theprof00 said:
I'm very surprised that you wouldn't find anything wrong with this. I expect good dialogue from you and logical arguments, but this is far from one of them. There is a very distinct difference between releasing code as part of a product's extended capability, and pretending that you're a large group of end-users who are very interested in the product. This would be like if any of the big companies released piracy hacks for their own system and then bricked all the hacked ones after a couple months. This would be like if any of the companies sold their own products to themselves (ie: say everyone gets a ps3 if you work for Sony, except that they don't give you one, they just pay you back when you buy one from a store) I would be appalled if I found out Sony did stuff like this. And, well, I am. Sony did this with the PSP. They did a viral campaign where they hired graffiti artists to graffiti the side of buildings, signs, etc to make it look like PSP was the underground cool hip peripheral that cool people have. I was really upset by that. It's the main reason why I do not own a psp despite having valkyrie profile (which is one of my top 5 of all time). So yeah. I think there is a problem when you present your product in such a way that you make it look like its a trend buy having your own employees go around pretending to be end-users. Forums online have major issues with any of the company's employees being members and either a) trolling other consoles or b) misrepresenting themselves. People have been called out on it before. I remember a specific one on neogaf where someone who was trolling the ps3 was outed by a mod as a microsoft employee. |
Bolded line completely annihilated your argument. Microsoft employees manipulating Kinect in their spare time on the PC is not prohibited by Microsoft, nor does it have anything to do with the loss of revenue as it has not led to any illegal activity such as pirating commercial titles.
While I don't know near anything about the technical side of Kinect or coding beyond very basic terms, I used to live and breath the homebrew PSP scene for years. I'm well aware of what is legal and illegal in terms of creating applications using a company's product; this isn't illegal. Microsoft also stated that they made Kinect very easy to manipulate and create drivers for on a PC so people could use use it on Windows 7, and have specifically stated that they have not changed the code of the device. Now, if these "Microsoft" hackers were creating ways to play Kinect games without paying for them, thats illegal. I may have missed it if they have; need link if true. Will validate your argument, and invalidate mine.
Now if Microsoft paid it's employees to make apps for Kinect under an online psuedonym, thats a different argument, and also one that isn't illegal or negative in nearly any stretch of the imagination. If Microsoft wants to show the capabilities of it's new device on a person-to-person level, doing this would be a good way to do so. It would also be a help to indie devs looking to utilise Kinect on 360.
Alternatively, if you are talking entirely about the piracy scene on 360 and have come to the conclusion that the people who created custom firmwares or Jtags are working for Microsoft, I'll get my tin foil hat immediately. Also, this is thread about Kinect hacking, not 360 modding, so that would be off-topic.
I type all this under the presumption that there really are Microsoft employees hacking Kinect.
Been a while since I typed this much on a forum. Now if only I could get it in green text . . .
GOTY Contestants this year: Dead Space 2, Dark Souls, Tales of Graces f. Everything else can suck it.
