Voodoo Extreme has details from a Microsoft release about Xbox accomplishments in 2004. From the article: "Xbox Live online gaming service has set a new standard for online gaming with more than 1.4 million members around the world."

Gamespot has a piece up about industry analyst reactions to the EA / ESPN deal. They span the gamut from appreciation for a smart business move to a frustration with a company throwing its weight around. From the article: "Has the fat lady finally sung in the sports-game wars? Should all the other publishers pack it in and head for the showers? Opinions are mixed, but this week's news was one of the year's biggest wins--for Electronic Arts. Now, the industry girds for a string of earnings calls where executives at publicly traded companies--EA and others--will surely face a grilling from curious analysts."

Ant writes "Voodoo Extreme reports on the story of a jilted Japanese girlfriend who logged onto her ex-lover's Lineage account with his username and password. Once there, she deleted his game data including all the items, weapons and clothes he had collected. Although the boyfriend did not suffer financially he reported the misuse of his account to the police. Police then reported the woman of Toyama Prefecture, to the Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office accusing her of violating a law banning illegal access to someone else's online accounts." Considering the big business that Lineage represents, it doesn't surprise me that the police took it seriously.

PSP411 writes "It was announced today that Sony has decided to open up the UMD format in a limited fashion as a formal standard. According to a PC World article, companies interested in releasing movies and music on UMD may soon be able to do so. Those interested in developing games and software are still out of luck, however, as the format for 3rd parties is still being limited to movies and music." UMD stands for Universal Media Disc, the media format used for Sony's new handheld gaming console (the PSP).

cellullama writes "Some of the leading video-game researchers are saying that games are better for teaching than textbooks. Three University of Wisconsin professors just said schools and corporate trainers should learn something from Halo 2 and Half-life. My workplace is already doing this (but don't tell my boss.)"

Greyzone writes "NCSoft is preparing to use a security product to protect the Lineage II game process from user hacks while running on a user PC. Unfortunately, this product has serious flaws of its own. Securityfocus.com explains the serious flaws and the possible hacks that can be used against user PCs that have installed this software." From the article "It is true that even with this vulnerability the user must still be tricked into running a malicious application that exploits it. However, in South Korea, where the Gameguard service is widely used, net cafes have become part of the social fabric. These machines are ripe fruit for damage."

Gamasutra.com is running an article entitled Shaping Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 for the Younger Market. Beyond the interesting dilmmas associated with designing for a younger audience, the article is a good examiniation of following up on a successful franchise without alienating your fanbase. From the article: "Aiming towards a young market with family friendly content doesn't mean you have to make a game without all the exciting features adult gamers come to expect in a premium title. This time around, we were determined to include some of the ideas that didn't make it into the first game (like more giant robots and vehicle based missions), and concentrate more on the "action" elements of platformer games. "

Worthplaying has a note that Ubisoft (SOE's EU distributor) and SOE have made available an offline character creator on the UK EQ2 site. It's somewhat large, but the EQ2 character creation process is somewhat in-depth. Should make for a fun toy.

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that much anticipated Oriental influenced action title Jade Empire will be delayed another month. From the article: "The Bioware-developed title is one of the most eagerly anticipated games on the Xbox, and marks a departure from the company's normal style of gameplay by veering into action RPG territory with multiple martial arts styles to learn."

Garthilk writes "Blizzard recently made a bit of press when they announced that they would be actively enforcing their End User License agreement and prohibit the third party sale of game items and characters. Many people don't believe these clickthrough EULAs to be enforceable contracts. Thankfully Don Shelkey from the Corporate Finance and Technology section of the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll stops by to give us the low down. Mind you he is speaking on his own behalf and not on behalf any of his clients."

Chris writes "FileFront has broke the news from Blizzard that they are no longer placing their highly popular MMORPG on store shelves, due to the recent server problems reported by Slashdot on Tuesday. Denying rumors that they had asked several stores to pull the game from shelves, Blizzard rep Gil Shrif is quoted as saying: 'We're just being careful not to release additional copies to be sold until we feel the game servers can support additional players.' The online store on Blizzard's website shows the game to be out of stock. No word on whether or not this will affect the Korean release."

