Digital Rights Management (DRM) has nowadays a widely spread reputation to break things and make things more complicated. Another nail in this coffin was struck when gamers realized that they’re copy of the Gears of War for Windows didn’t start up after January 27th.
The problem was that the game developer Epic had added a digital certificate that expired Jan 28th. When the system date hit this day the game wouldn’t start up anymore. It could be said that Epic and its Games for Windows partner Microsoft unintentionally promoted pirated version of the game which is not affected by the certificate.
The unhappy gamers quickly found out a way around the problem. By setting the Windows date back in time before Jan 28th you’ll have a functioning game again.
Epic is currently trying to find out a way to find a solution to the problem. The company hasn’t yet told if the certificate was added by accident or if the game should have been updated before the date.
Result for: gears
Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida has finally talked out about his company’s decision to drop HD DVD and went as far as to say that the format did not “stand a chance” following Warner’s decision to drop the format for Blu-ray.
Citing the Warner decision, Nishida said that the format would have only had 20% of the software market share and that Warner’s decision sealed the format war’s fate.
“One has to take calculated risks in business, but it’s also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong,” explained Nishida. “We were doing this to win, and if we weren’t going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard.”
In the wake of the end of the HD format war, Toshiba said it would focus more on upconverting standard-def DVD players and PCs as well as HD digital downloads.
“We’ve been developing technologies in [the video downloads] area already, but now that we don’t have the HD DVD business, I want to put even more energy into that,”added Nishida.
Result for: gears
In yet another example of how successful video games are becoming, the Epic title Gears of War 2 reportedly sold 2.1 million copies in its first day. VG Chartz gained early access to the sales figures of the game, which sold 1.4 million in its first day in the United States alone.
It’s November 7th release puts another blockbuster on the shelves alongside the Xbox 360 console for the holiday season. Later this month Microsoft will push out a system update for the Xbox 360 that will completely change the user-interface of the console.
As impressive as the sales may be so far, last year’s release of Halo 3 generated 3.8 millions sales in its first day. Providing key content at the right times during the year is vital to the success of Microsoft’s console.
This year’s game line-up for all three consoles is sure to generate an interesting battle between them again this year.
