright restrictions, which they say is encouraging piracy

The EU is pressing ahead with its plans reform copyright laws, to make it fairer to consumers and remove many of the restrictions that exist within EU countries. The European Commission VP in charge of this new copyright strategy, dubbed the Digital Single Market, says that current copyright laws allows rights-holders to place restrictions on legal content, restrictions that Andrus Ansip says are driving people to piracy.

Instead of tougher laws that punish downloaders, something that Ansip says is untenable (68% of film viewers in the EU download pirated movies – “to put 68% of people in jail is not really a good idea,” says Ansip), he wants legislation that encourages the spread of legal content, even if it means banning things like geo-blocking within EU countries.

It’s something rights-holders won’t like. While all EU countries use the same currency, the wealth disparity between EU countries means that citizens in one country may be able to afford to pay more for the same content, than citizens in another country. It’s this wealth disparity that Big Content likes to exploit, by making sure they squeeze as much as possible out of each paying customer. In the worst case, an entire platform, like Spotify, could end not not being available in some countries due to these kind of artificial barriers.

So while the EU is clearly moving into the direction that brings better access to content, Big Content is heading in the other direction, still pushing ahead with content blocking to solve the piracy problem. The latest strategy involves getting domain registrars involved in the process, but Big Content is finding that it’s meeting some resistance from ICANN, the non-profit responsible for managing domain names. The ICANN says it refuses to be copyright cops, to police content, simply because it’s responsibilities simply does not extend to content. Pointing domain names to servers is basically what the domain naming system is all about – it should not matter to ICANN at least what the domain name is, and what server it is pointing to. Just because it’s easier to force registrars to do something about piracy (as opposed to going after the owners of the website), doesn’t make it right.

Are users abusing Steam’s new refund system?

By finally making refunds available, Steam seems to have finally listened to customers, and it also represents a major step in the right direction in terms of digital consumer rights. However, it appears some users at least have started to abuse the refund system, which promises refunds, no questions asked, within 14 days of purchase as long as you’ve played less than two hours in the game (which describes about 95% of my Steam game library, by the way).

Some indie game developers are reporting refund rates of up to 72%, meaning more than 2 in 3 users bought the game, played it, and then got their money back. While this might indicate some kind of problem with the game, most of the time, the heavily refunded games still receive positive ratings from gamers.

This means that people may be using the refund system to play games without paying, at least for up to two hours (which while probably not enough to finish the game, but might be enough for many users). With Steam not even asking users why they’re seeking a refund, the system does sound like one that’s maybe too biased towards the consumers, something that rarely happens with digital goods.

The problem has become so bad, that some developers are even thinking of adding DRM to their game, something that they would never have considered in the past. And this is a development that benefits nobody, really.

There has to be a middle ground though, one that gives consumers the same rights with digital goods as they have with physical goods, but also ensures that people cannot abuse it as a way to play games without paying.

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PC Adapter for Xbox One controller finally available, getting ready for Windows 10 game streaming

The NPD report for US video game sales in May has been released, and the PS4 is back on top after temporarily handing over the crown to the Xbox One in April. While Xbox One sales were up on this time last year, it just couldn’t sell enough units to beat the PS4, which but for a few months here and there (admittedly during some important months, such as during the holiday sales period), has been on top pretty much this entire generation.

Things might stay the same in June again though, despite Microsoft releasing a new 1 TB version of the console (and permanently dropping the price of the 512 GB version to $349). What may have a slightly bigger effect on Xbox One sales, eventually, might happen after the release of Windows 10. With built-in game streaming support (with the ability to stream Xbox One games to any Windows 10 device, be it your PC, laptop or Surface tablet), the new operating system from Microsoft will aim to further unify the Windows and Xbox platforms. So the release of a wireless PC adapter for the Xbox One controller comes just at the right time.

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Alright, that’s that for the week. Have a good one!

Posted in Copyright, Gaming, News Roundup, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (14 June 2015)

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Archive for the ‘NPD Analysis’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (15 November 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (25 October 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (13 September 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (23 August 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (14 June 2015)

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