Hasta La Gadget!

Some of you guys might remember the ill-fated television show, Heroes, which I personally felt ended a bit too early. However for those who are still hoping that someone out there could bring the show back, here’s a rumor you most definitely will be interested in. According to TVLine, they are reporting that Microsoft is apparently in talks to bring the television show back. However there is a catch in the sense that the show is expected to be part of an original Xbox programming lineup.

For those who are hoping to see the old characters reappear, that might not be the case as apparently this Heroes show will be sort of a reboot and will feature new characters and stories, although TVLine did report that old characters could make cameo appearances. With Microsoft announcing Xbox Entertainment Studios earlier this year as a new division set up to create original programming and content, we wouldn’t be surprised if the show were to be rebooted under the Xbox Entertainment Studios flag. What do you guys think?

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The recent drama over the next Xbox potentially including an always-on mode that would require its users to be connected to the Internet escalated recently when Microsoft’s creative director Adam Orth commented on the debate through Twitter, which resulted in the company apologizing for his comments and possibly sparking his early dismissal. But all of that drama may have been for nothing according to a new rumor which puts the always-on rumor to rest.

According to an anonymous source, it seems an always-on Xbox was never being planned. “You are not required to be connected to the internet in order to play Durango games and [Microsoft] were NEVER considering doing such a thing,” the source claims. “Now please, just read that last sentence over and over again until it sinks in. Done? Good.” (more…)

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We think it’s safe to say Minecraft has been a complete success on the Xbox 360 as the last time we heard of its sales, it reached 5 million copies sold. Hearing a retail version of the game was being planned was no complete surprise to us considering how well the game has done in its digital format. The retail version of Minecraft is still coming, just not at the end of April as it was originally announced.

The retail version of Minecraft for the Xbox 360 has been hit with a delay in the U.S. and is expected to be released on June 4. The news comes directly from Microsoft’s Larry Hyrb, who is better known as Major Nelson, in a recently published tweet saying the reason for the delay is “in order to include the very latest content.” (more…)

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In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.

There comes a time in every modern geek’s life when they seriously consider moving to Kansas City, simply to gain access to the wonder that is Google Fiber. This week, would-be bandwidth pilgrims gained another potential destination: Austin, Texas. Yes, the increasingly trendy SXSW locale has officially signed on with Google to start rolling out the connectivity in 2014. Sadly, we’re told to not expect much in the way of access until the summer of next year, which seems like ages, but that should give you plenty of time to save up for a down payment. Austin housing rates are soaring of late.

Not wanting to be left out of the party, AT&T promptly announced its own initiative to bring high-speed fiber connectivity to Austin just hours after Google. Ma Bell is promising 1 Gbps speeds and the same sort of accessibility and contracts as Google’s service, thus creating a very interesting battleground for high-speed connectivity. It’s the sort of fiber-optic gluttony that we’d all like to indulge in some day, and if Google can keep pushing AT&T like this, perhaps some day we actually will.

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After a very public defense of rumors about the next Xbox’s always-on Internet requirements, a new report claims that Microsoft creative director Adam Orth is no longer with the company. In a series of Twitter posts, Orth defended the move by countering that “every device” is now constantly connected, and then delivered a low-blow when someone responded suggesting always-on connectivity might not work great for customers in rural locations, responding snidely, “Why on earth would i live there?”.

According to Game Informer, which confirmed reports from unnamed sources via a call direct to Microsoft that Orth was no longer employed there (we also contacted Microsoft for official confirmation, but a spokesperson simply said ““We are not commenting further on this issue”), it’s likely that incident led to his resignation or removal. And based on Microsoft’s public apology, it likely is the case that this wasn’t the venue. But the real problem here might be that defending a decision to embrace an always-on Internet connection requirement is bound to devolve into personal arguments, since logical ones that don’t involve owning up to a simple “we want to lock down our product and better control piracy” aren’t readily available.

The original report of how the next Xbox would work included a requirement that a user be connected to the Internet to even begin playing games or apps on the console, along with a 3-minute time out for a connection loss before said games or apps are suspended pending the resolution of the network connection issue. For users who have been burned by the always-on requirements of recent PC gaming titles like Diablo III and SimCity, this rumor (which Microsoft neither confirms nor denies, despite its apology) probably sounds like a total nightmare scenario.

It’s not making things better that a report surfaced this week from the Verge which claims that the next Xbox will interact with your cable box, hence the need for an always-on connection. The timing of that report smacks of Microsoft trying to do some subtle damage control based on these recent leaks, without giving away anything official ahead of its own planned Xbox events, the first of which is reportedly taking place late in May.

Of course, even that doesn’t justify an always-on connection requirement, not for isolated functions like single-player gaming which should have no problem running without an active connection, even if a player has to give up some features like achievements and leaderboard ranking to make that work (you know, exactly the way it works now).

The problem with trying to come up with a coherent argument for why a device or game needs an always-on connection without saying those three dreaded letters (D-R-M) is that it’s impossible to do convincingly. Companies like Microsoft and EA, which have very savvy PR professionals on staff, know that trying to do so without a proper feint like a connected TV service is fruitless. Aside from strongly suggesting that the leaked info was correct, taking to Twitter also meant venturing away from the party line that always-on is value add, not consumer punishment, and that’s not something any company mulling this kind of sensitive and major change to the way it delivers services can afford.