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http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153775

Blizzard signed the advertising deal with Massive to display ads on the battle.net website ONLY. They've specifically stated that it doesn't cover in-game ads. This has been reported here as well as in many other stories that can be found with a Google search.

So, hopefully no in-game ads from Blizzard. I don't know about the other publishers listed.

Very cool indeed. Back in 3rd grade, I really wanted a Cray. I remember thinking when I grew up I could have a garage out back and fill it with the worlds MOST POWERFUL COMPUTER! I saw one up close and personal in a museum in france, had to tease it with my cell phone.

Some of those machine calculators are pretty awesome, but I really like the fact that we have now come some type of odd circle, and now we have games where we can virtually build something similar.

Also, I've seen this picture before. Two questions: one, is it real. Two: please tell me the steering wheel is to avoid computer crashes.

If you think that's a lot, then hold onto your hat!

And only now do I find out that Id has actually been acquired by Zenimax, which owns Bethesda as well. According to this interview with John Carmack, Doom 4 will actually be a Bethesda title.

So I guess we might as well expect a Doom-4-engine-powered Oblivion II. Exciting!

This is completely new and exciting

why are you withholding it from my 'Motherboard' which I purchased?

Because its a motherboard, not ram, and I don't ever remember ram coming standard with individual motherboards from ASUS, DFI, or Gigabyte (or other makers), ever. Bad analogy, try again.

Here I was thinking that because games had a fixed price ($50 or $60USD) and gamers had a fixed amount of money to spend, they might try to get the most value for their buck. If a sizable portion of a game's design budget goes into content that isn't part of the release or cost of the game, why pay full price for that game? (Yes, most console games that release DLC still cost $60, and the budget that goes into the making of that DLC comes from the pool of sales, its not like they set aside the marketplace profits soley for the creation of paid DLC).

While yes, I am aware that expecting a company to try to please its consumers can be construed as entitlement, once upon a time, if something was developed for a game by the devs and they could fit it in, they tried to put it in, or released it later with a patch (Like multiplayer maps for quake 2). Unlike your bad Mobo/ram analogy, once upon a time, the $50 cost of admission was (and in some cases, like the orange box, still is) enough to cover everything that was created for a game that was polished, rather than having to charge for simply because someone says they have to.

If the devs say that they've moved on after release and don't want to release anything new, that's cool too, I'm not expecting companies to better their product after release, just not knee-cap it prior to release.

By the way, I know that nobody is forcing me to buy DLC, and in a lot of cases, I don't, but in halo 3, its getting harder to play online because I don't have all the new paid content, so the value of my game is decreasing because I refuse to pay its upkeep (being the flashing name in a party with the text "The following players do not have the content required" gets old). So while they're not "forcing" me to pay more, it would be nice if they didn't rub my nose in it and heavily imply that if I wanted to continue to enjoy the game fully and not be a party pariah, I should fork out more money.

I don't think that the slashdotters are afraid of individual dev's abusing the power, but instead when apple (which is a company with shareholders and a responsibiltiy to share holders and has a history of wishing to turn a profit) decides that they want to follow other content market administrators and limit what dev's can give away for free.

How old are you exactly? I'm not sure how anyone, who was old enough to know better, could claim that the state of PC video gaming was better in the 90's.

It was better. Back then PC games where very different from console games, you had your platformer and action adventures on the consoles and the PC was filled with adventures, flightsims, FPS and strategy games. Today on the other side most of those PC-exclusive genres are either dead or have been turned into console games. There no longer is a clear differentiation between PC and consoles, all get the same games, but the PC often gets them last, because it has the smallest market share of them (14%). Many once PC exclusive developers have either moved to consoles or at least gone multiplatform.

That doesn't mean PC gaming will die out, its the only open platform around, but it means PC gaming is shifting. The future of PC gaming lies in games like Peggle and indie titles not in AAA blockbuster titles, as those go where the money is and that is consoles.

The closest thing to an exclusive genre that the PC still has are the MMORPGs, but while they make tons of money, I am not so sure that they are actually good for PC gaming as a whole, as they suck up so much time, that other titles have a much harder time.

Here http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3145432

Probably what Namco, EA and Capcom have learned. Namely, you don't have to actually let the user access the full game they bought for full price anymore. You're free to lock content on their disc, then charge them for it again later (or even on release day) via DLC. Best of all, after basically spitting in the faces of your biggest fans, they'll fall over themselves to defend you for it on the Interwebs.

PS4?

