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Wedbush Securities managing director and video game industry analyst Michael Pachter had some interesting comments about the Xbox One and its pricing during the D.I.C.E. Summit, and the analyst believes that Microsoft will keep the current "promotional pricing" forever.

For the first year of their respective launches, the PS4 outsold the Xbox One every month, and usually by a hefty margin. Last September, Microsoft announced that it would be unbundling the Kinect motion control system, thus dropping the price from $499 to $399. "The truth is that Kinect was a really great concept that didn't address a real world problem. Kinect allowed players to voice control and motion control things, but most of us didn't need that. I don't need to say "Xbox on." I don't mind pressing a button on my controller – that's all you have to do. It's not that hard. It's actually harder to say "Xbox on," says Pachter.

After the unbundling, sales improved but the PS4 continued to rule. Then, Microsoft added 'promotional pricing' to the mix, dropping the console from $399 to $349 and bundling free games or free Xbox Live cards. Pachter doesn't think the pricing will ever come out of its current "promotional" status.

Target has announced the shut down of their failed Target Ticket video-on-demand service.

Ticket allowed users to rent or purchase films and TV shows, as long as those videos were UltraViolet-compatible.

The company has said on March 7th the service will shut down for good, and all apps for smartphones, consoles and set-tops will shut down, as well.

Target made "the decision to end the services offered on Target Ticket and will be focusing efforts on other entertainment offerings."

As part of the shutdown, Target will let you transfer your account and user library to CinemaNow, as well as any credit you might have.

Sony has leased out the rights to Spider-Man to Disney (Marvel), meaning Marvel will put out the next film while Sony keeps the rights to the popular comic hero.

Allegedly, Marvel has been offering billions to get Spider-Man back, but Sony is still not willing to sell. Over time, the franchise has brought in $4 billion in revenue, making it one of the biggest blockbuster series in movie history.

Marvel and Sony have not exchanged any money for the latest deal, by Marvel is still likely to make a mint due to owning the merchandising rights to Spider-Man.

The upcoming standalone Spider-Man film will hit theaters on July 28th, 2017, and Andrew Garfield will be replaced after playing Spidey in the last two "Amazing Spider-Man" films.

Microsoft has acquired Israeli digital pen maker N-trig, the company that has been making the pen for their Surface Pro tablets.

Details were not disclosed but most reports have the purchase price at around $200 million.

The deal makes sense for both companies since Microsoft was already accounting for 79 percent of their revenue and was also a large stakeholder. N-trig also had some recent financial troubles and its investors, who have invested $130 million since 1999, were urging a sale.

Microsoft does appear to have overpaid, given that N-trig lost $117 million in 2014 and had just $5 million cash left on hand.

Samsung Display has confirmed this week that OLED is the future, planning to invest $3.6 billion to build OLED panels in the future.

The new production line would build small and medium-sized OLED displays for smartphones and tablets, with the potential for smaller TVs, as well. The investment would take place between now and 2017.

This year, Samsung Display will focus on curved panels like the ones found in the Galaxy Note Edge.

Samsung is not the only company investing in OLED. LG Display is expected to invest about $1 billion in its existing large-panel OLED production line.

Microsoft has announced that its Xbox One console with Kinect will be discounted for the coming weeks.

"For two weeks, starting Sunday, Feb. 8 through Saturday, Feb. 21, fans will receive $50 off any Xbox One with Kinect in the U.S. at most major national retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Toys R Us and Walmart, as well as Microsoft Stores," says the company.

For the past months, the Xbox One without the motion control system has been on sale for $350 or less, but it has been hard to find sales on the Kinect model.

If you were in the market for the Xbox One but want the gesture and voice control of the Kinect system, this might be your chance.

EA CFO Blake Jorgensen has said this week that he believes tablets are key to the future of gaming, especially as they get more powerful moving forward.

