#also the dark/light side could be a system implemented like in mass effect or red dead redemption

[dreaming-of-hope]

They are parents now. They adopted that child even before bode was out of the picture.

I know many people are hoping they have a bio child in the next game, but I honestly think they just keep adopting children as they go.

So much of the spirit of the Jedi series is breaking free from the idea of bloodlines (against the main continuity of the movies) and I feel they should keep it that way.

The found family trope is strong with this one.

That said, I do fear the worse for Cal in the next game, his connection to the darkside could potentially make him the perfect grey jedi, but if he keeps getting worse those visions he saw on Fallen Order could become a reality or worse he could have an heroic death, if he stays in the light OR a redemption death, if he keeps using the darkside, to save his family and his legacy, in a way that mirrors his own masters sacrifices (but this is probably just me after being exposed to too many "doomed by the narrative" types of media).

Also... in a less dark thought, I just realized I subconsciously made Merrin and Cal match clothes! I love them so much <3

[killthebxy]

          for our beautiful planet Earth, everything changed in the year 2097 --- the year an unexpected and completely unpredictable cataclysm struck: a hypernova explosion [click], when a (at the date) unidentified massive star collapsed into itself. although far enough from Earth to, in theory, provoke no consequences, the monstrous black hole that resulted from this event resulted itself, in turn, in a gravitational pull so strong that it affected the magnetic field of our sun. in a catastrophic chain of events, including successive solar flares [click] and the Earth’s own magnetic field being also affected, all of this culminated in an impoverished atmosphere and consequent levels of radiation that would not support life in the planet for much longer. having no other solution, then, and making use of the best technology available, around 0.01% of the global population departed Earth never to return, in search of a new, Earth-like planet to colonize.

          the route was soon set towards the constellation Aquarius, and, more concretely, a red dwarf star named 2MASS J23062928-0502285 and more commonly known as TRAPPIST-1 [click]. in the early decades of 2000, the discovery of this star and the exoplanets that orbited it had made headlines around the world --- precisely, because some of them might harbor living conditions similar to those of Earth. after a journey that spanned a generation and lasted for 40 years at the speed of light, the remaining earthlings arrived at planet 2MASS J23062928-0502285 e, also known as TRAPPIST-1e [click] --- a planet similar to our fallen Earth in mass, radius, density, gravity, temperature, and stellar flux, as well as graced with a compact, hydrogen-free atmosphere and a solid, rocky surface. although tidally locked [click], and bearing temperatures much colder than what most of the human race was used to (ranging between  −48 °C/ −55 °F and −27.1 °C/ −16.7 °F), the portions of land by the planet’s equator proved hospitable enough --- and, thus, small settlements were established to eventually grow and spread from there.

          four more generations passed, and human life on TRAPPIST-1e became as normal as possible. the survivors of the original Earth, and of the space journey after it, ensured the passing of culture, habits, history, technology, and knowledge --- and the planet came to be known as Nova Earth, initially, and then as Theia. Theia [click] was a hypothesized ancient planet in the early Solar System, about the size of Mars, which might have collided with the early Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, leading then to the formation of the early Moon. to the now nova-terrestrials, or Theians, it seemed like a suitable tribute to their beloved home planet’s little sister. 

          for a few centuries, humans endured and rebuilt as much as they could of their former glory, attaining levels of progress and prosperity never before seen in their ancient home: the processes of nuclear fusion and fission were perfected and made safe to use, though now utilized for the sake of advancing technology and medicine rather than to promote wars; the force of gravity was truly understood and became controllable, able to be easily augmented or reduced according to the respective objective; string theory [click] was researched and developed to full maturity, which allowed for a much deeper understanding of quantization [click] and, in turn, of the dimensions of time-space. 

          eventually, and by means of artificial selection [click], the human genetic code itself began being modified and experimented with --- resulting in the birth of Theians who were stronger, faster, more intelligent, and who could live longer compared to the original Earth humans. a select few, inclusively, were chosen to undergo extreme bioengineering [click], accompanied by intensive training of the psychic capacities. these Super Theians, therefore, were not only merged with highly advanced and intricate macro (for example, prosthetic body parts) and nano (for example, chips implemented in their brains) technology, effectively becoming cyborgs rather than simple humans, but also developed their spiritual energy, known as Ki [click], to the full potential --- for example, becoming able to fly on their own by focusing this Ki, or to materialize it into a usable form of energy such as heat or electricity. given their superior capacities, the Super Theians were unanimously elected as the most suitable rulers for every budding country, and continued this era of prosperity and development.