I thought that I read a Sony CEO saying some where that the PS3 was future proof and the 360 is just transitional?

Forward to today and oops.......

For the PC everything is/will be free, just like the TF2 updates. The 360 is different because Microsoft wants them to charge for their DLC, which is why they've waited a bloody long time to release it.

Gabe interview: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3170080

PS If you haven't already, go to interlopers.net with your map. Hell of a community that will give you all grades of feedback.

With X-Box, you need to hack the HD in order to run any other software. With the PS3, you simply go into the system menu and select (install other OS).

Sony's just as evil as the next company. From what I understand, they declared the PS3 to be a "computer system" as a means of avoiding tariffs in Europe, and to do this they needed to offer access to the OS. Plain and simple. They tried this with the PS2, but it didn't offer access to the OS, and thus failed the test (as I am led to believe).

Assuming Sony sticks to their original gameplan, 2011 is 5 years too soon

So far Sony has been pretty stubborn about "staying the course". They haven't said anything that makes me think they're about to jettison PS3 any time soon. Especially not in 2 years.

They had half a million subscribers and sold hundreds of thousands of copies of each issue on newsstands. Success wasn't the reason for the shutdown, it was the fact that their new parent, UGO, doesn't want to engage in the costly print industry. That's according to former Editor In Chief James Mielke, anyway.

But EGM...it had the same problems that plague game magazines, but sometimes very good stuff slipped through the usual crapfest. I also have fond memories of reading EGM when I was growing up, it was my main source of game news and reviews. I can't say the same about Gamepro or other game magazines, which contained writing that even an average kid could tell was poor.

What saddens me most, though, is the demise of the 1up podcasts. By which I mean the demise of 1up Yours, which was very, very fun and much more informative than anything print EGM or 1up itself published. Garnett Lee has hinted on Neogaf that the podcast will somehow survive, but I question how wise UGO's decision was to pull the plug on this show. It's quality content, which they desperately need. And it has a fanbase, which they also need, especially during this transition period.

With EGM gone, the only print game publication worth reading remaining is Edge...in truth, a much superior magazine than EGM ever was, even though it suffers from the same problems that exist in any industry controlled press.

After giving the New York Times article a little bit more time to settle there are three points that I wanted to review further. The first was how the article came to use the term extreme communities. I did read over the Vaughan Bell article was a reference is made to such communities. http://arginine.spc.org/vaughan/Bell_2007_JMH_Preprint.pdf According to what Dr Bell wrote in the article it was views considered extreme or unacceptable by the mainstream. Using this definition I wondered if things such as the 9/11 truth movement would be an extreme community? Their views are not considered mainstream. I also wondered who else might fall into this list based on Dr Bell's definition? Websites that cover conspiracy topics might well meet his definition of extreme communities. Many of the subject matters covered on websites such as http://www.abovetopsecret.com/ would fall into this category. They would be a website of mini patches of extreme communities. Another factor that I thought should be calculated in when defining a community as an extreme community is the obvious, is the community helpful vs harmful? What kind of purpose do they serve? If I go to a website that has what by some is considered an extreme view that encourages me to kill myself, then that should be considered different than going to a website that expounds none traditional views, but steers the website viewer away from inflicting harm to themselves? There are lot's of websites that conform to traditional or more traditional mainstream views that in my opinion are probably fairly harmful to some aspects of society, but we turn a blind eye, because it does pass mainstream muster. The definition as is, in my opinion is fairly broad, and the references to the term were limited except for references to Dr Bell's work and the New York Times article. The other point that I am wondering about is who or what now defines what is mainstream or normal? In today's society we have so many different variables to consider. At one time spending all your time online might have been considered the actions of lonely desperate people. Now with websites such as Facebook, and much of web 2.0 culture, being online is considered normal, and spending many hours online as long as it's spent socialising is considered a fairly normal and healthy activity. According to a report from Mediamark Research in a 30 day period 2.5 million adults participated in online dating. I am sure they find this to be completely normal and mainstream, but I am sure there are patches of society that do not agree with this. http://www.mediamark.com/PDF/Nearly%202.5%20Million%20Adults%20Participated%20in%20Online%20Dating%20in%20Last%2030%20Days.pdf World of WarCraft reached 11 Million monthly Subscribers. Many of them sane individuals who go online to take part in these roleplaying games. For that community, I am sure they consider themselves normal and mainstream, just by their sheer numbers. I am sure there are still many in society who would not however consider going online to roleplay normal, mainstream or even healthy. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170971 Thus what would be considered as abnormal or extreme view offline is often a normal and accepted view online, in many different circles. Eg. 9/11 conspiracy offline, might still be considered anti-government or none traditional, but online they are a fairly regular part of web culture and discussions. When defining mainstream and referencing the Internet, we might have to start finding different ways to do so. Eg. I just read an article today, that talks about a real life couple getting divorced because he is cheating online with a virtual girlfriend. Traditional definitions are having to be adapted and redef

After giving the New York Times article a little bit more time to settle there are three points that I wanted to review further.