"What gets us the most excited is the power, the computing power, of mobile devices and the speed at which that's growing," says Jorgensen. "What that might mean is that a tablet, three or four years from now, has more power than what a typical console has. And that will open up a whole new set of people to console-style games that are much more immersive, much deeper, much more character-driven than simply a static mobile game that you might play for a small burst of time while you're waiting for the bus."

"And so we're looking for ways that we can essentially blend those two models to have a more immersive but movable game experience," he added. "Could be in your living room, could be on the bus, or it could be in a friend's house. Much more portable than it is today. And that for us is a huge opportunity."

In case it was not obvious, EA plans to invest more in tablet gaming in the future.

NVIDIA has sent out press invites for an event on March 3rd in which the company will show off a device/service that is "5 years in the making" that will "redefine the future of gaming."

It is unclear what the product will be, but there is a chance that the company will unveil a sequel to the powerful Nvidia Shield or Nvidia Shield Tablet.

Nvidia recently announced their Tegra X1 chipset and its ridiculous specs and any new device will likely feature the chipset. The X1 has a NVIDIA Maxwell 256-core GPU, 64-bit ARM CPU, H.265 video decoding and 4K playback at up to 60fps.

Of course, the event may not unveil a tablet or gaming handheld but there is a good chance that it will.

We will know more on March 3rd.

As we launched our first mobile app this year, it has been interesting to observe the small, but very important differences there are between the three major mobile app markets: Apple iOS (iTunes App Store), Android (Google Play) and Microsoft's Windows Phone (Windows Phone Store).

All three markets allow users to review the apps they have downloaded and all three stores emphasize the importance of user reviews, to the point where it is almost impossible to rank well in app charts if your app doesn't have good user reviews.

So, we feel that it is important to understand those little differences between the three stores and what is important for you, as a developer, when you plan your app strategies.

Ability to respond to reviews

One of the key differences is the developer's (in-)ability to respond to the reviews the app gathers. Both, negative and positive feedback often require some level of reply from the developer – if for nothing else, for common courtesy.

iOS

• developers can't reply / respond to reviews, at all

Android

• developers can reply to all reviews and the replies from the developer are visible in the Play Store for everybody (reply is shown underneath the review the reply is for)

replying to an Android app review

Windows Phone

• Starting from WP8.1, developers can reply to all reviews (written by users using WP8.1 or newer version of the Windows Phone). Replies are private and sent directly to the reviewer's email address, alongside with a link to update his/her review accordingly, if there's a need to do so (say, user complained about a bug in v1.0 and gave the app 1-star rating. Developer replies that they have now fixed the bug and that the new v1.1 is available -> user is encouraged to update the review accordingly)

replying to a Windows Phone app review

Localization

Sometimes people react to apps very differently depending on which country they live in, what language they use, etc.

iOS

• Reviews are local, meaning that the reviews & ratings given by Brazilian users are visible only to Brazilian users. Furthermore, the average rating of the app is local: same app can have average rating of 4.5 / 5 in United States, but only 2.2 / 5 in France (say, maybe badly translated app experience or something similar)

Android

• Reviews are local, but the average star rating is global. Thus, the actual review texts given in Swedish are visible only to Swedish users, but the star ratings given by Swedish users affect the average rating value (=average rating is the same for all users).

Android app reviews; Italy vs Finland

Windows Phone

• Similar to iOS, reviews AND the average rating is local. Same app can have totally different average rating in different countries and only locally given reviews are visible to specific country's users.

Average rating for the same app, in Finland and in United States

Version-specific rating

When you launch your app, it is likely to be somewhat buggy at first, no matter how much effort you put into your testing process. When real users start using your app, you'll learn how to improve your app's visuals, fix the bugs, etc.

Google has announced that for "Safer Internet Day" the search giant is offering 2GB of free, permanent Drive storage if you complete a "Security Checkup."

