DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

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.

——

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.

I’m back from holidays! I would say I feel recharged, but after a week of catching up on work (got back on Monday), my batteries are edging towards the “please connect your charger” level again.

There’s lots to go through, so let’s get started!

The MPAA wanted to attack Google via an orchestrated PR campaign

It’s not surprising at all to say that the MPAA doesn’t like Google. But even I was surprised at the level of animosity between Hollywood and the world’s most popular search engine, based on the MPAA attack plans that Google has now managed to obtain (via their lawsuit against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood). The PR blitz included a Today show segment, ad editorial in the Wall Street Journal warning of a piracy induced share price crash, and even getting a major Google shareholder to come out and attack the company’s lack of action on tackling the piracy problem. All prongs in the attack would then reinforce each other to give the appearance that there’s a serious problem with Google, a problem that Google does not want to address.

Except of course, Google is addressing the piracy problem, and doing it at an amazing rate of 18 link take-downs per second. It’s apparently still not fast enough for Hollywood.

This is the kind of well orchestrated lobbying campaign that the MPAA are well known for. If only they devoted their energy and expertise to, I don’t know, actually tackling the reasons behind piracy (lack of availability, lack of user friendliness and perceived lack of value), maybe they don’t need Google to take down more than 18 links every second to stay in business (although business these days seems to be doing pretty well).

CNET under fire again, this time not for offering torrenting tools, but for YouTube stream rippers

Not to be outdone by Hollywood, the music industry is also launching renewed attacks on another well known web entity. The RIAA accuses CBS owned CNET/Download.com of providing downloads for tools that helps users pirate music. Specifically, the RIAA says that Download.com hosts YouTube rippers and other video soundtrack rippers, which can be used to rip the music from legally uploaded music videos.

This, the RIAA says, is simply not permissible, because it would allow users to use content in a way the music industry did not intend them to use. Imagine playing a music video, but with your eyes closed – this was not how the recording industry intended you to use the music video, and therefore, it’s just not on!

But seriously, YouTube and other online videos are not protected by DRM (something the RIAA may want to do something about in the future), and so ripping the audio from them is trivial. And even if there was some way to protect the audio track from being ripped, users can always use the tried and tested method of “home taping” (it’s the method that “nearly” killed off music, once upon a time)that they’ve been using since the day of cassette tapes (ask your parents if you don’t know what they are).

Some hyperbole is always expected when it comes to the music industry and their anti-piracy efforts

But I have to ask, just how much money is the music industry actually losing to YouTube ripping? From the way the RIAA is acting, it does seem like they’re losing an arm and a leg (and other body parts) to the problem, as otherwise why would they bother CNET/Download.com again when they’ve already lost a court case against them over LimeWire and BitTorrent software? This anti-piracy ad campaign by Universal Music, used in Brazil in 2007, provides some insight into how the recording industry views the piracy problem (although one could argue that it’s the record companies are that liberally, but figuratively of course, taking body parts from actual musicians when it comes to money earned from recorded music).

I can’t find the news story now, but I read somewhere that a recent number one recorded hit had the lowest earnings ever. This does seem to suggest that piracy may be having an effect on revenue, but the revenue model for the music industry has changed drastically since the introduction of digital singles (for the worse for them, but better for consumers), any effect piracy might be insignificant compared to this sea change. Change sometimes isn’t good, or at least not good for everyone, and it’s not always easy or possible to adapt. Just ask Blockbusters and Columbia House!

Just when you thought the next-gen codec wars was settled, with HEVC being crowned the winner, along comes another contender, perhaps from an unexpected source. Cisco is very well known for being big in networking, but for video codecs, it’s not one company you would naturally think of. But that may change soon, with the company announcing they’re working on a new next-gen codec to compete with HEVC/H.265 – and best of all, it will be open source and royalty free.

Now, admittedly, we’ve been here before with Google’s VP9 – and if Google with their YouTube and Android can’t get their own codec to be a viable alternative to HEVC, then things are going to be doubly difficult for Cisco. However, Cisco is working with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and their NetVC workgroup, and seem to be following a process that will lead to more community involvement than the process Google went with. So there’s a hope that something more solid, and less tied to the efforts of one particular company (Google), might emerge from all of this and become a true viable open source, royalty free alternative. Fingers crossed.

——

Actually, that wasn’t as much news as I thought. There’s more for Australians streaming fans over at Streambly though. There will be more next week, of course. See you then!

