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Rare Gambles On Dark Discs
Next Generation reports on the risky choices Rare made with Perfect Dark Zero. They actually began stamping the discs before the game was certified so that they could make the Nov. 22nd launch date. From the article: "The certification process is the final stage a game goes through before manufacture. Microsoft's team picks through the game making sure there are no bugs, that menus all work correctly, and that there are no compatibility issues. Games that fail, even in the smallest detail, are sent back to publishers and developers for changes. The process can take days, or even weeks."
I wonder how this would trickle down to development knowing the risks involved. What would happen to the developer who introduced the bug that caused X discs to be destroyed and the game re-certified. How about the tester who missed the developer's bug?
Holy crap, a Microsoft-owned developer released a key Microsoft XBox 360 launch title to manufacturing ... before Microsoft had a chance to give it the OK! I mean, this could have been a disaster.
This kind of extreme guts is why I love Microsoft! They're so hardcore! In fact this makes me want to buy another XBox 360.
So let me get this straight....Microsoft checking for bugs?
In all seriousness, though, as long as the game runs on both SKU's and can be completed without too much frusteration and the multiplayer works. It'll be fine. If not, two things can happen.
1) only those with the HDD will get to play the patched version.
2) Rare gets screwed in a few orifaces. First oriface, they'll have to bite the costs of all the discs and destroy them. Second, Microsoft will take it out of Rare's rear because their precious release game won't be a release game. Third oriface, the public may rip them a new one because they may not trust rare (very unlikely, especially because even crap games tend to sell well at launch).
Either way, if the game has bugs it will effect Rare's reputation in public eyes some way or another. I sincerely hope they make it through, I always liked that studio.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Microsoft OWNS Rare!
Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
(posted anon to protect the NDAed individuals from whom this information comes)
Xbox Technical Certification Requirements (TCRs) are no joke. They specify exactly what every Xbox game must and must not do. Some of my (least) favorite:
* If a controler becomes unplugged during play, the game has to pause and accept a replacement controler on ANY port.
* at the initial menu, if there is no interaction for some amount of time (between 15 and 30 second if I remember right) the game must play an "attract" video suitable for in-store display.
* various in-game messages regarding system events (memory unit access, network connectivity, error states) must use a specific vocabulary (they're blocks, profiles and System Link, not kB, save games, and LAN) and in some cases specific wording of messages, particularily error messages.
* The game must use a reasonably consistent menu selection look & feel that provides clear indication of the selected item in cases of a two-item menu.
It's a bit different when your salaries are being paid by the certifying company. Microsoft owns Rare.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
As has already been so eloquently intimated, Rare is owned by Microsoft. Even leaving that aside, it's not technically feasible to run a noncertified game on a console since the console will _require_ that the game be signed by Microsoft's private key to boot. Unlike the case you cite, it's not going to be possible for Rare to forge the digital signature required without this private key. Which of course means that Microsoft's publishing division was complicit in this scheme, giving the go-ahead for Rare's disc to be signed before the final QA certification was complete (most likely on the strict condition that on failure the discs would be destroyed).
A "title that generates buzz" and is scheduled to launch on the console's launch date better damn well be perfect or else within 48 hours every connected user in the world is going to know about and it may impact their decision to purchase the console at all if the title they're anxiously awaiting is bug-ridden and unplayable...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
You do know that none of that is particularly secret or covered by an NDA...
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
I can anomymously confirm this.
Wrong I was. Sad this is. Thanks for the clarification
So, if a console has no protection against third party games, it's okay to produce them, but if Xbox requires an MS key on games to run (never knew that), but since the Xbox is copy protected, it'll be a DMCA issue if another company makes games that can trick the Xbox?
There's a bigger piece of news here than the risk of Rare fabing a disk without certification, it's Rare fabing a disk before certification at all. The process with the Xbox was as follows:
1 developer prepares disc image, sends to certification
2 certification responds with TCR violations
3 goto 1 unless no TCR violations
4 certification sends image to Great Disc Signing Machine in the Sky
5 Great Disc Signing Machine in the Sky sends signed image to developer and Xbox Disc Fabiration
6 Profit, if you're lucky.
This would indicate that Rare managed to get to step 4 without going through 2 and 3. And indicates that for the 360 each developer might have their own private key for signing. This could be excelent news for modders given that there may be private keys wafting around the world instead of being locked in a room in Redmond.
While delaying games a million bazillion years (duke nukem forever) is no good, rushing games out isn't good either. With all the pressure put on everyone you never know what kind of bad things will happen later on...
This was settled back in the days of the NES. The courts ruled Tengen could make third-party games for the Nintendo system. So why would RARE bother with grovelling at MS's feet for a certification? It's established enough so that customers won't care.