          nevertheless, in the year 300 (year 2437, in the Earth calendar), yet another tragedy awaited, when the inhabitants of planet 2MASS J23062928-0502285 h, also known as TRAPPIST-1h [click], invaded Theia --- whom, for all its technological advance, had yet not been able to detect other life forms in the rest of the TRAPPIST-1 system, and now risked to pay for it with its very existence. coming from a world somewhat similar but constantly plunged in glacial temperatures, these primitive creatures where mostly made of ice and compensated their lack of scientific arsenal with mysterious magical powers that allowed them to rise the fallen humans and convert them to mindless allies. and, having no need for food or heat or comfort, they quickly conquered Theia’s dark side that was always facing away from its star. for their unknown nature and characteristics, these beings became commonly referred to as the Others or the White Walkers, and the places taken by them came to be known as The Lands of Always Winter.

          under this ruthless and unexpected threat, despite their superior technology and weapons, the Theian civilization quickly became fragmented, with struggles for power and eventual civil conflicts amongst them starting to appear frequently --- which, obviously, only tilted the odds against them even further. a couple decades of terrible war against the Others (and between rival human factions) ensued, decimating the population and transforming the habitable zone of the planet into mostly ruins and frozen wastelands. one resistance group, however, endured where most others were failing, due to their spirit of gregariousness and the extended leadership of several Super Theians: the Night’s Watch, so named for their objective to end this terrible period known as The Long Night, and to bring the dawn back to Theia. whilst fighting to defend the remaining human cities, the soldiers of the Night’s Watch also invested in research as much as they could and as much as the crumbling civilization still allowed them to. through work developed by an exceptionally wise and intelligent man, Aemon Targaryen, they were eventually able to clear the inconsistencies underlying topics such as negative energy [click], exotic matter [click], the Casimir effect [click], and causality [click] violation --- thus, devising the way to create a traversable Einstein-Rosen bridge [click], or wormhole, and, in turn, to travel back in time. 

          having come to the grim conclusion that little else could be done to stop the Others, the new goal for survival then became to fix past mistakes --- and either prevent/properly prepare for the invasion, or altogether find a solution to save the original Earth from oblivion. charged with this heavy and ultimate burden, the current commander of the Night’s Watch was chosen to navigate the spaceship also engineered by Dr. Aemon --- built with dark matter [click] and the recently discovered element katchin [click], and containing the most advanced computer systems ever known to Earth and Theia alike --- and, accordingly, named Hope. Hope crossed the wormhole, then, without any major incidents... and arrived at Earth, in the year 2019, for the very final attempt at hope for the human race.

some assorted details in this verse:

Jon is a Super Theian and, as such, gifted with superhuman speed/ strength/ reflexes/ intellect;

he has a small 998 number tattooed at the back of his neck, which is the indicator of his Super Theian number (every Super Theian has their own number, it’s a sort of identity mark);

during one of the most intense battles against the Others, he lost his right arm and had surgery to have a prosthetic implanted instead --- this artificial limb functions exactly like a real flesh one and has its own bioengineered nervous system, and can be attached and detached at the port by his right shoulder;

Hope is equipped with everything technology that you can imagine, and can produce virtually anything --- including a highly advanced 3d printer able to create something as massive as a house, for example, and to compress it into a portable capsule to be used whenever needed;

Jon’s weapon of choice is Longclaw, a long sword he usually wears strapped to his back --- the blade is made of dark matter just like Hope and therefore invisible to both the naked eye and any form of human-known radiation, becoming visible only when Jon activates it by focusing his Ki;

for decades now, Theians have been using pills and supplements as their main source of nourishment, and real food as we know it stopped existing entirely after the Others invaded and changed the planet’s climate --- therefore, don’t be surprised if Jon doesn’t know how to eat something as simple as a banana, for example, because he’s never actually seen one in his life;

due to the advanced medical knowledge and materials/techniques, as well as the genome of Super Theians, Jon’s cell regeneration is much quicker and more efficient than a normal human’s and, despite the many battles he’s fought, his body is entirely clean of scars or marks --- the exception being the patch of skin surrounding his port where the artificial arm connects;

besides the artificial arm, he also has a few different chips implanted in his brain since birth (as is the rule with most, if not all, Super Theians) that contribute to his enhanced senses and skills --- one, in particular, is linked to his right eye and allows for it to function like a computer, being able to, for example, produce X-ray vision or to analyze the elements any material or object is made of;

a Super Theian’s weakness comes laced with their cyborg nature, namely the possibility of interfering with the bioengineered circuits and connections pretty much like one would hack a computer system --- it is not easy to do, especially with how intricate and ingenious Theian technology is, but it is certainly possible and, in Jon’s particular case, the weakest spot would be his right eye chip, given that it is directly connected to the central nervous system and able to jam its entire functioning.

one final note:

          this is a very flexible verse, that can easily accommodate any sort of crossover --- given that Hope can literally take Jon to any place in space and/or time. i purposefully left most roles vague, save for Aemon Targaryen (and even so this can easily be adapted), exactly so that this background can be usable by any muses. for example, your muse can be one of the invaders, instead of the Others, or they can be a Theian or Super Theian and travel along with Jon, or they can be a human that Jon encounters when arriving at Earth, or they can live in yet another completely different planet that Hope lands on --- the possibilities are endless! so if you’d ever like to fit your muse in this verse, just let me know and i’m sure we’ll plot something amazing.

