g.man wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

hylian_elf wrote:

g.man wrote:

I'm calling it now. Microsoft will still "lose" E3 2019.  g.man

Can’t get any worse than not having any games on the Bone, so I think they can only improve!

The irony appears to be that Sony are skipping it as they have no upcoming games to show.

I think they're just trolling the opposition with that line...

Except it’s not their line. Not in regards to E3 anyway.

Jaco wrote:

I don't want to stream everything. If I'm paying for something, I want to OWN the damn thing – even if it's just a digital file. I certainly don't want my access to it subject to the whims of corporate suits. Damn this modernity!

Im with you

Vela wrote:

Jaco wrote:

I don't want to stream everything. If I'm paying for something, I want to OWN the damn thing – even if it's just a digital file. I certainly don't want my access to it subject to the whims of corporate suits. Damn this modernity!

Im with you

You guys do realise you don't own any of those digital games, right?

AJ wrote:

Vela wrote:

Jaco wrote:

I don't want to stream everything. If I'm paying for something, I want to OWN the damn thing – even if it's just a digital file. I certainly don't want my access to it subject to the whims of corporate suits. Damn this modernity!

Im with you

You guys do realise you don't own any of those digital games, right?

You don’t own the physical ones either.

poprock wrote:

I’m happy enough with digital media, but I want it to carry on working without a net connection. The net connection is just a potential point of failure and one that isn’t reliable enough for my liking yet.

This.

And yes, Jon, I realise that technically we don't "own" digital files or physical ones. But this modern fixation on streaming (and therefore yet ANOTHER monthly payment going out) is getting out of hand. Everything is on subscription these days.

Yossarian wrote:

AJ wrote:

Technically, yes, but they still work after the company that made the console decides it's not running the servers any more.

So do the digital ones.

Not unless they change (or have and I didn't hear about it) how the systems work; they need to check in every 30 days or they won't run.

I don't know if music files are different to games/movies, but I haven't hooked my iPod up to my computer in MONTHS and all the iTunes purchases still work fine...

Jaco wrote:

I don't know if music files are different to games/movies, but I haven't hooked my iPod up to my computer in MONTHS and all the iTunes purchases still work fine...

They are different, yes.

AJ wrote:

FTR, on the whole, I prefer subscriptions over owning media. Because new stuff is good and fuck cluttering your house up with things.

Subscriptions for film and TV suit me fine as I rarely rewatch stuff so am not hugely bothered about availability. Games and music I want the digital files for as I am more likely to return to them later down the line.

AJ wrote:

FTR, on the whole, I prefer subscriptions over owning media. Because new stuff is good and fuck cluttering your house up with things.

I'm selective, I don't have clutter. But things I really love (for example, Blade Runner), I want a physical copy of so that I'm in complete control of when and how I watch it. And I don't want to be tracked and monitored and have my entertainment data sold to the highest bidder, thanks very much.

There's also the issue of cost. Let's say everything goes to the subscription model (which it likely will). And no one provider can provide access to everything (which will likely be the case). That means to enjoy the same free access to media/entertainment that physical media provided (i.e., go into a shop and buy whatever you like), I'd have to subscribe to Sky, TV licence, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Disney+, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, Apple, Spotify etc. And that's assuming the big players have all the cool indie stuff i like. So that's a minimum of 11 monthly subscriptions. So you're looking at north of £150 p/month (at the very least – potentially more depending on what level of service you want and what Sky package you want). There's no way I've consistently spent anywhere close to £1,500 a year on physical media, yet it always gave me access to what I really wanted. Now I have to pony up to even have the potential to access some media.

And streaming kills the secondhand market dead – eliminating another way that the poor and the young are able to access interesting media, indie titles, rare stuff, etc.

So by everything going subscription based, you're massively limiting choice for most people and effectively making entertainment the preserve of the comfortably well-off. Some progress, that.

AJ wrote:

Just move your current connection.

Doesn’t work like that, it’s never so simple. You can only move your current connection if the same company offer service to both properties. In my experience that’s bloody unlikely.

For example, I’m on Virgin and theirs is the only cable coming into my house. There’s no BT fibre in my street, and there isn’t even a BT phone line into my building. Literally across the road, other side of the same street, there is no Virgin fibre but there is a BT phone line. Around the corner, on the next street, there is BT fibre and phone lines but nothing from Virgin.

Broadband provision in the UK is a total clusterfuck.

Okay, maybe I've just been lucky then.

Have you tried asking ISPs if they'd give you a contract for a couple of months, Pop?

Have we discussed Sony not going to 2019 E3?

Cool. What did we decide? Bad news for E3?

I decided bad news for E3 season on here, otherwise Partridgeshrug.