The first was how the article came to use the term extreme communities. I did read over the Vaughan Bell article was a reference is made to such communities.

http://arginine.spc.org/vaughan/Bell_2007_JMH_Preprint.pdf

According to what Dr Bell wrote in the article it was views considered extreme or unacceptable by the mainstream. Using this definition I wondered if things such as the 9/11 truth movement would be an extreme community? Their views are not considered mainstream. I also wondered who else might fall into this list based on Dr Bell's definition?

Websites that cover conspiracy topics might well meet his definition of extreme communities. Many of the subject matters covered on websites such as http://www.abovetopsecret.com/ would fall into this category. They would be a website of mini patches of extreme communities.

Another factor that I thought should be calculated in when defining a community as an extreme community is the obvious, is the community helpful vs harmful? What kind of purpose do they serve? If I go to a website that has what by some is considered an extreme view that encourages me to kill myself, then that should be considered different than going to a website that expounds none traditional views, but steers the website viewer away from inflicting harm to themselves?

There are lot's of websites that conform to traditional or more traditional mainstream views that in my opinion are probably fairly harmful to some aspects of society, but we turn a blind eye, because it does pass mainstream muster.

The definition as is, in my opinion is fairly broad, and the references to the term were limited except for references to Dr Bell's work and the New York Times article.

The other point that I am wondering about is who or what now defines what is mainstream or normal? In today's society we have so many different variables to consider. At one time spending all your time online might have been considered the actions of lonely desperate people. Now with websites such as Facebook, and much of web 2.0 culture, being online is considered normal, and spending many hours online as long as it's spent socialising is considered a fairly normal and healthy activity.

According to a report from Mediamark Research in a 30 day period 2.5 million adults participated in online dating. I am sure they find this to be completely normal and mainstream, but I am sure there are patches of society that do not agree with this.
http://www.mediamark.com/PDF/Nearly%202.5%20Million%20Adults%20Participated%20in%20Online%20Dating%20in%20Last%2030%20Days.pdf

World of WarCraft reached 11 Million monthly Subscribers. Many of them sane individuals who go online to take part in these roleplaying games. For that community, I am sure they consider themselves normal and mainstream, just by their sheer numbers. I am sure there are still many in society who would not however consider going online to roleplay normal, mainstream or even healthy.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170971

Thus what would be considered as abnormal or extreme view offline is often a normal and accepted view online, in many different circles. Eg. 9/11 conspiracy offline, might still be considered anti-government or none traditional, but online they are a fairly regular part of web culture and discussions. When defining mainstream and referencing the Internet, we might have to start finding different ways to do so.

Eg. I just read an article today, that talks about a real life couple getting divorced because he is cheating online with a virtual girlfr

On the other hand, the Folding @ Home project, which is actually doing something useful with all those cycles, has broken the PetaFLOP mark, and did so over a year ago.

For some reason game developers of the more sleazy variety (Bill Roper, I'm looking at you) look at the success of World of Warcraft and think "cha-ching": MMO = Easy money.

Oh please. Stop the bitter divorce bull crap.

Bill Roper has gone on record stating the reason for the collapse of Hellgate. It had little if anything to do with this aforementioned idea of "greed" and everything to do with very poor business decisions by a guy who shouldn't have been making them to begin with. It's a very telling interview and worth a read. Speaking as a person who bought Hellgate:London but never purchased a subscription plan.

With regards to the lifetime subscription, you did the right thing by contacting your credit card company. It's pretty much the only course of action you had because Flagship didn't have any money to refund. Your CC company basically swallowed the cost for your bad investment.

Actually, the game assets were put into escrow as assets against investment from other companies. I don't remember if this "Redbana" is the investor, but there's someone that is interested and has a claim against the assets. So, no open sourcing for this game. Plus, consider that open sourcing a project like a game of this scale is not a non-trivial bit of work.

