Suit up with Steve and Jon for another epic sortie against the forces of boredom. Your two favourite Canadian gaming chimps find new and exciting ways to eviscerate 75 minutes of your precious time.

On the news front; Steve breathes an incredulous sigh of relief as the PSN Crisis lumbers to an end (and nobody thought to tell him!?), and there’s a thrilling discussion about the perfectly-timed Modern Warfare 3 info “leak”.

Jon offers up a nickel’s worth of free advice to one of the major first-party developers regarding their big E3 performance this year before the boys get onto the topics of the day and discuss the games they’ve been and you should be playing. There’s some love doled out to Dirt 3, The Witcher 2 (DYLAN!! You son of a witch!), and some game about Templars, but they all slink into the background once L.A. Noire takes the stage. Has Rockstar struck gold again? Is this the first Mature-rated game to truly be mature?

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“Introduction” by KCE Sound Team
“Child In Time” by Deep Purple

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Jon, Dave, and Erich break down Microsoft’s E3 2010 press conference, from the blood-soaked alien landscapes of Halo Reach and Gears of War 3, to the family friendly line-up for their new motion control device, Kinect. Did this year’s presser have all the right moves, or is the newly redesigned Xbox 360′s focus on controller-free gaming an Epic Flail?

What did you think of the E3 press conferences? Let us know in the comments below, over in the DVD Verdict Jury Room forums, or by emailing at feedback@pixelverdict.com.

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This is all you need to see...

This one’s been the comment bait around the video game ‘sphere.  Reuters is coughing up speculation about a possible buy-out from Microsoft.  Crazy if it’s true, for sure and brings up all kinds of questions.

What does that mean for Madden’s NFL exclusivity?  Would EA’s cross-platform juice be nixed?  How–precisely–is one Peter Moore involved?  Feel free to fan the flames below.

After rumors and speculation, it’s been confirmed that 343 Industries is indeed the ‘Soft’s internal Halo studio.  The detachment’s first unveiling: this actually-kind-of-badass-looking Halo anime.

I’m a fan of the mythology and the games for sure and look forward to future releases, but it strikes me Microsoft should be careful with their precious IP.  Don’t want little old Master Chief to be overexposed.  Or maybe that starship has sailed already?

Erich, Dave, and Adam unpack all of the excitement, disappointment, big (and not-so-big) reveals, guest stars, and sci-fi future tech of Microsoft’s E3 2009 press conference. Will Project Natal redefine gaming, or fall flat on its motion-sensing face? What does Hideo Kojima unveiling Metal Gear Solid Rising at a Microsoft conference mean for fanboy flame wars? And do we really care about Facebook on the Xbox 360? All this, and last-minute speculation about the Sony and Nintendo press conferences. Join in the discussion in the comments below, in the Jury Room forums, or by emailing us at feedback@pixelverdict.com.

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At GDC 2009, publishers and developers are anxious to discuss with you all the new games and gadgets they have in the works, but also the methods in which they wish to limit your access to their games and gadgets. Digital rights management (DRM) is a hot topic these days, especially for us bedraggled and well-worn PC gamers. Console gamers mostly don’t have to deal with any of the aggravating issues afflicted upon computer gamers–you just get the game (new or used) and throw it in your console. For computer gamers, it gets more complicated, because we’re all filthy pirates. Or hadn’t you heard?

Microsoft, Valve and Stardock, three heavyweights in computer gaming and digital content distribution are all at GDC this year, keen to appease consumer concerns that their systems are not DRM. Call it something else, but it’s not DRM, because DRM is a dirty word. Kind of like how AIG wants to change their name now, because hey, that solves the problem with consumer confidence.

It’s acronym city: CEG from Valve, GOO from Stardock and umm, Games for Windows Live from Microsoft. Okay, that last one wasn’t really an acronym at all. All three systems are keen on balancing the consumer need to be able to install their purchased software on numerous machines without restriction, while at the same time ensuring that revenue still gets generated by the developers (you actually buy the dang game).

On first glance, Valve’s solution appears especially elegant: Computer Executable Generation (CEG) creates a unique copy of the game all your own when purchased from Steam. You download it and can play/install it on as many computers as you want, because it’s your copy, generated specifically for you. Since the game connects to Steam, it will recognize your unique copy and allow you access–but only one machine at a time (so no sharing it with other people).