TerraNova has linkage regarding an update to the Marvel vs. NCsoft case. The litigation, contesting the use of Marvel character facsimilies in NCSoft's City of Heroes, has been taken to a new level. NCSoft has retained the services of Cooley Godward LLP and filed a motion to dismiss the case. A lot of good rhetoric in the brief, including: "[City of Heroes] allows young and old to exercise their imaginations to create super-powered beings and send them off to interact with the creations of other individuals in a virtual world called Paragon City. If it should be banned, then so should the #2 pencil, the Lego block, modeling clay, and anything else that allows one to give form to ideas..."

srashdotu writes "The Inquirer is reporting rumors that the plug will be pulled on the N-Gage due to the complete closure of the Nokia's Germany production facility by Q1 2006. Nokia has refuted this, however, claiming "We're looking at the strongest line-up of games yet for N-Gage. There's been so much money and effort poured into the system we're not going to pull out now."." Given recent events it is not hard to imagine this being true, though.

After EA's ESPN announcement yesterday, it hardly comes as a surprise that GamesIndustry.biz is reporting a possible deal between Take Two Interactive and Major League Baseball. The deal, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, appears to be for exclusivity rights similar to EA's arrangements. While the move wouldn't hurt EA's baseball franchise, it would squeeze out other competitors who have used the MLB license in the past.

NetDanzr writes "Netjak.com has published another of its annual articles probing the state of PC gaming last year. The author complains about the demise of strategy and role-playing gaming, at the expense of action titles. Even though he praises Valve's Half-Life 2, he is skeptical about the Steam copy restrictions, and predicts that Valve would face legal challenges because of it in 2005. Slashdot reported on the previous article in the series last year."

Though it was released back in September of 2004, I've only had the chance to play the racing/action title Burnout 3: Takedown post-Christmas. Marked by imaginative gameplay and extreme speeds, Burnout 3 is an amazing example of what's possible when developers look outside the traditional confines of a genre. While games involving cars may be the furthest thing from the minds of some readers, if you were ever a four-year-old who made "psshhhh-kapoooo!" noises with your Hot Wheels, you are probably going to dig this game. Read on for my take on this Criterion Games title.

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that GTA: San Andreas was the tops in December sales, but overall 2004 sales were somewhat down because of PS2 and Xbox hardware shortages. From the article: "That leaves the industry on negative growth of one per cent for the calendar year, and even considering software alone, December still saw negative growth of five per cent and brought the calendar year growth figure down to seven per cent."

In a nice bit of synchronicity, updates have been posted for the combat designs of two major Massive Games. A thread has been posted on the upcoming combat upgrade to Star Wars Galaxies, discussing design goals and opening up conversation to the game community. The initial post has been followed up by several other developer posts. Meanwhile, the folks at Blizzard have released the second part of their PvP Battlegrounds Preview. The new preview offers details on win conditions in the instanced areas and more information on PvP questing. As an aside, Blizzard is also offering 48 free hours to its customers because of the recent downtime problems.

sammykrupa writes "According to a story at The Register, Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation Portable (PSP) updater that leaked onto the web this past weekend is genuine. However, it publicly warned owners of the handheld console not to run the software as it will cause the PSP hardware to stop operating. The updater was "configured" to install a bunch of stuff including a text-to-speech utility, a calculator, web browser, email application and, weirdly, a word processor and spreadsheet tool. If you've already installed this thing and know have a broken PSP, you can send the malfunctioning PSP back to Sony for a repair but the company will charge you for the privilege."

By way of Evil Avatar, news of a Command and Conquer Generals mod to be set in the Halo universe. Entitled Halogen, the fan-made RTS appears to have much of the preliminary work completed already. Relatedly, TotalVideoGames is carrying an interview with ILoveBees actress Kristen Rutherford. She discusses her role as the schizoid AI in the Halo-Universe Alternate Reality Game. From the interview: "The characters in l love bees are all characters within the Haloverse. Melissa was the A.I. of the ship Apocalypso in the same way that Cortana was the A.I. for the Pillar of Autumn."