A novel anti-piracy measure baked into the Nintendo DS version of Michael Jackson: The Experience makes copied versions of the game unplayable and taunts gamers with the blaring sound of vuvuzelas. Many games have installed switches that detect pirated copies and act accordingly, like ending the user's game after 20 minutes. Ubisoft has come under fire multiple times for what players have seen as highly restrictive anti-piracy measures that annoy legitimate users as much or more so than pirates. But some more-mischievous developers have used tricks similar to the vuvuzela fanfare to mess with pirates. Batman: Arkham Asylum lets unauthorized users play through the game as if it were a normal copy, with a single exception: Batman's cape-glide ability doesn't work, rendering the game impossible to finish — although you might bash your head against it trying to make what are now impossible jumps. If you pirate Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, brace yourself for an explosion, as your entire base will detonate within 30 seconds of loading the game.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/1...-of-Music-Game ...

Google's really been big today on emphasizing that Gingerbread is better than ever for game development, and that's already bearing itself out thanks to a page culled from the Android 2.3 SDK where we see a handful of new keycodes in the system clearly targeted for gaming: L1, L2, R1, R2, Select, Start, and so on. Does it have anything to do with the Sony Ericsson Zeus Z1 and all the PlayStation phone noise, though? We imagine it lays some of the groundwork, but all told, it's hard to say -- after all, PlayStation famously uses shapes for its primary controls, and we wouldn't be surprised if Sony were working on a separate development environment of some sort for PlayStation-branded titles rather than letting it all flow through the official Android SDK proper. We also don't yet know whether Sony Ericsson's gaming efforts are coming in the Gingerbread or the Honeycomb timeframe (though we're definitely expecting news next February at MWC), but one way or another, game devs should find it a little easier now to map the controls they need.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/06/a...ay-or-may-not/ ...

You may not be able to get Android 2.3 loaded in any official capacity on your Nexus One yet -- or any other phone, for that matter -- but Google's 2.3 SDK is now available, which means there's an emulator attached, too. As with most development emulators, this one's a stripped-down subset of the apps and settings you'd see on an actual retail device; basically, all that's left is the bare minimum Google figures its developers are going to need to code apps. Be that as it may, we noticed a few things that stuck out:
Overall, the UI changes are extremely subtle, and generally for the better. We prefer the new looks for the status bar, keyboard, and menus over their Froyo equivalents.
We couldn't get a sense of the performance improvements -- the emulators is slow as molasses for us and really has zero bearing on how it'll perform on devices.
When you reach the end of a scrolled list, the side of the list that has reached the end glows orange briefly, presumably to make it even more obvious that you're at the end. Even the browser does this -- it's an interesting effect that we kind of liked.
The miserable default camera UI is exactly the same. Expect manufacturers to continue to replace this with wild abandon.
The Gmail app isn't included in the emulator, so fear not when you're looking at the screen shot of the unthreaded messages -- that's the "standard" email app.
The fingertip-sized markers for highlighting text work quite well, including in the browser. They seem to consistently disappear after a few seconds and automatically highlight and / or copy the text in between the markers; we're not sold on whether we like that behavior.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/06/a...d-in-pictures/ ...

Netflix caused a lot of head scratching in October when it started rolling out its new, disc-free Netflix experience for the PS3. Namely, different people were getting a different UI, and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the differentiation. Well, it turns out Netflix was flexing a bit of its HTML5 muscle, rapidly testing different experiences to see which ones worked best for users, all without having to push out app updates or back-end changes to accommodate its indecision. Apparently, Netflix's engineers actually ported WebKit to the PS3 to make all this possible, and hopefully it's a sign of things to come in the HTML5 iPhone, iPad, and Android apps -- which could probably use some serious sprucing, or even a bit of scattered rapid prototyping just to relieve the monotony. It's also seems to be good news for other PS3 apps which can lean on the framework -- presumably VUDU's own HTML5-based UI took advantage of this when it landed on the PS3 in November. What we'd really love is if Sony and Google are secretly in cahoots to bring the entirety of Chrome and its couch-friendly Google TV UI with it. Hey, we can dream, right?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/07/n...oodies-a-dyna/ ...

At least Animal Crossing keeps on going when a bit of snow lands in Your Town. In fact, the coming of snow is celebrated with a new Let's Go To The City download.


If you've played Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City, you'll know about the snowman series of furniture. Now you can add to it with a snowman vanity.

Last month you could download a mush hanger for your house for Mushroom Month, but December is all about the snow as you can transform your house into a winter wonderland with this item to add to your Snowman series of furniture.

Yes, if you bump into Pete the postman between now and 12 December you'll be able to get hold of an otherwise unattainable Snowman Vanity.

If you want more Snowman furniture you'll have to meet the Snowman himself. Where is he? Well, you'll have to go out in the snow and make him from the snowballs you find around Your Town.