[drapeau-rouge]

CSIS & The Popular Struggle for Civil Liberties

How was the Canadian Security Intelligence Service created, and why?

There are two ways to tell this story.

The one we are most familiar with is from the side of the Canadian ruling class, and its state which created CSIS.

In this version, CSIS exists to protect all Canadians.

From exactly what we’re being protected is unclear. These days it seems its “lone wolf terrorists” or even the young men at the center of last year’s homicides in Ottawa and St‑Jean‑sur‑Richelieu.

Never mind that its a great stretch over real evidence to link these cases to actual terrorism.

There is also the story of CSIS from the perspective of the people’s forces.

This is also the history of struggle for protection — protection not by CSIS but protection from CSIS. The Communist Party of Canada figures large in this history of political police in Canada.

Ever since our formation in 1921, the Communist Party has faced continued harassment from police and security forces. The state crafted its modern outline of modern political policing this way.

Our party has always fought hard, united with other democratic forces, to over-come these attacks — and it’s been a victory for all people in Canada.

A Long Story

Despite the official rhetoric, mass suppression of civil rights and democratic freedoms has been a constant political factor from the origins of this country.

The military defeat of the Upper and Lower Canada rebellions; then the Métis resistance struggles which brought into life the North West Mounted Police, predecessor of the RCMP; the legal suppression of indigenous people’s resistance organizations; the War Measures Act; the mass interments of ethnic groups during the First and Second World Wars; relentless police attacks against the labour movement – all these illustrate the reality that from its very beginnings, the Canadian capitalist state has used the police, military, courts and spy agencies against its “enemies” and to contain oppressed national communities within the Canadian state.

The Communist Party was founded in conditions of illegality in 1921 as the War Measures Act was still in effect — several years after WWI ended.

A few years before, the Winnipeg General Strike had been suppressed brutally. Labour had few rights and strikes were regularly broken through force from the boss class.

Although the CPC won legality in 1924, it wasn’t long before another ban pushed our organization underground again.

Tim Buck, our Party’s long-time general secretary, and seven other Party leaders were arrested and imprisoned during the 1930s under the notorious Section 98 of the Criminal Code which outlawed so-called “subversive organizations.”

An attempt was even made to assassinate Buck in Kingston Penitentiary.

In a mass campaign, Buck was released and the party won back its status as an open contributor to Canadian political life.

But the new legal status was short lived.

Internment

When the CPC took the stance of initially opposing Canada’s participation in World War Two — correctly noting that the war began as a kind of phony posturing hoping that Hitler would invade the USSR — the Canadian government was the only Western power to respond by banning the CPC.

RCMP documents of the time show that the police view of the communists was that they were Canada’s biggest security risk — more serious than fascism because, the RCMP said, fascism was still a form of capitalism.

Police officers reading Clarté, Quebec’s French language Communist newspaper after raiding their offices.

Party offices and meeting halls were closed; printing presses and other assets were seized, and our press and publications banned.

In Quebec the earlier Padlock law was implemented with reactionary swagger and used against ethnic communities like left-wing Jewish organizations.

Then, most disturbingly, labour leaders and Communists were interned at Petawawa and Kananaskis, and later blocked from joining the Canadian Armed Forces during the military struggle against Hitler fascism.

The internment had been anticipated by the mass arrest of left-wing Ukranians during World War I, and the so-called relief camps during the Depression where police rounded-up unemployed young men and sent them to work camps. It foreshadowed the mass racist interment of thousands of Japanese-Canadian citizens later on during the war.

These were dark moments in Canadian history. The Japanese internees received an apology and compensation in 1988, the Ukrainians in 2008. The Communist internees have never received either.

But they did win widespread public support which forced their release.

The loudest voice against this attack on civil rights was Dorise Nielsen, the third woman ever elected to parliament in Canada and a communist MP elected on a unity slate.

From World War II to the Cold war

In the meantime, the inevitable happened and Nazi Germany did invade the USSR, changing the content of the war.

While the USSR became ally of Canada, it took more campaigning before the interned labour leaders were released.

The period of the victory over fascism almost seventy years ago was a high point in popular progressive sentiment.

The experience of the Great Depression had made many skeptical of the economic system.

The War years had shown socialism in a positive light, and the human potential of a more planned economy.

