Sadly, this doesn’t mean anything. Executives can’t and won’t share highly confidential future plan data with non-executive employees who don’t immediately require the knowledge, because if even one of them leaks that info, it can (and in this case, certainly would) tank their stock price.
Stopping production is not a plan that requires years of dev work to do, it’s something that they can announce at any time and put into practice almost immediately, so they can and will claim (even internally) that Xbox is not going away right up to the moment they publicly announce they’re killing it.
I love Phil, but he doesn’t have the influence within MS to single-handedly save Xbox if the larger company leadership decides to kill it.
Y’all just have no idea how complicated the process is. In 2004 it was OK to just “ship a working game”, - in 2023 you have to include all of the software stacks you have partnering contracts with, deploy an entire cloud infrastructure to deliver updates and short purchases, design and launch automated targeted ads campaigns, pay union-busting lawyers, accommodate for all the “fun” senile execs want to put in the game, pay handsome compensation to these senile execs, pay more lawyers to bury workplace toxicity-related incidents. At the end of the day, you have to sustain the company somehow when 95% of your workforce goes on a sick leave after a 3-month-long crunch period. All of that takes money, time and effort. And y’all don’t get a lot of time in-between autumn release windows.
Hey, we’ve been at it for 20 years, and we have just managed two months of 16-hour workdays without anyone dying, it looks like it might be one of those projects we actually manage to ship - what an important internal milestone!
PS: I don’t actually work at Ubisoft, I love my life too much - this entire comment is a satire
“We hear you. I can relate to your struggles. We’d love to solve the problem. Of course, preservation is front and centre when all these decisions are made.” isn’t quite the same as “We’re working on a solution to preserve 360 games. We came up with the following solutions so far: […]. Let us know what you think. Stay tuned!”
I wouldn’t expect anything to come from this. Microsoft employees wrap a “fuck you” in a gift, gaslight the backlash, and tap dance. When the excrement makes abrupt contact with the rotating blades of the fan, the lead self-resigns with a long-wielded and non-apologetic notice. Another Microsoft employee takes over, and leads the team with the same mindset until the next incident.
How is this going to affect battery life? Some of us don’t have the switch connected to power 24/7. Sounds like a bad idea for an underpowered handheld device.
I agree IP law is messed up, but that doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t have merit.
Having a temporary, legal monopoly on something that requires a lot of R&D and not much production cost (say, a novel or new kind of asphalt) allows the creator to make back their R&D costs before competitors come out with cheaper alternatives. Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
We need shorter durations and more scrutiny on scope. Also, patents should generally not apply to software.
As an incentive structure for corporations and “people” purely motivated by avarice, sure.
Most people naturally want to create and contribute as long as their needs and most basic wants are met. A monopoly as an incentive is not necessary.
Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter. Incentives are only one half of the equation. Its really all about leverage.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter
The main alternative is offering them a subsidy on a silver platter, but then you’re making everyone pay for that R&D, not just the customers who want whatever that product is, and there’s no protection against IP theft unless the government owns and enforces the patents or something abroad.
I personally prefer the IP law approach, but I think it needs significant reforms, both in duration and the approval process.
With a monopoly, you may very well be making everyone pay for the increased price gouge that comes with monopolies. Not just the customer of that particular product. It depends on the nature of the product.
If it is a component of a more common device or product, basically everyone ends up paying more (HDMI comes to mind). If its an innovation relating to a basic need and gets integrated with the majority of services, basically everyone ends up paying more. If its something that has external implications on the market or wider world that creates inefficiencies, then people functionally make less money because effect people pay more and thus long term this harms spending on a variety of products. If people can’t afford the price gouge and continue using less effective products (assuming they are even available) they likely long term spend more money to make up for the inefficiencies from that.
Monopolies damage things beyond the product that gets monopolized and merely concentrates wealth.
Regardless a subsidy is not the only alternative. That’s still thinking in terms of carrot, and you are forgetting the stick. You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations based on revenue/profits just as much as you with the punishment of potentially being fined/taxed more.
But outside of that, there is also government contracts. That is, a single payer, (monopsony) generally can get fantastic results out of competing firms. Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
Not all monopolies are created equal. We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies, meaning these are new products, not some existing necessity. IP law on its own can’t kill existing products.
