Kilted_Ghost - Slashdot User

Microsoft Facing Class-Action Suit Over Xbox Live Points 107

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @04:45AM from the demo-suit-is-free dept.

An anonymous reader tips news that a lawyer in Pennsylvania has filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that the company's handling of Xbox Live transactions is, in some cases, fraudulent. "Samuel Lassoff, of Horsham, PA, said an invoice he received earlier this month from Microsoft included charges for purchases he couldn't complete due to a balky download system — and he claimed it wasn't an accident. Microsoft 'engaged in a scheme to unjustly enrich itself through their fraudulent handling' of his account, Lassoff charged in papers filed earlier this week in US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania. ... 'Microsoft breached that contract by collecting revenues for digital goods and services which were not provided,' Lassoff said in his lawsuit."

Genre Wars — the Downside of the RPG Takeover 248

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 20, 2010 @07:22AM from the you-gain-1912-experience dept.

Phaethon360 writes "From Bioshock and Modern Warfare 2 to even Team Fortress 2, RPG elements are creeping into game genres that we never imagined they would. This change for the most part has managed to subtly improve upon genres that needed new life, but there's a cost that hasn't been tallied by the majority of game developers. 'The simple act of removing mod tools, along with the much discussed dedicated server issue, has made [MW2] a bit of a joke among competitive players. Gone are the days of "promod," and the only option you have is to play it their way. If Infinity Ward are so insistent on improving the variety of our experiences, they don’t have to do it at the expense of the experience that many of us already love. It really is that simple. If they don’t want to provide a good "back to basics experience," they could at least continue to provide the tools that allow us to do that for ourselves.'"

Why the Sony PSP Had To "Go" 261

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @06:42AM from the it-was-getting-late-and-the-dog-had-been-inside-all-day dept.

We recently discussed the release of the PSP Go, which drew criticism for many design choices that were of dubious value to consumers. Now, Phaethon360 sends in a story about why Sony felt the need to improve upon the old PSP. "As a format, the UMD was holding the entire platform back. Few people (if anyone) bought into the UMD movie hype Sony attempted to thrust back in 2005. Very soon after that, people realized they could rip their DVDs to a memory stick with the same quality. It's ironic how, as the price of Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo dropped and size increased, PSP UMD sales decreased along with it. It doesn't take too many Howard Stringers to figure out what the problem was." Indeed, Sony was complaining of rampant PSP piracy for quite some time. They cited "legal and technical issues" for not supporting the transfer of UMD games onto the PSP Go; undoubtedly they couldn't find a way to keep pirated games from being copied.

Comment Re:What about "entire works" or entire "mini-works (Score 1) 179

by Kilted_Ghost on Friday March 23, 2007 @12:44AM (#18454711) Attached to: Congress Must Make Clear Copyright Laws

I didn't assume anything. I know that the whole thing breaks down into several groups of people:

1. Those who download or copy a song and then go buy the CD.
2. Those who buy the CD based on some other information or advertising.
3. Those who download the CD but would have bought it they couldn't find it for free.
4. Those who download the CD but would never have bought it.

Despite your assumption that people are largely honest and aquire their music legally (and I would tend to agree with you on that), there really isn't anyway to know for sure how many people fall into each group.

Your right that treating everyone as a thief is bad PR and bad business if that first group is large enough. However simply ignoring the third group in the hopes of some free advertising could be a bad business decision if that group is larger than the first group. Of course the **AA makes the mistake on lumping the fourth group in with the third when throwing out numbers about how much piracy costs them.

Ideally the music industry will begin to offer downloads of some songs for free (and even allow copies of those songs to be redistributed by other means) so that people can hear them and then sell the full album in a DRM free format. Unfortunately I would imagine that so long as people keep putting albums on P2P services and they keep lumping those last two groups together that isn't going to happen.

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