The idea that Canada could do just as well in a democratic framework, with worker control, was very popular.

Equally broadly supported was the idea of peace and friendship with the socialist world, and not a third world war.

The then pro-socialist CCF party, predecessor of the NDP, saw its popularity rise.

So did the communists.

During this time, the Communist Party elected to provincial legislatures in Manitoba and Ontario, as well as Federally.

It has been said by some that this toe-hold into parliament was so dangerous it had to be eliminated.

With a unscrupulous defector from the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, the RCMP and government concocted evidence of a spy plot implicating a number of leading scientists and Fred Rose — Canada’s first openly elected communist Member of Parliament.

Never mind that the “secrets” had already been published in scientific journals and that such exchange of information was common place between the allies during the war.

Again, scores of people were rounded up under the Defense of Canada Regulations of the War Measures Act, held incommunicado for weeks on end, without legal counsel and barred from all contact with the outside world. Meanwhile, the Royal Commission issued a stream of press releases about the “Red menace”. Prisoners were forcefully told to incriminate themselves and others under the penalty of contempt of court.

Public outcry resulted, including the Emergency Committee for Civil Rights (with prominent members like professor C.B. Macpherson, physicist Leopold Infeld, and Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson which asserted that the Commission endangered “the basic rights of Canadians.”

Nevertheless, the Royal Commission began another era when Party and its activists suffered state-organized persecution for decades during what became known as the “Cold War” period.

The Cold War

Monitoring by the RCMP of included labour, women’s organizations like the Consumer Housewives Association, students, immigrant groups, and any other subversives or radicals suspected of being reds. This had already been exposed in the 1920s and 30s and continued in earnest during the Cold War.

These state-sponsored attacks on our Party were part of a broader assault on the trade union movement, as well as on activists in the peace, native and other progressive movements and organizations.

1962: Vandalized Communist Party election office in Thunder Bay, Ontario These actions are not speculation. The wrongful and illegal activities of the RCMP were documented and exposed by the MacDonald Royal Commission in the early 1980s because of public outrage over the RCMP’s activities — like barn burning in Quebec.

One of the most chilling examples of this was revealed not long ago, when the corporate media uncovered the PROFUNC plans.

PROFUNC

These were secret plans — unknown by most of parliament — for the RCMP to round up radicals across the country in the event of a third world war.  The group was primarily made up of people deemed “prominent Communist functionaries” by an RCMP Security Service program known as Profunc.

But the list always included more than just reds.

Although this ‘internment plan’ specifically targeted Communists and their families, it represented a flagrant disregard for the civil and human rights of Canadians as a whole.

As new powers are ascribed to CSIS, these relatively recent revelations should concern all democratic-minded Canadians.

“National Security”

This specific plan to intern Communist leaders in the event of a third world war reflected the long-standing — but patently false — presumption that Canadian Communists were somehow ‘agents of a foreign power’ – ie, the Soviet Union – and therefore constituted a ‘threat to national security.’

Canadians have every reason to be angered and dismayed that successive Canadian governments had contemplated such draconian and illegal measures up until as recently as 1983.

Particularly horrendous was the intention to round up and intern the children of Party activists.

This shows that the deep-seated paranoia and hatred of Communists by the Canadian government knew no bounds.

The Communist Party has repeatedly called upon the Canadian Government to make public all documents relating to this sordid affair, including the actual lists of individuals whose civil and human rights were to be violated in the name of “national security.”

Furthermore, the CPC continues to demand that the Canadian government publicly renounce the decision of prior governments to consider such anti-democratic action, and officially apologize to the CPC and to the families of all those individual Communists who were targeted under this plan.

The civil and human rights of all Canadians are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Canadians must demand that these fundamental rights must be strictly respected and obeyed, especially by governments and their police and security services.

Targets

Communists were to be locked inside three federal prisons in Ontario and Alberta.

“The present number of persons who would be arrested as subversives in the event of a national emergency are 588 males and 174 females,” says a 1970 memo from the RCMP.

The documents, obtained under the Access to Information Act, show that the war internment plan was first drawn up in the late 1940s but was revived and expanded from 1969 to 1971.

The RCMP had 762 people on their to-be-interned list in 1970, including 13 children under the age of 11 and 23 between the ages of 12 and 16.

Most were from the Toronto area, though no names are included in the released material.

Those under 17 were the children of the target internees, and were referred to disparagingly by the Mounties as “red diaper babies”.

The plan was to round up these so-called subversives quickly and place them in temporary custody while three federal prisons were emptied of their inmates.

“Punishment diet number one”

A prison in Drumheller, Alta., was to be used for the west, and another in Warkworth, Ont., for the rest of the country. Women, however, were to be placed in the Joyceville, Ont., penitentiary, near Kingston.