Ignoring the part about Rare being owned by MS (which is really irrelevant to the point), your assumption is mistaken.
First of all, it's neither here nor there but you've got the wrong precedent. The only case in which Nintendo actually went to court against Tengen was found in favor of Nintendo. The case which you're probably thinking of was settled out of court (again, though, with Tengen paying damages to Nintendo for breach of contract - they had been a licensee).
The precedent you're thinking of was decided in Atari vs. Activision, which settled the fact that third party developers had a right to develop games on any manufacturer's system, with or without help from that manufacturer. This is not disputed today.
However, manufacturers still have the right to implement technological "locks" on their systems, and in fact this is why Nintendo ended up suing Tengen and Tengen ended up paying them damages. Reverse-engineering is one thing, but Tengen lied to the US copyright office to obtain Nintendo's lockout program (they told them they needed it for the court case, not for commercial use), which they then duplicated on their cartridges. Tengen was clearly guilty of copyright infringement in that case.
The same would be true of anyone who today tried to release games without the approval of a console manufacturer, especially now that the DMCA exists, which prohibits the breaking of encryption around copyrighted works (in this case, the code on the lockout protection chips). Console manufacturers own code needed for a publisher to run their games on the console in question, and only the manufacturer has a right to license that code. They're also free to set conditions (such as quality control conditions) in their license contracts.
All 3rd party developers today go through a quality control process run by the console manufacturer, whether it's Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft. Otherwise they would not have access to the code they would need for their games to work. It was exactly the case you mistakenly described that standardized this process to begin with (it did the opposite of what you think it did), and the DMCA has only strengthened the console manufacturers' hand. (I hate the DMCA, but I think most people are happy that there is a standard QA process for console games.)
The only developers who do not go through a standardized QA process are PC game developers. Which is one reason why PC games tend to be buggier and why the quality control is inconsistent from one developer to another. (Some developers may put out games that are pretty clean, others may put out games that are an unplayable mess.) That's not to say that every console manufacturer's process is created equally - in my own personal experience MS and Sony are both pretty lax in terms of bugs and overall polish in both first- and third-party games when compared with Nintendo, probably because they're competing so hard with each other lately on release dates while Nintendo sort of goes its own way. (Sony also seems to have gotten worse over the years, again as MS has started to catch up a bit in sales.)
But the point is, the way the process is described here is the way it always works; the only difference is Rare started pressing discs before the game was certified.
No, it's the exact same issue with the Xbox that you described for the 360, except we don't know for 100% sure since the 360 isn't out yet. Xbox executables are signed with a private Microsoft key, is the executable isn't signed it won't run on a non-modded Xbox. If MS's private key was brute forced like the project that is currently trying to, then anyone could make a 3rd party game. This has happened with both the PS2 and Gamecube as the Action Replay/Gamesharks are unlicensed software that run on the console. The Xbox's auction replay is nothing more than a thumbdrive that lets you transfer saved games off a computer to your Xbox and vice versa, nothing special there.
Or Rare being owned by Microsoft they decided to take a gamble and stamp disks so they could make the launch window. It would be nice is each developer had their own private keys, but I highly doubt it.
Coolness. I actually learnded something today.
I'd imagine being owned (and the game being published) by Microsoft might help them bend the rules and get the code signed and manufactured on the assumption that the code will pass certification.
I'd probably guess Microsoft probably signed the code themselves, having the keys floating around (even to 2nd parties) would increase the chance of a code leak quite a lot, as you say.
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
Microsoft has manufactured 700,000 copies of Perfect Dark Zero for the U.S. market, with a target hardware tie-ratio of 1:1. Veevaert said that figure was based on the early launch period of the hardware, and that a further run is expected in the days ahead.
Well, at least they're not making more copies of PD:Z than they are systems. Hello, E.T.
This doesn't sound like the Rare that we all know. As much as they wanted to get away from Nintendo, Microsoft's management methods are taking a toll on their quality output. In the past two years, look how many games they've released. When in their history have that many games ever been released? And look at the reviews for those games. Things are not as they once were.
So playing cool videos of the game (a feature I enjoy) and using consistent language isn't good?
So a newbie who knows that his memory card has 40 blocks or whatever and the game says 40 Kb; that would be ok with you?
Except the PS2 and GC don't use cryptographic signatures to determine if it's allowed to run. For Playstation games, it's believed that the protection is encoded in the track wobble, so it's impossible to reproduce on any burner, but not so difficult if you can press discs. It reduces piracy, but can't prevent unlicensed individuals from pressing compatible discs. I don't know much about Gamecube discs, but I assume it's protection has similar limitations.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
>Microsoft's team picks through the game making sure there are no bugs, that menus all work correctly, and that there are no compatibility issues.