Anyway, the whole situation with Hellgate and Flagship was a pretty fucked up affair. You can see an interview with Bill Roper here: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3169356. I also wrote a book about business and legal issues: Business & Legal Primer for Game Development , which would give you some insight into the business and legal issues in game development.

The game is incapable of the advertised performance with the specified hardware requirements. There are no qualifiers in those requirements. Nothing that tells you that you can't experience the whole game.

You're absolutely right. Maybe they should include a qualifying word, such as "minimum", which will resolve this problem.

If the game can't handle its maximum number of units with the minimum or even recommended hardware, then those requirements are too low.

And if they specify requirements that can handle the game under its maximum load, with the maximum level of detail, at an infinite resolution, then no one plays the game. Well except for pirates, who have nothing to lose from trying the game on their system even if they don't have an infitely powerful PC to match the infinite requirements. But that's what you want right?

It's perfectly possible to allow for nearly unlimited potential, but there must still be a baseline. You can then allow players to ramp up the limits to meet their system's level of power.

So in other words, the system requirements will be a lie.

Why should gamers believe there is a difference?

For the same reason their sample peanut butter isn't the same size as the retail one is. Common sense, really. It's a great argument for pirates not having common sense or any computer knowledge though, because apparently they can manage to work a P2P client just fine. Though it does seem a bit fallacious that while you claim they'd only pirate the game if they were aware that it may not play well on their system under certain situations; they would only have the insight to double-check this case if they'd already considered the possibility of more complex use of the game impacting on the system usage, which you claim they couldn't possibly have known about.

There are different scenarios and you're being belligerent in your attempts to keep trying to assign one reason to everyone.

I really like how you keep defending criminals. Hey, don't hate rapists! They have lots of reasons why they do it, its unfair to treat them all the same! I'd be more than happy to have each and every pirate treated as individuals in their own civil/criminal trials. Funny thing though, they don't seem to stand up enough for their beliefs to actually admit to it, instead choosing to hind behind a shroud of anonymity. Yeah, sounds real dignified to me, they definitely deserve our respect.

You can find a few crazy stories about damn near anything though. They don't prove anything except that some people are nutcases, which we already know.

Hehe, I love this little argument of yours. "Those are just one-off cases and don't mean anything. I still maintain that my one-off cases in the opposite effect mean something". You should also read this post (no, that's not me), amusingly marked as flamebait, but introduces two fascinating points regarding Starforce (here is a link for the first point).

No, I'm saying that there's two types of DRM. Non-intrusive types like CD keys, and instrusive types that require software installation to allow it to have some level of control over your system.

I like how you use the word "intrusive" as if it had a clear, objective definition.

The less software you're installing, the less chance of problems,

Malware tends to be pretty small and uncomplicated. As do the DRM mechanisms. Yet that doesn't stop people complaining about the things that they wouldn't even notice if some zealous piracy advocate hadn't been on their soapbox spreading FUD about it.

especially when DRM software is designed to prevent your system from letting you run so

Let me know when a DX10-only game comes out that doesn't have a hack to make it work with DX9

You have the ability to install it 3 times, assuming they don't shutdown the Spore activation server in two years.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3161699

Hopefully they would release a patch for that though, but I'm sure if they have Spore 2 out by then they wont bother.

they are trying to destroy the second hand game market.

have you read this?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169899

FTA: Even on the same PC, extra copies needed for each family member who wants a new profile.

As if there was any need to further incite angry gamers with Spore's DRM issues, The Consumerist yesterday ran a story on how -- in addition to the many other restrictions the game's DRM presents gamers with -- a copy of Spore provides you with only a single game account. In other words, if you've got multiple people in the same house who want to play Spore and have their own individual online personas, you'll have to buy an additional copy of Spore for each person.

Forget what you may have read on the manual -- particularly that part on page 53 which reads, "You may have multiple Spore accounts for each installation of the game." An EA spokesperson going by the name "EA_Violet" has clarified questions regarding the matter on the official Spore forums, providing us this disappointing revelation:

"That section in the manual was a misprint and will be corrected in future printings of the manual. There is one Spore registration/account per game/serial code so you are correct in that you cannot make multiple accounts at this time. I have sent your guys' feedback to the game team though since I can understand the desire to share a game on a system that you entire family uses."