You have until February 17th to complete the checkup, which takes less than 5 minutes (unless you're having problems or someone is hijacking your account) and the checkup will go over the following:

Ensures your account recovery information is current
If we detect suspicious activity in your account, we use your recovery info to get in touch and make sure no one but you gains access.
Lets you review recent sign-in activity
Reviewing this lets you validate the sign-ins are coming from you and not someone who shouldn't be using your credentials.
Confirms the apps and devices that access some account information
This step lets you monitor this list and remove apps and devices that don't need access to your account any more.

Once you complete the checkup, you will see three green checkboxes showing your account is safe and that you are eligible for the free data, which will rollout starting on the 28th.

Once popular file sharing site RapidShare has announced it will shut down on March 31, 2015, with the site's administrators advising users to secure their data as soon as possible.

Started in 2002, the site became extremely popular as it allowed paying users to get fast access to unauthorized movies, music, games and any other files that were shared on warez sites. At one point, the site was one of the 50 most popular on the planet, controlling up to 5 percent of the Internet's total traffic.

Of course, such popularity also brought unwanted attention from the major copyright holders, and with that came lawsuits.

In the past few years, Rapidshare began taking down more pirated content and began to market itself as a cloud storage service. They even took down their free service, which allowed non-paying customers to download some files for free daily at slower speeds. The latter was the final nail in the coffin for the site, which could no longer compete with other sites in any respect.

R.I.P RapidShare.

KickassTorrents, the site that became the most popular torrent tracker on the planet after The Pirate Bay went down, has had their kickass.so domain name seized but were able to quickly make a comeback.

The Somalian registry has banned the domain name, effectively taking down the site, which was left to revert back to its kickass.to domain, based in Tonga after being offline for hours.

As the site and its operators look to evade law enforcement and lawsuits, it has flipped domains in the past, using the .to top-level-domain before moving to the .so one last year.

It is unclear why the registry seized the domain name, as Somalia is regarded as a piracy safe haven for the most part. Perhaps complaints from top copyright holders were enough to move the needle.

Source:
Ernesto

VESA or Video Electronics Standards Association has introduced a new DiplayPort standard. The Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) 1.4a standard promises 8K resolutions to laptops and other devices with embedded displays.

8K-resolution, which in pixels is 7680 by 4320, is four times more accurate than Full HD both vertically and horizontally. In addition to crisper and more detailed picture eDP 1.4a is bringing also more depth of color and higher refresh rates thanks to higher bandwidth.

All this is said to be delivered in a new embedded system that provides better energy efficiency and flexibility in terms of higher level of integration. The technology supports a new kind of "Segmented Panel Display" architecture which is designed to be thinner, lighter, and cheaper.

The new standard should ship in products with the latest DisplayPort in 2016 but it might be a bit longer than we will actually see a 8K display on a laptop.

Google is renewing its Knowledge Graph with more search relevant information. Last time it was concerts and gigs and now comes health information.

The Google search in both desktop and mobile will answer your health and disease related questions in a Knowledge Graph box which already delivers information about historical figures, places, sights and the previously mentioned concerts.

Now Google highlights also information about diseases and how to treat them. The addition is made in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and represents information from real doctors. Google however reminds you that in case of diagnosis and treatment you should always contact a health professional.

During the following couple of days the feature will roll out in the US in English. Further language and regions will be added later.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has gotten into the smartphone business after taking a large stake in Meizu.

The company has paid $590 million for a minority stake in the company, which has a 2 percent share of the Chinese smartphone market.

Alibaba will use the deal to get more exposure for their own mobile operating system by placing it on Meizu handsets. Meizu will get access to Alibaba's e-commerce sales channels and other resources in exchange.

In China, the once fragmented market is quickly becoming a three-horse race with Xiaomi, Apple and Samsung leading the way. The top five brands in the country accounted for about 60 percent of all sales in the last quarter.

For Alibaba, the move is an expensive experiment to try to reach out to even more of China's 550 million mobile Internet users, who will then potentially be hooked on Alibaba's core products.