Craptacular: Metroid Prime Hunters Edition

I got Metroid Prime Hunters as soon as it hit stores last week, something which I actually saved up money for the past few months. This was set to be the second major WiFi game, as well as the best thing Nintendo would release this side of E3. Well, that hype wasn't incorrect. I should also say that controlling with the stylus is much better then what reviews give of the thumb-nub.
However, one major problem has come up, one which only Gamespy noted in their review (here: http://gba.gamespy.com/nintendo-ds/metroid-prime-hunters/698045p1.html). The problem I have run into is whenever running a que and a third player is found, the game throws up an error message. The game works with two or three players online, but I can never get four. Occasionally I can get three, but not often since the fourth player would throw up the bug.
Others appearently have experienced this (see forum thread: http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message?board.id=tech_questions_wifi&message.id=30852). There is also a problem with match-making (here: http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message?board.id=tech_questions_wifi&message.id=31202).
Boo Nintendo. While the game even with two players is good, I don't like having two player FPS's since I tend to suck with fewer players. This is something that should have never been a problem.
I won't give them a Worst Persons award, since this seems like a legitimate mistake (possibly due to the lack of external debugging) and they are working on a solution, but I make give it to them if they don't be quick about it. But this game was delayed beyond the holiday season. If they knew about the problem, they should have delayed it a bit longer. I would much rather have a delayed game then a buggy one (*cough* PC game publishers *cough*).

Rumor: PS1&2 Games Downloaded to PS3?

One quickly spread rumor was that Sony was looking into putting up a service in which you could buy and download original Playstation games or even PS2 games. Gamespot has already anaylized the rumor (here: http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=24429625), but I have a differing opinion on it.

The main reason I don't see PS1 or PS2 games being downloaded to your PS3: the size of the games. Especially PS2 games, which commonly fill a 4.7 Gigabyte (GB) disk. It wasn't even uncommon for PS1 games to include multiple 700 Megabyte (MB) disks. Final Fantasy 7, which would probably be the most downloaded game in this case, used three disks, and both its PS1 successors used four. Even presuming the disks were 700MB each, Final Fantasy 7 would be 2.1GB.
Presuming that this would all be stored on a fairly standard hard drive, probably 40GB to 80GB, bandwidth would still be an issue. Broadband may be able to handle MB, but probably won't handle GB far from as well. It gets worse on the server's end. A standard This Week in Tech podcast is around 30MB to 50MB a show, and they still transfer Terabytes a week on their servers. Can you imagine if the servers had to handle something that was even just 700MB.

Now, I do think there is a probability of Sony going the way of X-Box Live Arcade. Games on there are far from the heafty CD based games found on the systems, in terms of memory. The games would be small budget, not emulated games. It also would be less reliant on the hard drive, since the PS3 will likely support memory sticks. Heck, a firmware upgrade would make it support PSP play.

Overall, 10% on PS1 and PS2 games being downloadable; 80% on a X-Box Live Arcade style service, regardless of hard drive inclusion.

Worst Person in Videogames: Starforce Edition

Anyone who listens to the This Week in Tech podcasts (at least the main TWIT podcast) should know much of the technology community's objection to copy protection. Much of the complaints of copy protection, for those who don't already know, run to compatability issues to impeding of people's fair use (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use)

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Well, this whole thing started when a Digg post misinterpreted (I'll stick with that terminology to play it safe) a quote by the developers of Calactic Civilizations 2 (GC2) that they wanted people to pirate their game. An hour didn't even pass by before another Digg post showed their reply (here: http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=161&AID=106741) that the developer DOES NOT want their game to be pirated, but they don't like DRM or copy protection as they are.

They revealed in the post that the company behind the Starforce copy protection posted a torrent of GC2, then took it down (story: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148721).

I haven't read the original Starforce post (the story says it still exists), but Starforce was already on shakey ground. Allegations of poor program design which has lead to computer parts (notably optical drives) failing and some spyware-like activity (like not being able to uninstall it, even after the game it was protecting is).
Now we seem to have something that looks like either hypocracy or a form of extorsion. On one hand, they were supporting the very thing they were fighting. On the other hand, it is them saying, "If you don't use our product, this is what is going to happen."

Starforce is already infamous as it is. This just shows that they don't care about their customers, either the end user or the content producer. For that, they get the Worst Persons in Videogames award.

Ports Scandel Over, Bush Has Only 59 More Controversies To Go

It looks like that after a few weeks of the Dubai Ports Controversy, Bush has lucked out in that the firm will now transfer control to a US entity (story: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1707317).
So with that off his plate, now Bush has to handle the Abramoff scandel...the Katrina scandel...Iraq...War on Terror, opps sorry, the Long War...
Actually, this was a good thing for Bush, with the congressional Republicans gaining a backbone, he didn't need to get to the breaking point with them. However, with all the above scandels still going on, and no doubt more to come, the breaking point will come soon, especially with his polls sinking and the House and 1/3 of the Senate going through elections this year, now more then ever Republicans are seperating themselves with Bush.
But he somehow staved off being a lame duck for this long...