A nice and short one for you this week, but very likely still much longer than next two week’s WNR. The reason for the abridged versions of the WNR in the coming weeks is that I’m going on a much needed vacation, and it might be hard to find time to write up news stories, as well as the WNR.

No time to waste, lots of packing and planning still left to do, so here’s this week’s news stories …

KAT suffers Google penalty

Scammers may be profiting from Google’s decision to remove KickassTorrents pages from their search results. Google appears to have applied some kind of penalty to the site, pages from the site have either been removed or down-ranked (possibly down-ranked to position 1000+, something that Google typically does when it brings down the ban-hammer). Without official KAT pages in Google’s search results, using KAT related keywords now bring up a bunch of unofficial results, many stealing content from the real KAT and inserting their own (often adult) ads, or even malware sites offering fake KAT branded downloads.

This complete site removal doesn’t seem to be piracy related, since Google’s anti-piracy penalty doesn’t seem to down-rank sites so much. Plus whatever is happening seems to be unique to KickassTorrents, with no other piracy sites appearing to be affected.

Putting on my webmaster hat for a moment, the way KAT moved their site to a new domain could be responsible. If they did not use the “permanent” 301 redirect code, and instead used the default “302” redirect, or if content wasn’t redirected and was instead duplicated on both the new and old domains, then Google could have problems with this (although a quick redirect check now doesn’t seem to indicate this is the actual problem). Google does provide a tool that lets website owners tell them ahead of time about site moves.

But this kinds of highlights the problem with Google. It’s really hard to get any sort of concrete feedback from them when it comes to penalties (Google wants to keep website owners confused intentionally so they can’t find loopholes to exploit in relation to Google’s algorithm), and even if KAT fixes whatever was causing the penalty, it won’t be lifted immediately (may take 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months … nobody really knows the answer). So it could be a while before official KAT links are back on Google’s results pages, and that’s assuming the people running KAT ever figure out what the penalty was for.

On a somewhat related note, uTorrent’s site and downloads were blocked by Google Chrome earlier in the week, similar to what Google did to major torrent sites earlier in the month. Google’s anti-PUP (potentially unwanted software) algorithm has been turned up to 11 in recent weeks, and it has caught out many sites. Some were complete false positives and some were semi-false positives like with the major torrent sites and uTorrent (these sites advertised or had downloads that included bundled offers and things like toolbars, which Google considers PUP. But these are not as malicious as actual fake downloads and scam-ware, which is the real problem Google is trying to tackle).

Google seems to be going after piracy sites, but that’s not really what’s happening

For the casual observer, all of this seems to add up to a new war against piracy sites, but for now, it all appears to be coincidences or unintended consequences or Google’s ongoing war against, um, a lot of different groups (webmasters who try to game the Google search rankings, bundle ads providers, malware distributors …).

At least with bundled offers, you always have the option to not install them if you pay close attention to the installer. What’s less optional these days is insecure DRM that potentially opens up your system to all sorts of nasties. The last place you’d probably expect to be forced to install DRM is during a long flight, but that’s what United Airlines is forcing passengers to do if they want to watch movies on their own personal devices. And not only that, users also have to install the insecure Flash plug-in.

But the blame doesn’t really lie with United, but with paranoid Hollywood studios that genuinely fear users will go to all the trouble to book a flight on United just so they can rip movies, most of which have been out on DVD for years. You and I might think this is ridiculous, but Hollywood’s paranoia goes way beyond reason.

Blu-ray revenue stagnating – is it because of digital downloads and streaming, or the lack of hit releases?

Blu-ray revenue is on the slide, with a recent week’s revenue figures falling to levels not seen since 2010. Those that follow our weekly Blu-ray revenue analysis will have seen the signs, and there is no doubt that since about the second half of last year, Blu-ray’s meteoric rise has been stalling.

A lot of it has to do with the poor release slate for this year. There have been some big releases this year, including Gone Girl, Interstellar, Big Hero 6, Fifty Shades and American Sniper, but these cannot compare to Thor, Frozen or The Lego Movie (but mostly Frozen). Interestingly, I think Blu-ray’s fortunes will pick up later this year and next year when Jurassic World, the new Avengers movie, Inside Out and the coming attractions M:I 5, the last Hunger Games movie and the new Star bloody Wars, all make their way onto Blu-ray in 2015 and 2016.

