• 17Oct 06

  EA Spyware: It's in the Game

  http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124394
  
  "When you open the box, a big slip of paper falls out first, preceeding any discs or manuals. The slip of paper says, essentially, that 2142 includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, and records "anonymous" information like your IP address, surfing habits (probably via cookie scans), and other "computing habits" in order to report this information back to ad companies and ad servers, which generates in-game ads."
  
  
  
  Translation - "We put the spyware in on purpose, put up and shut up or you cant play."
  
  Boycott this game or I will personally hunt you down and kill you for supporting EA's "Charge you for spyware" program.
  
  Oh yea, the game costs $109.95 AUD (usually games cost $100 AUD) so EA want you to pay an excess for what is basically a futuristic skin pack for BF2, riddled with adware.
  
  Whiskey... Tango... Foxtrot.
  
  
  
  
  EA have already patched BF2142, here's part of the readme.
  
  
  
  
  
  "Players who have the Windows security update KB917422 installed may
  suffer from an application error when running Battlefield 2142. This
  error can be solved by uninstalling the KB917422 update."
  
  
  
  
  
  So what does KB917422 do?
  
  
  "Vulnerability in the Windows kernel could result in remote code execution"
  
  
  
  Good show EA, good f***ing show.
  • Posted Oct 17, 2006 7:41 pm GMT
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• 7Sep 06

  History repeats itself.

  Lets take a step back shall we? To pre-PS2 release anti-playstation journalism.
  
  
  
  By Jim Lynch
  

  Oct. 27, 2000 | Whether or not Sony
  was sincere in its claim that a supply crisis led it to cut its initial
  shipments of the PlayStation2 to just 500,000 units, there's little
  question that the corporation was successful in the arena of hype
  marketing. Lines of obsessed PlayStation fans were a news staple Wednesday. But is the so-called superconsole really worth staying up all night for?

  
  

  No.
  The PS2 is not the revolutionary device that Sony's marketing
  department would have you believe. Don't get me wrong; it's definitely
  the most powerful video-game machine on the planet right now. But that's not enough.

  
  

   

  
  

  The
  PS2's stats are certainly impressive; it's got hardware power to burn.
  But so what? There's just not much software available that can take
  advantage of it. The games that are being released at the same time as
  the system don't rise much, if at all, above games available for Sega's
  rival (and cheaper) Dreamcast video-game system.

  
  

  And
  don't expect a huge number of quality games anytime soon. Sony has
  reversed positions with Sega and stupidly released a system that is in
  many ways a game developer's nightmare. Sega, learning from its Saturn
  debacle, went out of its way to make the Dreamcast easy to develop
  games for. But Sony, intoxicated with success from the first
  PlayStation, forgot the first rule of the video-game industry: Software
  sells systems. If you make it hard for developers to produce good games
  then there's no reason for people to buy the system. This oversight has
  already cost Sony some goodwill -- developers are howling about how
  hard it is to create games for the system. In an interview with Time
  magazine, John Carmack, one of the developers behind such massively
  popular games as Doom and Quake, said that the "PS2 is definitely more
  powerful than Dreamcast. But it's less convenient to extract
  performance from it."

  
  

  Sony is also under the mistaken
  impression that including the ability to play DVD movies is a huge
  selling point. But true technophiles and hardcore gamers probably
  already have DVD drives. I'm a good case in point. I already own a Sony
  DVD player, so I could not care less if the $299 PS2 can play movies.
  I'd rather pay less and get a machine that just plays games instead.

  
  

  In
  comparison, the Sega Dreamcast sells for $149 and has a giant library
  of games already available. Sega also has an online game network,
  Seganet. The Dreamcast comes with a built-in 56K modem and Sega will
  soon release a broadband (cable/DSL) adapter for it. (The PS2 does not
  ship with a modem.) Sega is banking on the appeal of multiplayer online
  gaming, even going so far as to rebate the entire cost of a Dreamcast
  to players who sign up for Seganet. And for the first time ever we
  actually have cross-platform online gaming -- Seganet lets Dreamcast
  players compete against PC players in games like Quake 3. Sony, on the
  other hand, is promising online gaming later on but currently has
  nothing to offer purchasers of the PS2.

