MS files patent to potentially ban fat gamers

[miokomioko]

Journalists should be banned from writing about patents. None of this means anything whatsoever.

[Ksandra]

This would go extremely smoothly in capitalist America.

[Saga]

I guess my question this..why is this such a bad thing? Get people exercising? FUCK YOU MICROSOFT. ASSHOLES. You can't be a male model if you're a fat fuck, no one's whining about that profession blocking obese people from joining. I'm not saying Natal or anything else should be as exclusive as a male model profession, but jesus christ people, can you imagine how basic the fitness requirements are going to be, if this even goes through at all? What, walk on an incline for ten minutes at a moderate pace? Jog for half a mile? Forcing people to keep active and live a healthier lifestyle is about the least terrible thing you can force someone to do. Obesity's a problem, not a "character trait" of yours. If you don't ever leave your chair to exercise, might as well be motivated to do it in your own room with a video game system.

"But I'm beautiful!"
"You look like a troll." so says Daniel Tosh

[Ivaden]

I guess my question this..why is this such a bad thing? Get people exercising? FUCK YOU MICROSOFT. ASSHOLES. You can't be a male model if you're a fat fuck, no one's whining about that profession blocking obese people from joining. I'm not saying Natal or anything else should be as exclusive as a male model profession, but jesus christ people, can you imagine how basic the fitness requirements are going to be, if this even goes through at all? What, walk on an incline for ten minutes at a moderate pace? Jog for half a mile? Forcing people to keep active and live a healthier lifestyle is about the least terrible thing you can force someone to do. Obesity's a problem, not a "character trait" of yours. If you don't ever leave your chair to exercise, might as well be motivated to do it in your own room with a video game system.

"But I'm beautiful!"
"You look like a troll." so says Daniel Tosh

While I agree with the bolded, it's the idea that something like this is being forced upon someone at all that's bad. It's really not Microsoft's place to judge whether someone should be playing video games for any extended time period or not, even in obvious cases where something like this would actually be beneficial. And then you get into the whole problem of having people who are truly obese due to genetic problems that simply can't lose weight. Is it right to flat out deny them the freedom to play a game?

In any case, I'd be incredibly surprised if anything like this actually happened in my (short) lifetime (because I'm fat overweight gamer who's going to die because this will never be implemented).

[Saga]

While I agree with the bolded, it's the idea that something like this is being forced upon someone at all that's bad. It's really not Microsoft's place to judge whether someone should be playing video games for any extended time period or not, even in obvious cases where something like this would actually be beneficial. And then you get into the whole problem of having people who are truly obese due to genetic problems that simply can't lose weight. Is it right to flat out deny them the freedom to play a game?

In any case, I'd be incredibly surprised if anything like this actually happened in my (short) lifetime (because I'm fat overweight gamer who's going to die because this will never be implemented).

I guess I agree with you in part - the issue I have though is saying that it's not Microsoft's place to tell someone to exercise because they're overweight. But every argument that seems to come out of things like this that force people to exercise, like that recent issue at Lincoln University, or something else that people think is outrageous, someone always pulls the "who the hell are they to tell me what to do card," or "it's not their place, they don't have the right."

Then who does have the right? Whose place is it to tell someone they need to be more active? If no one's taken that step to tell someone hey, maybe you should get off the couch once in a while and go outside, is it that bad that Microsoft is now telling people to do it? What about an institute of higher learning?

And I don't have an answer for your genetic obesity point, I think that's an excellent point.

[Nekio]

I don't see the part where it said it would "force" anyone to do anything. It's simply a concept idea whereby the use of their product includes exercising your lazy ass.

Don't want to exercise? Don't use the exercise-included product. I'm sure you can find something else to do that doesn't involve any physical activity besides video games. Try bowling. Or smoking.

[Gwynplaine]

What, walk on an incline for ten minutes at a moderate pace? Jog for half a mile? Forcing people to keep active and live a healthier lifestyle is about the least terrible thing you can force someone to do. Obesity's a problem, not a "character trait" of yours. If you don't ever leave your chair to exercise, might as well be motivated to do it in your own room with a video game system.