So it’s a bit early to write Blu-ray’s obituary, but things have definitely slowed down.

It’s easy to blame things like streaming for the potential downfall of discs, and services like HBO Now and Hulu that gives you access to newly aired TV episodes may affect TV box set sales, for new release movies, Blu-ray and DVD is still the best choice for many.

Speaking of Hulu, the ad-supported streaming outfit is considering going ad-free via a higher priced subscription plan. Considering how many people freaked out when Netflix experimented with in-house ad-spots for its original programming a while back, I’d say going ad-free can only make Hulu more popular (currently 19 times less popular than Netflix, according to user download data). It always struck me as weird to be forced to watch unskippable ads even after I’ve paid a monthly fee, regardless of how new the content is compared to Netflix.

—–

That’s it for the week. Wasn’t as short as I thought, but this will have to do for the next couple of weeks while I’m holidaying it up. Talk to you soon.

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. Windows 10 is just around the corner, and most believe it will be the Windows 7 to 8’s Vista (if you know what I mean). I’ve been using Windows 8 for about 4 months now, and it really isn’t as bad as people make out, although definitely not as good as it should be. So I’ll be upgrading to Windows 10 as soon as possible (and by as soon possible, I mean until others have tried it on the Surface Pro 3 and found no real problems with it).

Here’s this week’s news …

Piracy site censorship doesn’t stop piracy, and may actually give piracy sites a boost

There’s more evidence this week that piracy site censorship just doesn’t work. In fact, not only does it not work, it seems to actually help boost piracy, by giving undue publicity to sites that have been blocked. A new study from Italy gives evidence showing a dozen different sites all gaining in popularity after being blocked in Italy, including sites that had almost zero profile in the country prior to the banning. One site even managed to enjoy a 1000% (that’s one *thousand* percent!) increase in search engine traffic after the blocking took place, all largely thanks to the media (and online) attention gained by the block.

It’s almost as if the list of blocked sites has become a list of must-visit piracy sites, and the numerous proxies sites (many of which were set up to make easy advertising dollars) that spring up for these blocked sites also help with the visibility of these sites on search engines.

None of this will make any different to rights-holders though, since to them, any action, no matter how pointless, is better than actually addressing the real issues at hand. Embracing change and innovating is just too hard and risky, in their minds.

One unwanted change that might be happening is this: DRM for JPG. It sounds like a terrible idea at first thought, and it might just turn out to be one, but the standards committee, JPEG, says that the DRM will mainly be for privacy reasons. The DRM could be used, for example, to protect your private photos – and if these photos were to leak online, the original owners can simply activate the DRM controls and make the photos unviewable. It could also be used to prevent government surveillance, as one research paper noted recently (although my guess is that the encryption used in the DRM would be a trivial to break for any half competent government agency).

All of this sounds nice, but you just know that once the DRM is in there, privacy won’t be the only application for it. News and photo sites will use it to prevent copying of images (although they can’t prevent the simple print-screen), and porn sites may even use it to protect their content.

Studios treating Blu-ray like a mass consumer format, when it was always just a niche format, along with inconsistent releasing has ruined the format, says Blu-ray producers

Blu-ray is a failure. This sounds strange coming from someone who has purchased hundreds of Blu-ray discs, and will continue to purchase them, but given the expectations behind the format, it certainly can’t be considered a total success. And this expectation, Blu-ray producers say, is exactly why studios have failed Blu-ray.

A panel of top Blu-ray producers at Comic-Con let loose on studios and how the Blu-ray format as mismanaged. They say that instead of being the next DVD, Blu-ray was always going to be a niche format, a format that only those that wanted to absolute top picture and audio quality would want. For most people, they say, DVD (and now downloads and streaming) is more than good enough.

But studios expected more, and they will label anything less than their expectations as a failure, including Blu-ray. The panelists fear that studios will make the same mistake with 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, which they say is even more of a niche format than Blu-ray (fair enough, considering how few people will have 4K TVs by the time the new disc format launches at the end of the year).

The producers also criticised studio greed in relation to “double dipping” (making people buy the same content over and over again) and the lack of commitment to releasing (such as suddenly stopping releases of season box sets half way through the collection), all of which led to consumers losing confidence in the format.