An author having exclusive rights to a work doesn’t prevent other authors from making their own works. A pharmaceutical company having exclusive rights to a medication doesn’t prevent other pharmaceutical companies from making competing medications. Likewise for video games and whatnot.
The problems with Palworld have little to do with IP law as a concept but with how broad the protection of patents is. IMO, video game mechanics shouldn’t be patentable, and companies should be limited to copyright protections for their IP. But IP protection is still important as a concept so creators don’t get screwed and customers don’t get defrauded.
You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused/scare away companies.
Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.
Only have access to this account during work, so late reply.
We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies
It doesn’t matter, monopolization at any level has the effect I described.
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused
You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.
scare away companies
There are ways to force this into not being an issue. We don’t have to suck a corporation’s dick to keep their productivity.
It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.
It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for and its worked out for them. They pay obscene amounts to get obscene results.
Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.
You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused/scare away companies.
You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.
A few ways:
the term “R&D” can be pretty broad, so it’s unlikely to have the effect you’re thinking about - pretty much everything in a tech company is “R&D” whereas almost nothing in a factory is; making this somewhat fair is going to be very hard and will likely end in abuse
companies are more likely to set up shop where such restrictions don’t exist
enforcement could be selective to target companies that don’t “bend the knee” - esp true if the required amount is high enough that it’s not practical
force
Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.
It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for
Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.
They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.
Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.
I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).
To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.
Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.
So you’d rather give power to corporations. Who definitely abuse their power. Rather than a government, which at least is potentially elected.
I think governmental structures are probably outside the scope of this conversation, but I’ll at least state that the reason Trump is bad is not only that he has power. Its the lack of power that his opposition has because they utterly fail to seize it when opportunity presents itself. Again, it is all about leverage.
Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.
They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.
I think that this is pure conjecture. Going “full competitive” would be at best a double edged sword. A lot of money and risk is involved in highly advanced military tech. Realistically you’d see businesses crumble and merge. Naturally converging into a monopoly.
I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).
To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.
To actually reduce costs, you increase the leverage the buyer has. Transparency in pricing would do that to a tiny degree, what would do so far better is a monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments. I firmly believe giving more power to governments results in more monopolies, generally speaking, because it creates an opportunity for the larger players to lobby for ways to create barriers to competition.
That’s a pretty broad statement though, and there are certainly cases where I would prefer the government to step in.
monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized
I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re making an assumption that the payer has an incentive to reduce costs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. What they do have is a lot of power over pricing, and while that could be used to force producers to reduce costs, it can also be used to shift costs onto taxpayers in exchange for favors from the companies providing the services.
That’s quite similar to the current military industrial complex, the military is the only purchaser of these goods, so the suppliers can largely set their prices. A monopsony means the value of making a deal is massive for a company because they get access to a massive market, which also means the value of lobbying to get that deal is also high.
So I really don’t trust that a single payer system would actually work in the US to reduce total healthcare costs, it’ll just hide it. If we want to actually cut healthcare costs, we need to fix a number of things, such as:
malpractice suits - providers need expensive insurance plans and hesitate to provide certain types of care (i.e. need more tests even though they’re very confident in their diagnosis)
pharmaceutical and medical device patent system, and subsequent lobbying to set regulations to hedge against competition
backroom deals between insurance companies and care providers where both sides get a “win” (provider inflates prices so insurance rep can report that they’re getting a deal by getting a discount)
whatever is causing ambulances to be super expensive
The problems are vast and I think single payer would likely just sweep them under the rug. We either need socialized healthcare or maximum transparency, single payer would just be a disappointment.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.
Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate. And capital interests fight tooth and nail against large monopolies being split back up. Its more or less a miracle that it’s ever happened at all and it would be naive to think it’ll ever happen again.
If the market is sufficiently competitive, yes, I trust corporations more than governments.
I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re making an assumption that the payer has an incentive to reduce costs, but I really don’t think that’s the case. What they do have is a lot of power over pricing, and while that could be used to force producers to reduce costs, it can also be used to shift costs onto taxpayers in exchange for favors from the companies providing the services.
Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?
socialized healthcare
I mean, I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer. Single payer for me is merely an acceptable middle ground. As would having a proper public option next to private care (though admittedly that would slowly erode from lobbying).
Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate.
And it naturally improves over time as companies challenge established players and “distupt” the market. As long as the barrier to entry remains sufficiently low, there’s no reason for a net degradation in competition.
Large companies tend to become less efficient. Yes, they have economies of scale, but they tend to scare away innovators, so they switch to lobbying to maintain their edge.
The correct approach IMO is to counter the lobbying efforts of large orgs, and that means stripping governments of a lot of their power. Regulations tend to result in more monopolies, requiring antitrust to fix, and as you noted, that’s extremely rare.
Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?
Yeah, that can work. I’m thinking of having your primary care orovider offer your “insurance” policy, and they’d be on the hook to fund any procedures you need. So they have an incentive to keep you healthy, and that agreement could be a legal obligation that the doctor is doing their best to keep you healthy.
I do think we should socialize emergency services though. If a paramedic determines you need an ambulance ride, that should be free.
I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer
I prefer privatized care with transparency in pricing across the board, shortened patent durations, and some government assistance for the poor. But failing that, socialized care is probably the next best. Anything in the middle just breeds corruption.
The main alternative is offering them a subsidy on a silver platter, but then you’re making everyone pay for that R&D
R&D for many companies is taking the research done by underpaid graduate and PhD students and using that to create some sort of product or buying out the startups those students created and building from that.
We already live in a system where the majority of costs are publicly subsidized (and that’s not mentioning the myriad of direct subsidies these companies receive, for an especially egregious example look at the amount Pfizer got paid to develop the Covid vaccine) and then the result is patented and privatized.
They usually get grants, and frequently the student will get hired to follow up on that research. A lot of the research ends up unusable to the company as well, at least on its own.
majority of costs are publicly subsidized
I think that’s a bit extreme, but I’ll give you that a lot of R&D is subsidized. The COVID example, however, is an outlier, since the funding was to accelerate ending the pandemic, which was critical for the economy as a whole.
the student will get hired to follow up on that research.
You’re right that that’s an aspect I forgot about, however If the patent system worked as you envision it then those students would own the parent which they would then lease to those companies. The actual situation is quite legally messy because it’s usually the universities which own the IP produced, (which is then leased out via partnerships, grants etc ) and when those individuals lease themselves with the promise of producing more valuable IP they have to take cautions to not infringe on their previous work.
I think that’s a bit extreme,
Not really, using Covid as an example this paper details the pre and post-epidemic funding sources that went into the discovery, testing and production of the COVID vaccine. Do you have any other examples you’d like to use to demonstrate how it’s “extreme”?
The COVID example, however, is an outlier
Yes and no, but it is well publicized and documented which is what I was trying to communicate with that specific one as an example.
it’s usually the universities which own the IP produced
Which is totally reasonable. The student applies for a graduate program to get a degree, not get rich off a patent. Theoretically, any patent royalties retained by the university would go toward funding university activities. I don’t know how much this happens in practice though.
That said, there should be limits here. If a patent makes over a certain amount, the rest should go to the student.
it is well publicized and documented
Right, because it’s an outlier.
If you go to the patent office and look at recent patents, I doubt a significant number are the result of government funding. Most patents are mundane and created as part of private work to prevent competitors from profiting from their work. My company holds a ton of patents, and I highly doubt the government has any involvement in funding them.
Did Nintendo get government funding for its patents? I doubt it.
The student applies for a graduate program to get a degree, not get rich
And what’s the big selling point behind why you would want to get a degree?
because it’s an outlier.
Pre-pandemic public funding wasn’t, which is why I linked a source that provided both so you could see how much of an outlier it was/wasn’t.
If you go to the patent office and look at recent patents, I doubt a significant number are the result of government funding.
They all will be to some extent. The hard part is quantifying the extent for each individual patent. I can guarantee that you’re company received/has received some sort of public funding and so yes the government does have involvement directly funding them, even if it isn’t as explicit as with public health funding. Indirect funding is the much harder one to suss out but is likely significantly more.
Did Nintendo get government funding for its patents?