When are they going to start doing this for Office releases?Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I just hope Microsoft becomes rare. \:D/
I think all of those are good ideas. Auto-pause if a controller is unplugged is a great idea. Consisten language in messages is a great idea. Why would you want users to see "LAN ERROR" in one game, "NETWORK PROBLEM" in another game, and "SYSTEM LINK DOWN" in yet another for the same problem? Most menus already abide by the last thing you mention, a menu that didn't would be stupid. I can't think of any reason one of those would be bad for someone playing games. The video might be annoying to some, but it would also prevent burn-in of the menu for people with Plasmas...
That was Pac-Man that had more cartriges made than systems available.
Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Of course, IANAL, IAJIILIACL.
It should be noted that what Rare did was send the game off to manufacturing AND start the certification process simultaneously.
According to the article, they passed, so it's not a big deal.
All this article is saying is that if it hadn't passed certification, they would have just thrown out all the "bad" copies of the game and missed the launch date.
* various in-game messages regarding system events (memory unit access...
That's just downright silly. I bet Sony would never force developers to use the exact same message every time someone uses their Memory Card (8MB)(for PlayStation2) to save their game.
I'm sorry, but that IS a joke. None of those are showstoppers--only the first would significally impact average gameplay. The third is unit conversions and maybe saves some confusion, unless those "messages" are system-directed and not user-directed. The second is marketing--what if I _like_ the title music? The last is arbitrary: "reasonably consistent." You'd hope a competent developer would naturally put together a consistent interface--look at Metroid Prime, where the interface was _designed_ as a part of the character's face.
It'd be great to see a full list, but I guess that can't happen. I'd like to see if things like, "they half-assed the end of the game" are on that list--I'm looking at you, Halo single player.
I further wonder how that list compares to the old NES-era Nintendo quality certification program.
LOLWT-Don't edge him on...
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
I don't think that the disc costs are that substantial, they probably aren't risking that much by printing them now, but they do have quite a lot to gain. If ubuntu and AOL can give away discs for free I'm sure that they aren't a huge chunk of the per game cost.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Flamebait? Hello? I was pointing out the differences between the console and PC market.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I've worked on 3rd party titles that have done this, through Sony at least. Our QA is set up to mirror the certification system at Sony/MS, so they will only sign off on the game for submission when they are very sure it will pass. There is also a pre-certification process which gives you a good idea of what certification issues you might have.
There is a way to sign xbox executables yourself that will allow you to run homebrew software without a modchip on an xbox.
#####Free and Open Source Game Directory#####
No, it was both. Atari had produced more ET cartridges than there were consoles, and later did the same thing with Pac-Man (12 million copies vs 10 million consoles).
"Those innocent fun games of the hallucination generation"
Microsoft's team picks through the game making sure there are no bugs, that menus all work correctly, and that there are no compatibility issues.
I wish they put the same effort into securing Windows.
And they said zombies weren't real!
There are the font hacks, or the savegame buffer overflow hacks that will allow you to run homebrew, but a company will not release a commercial product that relies on hacks like these. The only 100% sure way to run software on an unmodded Xbox with just inserting a disk is to have it signed with Microsoft's private key. And good luck getting it.
The font hacks and savegame buffer overflow hacks WON'T allow you to run homebrew. You still HAVE to sign the executable in order for it to run on an unmodded Xbox. There is a key that is publicly available that will allow you to sign it and have the xbox accept it. If you had a modchip then you don't have to sign it. From this, it seems possible that if you have access to pressing your own commercial DVD's or CD's then you can make a disc without microsoft's permission that will work on any Xbox modded or not. However that most likely wont protect you from Microsofts lawyers.
#####Free and Open Source Game Directory#####
But it's hard to tell at this point. Generally when the management is truely asleep at the wheel, you get abominations like the N-Gage. The management for the Xbox division of Microsoft obviously cares enough to give the Xbox a good number of quality games and well known companies backing it.
Oh, they're only giving us what the gamers want in to make money? Sorry bud, but they're a business, and they have marketshare and money to make. If them getting marketshare entails them giving gamers what they want, then it's a win-win situation for both Microsoft and gamers.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
My understanding of how the executable headers are laided out, you can specify what type of disk the executable can boot from. This is likely how Microsoft will release the downloadable Xbox 360 compatibility updates that you burn to a CD from your PC. With Microsoft's private key you could sign any executable to boot from all media. I'm not sure what the key your talking about that is required for unmodded boxes though as I never tried using they hacks as a modchip is more convient with less risk of a brick.