  
  

  In addition to
  Sega, Sony also has two 800-pound gaming gorillas breathing down its
  neck: Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo plans to release its powerful
  GameCube system next year. Don't downplay Nintendo's chances either.
  Despite having a rocky time with the N64, Nintendo has some of the most
  lucrative franchises in video-game history on its side (Zelda, Super
  Mario Brothers, Metroid, etc.) and a superb marketing machine.

  
  

  The real wild card here, though, is Microsoft, which plans to release its X-Box game system next year. The X-Box
  will have even more powerful hardware than the PS2, and Microsoft has
  the marketing muscle and rapport with developers to do the PS2 real
  damage. Unlike Sony, Microsoft is taking great pains to make sure the
  X-Box is easy to make games for -- developers will also be able to
  easily port games from the PC to the X-Box, thus insuring a huge supply
  of games.

  
  

  So should you feel bad if you can't get a PS2
  right away? No way. If you wait a while you'll avoid all the lines and
  scuffling in stores and you'll end up with a much better selection of
  games. And if you wait long enough for the upcoming systems from
  Microsoft and Nintendo, you'll probably see a cut in the price of the
  PS2 as Sony tries to ward off both threats.

  
  

  Hardcore
  gamers aren't known for their patience, but this is one occasion when
  playing it smart may mean not playing at all. For now.

  
  

  Replace the Dreamcast with the Xbox360 and DVD's with Blu-Ray, and you have a close on carbon copy of todays situation.

  Heres a short list of the warnings doled out.

  'The Dreamcast (X360) is already out'
  'The Dreamcast (X360) is half (4/5ths, 2/3rds) the price'
  'Tut the Dreamcast (X360) has a better selection of games'
  'The PS2(3) is hard to develope for'
  'Don't underestimate nintendo'

  Anyone remeber what happened then? Oh thats right the PS2 dominated the generation anyway.

  I'm not saying that the X360 will fail as miserably as Dreamcast did... MS have waaay too much money to throw at it. But I do not think that Sony could finish anywhere but first place again. The brand name is too strong internationally, and they have too many good exclusives across a variety of genres (although not nesessarily at launch) to be ignored.
  
  Thanks to High_Paralel for posting the article in the PS3 forums.
  

   

  • Posted Sep 7, 2006 8:50 pm GMT
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• 6Sep 06

  PS3 Delay makes Dowju something something....

  At first the something something was "go crazy"... now its just "wait longer"
  
  
  A few weeks ago I finished paying off my pre-order ($999AUD). And all was well with the world. Now I have to wait 5 more months than I expected, and I'm still a grand out of pocket. But what can I do, right?
  
  I'd
  drop the pre-order and get an X360 if it had any exclusives that
  appealed to me more than these *points down*, which it does not.
  
  R:FoM
  Wahawk
  Heavenly Sword
  Motorstorm
  MGS4
  FF XIII
  Lair
  Armored Core 4
  Devil May Cry 4
  Killzone 2
  Genji
  2
  My Singstar
  Eye of Judgement (and all other Eye-Toy games)
  Heavy
  Rain
  Mobile Suit Gundam
  Ratchet and Clank
  Tekken 6
  Virtua Figher 5
  Coded Arms: Assault
  Untold Ledgends: Dark Kingdom
  
  God thats a long list... Anyway, thats 20 games
  that I'd really like to play, and while each is not nesessarily a
  system-seller in themselves they sure do add up to something IMO.
  
  The
  X360 has some nice things going for it, sure, such as GRAW, Dead
  Rising, Mass Effect, Lost Planet, DoA 4, Gears of War, Too Human,
  Bioshock and Halo 3. But my want for these nine titles does not out
  weigh my desire for the PS3's listed 20, and I simply do not have the money
  for both systems.
  
  Also, a fair number more of my anticipated titles will be available when the PS3 is released here, while the games coming between now and then for the 360 that have my attention are Dead Rising (yes, not here yet *gasp*) Lost Planet, and Gears of War.
  
  That makes a total of 5 exclusive games that I want from X360's lineup by March, whereas from PS3's exclusive launch/launch window lineup I want 10 (Marked in bold on my list).
  
  So despite being on the painful end of the PAL stick,
  I'll still get a PS3, the games lineup (not just the launch lineup) justifies the wait IMO.
  
  
  
  • Posted Sep 6, 2006 8:33 pm GMT
  • Category: News
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