For a "misprint" the language seems pretty clear, and it is common practice for games to allow different user profiles so you can login and play with your own data/saves(naturally, with only one instance of the game running at any given time). One can't help but wonder whether this feature was removed so late in the process that the manual had already gone to print. Regardless, if this policy sticks after the game team reviews the feedback noted in the post it will only fan the fires of gamers frustrated with EA's handling of Spore. While we stand staunchly against piracy, requiring each member of a household to buy their own individual copy of the game seems like one of those policies that could backfire, driving people who otherwise wouldn't dream of it to potentially consider it as an alternative. But maybe this is simply an example of not having thought things through.

Should it hold true, this revelation also calls the game's strict installation restrictions into question. If each game serial code only authorizes a single account registration that should render how many times you install the game fairly moot.

We've contacted EA for a comment on the story but have yet to receive a response.

All MMO's are dead to me except one

Here's something that's not anecdotal. I couldn't find the original source, but it's common knowledge that the 360's failure rate was terrible at launch and is still pretty bad.

As a side note, anybody remember the original PSX's overheating problems? It seems that being first out of the gate with a next-gen console is worthwhile even if it's a pretty poor design.

...Darth Vader on the PS3 version of Soul Calibur IV!

Sure, you get Yoda on the Xbox 360, but come on man, it's Darth Vader!

It's worth mentioning that the first RTS game was published for the Sega Genesis.

• Another Blizzard product. Unlikely if Blizzard maintains the expansion strategy.
• An MMO with truly user-generated content. Spore will be nudging the genre in this direction. Blizzard knows this is coming, Rob Pardo (a Blizz VP) was on a GDC '07 panel discussing this.

PS3 is future proof though.

I heard a great quote on the state of PC gaming on the Games For Windows podcast last week, saying that PC games are very profitable but don't have the same revenue as console games, and the big publishers are only interested in volume and revenue. I think this can be directly translated to the Linux argument - it is very likely that if you dedicate a small team to port a Windows game to Linux enough people will buy it that there is a net gain, but the sheer number of people who will buy the game is not sufficient to convince studios to make this happen. Companies like Popcap, Big Fish, and WildTangent have proven that a small programming effort can be very profitable, but industry leading publishers like EA and Ubisoft pretty much tune out any product that will not be purchased by at least 1 million people.

The high end game industry lives in its own (un)reality.

How the hell is it Intel and the PC's manufacturer's fault for integrated graphics, when most PC's are for business use, where they, at best, play card games on. People won't pay for power they don't need.

The market for insanely fast, high-end games seems to have shrunk in favour of casual games, MMOs, and "gameplay" games. Instead of working on graphics engines, the hotspot for innovation seems to be game play and game experience. Examples abound: Wii Sports, Bio Shock, Mass Effect, World in Conflict, the endless stream of "war games" like Gears of War and Call of Duty, etc.

None of these games can be played with Integrated graphics; WoW will run max ~10-15 fps on X3100 Integrated graphics, and will probably degrade without aftermarket cooling. Almost all sales people at Best Buy or even at the Apple Store are very clear about what models are meant for games, and which ones aren't. Yet Tim claims that poor, blind, customers are being sold PC's that won't play games. I guess he's never heard of a "2 week return policy"?

I think Doom 3 killed the market -- after that experience, people don't want to buy the same old 10 year old game with new graphics and some minor gameplay improvements.

For example, if you improve the graphics (a bit) AND the gameplay AND change the setting or genre, you may have a winner... The current graphics champ, Crysis, has done fairly well, selling 1 million through the end of January, despite early reports that it was flunking as bad as UT3. Gears of War 2 is hotly anticipated and I bet will slam UT3's sales despite being on the same engine. I haven't heard what UT3's sales are, last I saw it was 1.2 million for PS3 + PC combined, which seems to indicate PC sales sucked.

I agree with you about the dreamcast. and considering the similarities between the dreamcast and teh 360, I think the 360 is about to get raped by sony. http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3145154

The Sega Dreamcast led for sixteen months before the PlayStation 2 came out. The PlayStation 2's main advantage over the Dreamcast was its DVD-Video playback capability. Furthermore the DVD-enabled PS2 cost less than the average DVD player at the time of its release. This fact was possibly the biggest factor contributing to the Dreamcast's demise in Japan.

Tell me again how much ov a serious contender Sega turned out to be...

23 eerie parallels between Xbox 360 and the Sega Dreamcast : http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3145154

Yes, a new xbox is coming soon. That is because the xbox 360 was not designed to compete with teh ps3. It was designed to compete with the ps2. Microsoft is well aware that the xbox360 will be crushed by the ps3.

