The Next XBox Revealed on 21 May

Polygon's Brian Crecente reports on press invites going out for the new XBox. I can't wait to hear how many slides worth of "social" and "revolutionizing TV" they have to share in the same way Sony and Microsoft have. I know their XBox Smart Glass app has revolutionized my folder of iPad apps I don't use.

I am actually interested to see how forceful a play they make in the exclusive video content game. They have the bankroll to buy up some things. If they're smart, they'll get their own Netflix/Hulu/Amazon-style "channel app" on other hardware platforms. History has not shown them to be that smart.

Nintendo: Two Consecutive Annual Losses

This is very bad news for Nintendo indeed. They really need some sort of killer success to counteract the impending new PlayStation and XBox consoles.

One of the more notable figures is their under-selling at the rate of a half million consoles relative to a conservative estimate that was originally 1.5 million higher.

Those awful commercials are not the right direction to take.

"Xbox Next" Always-On is Bad, That MS Doesn't Care is Worse (For Them)

Polygon's Samit Sarkar writes a really solid piece connecting the rumors and speculation about Microsoft's "Next Xbox" to recent comments by one of their Creative Directors on Twitter:

"Sorry, I don't get the drama around having an 'always on' console," said Adam Orth, a creative director at Microsoft Studios, amid a new report that Microsoft's next-generation console will require an internet connection to play games. "Every device now is 'always on.' That's the world we live in." Orth ended the tweet with a #dealwithit hashtag.

Last June, The Verge reported rumors that the new Xbox would be "always-on", if effect requiring an internet connection to play any game. This applies to games that don't have network features or have ones you may choose not to use.

This is the same kind of DRM that has wreaked havoc with the launches of Diablo III and SimCity. The rumblings and leaks indicate we'll see games including some sort of registration code that breaks the concept of (heaven forbid) loaning or borrowing physical copies of games.

"I want every device to be 'always on,'" Orth tweeted later. In response to someone who said he knows Xbox 360 owners who don't have internet access, Orth said, "Those people should definitely get with the times and get the internet. It's awesome."

He has since made his Twitter account private, but screenshots of the tweets are available on NeoGAF in a thread that now runs for more than 100 pages, and in a post that was at the top of Reddit for some time yesterday. Orth's comments have already reached meme status, including a lengthy, profane Dark Knight Rises-based GIF that draws the battle lines in the next-generation console war.

If there's any one thing most threatening the vice grip of traditional console gaming, it's the "brogrammer", frat house atmosphere that permeates the voices of many of the most visible names in gaming. Sarkar's piece goes on to include quotes of support from within the "cool kids" circle. The worst thing you can do when your audience revolts is to effectively tell them "Tough shit! Get with the program, you stupid dorks!".

This is what happens when those at the top of an industry mistake influence and power for being able to control their customer base.

First Takes on OUYA

The Verge's David Pierce rips it apart (in one case literally):

For $99, everyone who backed Ouya's Kickstarter has unwittingly signed up to beta-test a game console. Alpha-test, even: this is a product with some good ideas and a potentially promising future, but it's a million miles away from something worth spending your money on. Even if the concept is right, the Ouya misses the mark. The controller needs work, the interface is a mess, and have I mentioned there's really nothing to do with the thing? I'm not even sure the concept is right, either: there are plenty of fun Android games, but currently few that work well with a controller and even fewer that look good on your television.

The PA Report's Ben Kuchera offers what I consider a more considered assessment, angles as a response to the Verge piece:

I have an OUYA dev kit at home, and I’ve been playing with it for the past few days. The whole thing kind of sucks right now, but that’s okay.

This soft launch is very much a beta test, and my conversations with OUYA CEO Julie Uhrman were peppered with things that were going to be added later, or that will improve, or that the team is looking at. Right now the interface is laggy, and there aren’t that many games to play. Not all the features are there, and many that do exist work in their most basic forms.

Keep the system away from your kids, because buying content is incredibly easy. The system works well, but it’s far from finished; the firmware and the feature set, not to mention game and app selection, will hopefully improve quickly once thousands of fans, developers, and enthusiasts begin to descend upon the hardware and the ODK. What the OUYA team does is important, but their job has always been merely to deliver the skeleton of the system. I want to see what developers and modders begin to do once the hardware is out in the wild.

The point about buying content being way too easy is shared by both writers, and if I were OUYA, that'd be the first thing I would fix. I urge you to read both articles. I'm eager to see Polygon weigh in too.

The OUYA plus the "Steam Box"-like PC/micro-consoles that X3i are manufacturing make for a more disruptive new category than I think Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are expecting.