Gradly™

I bet David Hayter is all pissed

Its not surprising that Sony’s share price has increased by 8.54 per cent in the hours following the reveal of Xbox One. To be honest, the reveal was disappointing, the device looked bulky, ugly and yes, its not backward-compatible and it blocks used games, unless you pay a fee to use the same game disk on another device.

And Microsoft again gave much focus on gimmicky voice and gesture capabilities despite the warning of many tech insiders and game designers for the company not to shift away from core games and focus on other entertainment features, besides, who the hell outside America would care about (or get benefited) from the DVR thing and TV show features or ESPN, NFL, or other damned sport things they kept pushing during the reveal?!

Here is a rundown of the things and issues that went off regarding Xbox One, via NeoGaf user nib95:

“Confirmed” Issues:

1. Forced online activation for all games
2. Massive emphasis on TV, services and non game related focus
3. Live TV services available in US only at launch, requires separate device
4. No headset included
5. Over emphasis on Kinect interface
6. Xbox One not being backwards compatible with the 360 games or accessories.
7. Microsoft’s failed attempts to correct PR with contradicting FAQ’s, vague responses, misinformation.

Hardware:

1. DDR3 confirmed instead of GDDR5
2. Potentially Only 5GB of the 8GB ram available for games
3. Only HDMI for output.
4. 3 OS’s? At best, confusing, at worst, a nightmare.
5. Kinect needed to be plugged in for Xbox One to function
6. Non-replaceable Hard Drive (though not as much an issue, as external drives are supported similar to other consoles)

Problems with the announcement itself:

1. EA games prerendered using in game assets
2. COD looked less than stellar
3. Quantum break reveal was confusing

Unconfirmed issues that still need clarification:

1. How much is this gonna cost?
2. Complex used games system that is anti consumer?
3. How the hell does game borrowing work?
4. Charged fee for playing used games on non linked profile?
5. Console that needs to be connected to internet every 24 hrs to play games? (Phil Harrison says one thing, ms backtracked a bit later)
6. Console quite large whilst still also using quite a large external power brick? (Conflicting reports)

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer:

Photos tell the stories — stories we’re inspired to relive, share with our friends, or capture simply to express ourselves. Collecting these moments is a part of our everyday. Since 2005, Flickr has become synonymous with inspiring imagery. Today, we’re thrilled to take Flickr even further with a beautiful, completely re-imagined experience that puts photos front and center. When it comes to photography, technology and its limits shouldn’t hinder the experience. So we’re also giving our Flickr users one terabyte of space — for free. That’s enough for a lifetime of photos — more than 500,000 original, full-resolution, pixel-perfect, brilliant photos. Flickr users will never have to worry about running out of space.

In my opinion the new layout sucks visually. The shift toward a cover page and grid of images seems a popular trend these days! But the shift is justifiable, they need a minimal responsive design that not only work on desktops but tablets of various sizes which increasingly gaining huge amount of attention; get rid of that fragmentation once and for all.

One point to highlight regarding the new business model Yahoo is carrying out with Flickr; shifting from fully Freemium model to Ad revenue centeric one. This is apparently a trend strongly present in recent games and apps that are FREE but offering ads and/or microtransaction options. I hate that, even if this was the only option for such companies to survive!

Kara Swisher for AllthingsD:

As part of the deal, Tumblr CEO David Karp — who got a windfall of cash from the deal — will stay at Yahoo for four years at least and retain much control over the service, much in the same way Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom does at Facebook. But, as there, Yahoo will undergird Tumblr’s nascent advertising business with its large and established infrastructure.

People are concerned as yahoo has a bad record of shutting down its acquisitions such as Del.icio.us, Geocities and Broadcast.com. However, if they treat Tumbler the way Facebook has treated Instagarm till now, I think things will work just fine.