Talking of snowmen, ONM readers have recently been making their own snowmen based on their favourite Nintendo characters. Here are their Nintendo snowmen.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

Chinese manufacturing industry site the DigiTimes reported a rumour that Foxconn, manufacturers of Apple’s iPad products, have been told they will ship the iPad 2 ‘within the next 100 days’.
The DigiTimes often cites sources within Taiwanese manufacturers and it’s via these sources that the DigiTimes is reporting on the news from mainland Chinese manufacturer Foxconn. Reportedly the initial shipments of iPad 2s are forecast at the 400-600,000 unit mark.
The 100 days statement means that Foxconn has until the end of February to ship the iPad 2. DigiTimes sources claimed that production was planned for January but due to delays in testing of the firmware of the next-generation tablet, Apple had postponed final manufacturing.
Foxconn has since been diversifying manufacturing operations in part to combat the pressure cooker of Shenzhen staffing and the negative publicity surrounding a number of suicides by Shenzhen-based employees. However the new operations in Chengdu are only just gearing up so iPad 2 manufacturing will be mainly based in the Shenzhen factories, said the sources.
Interestingly, the DigiTimes also cited sources that claim that the iPad shipments have outstripped channel sales which they said was a possible indication of over stocking although, the sources said, there were no signs of production order reductions.

Shipments of first generation iPads are expected to scale down in January in order to exhaust inventory prior to the launch of the iPad 2 in April, they said.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/35307...ip-in-February ...

Chinese manufacturing industry site the DigiTimes reported a rumour that Foxconn, manufacturers of Apple’s iPad products, have been told they will ship the iPad 2 ‘within the next 100 days’.
The DigiTimes often cites sources within Taiwanese manufacturers and it’s via these sources that the DigiTimes is reporting on the news from mainland Chinese manufacturer Foxconn. Reportedly the initial shipments of iPad 2s are forecast at the 400-600,000 unit mark.
The 100 days statement means that Foxconn has until the end of February to ship the iPad 2. DigiTimes sources claimed that production was planned for January but due to delays in testing of the firmware of the next-generation tablet, Apple had postponed final manufacturing.
Foxconn has since been diversifying manufacturing operations in part to combat the pressure cooker of Shenzhen staffing and the negative publicity surrounding a number of suicides by Shenzhen-based employees. However the new operations in Chengdu are only just gearing up so iPad 2 manufacturing will be mainly based in the Shenzhen factories, said the sources.
Interestingly, the DigiTimes also cited sources that claim that the iPad shipments have outstripped channel sales which they said was a possible indication of over stocking although, the sources said, there were no signs of production order reductions.

Shipments of first generation iPads are expected to scale down in January in order to exhaust inventory prior to the launch of the iPad 2 in April, they said.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/35307...ip-in-February ...

Gamers who treasured cult Nineties console the NeoGeo are in for a blast from the past after SNK announced plans to release updated versions of its classic games on PlayStation 3.

On 22nd December SNK Playmore will launch the NeoGeo Station on the PlayStation Network to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the console. An official EU website for the service is now live.

It is designed to be a continuously growing library of classic NeoGeo games - €8.99 per title for PS3 and €6.99 per title for PSP. UK specific prices were not revealed – we're checking now.

10 PS3 games and three PSP games will be available at launch. Fatal Fury, Metal Slug and The King of Fighters '94 will all be released as PS3 and PSP titles. In 2011 SNK will release the PSP versions of the remaining games as well as others.

They'll be updated with versus and/or co-operative play. Online play will be possible over PSN and through Ad-Hoc Mode for PSP versions.

The complete list:

Fatal Fury
Alpha Mission II
The King of Fighters '94
Samurai Shodown
Baseball Stars Professional
Magician Lord
Metal Slug
League Bowling
Super Sidekicks
Art of Fighting
Which did you play?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...tation-network ...

Gamers who treasured cult Nineties console the NeoGeo are in for a blast from the past after SNK announced plans to release updated versions of its classic games on PlayStation 3.

On 22nd December SNK Playmore will launch the NeoGeo Station on the PlayStation Network to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the console. An official EU website for the service is now live.

It is designed to be a continuously growing library of classic NeoGeo games - €8.99 per title for PS3 and €6.99 per title for PSP. UK specific prices were not revealed – we're checking now.

10 PS3 games and three PSP games will be available at launch. Fatal Fury, Metal Slug and The King of Fighters '94 will all be released as PS3 and PSP titles. In 2011 SNK will release the PSP versions of the remaining games as well as others.

They'll be updated with versus and/or co-operative play. Online play will be possible over PSN and through Ad-Hoc Mode for PSP versions.

The complete list:

Fatal Fury
Alpha Mission II
The King of Fighters '94
Samurai Shodown
Baseball Stars Professional
Magician Lord
Metal Slug
League Bowling
Super Sidekicks
Art of Fighting
Which did you play?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...tation-network ...