Directly? Probably not, but the whole point of bringing up universities was to show one of the indirect paths. However I don’t speak Japanese in order to actually research but would be very curious to know what sort of subsidies/public assistance it receives, if there exists a thing similar to MEDIA/Creative Europe, etc.
And what’s the big selling point behind why you would want to get a degree?
To work on interesting problems, that’s why most people get advanced degrees, no? I highly doubt most people who get a Ph.D are in it for the money…
Indirect funding is the much harder one to suss out
It’s also rarely directly related to R&D. For example, the company I work for produces chemical products, and innovations in that formulation is critical to our competitive advantage, but not particularly interesting from a national perspective. Our innovations merely help our products stand out from competitors, but competitor products are pretty similar.
If we get subsidies (haven’t checked), it would be for producing these chemicals with less pollution, using locally produced ingredients, or to improve safety of transporting them.
If you try hard enough, yeah, you could probably find some form of government funding. But that doesn’t mean the patents were produced as a direct result of public funding.
If that’s people’s main motivator then why does copyright exist in the first place?
If we get subsidies
If you’re a large enough institution to have as many patents as you claim to then I guarantee you do. I would encourage you to dig into that as well as the why.
that doesn’t mean the patents were produced as a direct result of public funding.
How many transition steps are needed for a precursor chemical to no longer be a required precursor for a product? Is a byproduct that is sold not a product because it’s not the primary intended production output?
If that’s people’s main motivator then why does copyright exist in the first place?
Copyright exists to create a temporary monopoly so the creator can recoup their creation costs and some profit on top, since creating a work takes a lot more resources than duplicating it. Likewise for patents, though that’s more focused on sharing ideas.
large enough institution
We probably are. A quick search shows 100-200 patents, many of which have long since expired. Most of them are incredibly mundane, and I highly doubt a government would’ve been involved in funding it, and I don’t really know how to find out if they were.
How many transition steps are needed
That depends on a variety of things, but in general, very few? Like 2-3?
Let’s say my company gets funding to disseminate OSHA information to employees so they know their rights and what the company is obligated to provide. That has absolutely nothing to do w/ funding the actual production process at plants, even if those plants are subjected to OSHA safety requirements. In fact, it likely runs counter to increasing production because employees in a seminar by definition aren’t producing product at the plant.
So yeah, I would say government funding has to be pretty directly related to R&D to count as “funding” R&D. Maybe there’s an award for the first group to come up with something or a general subsidy to fund research in a given area.
Copyright exists to create a temporary monopoly so the creator can recoup their creation costs and some profit on top
Creation costs like the cost of an advanced degree? You’re repeating talking points like nobody’s heard them before and contradicting yourself every other comment.
How many transition steps are needed
That was a rhetorical question, let me try rephrasing that. If A+B+C=D and D+E=F is A a requirement to get F? Or is it no longer relevant because it’s 2 steps removed?
Let’s say my company gets funding to disseminate OSHA information to employees
I wish I got paid to avoid fines. I understand that is how your deeply corrupt system works but you really can’t understand the financial incentives there can you? Imagine that illegal parking is a huge problem so instead of parking tickets they pay everyone who owns a car to sit through a parking information seminar. Do you honestly think that isn’t going to factor into your decision on whether you should own/drive a car? Is it unreasonable to say that the state is paying you to drive?
Creation costs like the cost of an advanced degree?
No, copyright has little to do with advanced degrees. The creation costs are the time and resources needed to produce the book, movie, software project, or other work, which can be substantial.
There’s a better argument for patents, but still weak.
That was a rhetorical question
Right, and rhetorical questions by definition don’t have good answers. There needs to be a reasonable limit here, and what’s reasonable depends on what specifically we’re talking about.
For example, I benefitted a lot from my public education, but I can’t really quantify the impact to a a dollar amount, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to say my career success is due to public funding.
For me to accept that an innovation came from the public sector, I’d need to see a direct link between public funding and the innovation. Just saying a company got a tax incentive to put an office somewhere doesn’t mean all innovations from that office is government funded.
Is it unreasonable to say that the state is paying you to drive?
Yes, that’s unreasonable.
