M3: My Morning Musings – Scrolls is Coming, Xbox One and PS4 DRM Questions, Fuse Released, & More

Monjang, the creator of Minecraft, is about to unleash his next project onto the world. Scrolls, a digital Collectable Card Game, will be available to purchase during its “Open Beta,” on June 3, for PC and Mac platforms for $20. This is similar to how Minecraft was originally released. Scrolls will continue to get updates until Mojang feels the title is finished.

You can see a trailer for Scrolls below:

Hey dude, want to score “phat lewts” and get mega GameScore? Xbox One may have you covered with a new patent Microsoft has filed for watching TV and getting achievements. The patent states:
“Television viewing tends to be a passive experience for a viewer, without many opportunities for the viewer to engage or have interactive experiences with the presented content. To increase interactive viewing and encourage a user to watch one or more particular items of video content, awards and achievements may be tied to those items of video content.

Additionally, by tying the awards and achievements to particular items of video or advertising content, viewers may be encouraged to increase their viewership of the content, thus increasing advertising opportunities.”

Microsoft envisions using Kinect to see if people are actually watching a show, commercials, and how engaged they are. If you asked me, the future just got really scary…

Speaking of scary futures, German and Australian officials have their eyes on the upcoming Xbox One and required Kinect camera. The countries are greatly alarmed at the protection of personal freedom and privacy concerns to have an “always kinected” (see what I did there) console in living rooms across their countries.

The Xbox One will monitor users without any feedback from them on what is acceptable or that they give Microsoft permission for. Microsoft argues that you can pull the power out of the Xbox if you are concerned that the system is watching you even if it is powered off and that they take security and privacy “very seriously.” 

I have said it once and I will say it again. The future looks very scary…

Remember the PlayStation Vita? Yeah, the handheld from Sony with no software support. Good news for those looking to actually play games on the handheld. Ubisoft is bringing the formerly Wii U exclusive Rayman Legends to the Vita. Vita owners will get five exclusive maps to play as Murphy the Greenbottle Fly.

You can get your game-starved hands on Rayman Legends on August 30, 2013. It will even have local multiplayer too!

Sony has some more good news for the Vita. No, you aren’t getting any more games. Be happy you have one new title announced! Instead, you will be able to watch the upcoming E3 Press Conference on your Vita! What a great way to utilize a gaming platform to show off new titles for all of Sony’s consoles except the Vita! 

The Sony E3 2013 Press Conference begins at 6 PM Pacific Time and will show off the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and maybe a Vita announcement. *fingers crossed*  Hopefully the stream will be better than the horrid Ustream feed announcing the PlayStation 4.

Insomniac Games, best known for Ratch & Clank on the PlayStation platform, has a new franchise out today. Fuse, a four player single player and cooperative Action title is now available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC platform–via Origin.

“In a world of sequels, Fuse is the breath of fresh air that gamers have been waiting for. Between our exotic Fuse weapons, inventive co-op gameplay and signature dry humor, Fuse offers something original for gamers seeking a new adventure at the end of this generation’s console cycle,” said Ted Price, CEO and Founder of Insomniac Games. “The game is built from the ground up to offer the best four-player co-op experience today. Thanks to our LEAP functionality, players can experience each of our four distinct operatives at-will in combat even if they’re not playing with three other friends. With Fuse, playing is believing.”

Stop the presses. Rumors exist that Sony will either use DRM for their games, including used games, or NOT use DRM for their games, including used games. Conflicting reports exist that Sony plans to quietly follow Microsoft into a DRM console future and block used games just like Microsoft plans to with the Xbox One. Geoff Keighley recently said:
“Sony I think has been seen as this kind of white knight so far that’s not going to restrict used games. Based on some of the things I’m hearing, I don’t think that’s entirely true. I can’t see publishers allowing one system to do one thing more than another.”

Michael Denny, Sony VP of Worldwide Studios said in February, after the PS4 reveal:
“It’s not something that I feel I have any further announcement or comment to make on other than to acknowledge with you that it’s a massively important issue, and of course we are going to do the right thing.”

A NeoGAF poster suggests Sony will do other things:
“The gist of it is that Sony is listening to the backlash that Microsoft is getting and they are basing decisions off of this. I can say, for sure, that the past week’s PR nightmare for MS has not been lost on Sony and they, in fact, do have a used game ‘solution’ working and have been going back and forth for months on whether to use it. This past week is pushing them strongly into ‘Yeah, let’s not use that.’”

So Sony, what will it be? You may win or lose this generation based on your choice. Think hard before following Xbox One on this subject.
While Sony contemplates keeping gamers happy, Xbox and Phil Spencer aren’t really concerned about your feelings. He told OXM:
“We believe that if all you want is gaming, you’ll still pick us, at the end of the day. The super core guys, they will buy everything. They will buy all devices, but most people really only do buy one device, and if you’re going to think about what that one device is, we believe an all-in-one system that does the best games and TV and entertainment will be something that’s really unique.”

If Xbox One asked you to jump off a cliff would you blindly follow? This is how we at CVGames feel about locking console gamers out of used software and putting DRM for every disk-based game.