News

The official name of Nintendo's latest video game console has finally been announced. After months of speculation and some hope that they might just stick with "Revolution", the new third generation console will be...

Wii.

No, that's not a typo. It's pronounced like "we", and, to quote R51, "I wish it were on nintendo.co.jp so I could hope they wouldn't give it a stupid name for the US." It's unique, it's easy to remember, it's...spelled with two i's.

The flash is pretty good, though.

Source: Nintendo

In news that pleased pretty much everyone planning to buy Heroes of Might and Magic V, game publisher Ubisoft has made the decision to drop StarForce from all upcoming releases.

StarForce, a security program intended to protect game software from piracy, has been widely criticized for the security risks it poses to a system on which it installs. Since StarForce installs automatically with no notice to the user and since there is no clear procedure for removing it from a machine, the problems caused by the program are difficult to diagnose and repair. Among other things, the software can lead to optical drive slow-down and eventual malfunction.

Sources:
ExtremeTech

Boycott Starforce

Wait...you mean there's a company out there that's more interested in not alienating all of its consumers than in squeezing a few piddling cents more out of a product with copy protection that doesn't work anyway?

With the growing trend in companies aggressively defending their intellectual property with means that may be inconvenient or even harmful to consumers, this is definitely a step in the right direction. I'm already at a point where I refuse to purchase copy-protected CDs (sorry, Rachael Yamagata) because of the hassle involved. Computer software that contains the moral equivalent of malware (albeit under a different guise) completely takes the cake. Without this change, I wouldn't be purchasing HoMM5 at all. Hopefully, other companies will follow suit and realize that harassing consumers this way is going to hurt their business far more than piracy ever could.

NOTE: This was our 2006 April Fool. I think we got a few of you! -Tiddles

After several days of discussion with staff, Caves of Narshe webmaster Rangers51 has officially decided to take the next step in the CoN's evolution. After witnessing fewer hits on the main site, decreased participation levels in the forums, and generally lower morale among staff and members ever since the debut of the Final Fantasy VII section on February 13, 2005, R51and staff agree that sometimes the best course of action can be to admit a mistake.

The decision to eliminate Final Fantasy VII content from the CoN was not an easy one for R51 to make. Echoing the sentiments of the staff who worked on the section, R51 states, "I really loved the FF7 content we made, I thought it was the best on the web. But in the long run it just wasn't bringing in the kind of clientele we were looking for to sustain the site."

Even though this is certainly a step backwards in terms of site content, the CoN is bound to take a few steps forward almost immediately with the addition of a brand-new section to replace old content and hopefully generate new interest in the CoN. While the Final Fantasy VII section took a very, very long time to build, we've really worked hard as a group to finish up an all-new section and have it almost ready; look for it to launch sometime in the next week or so. If R51 has availability while he moves, it may even go up sooner. We know that our work will ultimately lead the CoN in a direction that staff and members alike have always hoped to see it go in.

------

It will be sad to see all the hard work of the creators of the FF7 section come to naught, but I, for one, am excited about the new direction the site will be taking. Hopefully, this change will begin to diminish the influx of FF7 fanboys and instead attract fans of the next game to grace the CoN's pages!

Everything in the gaming world has to be delayed by at least a few months, and more is better, right? After discussing it since the summer of 2003, Final Fantasy Gurus has launched their updated site today.

FFG 3.0 features streamlined graphics and navigation as well as updated and expanded information about the games it covers.

Source: Final Fantasy Gurus

Is it just me, or does this happen to everything I'm waiting for?

Though Sony claims that they're still aiming for a spring release of their new console, their interpretation of 'spring' is quickly stretching to include months like June, July, August, and even next December, according to some speculations.

The release date is said to be reliant upon decisions about hardware specifications for the Blu-Ray DVD technology. These decisions are made by industry consortiums, and are not within Sony's direct control.

This news does not bode well for game developers, either. Without firm specifications, they can only guess at exactly how to build their games. The final result is not likely to take full advantage of the PS3's abilities.

With soaring predicted costs and no firm release date in sight, how will Sony continue to compete in the console market? No one wants to see a repeat of the Dreamcast fiasco--but, more importantly, no one wants to own it. If Sony fans are too scared of a bust to invest in the PS3, the console is in real trouble.

Source: cnn.com

I wince just writing this, but there has been some heavy speculation that Sony will soar to new heights with a $499 pricetag on its Playstation 3.

Sony has been pretty quiet on the topic, stating only that "it will be expensive" and not even directing that comment to the general public, but given what we know about the technology Sony intends to include and how much that technology costs, the previous assumption of something around the 360's $399 seems naive. For instance, Sony has been widely touting BluRay DVD technology, and will obviously be using it to read discs. A recently debuted BluRay DVD player was priced at $1,800.

Are they doing us just to scare us, so the $399 that they've been intending all along seems like a real bargain compared to the numbers we've been imagining? I guess they'll have to tell us sooner or later.

Source: cnn.com