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Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

birchtree.me

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Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#481
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kernel is solid, its all the userspace software where they are fumbling hard.

The kernel is okish. But compared to Linux it is surprisingly bad at a number of things. Handling lots of tiny files in huge directory trees is much slower on Windows than Linux for example. I dont know if that is due to NTFS vs ext4/btrfs/xfs, or if it is some broader issue in the NT kernel. Some other things have been baffling over the years (but I belive they are now at least somewhat solved). For example in Windo…

At least it has async I/O, unlike Linux.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone else stated earlier, the NT kernel is actually great. I find Windows 10 and 11 really good once you tweak it a bit and remove some cruft and tweak regedit/GPO settings. Both for modern software. Not to talk about backwards compatibility, Steam games from 2009 run just fine. Windows is also the standard for online games with anti-cheat. Also, for companies, Excel is a must. Yes, still is. The whole ecosyste…

The NT kernel was actually an IBM project, which got divorced from IBM because of contract stuff and Microsoft got to keep a copy. It grew out of VMS which was a heavyweight OS for DEC VAXen, which IBM acquired.

Well, somewhat.

It has been a while since I read a book on NT kernel - "Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft"

NT kernel was "supposed" to run OS/2 apps and Windows apps. But the NT kernel is of MS making, NOT IBM.

The connection to VAX/VMS is due to MS hiring Dave Cutler, who worked there before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't opened Office in years.

They haven't supported Office in years. You're only supposed to use the web app version now. And it's not called Office any more, it's called Copilot 365. Not joking.

They haven't added a feature I needed since 2003.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#484
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If steam shuts down and all your games are on a valve device. I only addressed that because it seemed it was being used as an example in the prior comment, as if that protects them more than an Xbox does.

Well, the device works fine if valve shuts down. It's a PC. The games are gone, sure.

>the games are gone, sure

That’s the entire thing this conversation revolves around…

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#485
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft stole my copy of Minecraft. I had bought Minecraft before Microsoft bought Mojang, and eventually I was forced to migrate my Minecraft license to a Microsoft account. After I had successfully created the account, logged in, and transferred the license, and ONLY after I had transferred the license, I was suddenly locked out of my account until I provided a phone number. I will never buy a Microsoft product a…

> Microsoft stole my copy of Minecraft. Microsoft stole two of my accounts. I bought Minecraft in the alpha days when all you needed was a username and password. At some point they mandated an email in the years I wasn't playing and later found out I could no longer sign in. I bought a new "copy" and lost it because I didn't migrate to a Microsoft account. I didn't migrate because I assumed it was just a scare tactic…

If you bought during Alpha you're entitled to play it for free forever including all future editions (currently Bedrock) and you could go to small claims court to get your account back, maybe.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Give us your phone number or we will hold your minecraft account ransom"

Remember when people were allowed to share phone numbers? Like it was actually the norm

Remember when we didn't live in a panopticon? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In twenty years it doesn’t matter if Rockstar delists GTA6. The DRM will be cracked. You will be able to play and you WILL have a better experience playing a cracked DRM free version than any official version. You can play an emulated Mario Kart Double Dash on a Steam Machine (or any PC) today and get a better experience than playing it on a Game Cube. Digital only games sounds bad at first but preservation of video…

This assumes the game isn't designed from the beginning to be entirely reliant on the operation of servers. For instance there never has been and never will be any form of offline function for Destiny 1 or 2, even if all the person wants to do is play the single player campaigns.

Destiny 1 partially ran on consoles, though. It was mostly p2p: https://gist.github.com/nessus42/55c1260d88e2028689de0c49381...

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#488
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean can't you see why 4 and 5 are irreconcilable? I really can't. The only argument I see is "we can't allow it because every customer is a potential thief". What will enabling resale cause? Piracy? Well piracy is happening regardless. People who want to illegally download games can do it today in one click. Instead the piracy excuse is being used to restrict legal resale so you have no option but to pay the pub…

Yeah but there is really no way to enforce a single resale other than extensive DRM measures, which is the whole thing we want to avoid. By allowing resale of digital copies outside of platforms all you get is essentially the complete repeal of intellectual property rights for digital media.

But, on the other hand, without IP, DRMs lose a lot of their power. Once the DRM is cracked, the protected data can be freely shared once more. The only usefulness for DRM in most industries would be preventing unauthorized copies in the first days.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#489
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem to have stopped any prosecutions for piracy in the past

It actually did. There weren't that many, they were just high profile news at the time. And most of them either lost or recovered minimal damages. There was no actual $250,000 payment for downloading an MP3. That's why the industry stopped doing it and now only targets distribution sites.

The RIAA/MPA still goes after individuals, but they target them with settlement offers to avoid going to court. 3k and an admission of guilt is a lot less than it would cost to get a lawyer and fight back in court so people do pay them, including completely innocent people since the companies who spam out DMCA notices don't care all that much about accuracy. They've also been going after ISPs and extracting money from them for no reason, but after losing the Cox case, that might not end up being worth it to them.

Re: Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes the game isn't designed from the beginning to be entirely reliant on the operation of servers. For instance there never has been and never will be any form of offline function for Destiny 1 or 2, even if all the person wants to do is play the single player campaigns.

Do we know any of the technical details of that? Is the SPC just instanced multiplayer with all game logic on the server, or is it just getting some encryption key?

First, SPC, at least in Destiny 2, required you to do Strikes. Second, you get item drops. Technically there is no SPC in either Destiny because it's an MMORPG. There are just plenty of things you can do all by yourself and things that you meant to do alone, and those things usually come with item farming, so you need server-side to make it fair.
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