Stardock’s unfortunately-named GOO, or Game Object Obfuscation creates a registration entry between an email address and a serial number, intrinsically linking the two in a cross between product registration and game activation. Once validated, the game would never need to connect to the internet again (no Big Brother checking). This system also has the unique advantage of allowing users to disable their access and sell/transfer the license ownership to another user. GameStop will be thrilled!

Microsoft seems to be running catch-up, with a more old-fashioned system of game registration, but are allowing multiple system installs, which is a step in the right direction. They’re also taking steps to ensure that anyone who downloads advanced or leaked copies of games won’t be able to play them until launch day.

The distiction all three publishers (and indeed the instrusty at large) are migrating towards is that restrictions and checks put in place are IP protection, not DRM. If you buy the game, publishers don’t care if you play it on your laptop or your desktop computer–they just want you to buy it. What they don’t like is seeing one person buy a game and then copy it to five of their friends and lose out on potential revenue. They want to lock access to the game by a license, and allow you any method you’d like of distribution–rent it, buy it, download it, whatever! If you bought the license, play away!

We’ll have to see how the public at large accepts these new technologies and linguistic changes from developers and publishers. PC gamers are notoriously picky about restrictions, and get uppity when companies like EA put so much DRM into Spore that it made it it virtually unplayable. They respond by pirating the hell out of it. PC gamers don’t mess around.

So what do you all think? Will any of these proposed solutions make you more likely to get back into PC gaming? Or is any content control too much to stomach? Let us know in the comments below.

Me, I’m just happy to be hearing language from publishers that doesn’t characterize customers into a prospective criminals. That’s a nice change. I can take the eye patch off now, I guess?

My Twitter feed just alerted me to a post on Joystiq from early this afternoon that hit a little too close to home. Just when we, the gaming community, thought Microsoft had put the costly Red Ring of Death (RROD) disaster behind them with the olive branch of an extended 3-year warranty, up from the ashes of a million overheated Xboxes crawls a new contender in the fight to alienate an entire fan base – the E74 error message.

Just last month, I was a victim of this disheartening message, which is, of course, accompanied by a red light. Just ONE red light. Keep in mind, Microsoft’s extended warranty plan only covers THREE red lights. Not one, not two, not four. To say I was livid upon learning that fact would be an understatement as vast as Bill Gates’ Scrooge McDuck-size pile of cash (and gold coins, presumably). As anyone who’s interacted with Microsoft’s customer service can surely attest, phone calls and e-mail got me nowhere. I spent $500 on an Elite barely over 18 months ago and I can’t get anything but a canned response from the help-desk handbook-monkey on the other end of the line.

Until the Joystiq post, I presumed my hardware failure was just bad luck. I bought the machine knowing there could be issues, but hoping the newer Elite might be immune. Obviously, I was wrong – on both counts. Pay special attention to Update 1 of the Joystiq E74 post. There are some interesting statistical trends involving the error message, along with an ever-expanding population of gamers experiencing the problem (and voicing their displeasure, of course… this is the internet, after all).

Some conspiracy theorists have gone so far as to speculate that Microsoft made some adjustments with the New Xbox Experience, effectively replacing the RROD with an E74 error, thus negating the extended warranty. Shady, for sure, but ultimately possible. Hopefully, those intrepid Woodward and Bernstein’s of the gaming community will continue digging up dirt, because it seems more and more people will be paying attention.

You want to know the most vile and nauseating part of this story – I immediately went out and bought another Xbox 360. I realize that fact sort of undermines my claims of furious rage and I felt filthy doing it, but I had to. Many of my friends are finally on Live and there’s a slew of games I still want to play. Yes, Microsoft has me by the stones, and new releases like Resident Evil 5 and Halo Wars only serve to tighten the grip.

Fortunately, I only had to spring for an Arcade system since I have all the necessary extras, and I got it cheap thanks to Circuit City’s liquidation sale. Here’s where I’d like to make a comment about my new system containing the upgraded, cooler running chip set and better architecture, but I honestly don’t know if it will make any difference. It seems like Microsoft “fixes” the latest hardware issue just in time for the next one to arrive.

By the way, if anyone has any tips on how to purposely RROD an Xbox 360, feel free to leave them in the comments… the stupid thing keeps automatically shutting off before it has a chance to fully melt down.