Driving is heavily subsidized by the state. For example, a lot of the funding for roads comes from income taxes instead of direct use taxes like registration and gas taxes. Even so, I don’t consider that to be paying me to drive, but it is an incentive to drive.
The government does pay me to have babies since I get a tax credit if I have kids. The difference is I have to do something proactive to get the benefit, whereas the roads will be funded whether I drive or not.
If a company gets a tax incentive to put an office somewhere, that doesn’t mean all inventions made there are publicly funded unless that’s specifically called out in the incentive deal.
Console exclusivity of games is a way to provide an incentive for purchasing your console.
Imagine you’re a business and you spent millions on the R&D, manufacturing pipelines, shipping logistics, marketing, etc for this cool new console but you’ve got nothing on it by default that people can’t get elsewhere. In this situation, the first console to launch in a given generation would win. If you profit off of the console (you should), any exclusive that converts a user is price of console + price of game gross revenue.
This helps explain why we’ve had exclusives, but the winds are changing. These game companies which make both games and consoles see the short-term profits from your aforementioned wasted opportunity as more valuable nowadays while largely ignoring the fact that a lack of exclusives will make their consoles less desirable.
IMO the PC is going to basically cannibalize the console market (everything goes there and goes on sale, emulation included) and PC hardware can be made to last for a very long time despite a higher initial investment. If Valve can get a Console-like experience that’s plug-and-play with a TV, then Sony and Microsoft are in a bit of a bind.
Honestly they should have never been yearly releases. Of course everyone is burnt out on them, and nothing innovate has happened in the rally codemaster games in years. I’m sad this is happening but it’s definitely mismanagement.
Yep, they should have just put the yearly changes on something like a season pass and timed the major release with the regulation changes to match the simulation engine development.
Management did exactly what they wanted to do. They released a product with no regard to anything except short term profits. What happens in a year is future thems problem.
Rockstar’s delay announcement may result in numerous other studios confirming 2025 releases for their own games. Earlier this year a Bloomberg report claimed that rival game publishers were waiting as long as possible to commit to their release dates for next Fall, because of GTA 6’s planned release.
Or they could, you know, make a game that rivals GTA VI. Come on Square Enix, make a Sleeping Dogs successor, I know you have it in you!
The developer that made Sleeping Dogs shut down, and Square Enix had so many misses that they sold off their western studios. You should keep an eye on MindsEye and Mafia: The Old Country though. I’ve been dying for a good crime story that isn’t Yakuza.
I would love it if they sold some of those IPs so another studio can run with them. We really don’t have a lot of Asian crime games, and those have a very different feel than western crime games.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations! I’ve wishlisted them and will check them out when they launch. The mafia series is great, and MindsEye could be awesome if it’s done well.
Even going back to the 90s video game magazines and their reviews were ragged on as marketing material for publishers but there was still some semblance of reverence over the years for the big magazines and websites (IGN and Gamespot. Maybe 1Up). After the Kane and Lynch Gamespot review fiasco, that to me was when gamer internet discourse over game journalism tanked to ever worsening hostility towards games reporters/journalist.
That Kane and Lynch review scandal tanked Gamespots reputation. That was probably also the era of making fun of the game awards guy as the Dorito/Mountain Dew Pope with that Spike TV video game award show
The ~2010’s, official game review scandal which all big videogame influencers like IGN, G4tv, Gamespot etc… (this was before instagram and tiktok) got bribed by corporations so the aftermath of that was splintergroups of indie review sites like GiantBomb. And so let’s plays got born. Still never trusting triple-A game marketing ever again
The ~2010’s, official game review scandal which all big videogame influencers like IGN, G4tv, Gamespot etc… (this was before instagram and tiktok) got bribed by corporations
Got any sources for that? Unless you think advertisement are bribes, this didn’t happen.
Jeff was fired because he didn’t want to change his low score for a Kane & Lynch game, after Gamespot was pressured by the publisher, who was running some huge ads on Gamespot. He also said that usually this doesn’t happen, because the review side and marketing on these big sites are completely separate, and the reviewers don’t hear of these complaints. In his case however, Gamespot had new execs, who got cold feet, and caved. They left shortly after.
I have never heard of anything else like this happening, except from angry fanboys, that think reviewers are on the take, when Zelda gets an 8.8.
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