“Mothers with babies at breast will be accommodated in the Joyceville Institution hospital area and… their children must in the first instance be placed with relatives or with Children’s Aid Societies,” says one 1969 document.

The existing prison population across the country would be thinned out by freeing non-violent inmates with less than a year left in their sentences. By shuffling the remaining prisoners, the three Alberta and Ontario prisons could be vacated within 10 days to become internment camps.

The Mounties had approval to lock up 762 people in 1970 but argued they would likely add more after cabinet invoked its extraordinary powers under the War Measures Act.

“There are approximately another 300, although not approved at present, they would no doubt be approved in time of war.”

Rules for the camps were detailed in an RCMP manual that outlined procedures for everything from mail censorship to punishment.

“Punishment Diet Number One shall consist of water as required and one pound of bread per day,” says an edition of the manual from the 1960s.

“Punishment Diet Number Two shall consist of water as required and, for each day, eight ounces of bread for breakfast… four ounces of oatmeal, eight ounces of potatoes and salt, for dinner and eight ounces of bread for supper.”

A separate arrest document was written up for each potential internee. These C-215 forms were updated regularly, including descriptions, photographs, vehicle data, and other information.

Even “escape routes” from the personal residences of those on the list were noted.

“Mobilization Day” (M-Day) was designated as the day to arrest and transport people on the PROFUNC list to temporary detainment centres across Canada, including Casa Loma in Toronto, a country club in Port Arthur, and Regina Exhibition Park.

From these centres, male detainees would then be transferred to penitentiaries across Canada, while women would be interned at facilities in the Niagara Peninsula or Kelowna. Their children would be sent to relatives or interned with their parents.

Internees who broke prison rules could be held indefinitely, or shot while attempting to escape.

More Than Just Reds

In 2010, the CBC’s Fifth Estate and Radio Canada’s Enquête programme exposed in chilling detail more information about these internment preparations.

They blacklist grew to include some 16,000 “suspected communists” and 50,000 “communist sympathizers” to be observed and potentially interned during a state of emergency such as war against the USSR. The identities were kept in sealed envelopes filed at Mountie detachments across the country.

Some people have expressed shock that prominent non-communists were included in the PROFUNC list, such as Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas, whose ‘crime’ was apparently his association with Communists in the fight to win universal Medicare in Canada.

The point, however, is that any attack on democracy and freedom inevitably expands to target all those who might speak out in opposition.

This was shown during the 1970 October Crisis, when PROFUNC was used to help detain hundreds of so-called Front de libération du Québec suspects, most of whom had no affiliation with the FLQ.

Almost all of these “suspects” were eventually released without charge, but the goal was to terrorize a wide range of progressive activists, just as the Cold War accusations aimed at undermining the militant labour and people’s movements of the 1940s and ‘50s.

The PROFUNC list remained in force during the 1970s; in fact, the Canadian Penitentiary Service received updated PROFUNC lists to make them aware of the number of potential internees.

It was not until the 1980s that Solicitor General Robert Kaplan introduced administrative changes to remove the barriers which Communists and others faced in trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

Around the same time the internment plan was abandoned at the order of the justice minister in 1983, the documents show.

The reasons are not specified, though it may have been linked to the creation in 1984 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which took over many RCMP Security Service functions.

These changes effectively ended PROFUNC by forcing the RCMP to scrap the list.

Creating CSIS

The wrongful and illegal activities of the RCMP were well documented by the MacDonald Royal Commission back in the early 1980s.

‘Dirty tricks’ included unlawful spying and wiretapping, theft of documents, destruction of property, the use of `agent-provocateurs,’ etc. The revelations about the RCMP’s scandalous role in subverting and attacking a wide range of democratic movements compelled the federal government to turn over authority for domestic espionage to the newly-created CSIS.

When this sinister and illegal spying on the CPC – a registered political party in Canada – was exposed, the RCMP arrogantly responded by demanding that their “property” be returned!

The findings of the MacDonald Commission forced the government to transfer security and intelligence operations from the RCMP to the newly-formed Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).

However, CSIS has continued to employ surveillance practices and other assorted ‘dirty tricks’ against the CPC and many other lawful organizations and individuals ever since.

But this move did not eliminate the menace to civil rights and democratic freedoms; it merely made CSIS the main perpetrator.

This threat remains very real today, especially given the consistent efforts by the federal government to crush, silence and jail opposition voices, and to create scapegoats to divert public anger from the impact of the capitalist crisis and anti-working class policies.

The so-called “war on terror” is used to justify wide-ranging surveillance and infiltrating of people’s opposition movements, to portray racialized communities as potential “enemies” which must be closely watched by CSIS, and to bar anti-war activists from entering Canada.