Wow, grow up. It's no one's role to force anyone into spending one second of their own irreplaceable life doing something they haven't chosen to do. In this case MS wouldn't be forcing anyone, but the notion is still obnoxious and infantilizing.

I think the reason MS is doing this is because Bill Gates has tons of pressure put on him to do things that are "good for society". He feels terrible for making gobs of money and so he's been serving a bunch of weird altruistic causes trying desperately to scrape together some moral credit. Remember the incident where he unleashed mosquitoes on a crowd to demonstrate a point about Malaria? It's pretty pathetic.

I can't imagine they will go ahead with this however. I don't see many people being interested in it unless like one poster suggested it's to voluntarily help keep track of your own weight/health. Even then what kind of person confides in their damn gamer account to offer health info? Who knows, MS might just be desperate to lose a little more money.

BTW here's the article.

[Saga]

Wow, grow up. It's no one's role to force anyone into spending one second of their own irreplaceable life doing something they haven't chosen to do. In this case MS wouldn't be forcing anyone, but the notion is still obnoxious and infantilizing.

I think the reason MS is doing this is because Bill Gates has tons of pressure put on him to do things that are "good for society". He feels terrible for making gobs of money and so he's been serving a bunch of weird altruistic causes trying desperately to scrape together some moral credit. Remember the incident where he unleashed mosquitoes on a crowd to demonstrate a point about Malaria? It's pretty pathetic.

I can't imagine they will go ahead with this however. I don't see many people being interested in it unless like one poster suggested it's to voluntarily help keep track of your own weight/health. Even then what kind of person confides in their damn gamer account to offer health info? Who knows, MS might just be desperate to lose a little more money.

BTW here's the article.

"microsoft wants me to fucking do what? exercise? why, so I'll stop being so tired all the time? what, my clothes will fit better? I'll have more energy during the day? no fucking thank you, i'll take my naps in between CoD marathons if I want, asshole. no one tells me what to do, this is just Big Brother tryin to keep me down."

Grow up? People are whining about having to exercise and play video games and you're telling me to grow up because I think it's a positive endeavor.

It's most certainly someone's role to tell someone to get some exercise, even if it seems a little asinine for a video game corporation to be saying it. I don't call myself weird and desperately altruistic when I make myself go running in freezing cold weather. Should I rise up against myself when I feel motivated to go to the gym?

Again, obesity isn't some personality trait of people's, it's a worldwide problem, and if Microsoft's the one to say "get off your fat ass and go do something before you sit down here in front of the TV and geek out on our sweet new gadget for eight hours" then so be it.

And if people thought their lives were as irreplaceable and precious as you say they are, they'd worry enough about caring for their own body and not shortening their lifespan by ten or fifteen years. Spare me the bullshit.

[Karbuncle]

To long to completely Quote.

I will not deny the fact that exorcise should be a daily part of peoples lifestyle, even if its just 1 hour a day twice a week, something scarce. But forcing this upon people is where the problem is.

I'm overweight, but i make a habit to go out and exorcise at least twice a week, even if its so small as running around the block for 30 minutes, but if i walked by a fat guy who was sitting on a bench eating a McDouble, I wouldn't stop to tell him "Hey fatty, Go walk before you eat" because IT IS NOT MY PLACE.

One of you asked, who's place is it to tell someone when or how to exorcise? No ones, They can only tell themselves. You can never truly force someone to exorcise short of strapping them to a machine that forces the movements. There is no one in the world who has the right to tell you how you should live your life, Right or wrong, we all make or own decisions and its arrogant and dare i say borderline God Complex to have the balls to say you have the right to tell someone how to live their life.

There is a big difference in suggestion healthy eating habits and a good place to workout to an overweight person, and cutting their privileges and limiting interactions with something they not only paid for but in some cases continue to pay for in online support, or through added content purchases.