Ok it was a marketing guy, but this was interesting anyways

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3145154&did=1

You know, a link to what the article is supposedly talking about. They tend to help.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164291

Thought I would help.

Via Google. And beat the editor that allowed this to get to the front page for me.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164291

Here's a link to a Former EA Staff member speaking out

Before November last year they weren't giving out the numbers. When media folks were asking for the numbers for the new systems they decided to, for a limited time, make more information public for free. They have been selling the data all along, and presumably haven't been giving all of it out. The whole thing was just to answer what they thought would be a short lived higher demand due to the launching of the new gaming systems.

Apparently they've noticed the whining from the blogs and are surprised at the outrage, but may or may not do anything about it.

Got some updates from http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164195

If the reviewer gives a score for both then I can understand which he/she feels is better and by what margin.

Except that the scores aren't derived from any kind of objective framework, so comparing the scores of two games really isn't meaningful. Maybe the reviewer's wife isn't giving him any that week and he's ticked off, so all his scores are 10% lower. Maybe his favorite American Idol contestant won that week and all his scores are 7% higher. The scores aren't scientific; they're completely subjective. That makes comparing one score to another an apples-to-oranges type of comparison.

(Metacritic filters some of this out by using an average score across many reviewers, which should help make it clearer which ones are outliers. But that doesn't really make up for the essential subjectivity of numeric scores.)

If you're into this stuff, I recommend subscribing to the GFW Radio podcast; it's by the editors of Games for Windows Magazine (the mag that used to be known as Computer Gaming World), and they frequently discuss how they evaluate games and various upsides and downsides of different review methodologies. (GFW used to feature numeric scores for games, but they recently dropped them, for essentially the reason I outlined above.)

story that actually tells you all that comes with it(256 meg memory card, but no hd, to store games on)

Dennis Dyack said over and over how bad previews are for the industry after their disastrous showing which was anyone but their own fault...source: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3158015

I listened to the podcast argument about this, which was very entertaining, but bottom line, end of the day, what happens? Previews come out for Too Human. Seems awful hypocritical to me...

360
fail
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and
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here.

This anecdote
An Over view.
another article

As well Microsoft has announced about 100$ for each xbox 360 sold thus far($1 billion dollars). Which would be warranty repair costs and replacements costs for 1/3 of it's units if each replacement costs the same price as a new one in product costs and handling costs. Some say they may just be overly cautious but no manufacturer would announce such a huge warranty budget and risk extremely bad PR if there wasn't a problem. Given the next revision (falcon) will utilize the 65nm chip fab for the CPU it's less likely those will fail thus that billion is likely for machines already sold. Those new boxes aren't in the retail channels yet either.

Microsoft is letting Rare port Viva Pinata to Nintendo consoles. Confirmed on Nintendo DS, rumored for Wii: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163164

Stranger things have happened than Halo 3 on Wii. The major problem is that the Wii hardware is way too wimpy to run the engine-- they can back-port it to the Halo 1 engine, maybe. ;)

You obviously haven't programmed quite enough then. As in encountering a line in the code that says "whatever you do, don't touch the next line. If you change it, the program segfaults. Don't touch this comment either: If you change it, this won't compile." No, it's not strictly paranormal, but, well, it does demonstrate one of the big problems of hard sciences: computer science can only tell us How It Actually Works and the softer side of computer science tells us Why This Is Generally Discouraged, but we need to expand our research to other fields (psychology, sociology, history, yes, perhaps even philosophy and theological studies) that can explain What The Hell Were They Thinking When They Wrote This, and perhaps even If There Is A God, Why He Lets This Get Written. =)

Then... if you need some fun reading, you might want to consider the strange case of a haunted NES, which, upon closer scrutiny, regrettably did not have as many actual paranormal properties as advertised, though. =)

Oh, the world of computers is so full of weird and otherworldly stuff. As a computer guy, I know this box next to me is just a typical example of a very complex system with lots of variables to consider... yet I would think life would be much easier if I'd just think it as a Thing that has a Peculiar Character of its own. This is, as the famous saying goes, technology sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic. =)

It appears that it is caused by engine readiness.

According to 1Up, Midways CEO said that there have been technical issues with the Unreal Engine 3.0 which caused delays for Stranglehold and now Area 51 (coming out 3 weeks after the 360 version) and Ut3. However he says that the technical issues have been "ironed out" and after UT3 the PS3 versions of games using the engine will be released at the same time as the 360 versions.

we'll see if that happens.

Here's the link to 1UP http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163346