I was recently caught off guard by a video game commercial for Halo Reach.  It claimed to be the most anticipated game of 2010!  Really?  So Bioshock 2 wasn’t more anticipated?  And I suppose no one has even heard of Starcraft 2?  Yeah.  Un-huh.  Suuuuuure.

The most anticipated game of 2010: Halo Reach? Or StarCraft II?

Don’t we have some kind of regulatory agency that requires some kind of truth in advertising or something?  Like, I don’t know, maybe the Federal Trade Commission…

It’s the latest scream from Microsoft gaming, their revamp of the Xbox 360 in a sleeker sexier package.  And they’ve even paired it up with their “new” technology, Kinect, which really isn’t all that new as it’s only the old Nintendo Wii motion controller concept, just on an Xbox now.  But it’s all good.

The new Microsoft Xbox 360 with Kinect

At least until you start using it.

While at E3, the folks from the website Destructoid got to play with one of the new Xbox 360s at a Microsoft booth.  Alan Wake was playing … until they briefly picked up the console, presumably to switch it from horizontal to vertical, at which point the bad garbage-disposal noises began and Microsoft representatives were quick to jump in saying how you can’t do that.

Oh sure, there’s a big sticker right on it saying not to move it while a disk is playing.  Oh sure, we already know from past Xbox experience that you really shouldn’t move your console.  Ever.

But this is one of those no-brainers that you would think Microsoft might have taken the time to fix while redesigning their console.  Instead of making even worse.

Especially since, what with the new Kinect motion control system and all, kids (and adults) just may be jumping around.  So how much vibration does it take for the new Xbox 360 to destroy a disk?  If it’s even more sensitive than the last, will just jumping up in outrage after getting pwned online do it?  Will using fitness games with Kinect do it?  Will the family dog wagging his tail blithely do it?  Will the family cat jumping on her new warm perch do it?  Will a controller accidentally flying out of a kids hand do it?  Will an adult, not as coordinated as he thought as he Kinects with his new Xbox do it?

Game disks are not exactly cheap, so wantonly destroying them is no joke.  The chances of an Xbox 360 being shaken or even moved are not all that rare.  It’s a serious issue.  One which Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii have so far managed to not have a problem with.  It’s an Xbox 360 domain only.  And one that, apparently, Microsoft doesn’t take seriously.

So as you buy your new Xbox 360 and play with Kinect, remember, do not move your Xbox 360.  Do not jump for joy.  Do not jump at all.  You will damage your disk.

It’s a dark day in video games.  There’s now officially a class action lawsuit taking Sony and Square Enix to court.  The reason?  Countless Sony Playstation 3s have been turned into useless black bricks after playing Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII.  And neither will admit any culpability, blaming the other.

If one complains to Sony, they are advised that the problem is with FF XIII and not with the PS3, and that repairs will cost them $200.

Where as if one complains to Square Enix, they are advised that the problem is in fact with the Playstation 3 hardware and that all that Square Enix can do is replace your FFXIII game disk.

Hence, the class action lawsuit.

And, frankly, the first time that I’ve felt really glad that I delayed in purchasing a game.

And if you’re one of those people still playing Final Fantasy XIII on your Playstation3, well, you may want to look into people’s complaints, or stop playing, at least until this is all sorted out.

On the 15th Symantec anti-virus users who also play World of Warcraft were in for a real treat: their beloved game was marked as a dangerous virus.  The scan.dll.new was actually safe however.  Symantec just happened to release a virus definition with a false positive.

Now, certainly, there have been worse.  Take McAfee for example, who two years running how has bricked Windows PCs as a means of celebrating holidays. But still, one would think that if a company like Symantec wanted to, say, distinguish themselves from a major, though bumbling, competitor, that they would perhaps do so by not making similar mistakes of falsely marking commonly used software as a virus.  Maybe?  No?

Yet that’s exactly what Symantec went and did.

Granted, in their case, they at least didn’t brick your PC.  They just stopped you from playing WoW for a little while.  They even answered their phones and immediately released a fix so that WoW fans could get back to it.  Which was certainly ten times better than anything McAfee ever did.

But still…

I mean WoW?  That’s like the MMORPG loved by the masses.  Is there a more played online game out there?  And Symantec never bothered to test against it?

I think what bugs me so much about this is not the false positives themselves.  These things happen.  With as many new freaking viruses, worms, and other forms of malware attacking the internet every day, it’s no wonder that on occasion someone stuffs up and identifies a safe file as one of the nasties.  Schiznit happens.

No, what grates on me is that, again, we’re seeing software releases that obviously were not put through proper testing.  It’s this Oh, we’ll just fix it later if anything is wrong indifferent mentality that grinds my gears.  Good software developers do not take quality so casually.  And good companies should not be pushing around their software developers into doing bad things.

And these are big companies here.  Symantec.  McAfee.  The top names in antivirus and internet security.  They should be the ones doing things right, not gambling on releases like this.

It’s a shame things have come to this.

Down with DRM!  It’s a message that I can’t help but chortle over, because frankly, I ultimately have to agree with it.  And so do a lot of people, especially the honest ones affected by it.  Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is anti-piracy software designed to keep the bad people of the world from making free copies of your intellectual property.  Only it very rarely actually does, as there’s a lot of money to be made in piracy and people who already break laws for a living rarely concern themselves with breaking even more laws.  Where as those of us who are honest, who buy the software, movie, song, what have you legitimately and fairly, must then suffer through heavy-handed misery of overcompensating DRM.

As Chris Boyd, a security researcher at Sunbelt Software, has been quoted as saying, “In general, it seems DRM restrictions in gaming are becoming more intrusive and creating problems for genuine customers, rather than the pirates who happily bypass these measures every time.”

DRM is a painful reminder that just because you’re honest doesn’t mean you’re ever going to be treated as such.  It’s an insult to consumers everywhere.

And one also has to wonder, just how much more does it cost a company to implement some of these extremely obnoxious overly thorough DRM solutions than it costs them in sales had they just not implemented anything so outlandish?

As a software engineer, I’m all for intellectual property rights and paying instead of pirating.  But as a GUI specialist, I also know the importance of ease of use and specifically, not pissing off your paying customers.

So even though legally I don’t condone it, it made me smile when I heard the news that Ubisoft now has a problem, because the really annoying always-online DRM of Assassin’s Creed II has been effectively cracked by a group called SKIDROW.  No fake authentication servers necessary.  Just patch and play unfettered by an internet connection.

Of course I don’t condone this.  In the slightest.

Not one bit.