I agree that the publishers would revolt, which is why I'm questioning the source of the rumor since I'm highly skeptical about the concept.

If they did a three way split, it wouldn't need to be equal parts. I could see a method of the seller and the publisher equally sharing a large part and then MSFT getting a small percentage (e.g., 45% seller, 45% publisher, 10% MSFT). Although your point still stands about whether this would be seen as worth it for the seller. If it was truly equitable, the seller would get the lion's share and the publisher and MSFT both get a smaller percentage but I don't think the publishers would buy into that.

In the alternative that you propose, who would be funding this small refund? If it is too small then it just isn't worth it to the consumer to file for the return. If it is too large (for undefined quantities of too large and too small), then how does it benefit MSFT to bankroll it if they are not able to resell the returned license?

You mean upfront about the hidden rootkits they put on your PC to protect their IP while creating stability issues for your system? I've had to actively search forums and customer reviews to find out about such hidden DRM, it wasn't like the publisher put a big label on the box announcing what they were doing. At best, it might be in the fine print.

I would love to see a reference to this claim, because I think it is too good to be even close to true.

Basically this would not kill the secondhand market, instead it would streamline it. Yes this would probably kill (or at least maim) Gamestop, but that would be because this would eat their lunch.

Using the marketplace to sell used games, for a presumably lower price than new or then what is the point, would be great. Currently you have to either deal with a practically not worth it system via Gamestop (used games sold for $5 off the cost of a new game and the seller getting a pittance) or deal with a potentially shady character off of craigslist and deal with the hassle of setting up a meeting time and place (or wait for something in the mail from ebay, etc.) with no real recourse if the disc doesn't work.

This solution would have no downside. You can buy the game for less than the cost of new (or again whats the point) for a digitally identical product (no worrying about does it actually work) and do it instantly from your living room. For the seller, as long as they get a reasonable percentage of the sales price then they are already ahead of where they would be with Gamestop. It is possible that the seller would not get as much of a return as they would by selling via Craigslist or via eBay, but they would also have less overhead (no mailing, meeting, etc.). Plus I think more people would actually enter into the used game sales market (both buyers and sellers) if this system were in place because it reduces the transactional friction.

All of these things would be great for the consumers and for MSFT, but the one group that would see this as a travesty are the publishers. There is absolutely no way they would support a system that actually made second hand sales easier. For this reason alone I cannot believe there is any way that this rumor is true. Although I would never have been so happy to be proven wrong.

Give this man a prize, he hit the nail on the head. Momputing is where it is at.

After having to perform the drudgery of familial tech support for years, this thing makes my life a breeze. It is simple and straightforward for my mom to use. Currently it has a smaller attack vector cross section due to the smaller user base making it currently "safer" for mom to use with regards to malware. If it does get compromised or the OS gets corrupted, it is easy to reset to a clean state without having to do time consuming reconfiguration. If it actually breaks, her stuff is in the cloud so it is as simple as buying a new chromebook and having her login and she is good to go.

My mom has been using the $249 Samsung Chromebook with the solid state memory and mobile processor for about a month now and loves it. It has an added benefit of being light and (due to the mobile processor) requires no fan and doesn't get hot on her lap.

I could also see value in this as a living room/guest laptop, but have not tried that.

I couldn't agree with you more. Obviously nothing screams mature/adult themes more than a bunch of magical or unnaturally powerful characters dressing-up in costumes and playing cops and robbers. Oh wait...

I agree with you regarding the "movies" that were really just 4 episodes with a loosely coordinated plot-line. That seemed to be more about making the economics of reviving the show work (i.e., direct to video sales plus delayed airings on CC). However, I thought they really fell flat on their face and were not engaging. It was obvious that the writers just couldn't make a 2 hour plot line broken up into 4 parts work.

However, I thought the follow-up season on CC was actually pretty decent. I would not argue that they were the best the series had to offer, but they seemed like worthwhile inclusions, imho.

- Said no parent anywhere, ever.

My understanding is that he was a creative director at Microsoft. Is that honestly that high of a position there? At other large companies, such titles are very common and often imply only moderate leadership (e.g., second tier management) or a relatively senior individual contributor. How many of us would have known his name if not for this debacle?

My point is that it very well may have been an expectation that any twitter followers of his were friends or acquaintances who would be reasonably familiar with his sense of humor and/or debate styles. It seems clear by the tone that he was at best playing a devil's advocate and at worst trolling a friend. Now it is hugely stupid for him to simply assume that no strangers would follow him on twitter and he should have made his twitter account private from the start if he was going to say such things. However, it isn't a reasonable response to "resign" ( * cough * fire * cough *) someone over this.

I'm not saying that Microsoft doesn't have the legal right to terminate his employment for this, just that it is disproportionate to the actual action taken. Remember, he came off as an arrogant person with an opinion on a technical aspect of a game console design. I'm sure no one on Slashdot could be accused of the same heinous crime. It isn't like he said something racist, misogynistic, threatening, or even particularly offensive. Heck he didn't even officially confirm that there was a new Xbox or that it actually had this particular feature. He just argued (poorly) that it wasn't a big deal.

You were on the right track with the voice module aspect, but went off the track with the white papers and corporate BS. "Enterprise class" means a 3D printer that is used in a ship like the USS Enterprise. This means that Gartner is predicting that we will have sub $2000 replicators. You are correct that a voice module is required for this technology, specifically one that uses Majel Barret's voice.

I know, I know ... you are saying to yourself, but the Enterprise is a Galaxy class starship. Shouldn't this be a "Galaxy class" 3D printer? I would agree with you, but again this is Gartner, you can't expect them to get it completely right.

Similar to the claim the parent made, my understanding is also that the Xbox was pulled so quickly and replaced by the 360 because of the infeasibility of doing a die shrink to make a higher margin (or more accurately some margin rather than significant loss) design with the original Xbox.

My understanding is that Microsoft did not procure the rights to the implementations of the CPU nor the graphics chip used in the original Xbox. This was presumably because the Xbox was rushed and/or MS was not familiar with the standard terms used in the console game. This is not all that surprising on the CPU side since it was an Intel Pentium 3 based processor and I'd be surprised if Intel would have given MS any significant IP rights. The problem is that when it came time to try to make a cheaper version of the Xbox, MS had no leverage or ability to port the IP to a smaller process geometry or create a single chip implementation without costly relicensing of the designs. Supposedly MS was so pissed about that (especially with respect to Nvidia) that they switched to AMD for the GPU of the 360 and supposedly are continuing that trend with the 720 (aka Durango, aka Infinity).

AMD is appearing to circle the drain (e.g., the recent short term stop gap measure of selling their offices to another party so that they can lease them back and pocket a quick buck at the cost of increased long term expense). I am very curious what all of the consoles are going to do if AMD ceases to be. Maybe AMD will continue to be viable as a much smaller company that primarily makes chips for consoles.