akadajet posted:

Microsoft sucks. Here is a thread that you can actually post in.

orange sky posted:

Microsoft marketing team attacking the forums

Cybernetic Vermin posted:

perhaps the in practice most relevant aspect of the matter, though, is that all of the mobile web will continue down the path of being very webkit-specific, and apps getting built against webkit webviews and electron and so on will continue to be the normal (rather than trying to generalize across a broader web). depending on ones view that may not be entirely bad, but, eh, i doubt it will turn out well in the long run

infernal machines posted:

tl;dr: yeah, like everyone else has said, being three years late to market with half-baked features and rebooting the platform twice didn't help. but the bigger issue was their licensing model for oems. they couldn't compete with google

flakeloaf posted:

count chuckula

e: wait no, cinnamon tossed crunch

Shaggar posted:

it was a cool idea but nobody wanted their apps to integrate w/ it cause that would mean lower BRAND ENGAGEMENT

univbee posted:

This is also true, there's a lot of weird decisions and superfluous hardware that exists solely for the console to still do stuff when it's in rest mode (which is really nice, actually, would be nice if your PC was in sleep mode it'd pull updates for Windows/games/other software).

COACHS SPORT BAR posted:

I wouldn't mind if they would fix some of the glaring poo poo that's been plaguing the OS since launch, like the control panel / settings disparity, the 90 different kinds of context menus, and the dumb crap everyone wants to disable but can't

those would be changes I could get behind

Just-In-Timeberlake posted:

you can stop investigating, don't loving do it. full. stop.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

The Surface Book 2 is aimed at graphic pros, but with a stout NVIDIA 1060 GPU, it's a tempting gaming machine, too. As we observed during our review, gaming drains the battery pretty fast, though. Worse, The Verge noticed that the power supply can't actually charge the battery fast enough to prevent it from draining in some cases.

PleasureKevin posted:

pretty sure we will hear microsoft change their tone to "expanding" and "broadening" their gaming which will ultimately mean going third-party or something

pram posted:

xbox one x costs $500 lmao

cinci zoo sniper posted:

xbonx is the flop, makes u think

RISCy Business posted:

why do they call it the xbox 360

Dodoman posted:

They cancelled it iirc. I think platinum was working on it? It was either them or the scalebound guys

quote:

Around early 2014, Microsoft had been evaluating its older software properties and determining which ones could be brought inexpensively to the new console. Darkside Game Studios, a small studio that had assisted in a number of large titles including the then-recent Sunset Overdrive but now looking to develop a title on its own, started discussions with Microsoft about taking the lead on one of these titles, which including Phantom Dust, Perfect Dark, and Battletoads. Darkside had been interested in the Battletoads but were told this was off the table, so instead started discussions about bringing a reboot of Phantom Dust to the new console.[9]

The two companies agreed in Q2 2014 for a $5 million budget to create a multiplayer-only version of Phantom Dust that would fit well into the growing eSports community, working under the codename "Babel" and targeting an August 2015 release.[9] Shortly after starting development, Microsoft asked Darkside to include a single-player campaign alongside the multiplayer element, but did not grant any additional funds or time. Darkside, not wanting to lose their opportunity with this title, decided to start creation on a vertical slice of a single-player campaign as to help convince Microsoft to provide the additional funds and time.[9] The Darkside opted to go with an art style that balanced realism vs cartoonish approach, describing it somewhere between that of 2008's Prince of Persia and Infamous Second Son.[9]

Microsoft formally announced this title during Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014.[10] According to former Darkside employees, this announcement was a surprise to them, and that none of the pre-rendered footage shown was work created by Darkside. Furthermore, the developers were under confidentiality agreements and could not state they were working on the title, nor was their name associated with the announcement. Darkside took this as a sign of concern from Microsoft that they would not be able to deliver.[9] They also feared that the rendered art, far different from what they had proposed, would set certain expectations in players' minds, and had to work to adjust to meet those new expectations.[9] Over the next several months, Microsoft continue to add more requests for the game and to help with the planned tie-in mobile title, according to Darkside employees, but they remained committed to the project, eventually moving all fifty of their staff onto the game.[9] Further difficulties arose when late in 2014, a key person in Microsoft who was committed to Phantom Dust left the company, and was never replaced, leading to some wavering support from Microsoft.[9]