Even if suggesting healthy lifestyles, exorcise routines, and the like doesn't get every fat person to lose weight, it gets some, and that's a step in the RIGHT direction, not limiting their access to the products they buy and treating them like an outcast and forcing lifestyles you would deem "Better" upon them, that's a few steps down the path we don't want to take.

Now for all the people who don't enjoy Reading a TL;DR; Forcing overweight individuals to lose weight in order to access shit they payed for is a LEAP in the wrong direction for solving this "Problem".

(Oh, and no ones whining about having to exorcise, they complaining cause fat people are more and more beginning to slowly lose their rights, by limiting their freedoms (in the recent college thing) and their ability to access materials based solely on their appearances, This may be a small example, but where do we draw the line? first no graduation, now no video games, Where will it stop? If you people think limiting an overweight persons access to certain right and privileges because of the fact they are overweight, you must also agree Slavery was a damn fine thing in Americas history! Who doesn't love singling out an entire group of people based on their appearances and limiting their access to common privileges other Americans enjoy no strings attached?)

[Saga]

You don't think it's a problem you can't spell "exercise" correctly? I'm not saying people need to be overly obsessive about their figure and look like all the actors in the moving pictures, all I'm saying is coupling some activity with another activity that involves sitting for extended periods of time isn't a bad thing. How come no one's screaming for the WiiFit to remove the need for the little boogie board because they want all the fun of the mini-games but without the hassle of actually doing anything? You don't have to buy WiiFit, you don't have to buy Natal, no one's limiting you unless you put yourself in that position.

[Ksandra]

You don't think it's a problem you can't spell "exercise" correctly? I'm not saying people need to be overly obsessive about their figure and look like all the actors in the moving pictures, all I'm saying is coupling some activity with another activity that involves sitting for extended periods of time isn't a bad thing. How come no one's screaming for the WiiFit to remove the need for the little boogie board because they want all the fun of the mini-games but without the hassle of actually doing anything? You don't have to buy WiiFit, you don't have to buy Natal, no one's limiting you unless you put yourself in that position.

that analogy doesn't work. if you have a wiifit and play mario, it doesn't pause the game for you after an hour and tell you to go do yoga for 15 minutes.

[antihero]

look at all these fat people up in arms about some exercise

[Karbuncle]

You don't think it's a problem you can't spell "exercise" correctly? I'm not saying people need to be overly obsessive about their figure and look like all the actors in the moving pictures, all I'm saying is coupling some activity with another activity that involves sitting for extended periods of time isn't a bad thing. How come no one's screaming for the WiiFit to remove the need for the little boogie board because they want all the fun of the mini-games but without the hassle of actually doing anything? You don't have to buy WiiFit, you don't have to buy Natal, no one's limiting you unless you put yourself in that position.

While i've never claimed in any of my posts i'm good with spelling (You can look up my other posts, its quite hilarious), my Weight (Which i admitted to being overweight) Has nothing to do with how i spell, but i see you're now grabbing at straws to prove your point to go so far as to claim my spelling has to do with my weight.

Secondly, Wiifit is a game that is at least openly displayed as a game that you buy to work out. You don't buy Halo to have the game shut down and ban you ever hour and tell you to go work out or you can't play anymore.

Why can't Microsoft simply introduce a line of "Fit" games with Natal, Instead of basically telling Fat gamers to go royally fuck themselves if they want to buy Natal? Selling Natal with a good amount of "Xbox Fitness" game or the like at least gives gamers the choice to buy and enjoy Natal, without limiting not only their game play but pointing out to the community that the person is fat

Don't you think its just a little immoral to not only openly single out all the fat people by making their avatar overweight, and also shutting down or even banning their account until they work out?

and FINALLY, no ones arguing working out is a BAD THING, we're arguing that FORCING people to work out if they want to enjoy the same privileges are "healthy" people is going to far. Once you start stripping privileges its going down the wrong path. I've already expressed i feel the same as you, that Working out should be a part of everyone's life, even if its only a small part, but in the end its their CHOICE to work out, not Microsofts.