And that confidence is shifting to other ways to watch content, such as streaming. With Netflix alone now accounting for 36% of all peak download traffic in North America, consumers are definitely voting with their feet. However, while Netflix is popular, a quick browse through their catalogue still shows just how much content isn’t on there. While some of it are on rival subscription streaming platforms, but even when you combine the content on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO Now, there’s still a huge swathe of content that’s missing, especially newer content. DVD and Blu-ray is the the studio’s platform of choice for these types of content, but it may not be the consumer’s choice.

Netflix is great, but most of the stuff you want to watch won’t be on there

And this is where piracy comes in – to fill the gaps between consumer demand and studio supply. Which is why I completely disagree with the statement made by Shaun James, the chief executive of Australian streaming platform Presto. James says: “It’s a really hard argument for a pirate to run when you’ve got a multitude of services from $10 per month, to say it’s too expensive, I can’t get it, I can’t afford it – that’s a really shallow argument.”

Shallow or Straw Man? Presto is the exclusive streaming providers for HBO content in Australia, but you cannot watch any new shows or even old episodes of Game of Thrones on it, because Presto’s owner, cable operator Foxtel, has locked up these programming exclusively to their cable platform. The cheapest package to get Game of Thrones in HD on Foxtel costs USD $40 per month, and requires a cable or satellite set up that isn’t available everywhere – so the argument “I can’t get it, I can’t afford it” still seem fairly valid.

With that said, there will always be people that are unwilling to pay for content no matter how cheap, or easily available, it is. These people are not the problem though, because you can’t lose money from people that were never going to pay.

PS4 leading in hardware and software sales

It’s not the hardware, it’s the games. When it comes to making money off video games, this is certainly true. This is why game companies often take an initial loss on the game console to gain market share, so they can easily recoup the losses via game sales and licensing.

And for the current generation, Sony is definitely the winner so far when it comes to market share. Ubisoft’s earnings reveal just how far ahead the PS4 really is at this stage, with 27 percent of Ubisoft’s game sales happening on Sony’s platform, compared to just 11% for the Xbox One (the 360 and PS3 were also on 11%, just to give you a comparison of how poorly the XBO is doing).

It’s not game over yet though for Microsoft’s console. The backwards compatibility addition should help, but only price cuts will help the Xbox One catch up.

——

And on that note, we come to the end of another WNR. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading. See you next week.

I guess I should update everyone on my experiment with using the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 as my desktop, laptop and Windows tablet replacement. Simply speaking, it’s fantastic. When the SP3 is in the dock accessory, connected to my monitor with my Logitech wireless KB/m setup (the Logitech MX Master is a thing of beauty, BTW – well for right handed people anyway), it feels exactly likely using a desktop. On the go, when I have the Type Cover on, it can be used just like any laptop (the screen is a bit smaller though, but it is a very lovely screen though) and it’s quite good considering it’s not a “real” keyboard/trackpad, but just a cover accessory attached to a tablet. I don’t use it in pure tablet mode  that much (that is, with the Type Cover removed or folded back), since it’s a too big and heavy to be used in the normal tablety way, although certainly still very usable.

Overall, it’s a great little device and more than capable for most types of work. And I’m really looking forward to Windows 10 as well, which will really make the device shine.

And no, I have not received any financial incentives from Microsoft to encourage me to make these positive statements (although I wouldn’t say no if they decide to send me a goodie or two, *hint* *hint*).

Also, this Star Wars Comic-con video almost made me weep sweet tears of joy! Just wanted to put it out there.

Ah, yes, the news roundup …

CloudFlare under attack, not by DDoS, but by the RIAA

Once again, the RIAA has been caught, and “reprimanded” (this time by a US District Court) for trying to get everyone else to do its own work and leaving a large mess of collateral damage in its wake.

The RIAA tried to get content delivery network CloudFlare to close down sites that were using domain names similar to the now defunct Grooveshark, the music streaming that the RIAA shut down last year. But instead of identifying infringing sites and notifying CloudFlare, the RIAA filed an injunction to force CloudFlare to close down any site that has the term “grooveshark” as part of its domain name.

This means that sites that are perfectly legal would have to be shut down, just because they had the “offending” keyword as part of their domain name. CloudFlare, who along with other service providers, quickly filed their opposition to the injunction, arguing that freedom of speech rights would be put at risk. CloudFlare even provided a real example of how the RIAA’s actions could have serious and unexpected consequences by pointing to protest site groovesharkcensorship.cf, which was set up specifically to protest the RIAA’s actions. This totally legitimate site that was exercising its free speech rights to criticize the RIAA was shut down due to the RIAA’s injunction, something I’m sure even the RIAA had not intended.