The vast expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars on “security” for the Winter Olympics and the G8/G20 Summits was not intended to block non-existent or wildly inflated “security threats,” but rather to intimidate Canadians from expressing public opposition against the policies of the federal and provincial governments.

The mass arrest of over 1,100 protesters during the G20 Summit in Toronto is powerful evidence that plans to suppress dissent remain very much alive at the highest levels of the Canadian state.

Recently we note many more recent attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights via the target of Bill C-51, not least on indigenous activists.

We reiterate our long-standing call for the abolition of the RCMP (which prepared the PROFUNC lists), and for the disbanding of CSIS, which conducts surveillance of present-day critics of government policies.

We urge the entire labour and democratic movement – the main target of the drive to criminalize dissent in Canada – to demand a complete and final end to the policy of drawing up plans for the mass crushing of opposition forces.

[theclarkystuff-blog]

That Xbox problem

With E3 2017 just around the corner and details starting to emerge about what to expect and with knowledge who will be there, I usually cast my mind upon what the big three, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will be showing casing. I expect Sony to have a good show, bringing a mix of AAA titles and indie projects on stage with no mention of the Vita and a small focus on new VR games coming to PSVR, a reminder of titles coming up like God of War and Spiderman and a few new reveals. Nintendo needs to have a big showcase if they expect to continue building off the good momentum they have been gaining since Switch launch, with previous big games like Arms and Splatoon 2 hopefully launched around E3 I would hope Nintendo reveals more about little known games like Xenoblade 2, Super Mario Odyssey and Fire Emblem Warriors which are still scheduled with a 2017 release date despite my feeling that they may not release this year. A look into what Retro has been working on for the past few years would be great and maybe a surprise announcement of a new game or 6. Microsoft I feel are in a familiar situation to one which they were in many years before although I feel conflicted about what path they have been going down and wonder at points about how this may effect the whole console business going forward. To understand my points about Microsoft I feel like we need to explore their past and how they have made a shift from being a so called Windows side project to a huge and popular brand. 

In 2000 when Sony was preparing the PS2 for launch and Sega was getting ready to drop out of the console business after the Dreamcast had failed to recover revenue lost after a line of hardware blunders such as the Saturn and add on’s like the 32X, which turned off it’s audience with expensive hardware and little mainstream support. Microsoft seeing a gap in the market decided to drop the gauntlet and start work on it’s Direct X Box, which would later be shortened to the Xbox, the brand we are familiar with today. Boasting impressive specs with a custom Intel Pentium 3 CPU, Nvidia NV2A video chip, 8GB HDD and 32MB of RAM, the Xbox would be the first console to come equipped with an hard drive which would be used for game saves, being able to rip your own music CD’s so you could listen to custom tracks with games that supported the feature and later to store DLC content, which we just in its infancy at the time, the closest method of expanding games at the time only being on PC using expansion packs for popular titles like Half Life, Quake and Command & Conquer. Microsoft would launch with big launch titles such as Halo : Combat Evolved, Amped, Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing, and Odd World: Munches Odyssey. They would also drum up other exclusive games with the likes of Sega bringing Shenmue 2, which hadn’t previously been released in the US on Dreamcast, alongside new games such as Crazy Taxi 3, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future, and Sega GT 2002. It was easy to see Microsoft had a war chest and it was happy to do what was necessary to make sure it’s debut console was going to be success, they would try brave moves such as shaving 100GBP from the launch price of the Xbox in the UK and compensating those who had bought it at full price with two free games and an extra control pad, the bundled controller with the console would change to a redesign aimed at the Japanese market making it much slimmer and easier to hold, buying studios like Rare Ware and Lionhead, as well as launching its paid online service, Xbox Live. Microsoft over time would gain more third party support resulting in new games such as Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Star Wars : Knights Of The Old Republic, Ninja Gaiden, Conker Live and Reloaded, Forza as well as ports of popular games like the Grand Theft Auto series, Metal Gear Solid 2, Madden and Fifa. A combination of Halo 2 and EA support MS was able to make Live a success hitting up 2 million paid subscribers by July 2005. The Xbox would also be home to an underground scene which would support features commonly seen as standard in modern consoles such as being able to install and play games from the built in HDD, replacing the original HDD with one of higher capacity, media players such as the ever impressive XBMC (which would later become Kodi), and access to a variety of emulators designed to play console classics from other consoles and arcades. Microsoft seemed to have made a success for themselves, being able to take over Nintendo’s GameCube in sales, they would have a mammoth task catching up to the impressive sales of the PS2 which had managed to shift 100 million units world wide by 2005 compared to the 16 million MS had managed to shift. It would be easier for them to set sights on  new ventures and be the first one to  enter the next generation, an idea that was only spurred on when their deal with Nvidia went sour due to a refusal to drop the price on their video chips, a move which would get Microsoft to begin work on its successor, the Xbox 360. 