By January 2015, Darkside had completed the promised vertical slide of the game, and according to Darkside, the feedback from Microsoft seemed very positive, giving praise to the studio.[9] With funding and schedule issues looming, the executives of Darkside flew out to meet Microsoft in mid-February 2015 to ask for more money to make the game that Microsoft was asking for, but Microsoft said no. Microsoft contacted Darkside on February 17, 2015 to formally cancel the project, and because they had put all their efforts into the game, the studio was forced to lay off all of its employees and close down.[9] It was estimated that about $2 million of the $5 million budget had been spent already at this point.[11] Microsoft publicly announced that they had ended their working relationship with the studio, though they still intended to produce the title.]

quote:

Adam Isgreen, creative director for Microsoft Studios, said that details about the re-release of Phantom Dust had been light as at the time of its announcement, they were still not clear how much they could improve upon the game, complicated by the fact that they did not have the complete final source code from Japan, requiring them to reverse engineer and hack into the original game's binaries to assure what steps they could take.

FMguru posted:

needs more syquest carts

PleasureKevin posted:

https://majornelson.com/2018/01/23/xbox-game-pass-expands-to-include-new-releases-from-microsoft-studios/

they are giving away their whole exclusive lineup on monthly subscription

quote:

Hundreds of Surface Pro 4 owners have been complaining about screen flickering issues on their tablets. A thread over at Microsoft’s support forums shows that the problems have been occurring for more than a year, and most devices affected are out of warranty. Dubbed “Flickergate,” a website to report the issues claims at least 1,600 Surface Pro 4 owners have experienced the screen flickering problems.

The flickering appears to be a hardware issue, which occurs after the device heats up during use. “We are aware that some customers have experienced a screen flicker on Surface Pro 4 and are monitoring the situation closely,” says a Microsoft spokesperson, in a statement to The Verge. Customers impacted by this should contact Microsoft support.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O5ntJN3vWM
Some owners have even started freezing their tablets to stop the screen flickering temporarily. “I get about half an hour’s use out of it after ten minutes in the freezer,” says one owner. Another user posted a video showing how the flickering stops as soon as the Surface Pro 4 is placed in a freezer. The Verge understands that the screen flickering problem is a hardware issue that Microsoft won’t be able to fix with a software update. It’s currently affecting less than 1 percent of all Surface Pro 4 devices.

While Microsoft recommends that owners contact their support lines, devices are generally out of warranty when the problems start occurring. Some affected users have reported paying $800 for an out-of-warranty exchange with Microsoft to fix the hardware issue. “Surface Pro’s are marketed and priced as premium devices,” says the Flickergate group. “Microsoft should therefore respond accordingly by acknowledging the issue and offering a solution. If the issue is a hardware fault, then Microsoft should recall affected devices.”

cinci zoo sniper posted:

The Surface Book 2 is aimed at graphic pros, but with a stout NVIDIA 1060 GPU, it's a tempting gaming machine, too. As we observed during our review, gaming drains the battery pretty fast, though. Worse, The Verge noticed that the power supply can't actually charge the battery fast enough to prevent it from draining in some cases.

Shinku ABOOKEN posted:

tag all email from external source with !EXTERNAL! and have a rule to throw all these emails in a folder outside of Inbox

flakeloaf posted:

when you push ^k to add a hyperlink to text in outlook, and it freezes on the "my documents" dialog for about a decade, what the hell is it doing

quote:

Microsoft has started selling Lumia Windows phones at the company’s online retail store once again. The software giant originally removed its Lumia devices back in June, leaving HP’s Elite x3 and Alcatel’s Idol 4S as the only choices for Windows Phone fans. Windows Latest has now spotted that Microsoft has started selling its Lumia devices again earlier this month.

The Lumia 950 is available for $399, alongside the Lumia 950 XL ($499), Lumia 650 ($199), and Lumia 550 ($139). Microsoft did finally admit that Windows Phone is dead back in October, but the company’s transparency around the death of the mobile operating system has been rather confusing at times. Now that phones are once again being sold in the Microsoft Store, that won’t help with the obvious confusion over the sad and slow death of Windows Phone.

PleasureKevin posted:

didn't i say xbox one market share would drop to 13-15% this year? already in January it's dropped from 18% down to 15%. january isn't an all-important month or anything, but they just launched the One X.

also the PS4 seems almost entirely unaffected by the Switch. any idea why Sony is reorganizing all of Playstation from the top down?

PleasureKevin posted:

Potato Salad posted:

So yeah, MS is divorcing ux from engineering.