Luckily, the court sided with CloudFlare’s argument and ended the RIAA’s attempt again to make things easy for themselves (and screw the consequences).

It seems to me that the RIAA has started to lose the plot with their lawsuits. They’re not even going after actual infringing sites anymore – any site that even hints at being related or friendly to unauthorised music downloads is now a target. What hasn’t changed is the RIAA’s insistence on assigning responsibility to everyone else, and getting them to do the heavy lifting. It’s something that the District Court didn’t agree with though, saying that the onus is still on the rights-holders to identify infringing sites (after all, they’re the ones best placed to know whether their own properties have been infringed or not).

Piracy brings fans to my concerts, says David Guetta

All of this misses the point anyway. The point has always been, and should always be about money being lost to piracy, and ways to minimize this. Spraying lawsuits everywhere does not really solve any problems, and the problem in the first place may not be as big as the record companies believe. If you don’t want to take my word for it, then listen to someone who actually works in the music industry, DJ and producer David Guetta. Guetta’s pragmatic views towards piracy are particularly refreshing – while he prefers an “ideal” world where there is no piracy and he gets paid (a lot more) for every download or listen, he also realises that piracy is not a zero sum game. Guetta says that piracy helps him to gain more fans that he otherwise wouldn’t get if these people were successfully barred from downloading illegally, and that these fans will spend money at some stage, whether it’s concerts or merchandise, or even re-buying the songs they’ve downloaded illegally to support the artist.

Of course, the record labels represented by the RIAA may not get some or all of the money that these downloaders will spend at some stage. But that’s because making music available to the listening public is a job that’s no longer worth as much as it once was (getting a song being heard by people, or published as a record, once upon a time, was a tough task – today, we have self publishing, and piracy can do some the promotional work that artists once had to rely on record labels to do). It’s called progress, and this is what the RIAA is trying desperately to fight.

——

Chrome blocks torrent sites, but not for the reason you think

The news that Google’s Chrome browser has started to block pretty much all of the major torrent sites, including KickassTorrents, Torrentz and RARBG. The sites were blocked with a warning that these sites were offering “harmful programs”.

Website owners can normally check Google Webmaster Tools to see why their site was blocked, but the operators of these torrent sites could not find anything listed as being wrong.

So the first thought that many had was that this may be some kind of new anti-piracy measure being rolled out by Google, under coercion from the MPAA and others.

But the actual situation was much more simpler. The problem stems from advertising and sponsored links that these sites had, which may have linked to other sites that were offering the programs Google was warning about (specifically, Potentially Unwanted Programs, or PUPs, such as toolbar installers and other programs and offers bundled with installers). Google has been particularly sensitive in blocking these kind of sites recently, and perhaps a tweak in their algorithm flagged the torrent sites, most of which may have been using the same advertiser or software sponsor. The reason Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) did not show anything at first was because the information in GWT is delayed, something I have personal experience with in relation to false positive DMCA requests that I’ve had to deal with in GWT.

Most of the blocks have been removed now, once the sites in question dealt with the issue and submitted a review in GWT, but perhaps the bigger issue here is how easy it was for Google to block access to so many popular sites at once. It’s something that will give rights-holders bad ideas, and perhaps it also point to the monopolistic position Google now finds themselves in (Google Search and Chrome are the most popular platforms in their respective fields) – too much power concentrated in one company, whether that power was intentionally procured or naturally gathered, is never a good thing.

A new PS4 model is lighter, uses less power and is quieter too

There’s a new updated PS4 model currently available (only) in Japan, and a teardown has revealed some significant updates with the hardware. An updated processor (still a 28nm chip though), RAM and other chips means power savings, which also means a quieter, slower spinning fan. This greener, quieter PS4 still retains the old form factor, so it’s definitely not the “slim” edition that some are convinced will be released soon (and if anything, this model refresh means it’s now less likely that a slim version will be coming soon, not after Sony has put in the effort to design this new model – the slim version will require a much bigger re-design that what’s found here). Expect this new PS4 model to make it ways to the US and other Western markets soon (before Christmas, I bet).

——

That’s it for this week. I’m going to go back and watch that Star Wars Comic-con video another 10 times. Oh yes. See you soon!