Within a relatively short time Microsoft managed to release its new IBM powered Xenon CPU, ATI designed Xenos GPU chip, 512MB GDDR3 RAM, wireless controllers, upgradable HDD’s and having a launch line up consisting of new titles like  Project Gotham Racing 3, Ace Combat 6, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, Ridge Racer 6 and some definitive ports like Burnout Revenge. Microsoft would also expand it’s portfolio for game releases with the launch of its Xbox Live Marketplace, allowing people to buy much smaller and cheaper games online and play them from the HDD including the likes of Jet Pac Refulled, Shadow Complex, Geometry Wars and ports of retro classics such Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men and The Simpsons, Castlevania Symphony Of The Night, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Perfect Dark, many Sega’s own classics such as REZ HD. Microsoft would also work on a built in emulator to allow people to play games from its original Xbox, some which allowed graphics to be enhanced slightly with up-scaled resolutions although not all games worked, and not all games ran properly as intended. Microsoft had managed to build a powerful console with a growing library home to popular titles games like Epic’s new Gears Of War, Halo 3, Mass Effect, Forza 2, Fallout 3,Guitar Hero,  EA Sports titles, and Call Of Duty. Many gamers in light of the Wii being “too casual” and Sony being arrogant with it’s expensive PS3, the Xbox 360 seemed to be the banner they they would all run to as the system most often got all the games they wanted to play and most often definitive editions, which would either look better or at a better performance level compared to ports and versions available on other platforms.The 360 wasn’t without its faults and was infamous for its Red Ring of Death, a hardware fault with the original design due to a lack of good cooling on the GPU, the 360 would see many hardware revisions and eventually an extended warranty program to combat against this bad PR. I think it was around 2010 when Don Mattrick would lead the Xbox division and Microsoft would take a weird slant with it’s gaming audience, no longer did it look like was interested in working hard to stay ahead of the pack and instead focused its strategies in entertainment, pushing for a change of the familiar dashboard to one which would focus on avatars similar to the Mii characters Nintendo was using on it’s Wii system, we would see a rise in Xbox Music and Video, the implementation of Kinect, with its impressive concept at the time would fail to live up to most gamers dream, instead becoming what most often looked like a new Eye Toy, Microsoft with seemingly become safe with there lineups. With previous partner Bungie teaming up with Activision to give birth to there new Destiny IP, 343 games would continue to bring life to the Halo series and see Forza and Gears of War continued to be milked with MS giving to no marketing on smaller games it had while putting pressure on partners who previously it worked hard to build relationships with, such as trying to get Bizarre Creations to release Project Gotham Racing 4 by 4 weeks to rush it to market. The Xbox brand had started to feel like more of a brand that focused on being a jack of all trades rather than being a console with additional functions, they had managed to win over all kinds of gamers, many who had flocked from the PS2 install base but would soon find some of these fans move back to Sony’s line of hardware as they had worked on making there PS3 an attractive platform, with its free online service, its subscription based PSN+ service which gave its users access free access to a line up of games ranging from small indie darlings to massive AAA hits, to financing a range of interesting a new titles like Little Big Planet, Uncharted, Resistance and Infamous, it worked hard to reduce the pricing of its platform to make it competitive at the cost of hardware backwards compatibility with PS2 games, the Xbox was beginning to become bland and was interested in chasing a boring casual audience.

The division and tone deafness would be on full display for the masses in 2013 when the Xbox One would be unveiled to a divided fanbase, with a console that seemed more focused on being your new DVR box with sports subscriptions and talks of making a Halo cinematic entry with Steven Spielberg producing, a DRM system which required players to be online at all times, locking discs to your Live account, the bundling of Kinect 2.0 with the console which boosted the price and was treated as some intrusive spying device, Microsoft managed to scare off a fan base, alongside comments defending the always online approach “ We have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity; it’s called Xbox 360.” being delivered by Xbox CEO Mattricks, it seemed like the Xbox brand that worked hard to compete and deliver fresh original content had wanted to against the attitude that helped them succeed and limit the ability of its audience to be able to buy, rent or borrow second hand games rather than focus on more positive aspects of there policy such as the family sharing, which would be a praised and welcome addition to Steam when it would be rolled later. 