Theres a difference between introducing a few games based on fitness(See Wii), and a "revolutionary" System that everyone who owns an Xbox will more-than-likely want and banning fat people from playing it simply because they're fat.

[Yuri-G]

As an admitted obesist (prejudiced against the fat), I approve of this motion.

[miokomioko]

This is sensationalist bullshit, stop getting worked up over it.

[Zosi]

Journalists should be banned from writing about patents. None of this means anything whatsoever.

This, this, this.

First, this is a Slashdot article, and their submitters are notoriously bad at summarizing articles. This guy didn't even read the patent, it says *NOTHING WHATSOEVER* about banning. I read through the whole thing. The closest it comes is a description of a "lock-out system" so that a game can tell you to get off the couch and exercise before it lets you play more. That's not banning, it sounds more like a control tool (whether used by parents, family or yourself) to keep people from spending 8 hours a day in front of the TV to the detriment of their health. I don't see any indication of it being forced on anyone.

Second, it's a lot more general than just telling if you're fat. It's a general patent on integrating health data from a variety of sources into your profile to make your avatar and online persona more closely reflect you. The examples cover a lot of things, from verifying your handedness to helping you find support groups for your peanut allergy. A key thing to note is that the claims involve getting data from third-party websites, smart cards or physical sensors. In other words, it's voluntary - you have to buy and wear the sensor, or give the third-party sites specific approval to share your info. Health information online is *heavily* protected by privacy laws, MS can't just buy access to a database and find out that you weigh 400lbs.

Third, reading patents is a tricky business. They're intentionally written to be as broad and vague as possible while still being accepted. You can see it in that patent, they spend a LOT of time saying "Yeah, we also mean anything else that's an obvious variation of any of this". That plus the fact that having a patent on something isn't any kind of commitment to actually doing something with said technology means that patents are always, always, always more general than strictly necessary.

Fourth, it could be a defensive patent. Nintendo is MUCH more into health games at the moment, and some of the content of the patent seems like stuff that you could see in one of their games. For example, gating access to content based on physical fitness as measured by a sensor of some kind. MS patenting it means that Nintendo would have to license it if they wanted to implement it, which could mean money for MS, or a cross-licensing agreement that gives MS access to some technology that Nintendo had patented. It's a game that lots of tech companies play, and MS, Nintendo and Sony are all pros at it.

[Mellema]

Fourth, it could be a defensive patent. Nintendo is MUCH more into health games at the moment, and some of the content of the patent seems like stuff that you could see in one of their games. For example, gating access to content based on physical fitness as measured by a sensor of some kind. MS patenting it means that Nintendo would have to license it if they wanted to implement it, which could mean money for MS, or a cross-licensing agreement that gives MS access to some technology that Nintendo had patented. It's a game that lots of tech companies play, and MS, Nintendo and Sony are all pros at it.

^ This. MS doesn't give a damn about your health. They see a trend in Wii that they hope to get into and make more money.

[Colenzo]

welp looks like im never owning an xbox

[Diamicles]

If I was fat, I'd care, but since I'm not, OH WELLZ LOL

[Isiolia]

It's the ability to do something like that than a policy regarding it.

Could be a self-imposed restriction. Could be used to unlock more intense workouts as someone loses weight. Could be to enforce a no fat chicks policy for a chat room. Or more realistically, automatically show an online shopper plus size clothes rather than petite.

Kind of like adding the ability to use fingerprints for logging into Windows. It doesn't exist so that MS can collect biometric data for nefarious world domination plans (that we know of). It exists so that people/groups who want to use that method for logging into a PC have the option to use it.

Natal will have the ability to pull biometric data in too - for things like ranked match play or MMO accounts, it'd only make sense to allow for using that to verify identity. It could look and determine that someone is a child, and therefore restrict access to M-rated games too. Lots of possibilities, but most I would imagine will be per user or per game, not MS policy.