[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by Lieste

Which just demonstrates (if true) how stupid the software industry is - I don't actually think this is likely though - they don't tend to manufacture graphics cards or mice/joysticks to support their software, and buy DRM solutions off the peg already.

I said they would sub contract out for it (and there will be more then one flavor of dongle and different dongle companies if it goes mainstream), its also common for the DRM to be customized to the publisher and the publishing companies usually don't play nice with each other. Also with the pirate groups actively breaking the dongles protection new types of dongles would be released with new hardware which would probably mean multiple dongles for older games as publishing houses wont bother patching games that arnt making much money to work with the latest dongle.

My Codemeter 'lives' with my PC most of the time. My 'regular' USB stick I keep on my keyring - I generally need my keys if I'm out, and if I need my 'regular files' it helps if I have them with me as well.

Thats fine if you have only one dongle, but if they are used main stream you will absolutly have far more then just one of them to deal with. That is when they become a real pain in the butt and you start misplacing them.

And while you are playing an entertainment product you need the printer why? Also don't laptops come with functional if not optimal keyboards and pointing devices already? Isn't an MP3 player not strictly essential during game play as well...

Its an example how on a lot of computers usb space isnt redibly accessable or always available. Also have you ever used a laptop for gaming? Laptops do not have "optimal keyboards and pointing devices", the keyboards are barely useful for text processing and very cramped, Touch pads are awkward to use normaly and utterly worthless for gaming (especialy when using the keyboard at the same time). Also I personaly use a monitor with my laptop when gaming, which makes using the laptop's touchpad and keyboard nigh impossible without having to put the monitor off to the side and play sideways.

I've had mine for at least 3 years with no problems - and mine was one of the early ones with the 'hot' firmware, which caused some initial problems. A firmware update reduced power requirements (and improved reliability apparently).

Im thinking a bit more long term. Heck i play games to this day that are 20+ years old going back almost to the dawn of computing.

So one that is cheap, can be installed either as a USB device or an PCI card on a 'server' within the network, and can serve multi-vendor, multi-product, multi-license software would be bad why?

I've never seen ones like that used in a commercial setting, but honestly on a large network I would not want it. Can you imagine half the programs (lets say 4 programs) being used on say 50-200 computers over a single network, each program requiring one dongle attached to a server? Depending on how often each dongle had to communicate with each computer using the program, and how much data it would need to send back and forth each time, it could suck up a large amount of bandwidth on the network. I'm also not sure there is a dongle that could handle that kind of usage. On top of it you might even need a specific server just to handle all the copy protection requests. This is exactly why most large corporations get special corporate versions of the software, that dont have all the restrictions and other crap that most copy protections do. Otherwise the overhead and additional cost gets rediculous.