It seemed in trying to please all, Micrsosoft ended up in pleasing few, exclusives such as Ryse, Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3 and Forza 5 they didn’t seem big enough to entice players MS was now losing to the PS4, a console which had focused on what its audience wanted with third party support, a wide range of interesting 1st party exclusives, a cheaper console that boasted more power than Xbox One and with no DRM bullshit, Sony had worked hard for its successful console, while MS had become lazy and arrogant. Microsoft in an attempt to win over people again have made some drastic moves involving setting up their Games For Gold program, similar to PSN+ that would give subscribers of its service access to certain games while membership is active, removing paywalls like Xbox Live membership for apps like Netflix and Hulu, removing the Kinect from the console bundle in a move to make it cheaper despite screwing over developers who had made there games in mind for the Kinect like Fantasia by Harmonix or D4, game streaming with Windows 10 that would allow people to stream games from there Xbox One to there PC, Xbox 360 BC on the Xbox One despite many complaining it would be impossible, the Play Anywhere function they have allowing people to buy games with cross buy support for Xbox One and Windows 10, the Xbox Game Pass, opening its servers to Sony to allow for crossplay, the refund policy which allows people to claim full money back on a game they don’t like as long as they haven’t played longer than 2 hours and within 2 weeks of purchase.  

Despite the Xbox One managing to keep enough relevance in the current console market they managed to lose out a large portion of their 360 audience to PC gaming and PS4 owners so the steps they have taken can only breed goodwill for their next line of hardware, the Scorpio, which honestly feels like it is suffering from an identity crisis. With the list of specs boasting a new CPU and a much more powerful GPU, more RAM and support for 4K Bluray the console sounds like a wet dream in terms of power but at this point what consequence can this bring about? I am still unsure at this point if we are dealing with just an upgraded Xbox One or if this new box is designed to be the stealth successor to the Xbox One? Prices for Scorpio seem to range from estimates anywhere between 400USD to 700USD it makes me has be believing this is aimed at the “hardcore” who desire nothing more than buttery smooth performance on there games yet I’m thinking surely these kind of people are already playing these games on the PC on better hardware already? I only way I see PS4 owners jumping off there bandwagon is if the Scorpio offered some fantastic looking games you could get no where else and it has to be something besides Halo or Gears of War. As E3 comes hopefully we can get more details on what the Scorpio will finally  because I fear while games coming out will be designed around with maybe the Switch or Xbox One being the minimum developers can design their games around will the Scorpio only see enchanced versions of these games? Will games be designed more with PS4 Pro and Scorpio specs in mind which could leave behind owners of previous models with inferior or unplayable games similar to Hyrule Warrior Legends running sloppy on the O3DS while the N3DS was playable.

Despite years of promising to make more of an effort on the PC format, we are now seeing MS releasing its flagship titles on Windows 10 via its own store, with Gears of War Ultimate, GOW4 and Quantum Break being fully to Windows 10 users these efforts seem conflicting yet again as MS for most part refuses to bring its biggest games to the PC with the Halo : Master Chief Collection and Rare Replay staying exclusive to the Xbox One, other titles that do come can only be bought via the Windows Store and lack options to mod games, which could be used to fix errors left behind by the original devs or to flavor the game to more of your own personal tastes. Valve at this point offer the the biggest PC video games marketplace with its huge range of options, easy convenience and frequent updates and deals has become the format of choice for gamers to use so when you have MS doing good moves like bringing their software to PC community, it doesn’t do any favors when you expect these same people to drop their prefered system to bring in one of your own that doesn’t necessarily offer PC gamers any advantage. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate MS giving player access to these games but I don’t see why they could not offer their software on Steam and try to build up their own services in time to be able to compete, the same way GOG can offer DRM-free version of games on sale on Steam and EA will honor game keys from Steam on their Origin system. I don’t know why MS couldn’t advertise the Games Anywhere service better and make it clear that if you bought a game on the Windows Store it would give you access to the same game on Xbox One or Windows device. I feel all is in place for this to happen, just that the actions of higher ups in MS would go against the audience they are trying to pander to. My only other desire for MS would be to perhaps try and be braver with its lineup besides professional racing or shooting aliens. I see no reason MS couldn’t have had Fable compete with the likes of Breath of the Wild or Horizon, I see no reason MS couldn’t have had Rare make a plat-former classic with Banjo Kazooie after the kick-starter success of Yuka-Laylee or even try street racing again with PGR. I feel they have all the ingredients needed to unique and favored among the gaming world but when you have a box which only offers a handful of exclusives and misses out on the likes of Uncharted 4, Until Dawn, The Last Guardian, Yakuza, Crash N Sane Trilogy, Detroit, God Of War, Last Of Us Part 2, Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, Arms, Xenoblade 2, Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 or countless many others, it is hard to answer the question of why anybody would choose an Xbox One over any other console on the market. I would like to feel excited by MS again and hope Scorpio will be enough to start turning things around with them compared to anything they have tried with the Xbox One, but a lot is riding on if they have learned the right lessons from the Xbox One flop or if the only difference they saw between them and the PS4 was specs. Let’s have a happy E3 and hope to see you lot on the other end.