Nintendo released a recent update that once again tries to secure some existing bugs on the console, breaks some things, deletes others. This time they’ve also gone around and modified the TOS. As usual, mass panic ensues.
The people who are panicking can be divided roughly into two groups (non exclusive):
- The pirates
- The clueless
This should go without saying, but we don’t want to have anything to do with the former group. Nintendo is obviously going to fight piracy (and that’s going to hurt homebrew). We’ll have to deal with the homebrew part, but don’t expect that to help piracy in any way. It may, or it may not. And if it doesn’t, pirates will have to deal with fighting nintendo themselves.
The usual messages about WADs, “backups”, and all that crap are going straight to /dev/null, and we’re seeing... More »
Movie pirates are distributing fake Blu-ray movie titles in China, which are essentially ordinary DVDs passed off as Blu-rays.
According to a WSJ report, the counterfeit Blu-ray discs are ordinary DVDs that hold the same movie content as the original Blu-ray but it is encoded in the AVCHD format. AVCHD is based on the MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video format, enabling recording of high-definition 1080i and 720p video onto cheap DVD discs.
"We are concerned and are assigning priority to this issue," said Mike Ellis, the Asia-Pacific managing director for the MPA.
The issue came into the surface last month when authorities raided a big stash of the new pirated discs in China, which is often at the leading edge of piracy trends.
The MPA estimates that within the next six months the high-definition discs could account for 10% of $224 million that its m... More »
Capcom's John Diamonon shared the following today via PS Blog:
Hey PS Fam! Long time no blog. It’s my pleasure to announce that Age of Booty will finally become available today on the PSN for only $9.99. I know there was a delay bringing this title to you, but we had to make sure we fixed all the bugs before we deliver one of the most original digital games on this platform.
Anyway, Max Hoberman, the President of Certain Affinity and the developer of Age of Booty, wanted to give you some insights into this critically acclaimed game. He’ll also answer any questions you have about the game. Without further ado, heeeere’s Max!
This is a follow-up to my previous post, where I described the genesis of our upcoming downloadable pirate action RTS, Age of Booty. I left off with us signing a publishing deal with Capcom and beginning production. That was a year ago, and since then we’ve had a lot of time to improve upon the original design.... More »
Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms series developer Koei is bringing their popular MMORPG, Uncharted Waters Online, to the PlayStation 3 in Japan during 2009.
According to Siliconera, the game is based off the Uncharted Waters series of games, the first of which was released on the Super NES in 1992.
This MMO sends players into the ocean, but not as pirates. Taking cues from history, Uncharted Waters is set in the Age of Discovery when Europe explored the seas- picking one of six nationalities, and one of the three basic classes in order to engage in trading, exploration and sea battles.
No information regarding pricing or subscription fees have been released at this time. Sadly, Uncharted Waters Online and its expansion (Cruz del Sur) are currently available only in Asia, so it seems unlikely this PS3 version would make it into the Western market.
Construction Number 6801 of Windows 7 that was handed out to developers at this year's PDC (Professional Developers Conference) have appeared on various file-sharing network in the weekend. We're talking about both 32 and 64-bit editions.
Built in 6801 are many of the major improvements that are now being praised on the Web, but it lacks the new taskbar that's changed in relation to all other Windows versions.
It is the well-known Windows Network WinBeta that has made Windows 7 available for curious pirates. The file size is 3.6GB packed.
A video of Windows 7 Edition that Microsoft demonstrated at PDC is below, but note this is not the edition that was leaked:
In January a very early version of Windows 7 was leaked to the Web. However, back then there was no one particularly impressed when many of the big changes were not yet implemented.
DreamStream to employ military-grade encryption to secure Royal Digital Media's new optical media format, which exceeds Blu-ray's HD capabilities.
Press Release: Los Angeles (PRWEB) - DreamStream has signed on to encrypt Royal Digital Media's new optical media format. The agreement will allow RDM to employ DreamStream's military-strength encryption in the copyright protection of their high-definition discs.
The deal marks the first time a military-grade encryption has been implemented in the copyright protection of commercial motion picture discs.
"DreamStream and RDM's technologies align perfectly, as they both rest exponentially beyond the standards currently being employed," said DreamStream's Chief Development Officer Ulf Diebel, in a statement issued at the signing in Paris.
DreamStream is the first company to implement a 2,048-bit encryption in consumer media. AES encryption, used in Sony's Blu-ray discs, relies on only a 128... More »
Nintendo has done what we all expected and blocked the Nintendo DSi from running what seems to be nearly every single flash card on the market.
If you have a CycloDS, G6 DS Real, M3 DS Real, Supercard DS One, iTouch DS, FCard, NCard, M3 DS Simply, U2DS, R4 DS and EZ Flash V don’t expect any of them to work.
It seems the DSi blocks both auto boot cards and ones that boot from the menu. If it’s auto boot it crashes and while the others show up in the menu, but once selected come up with an error.
Bad news for pirates, good news for Nintendo and bad news for legitimate homebrew. But how long till they bypass it?
Just before the holiday season, Nintendo of Australia is cracking down on NDS gaming pirates.
The hand-held Nintendo DS is expected to be one of the biggest-selling toys this Christmas, with company officials predicting sales of 750,000 by the end of the year.
But with legitimate game cards costing up to $70, there are reports of a boom in parents buying pirated gaming software that allows users to play games that have been illegally downloaded from the Internet.
Greg Arthurton, director of marketing at Nintendo, said the company was taking steps to protect its intellectual property.
The company has sent cease and desist letters to backyard operators in Australia who are selling equipment that allows users to play pirated games.
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