Headline RePLAY – 4.19.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Subscriptions for Star Wars: The Old Republic may be on the decline, videogame consoles are electric vampires and Dragon’s Crown gets another publisher.

When a report was released alleging that Star Wars: The Old Republic was not performing as well as EA expected, analysts are now suggesting that player subscriptions for the MMO are starting to decline.

According to an estimate by analyst group Cowen and Company, subscriber numbers peaked at 1.7 million in February, but they predict that by the end of the fiscal year in March 2013 subscriptions will drop to around 1.25 million based on server statistics from TorStatus.net.

“We believe that the apparent decline in subscribers is most likely due to a lack of ‘end-game’ content for the title, meaning that players who hit the level cap have few compelling options in terms of ongoing game play,” explained Cowen analyst Doug Creutz. “While the game got off to a good start, the relatively light amount of end-game content does appear to be taking a toll.

“We believe EA is attempting to address the end-game content issue, including a recent major game update,” he added, “but momentum appears to have stalled and we believe it is prudent to adopt a more conservative forecast on subscribers at this time.”

|Source: Gamasutra

There were reasons why our parents always harped on us about leaving the gaming console on when we weren’t playing them, expensive reasons. In 2010, idle consoles consumed 10.8 TWh of energy, the equivalent of $1.24 billion in electricity costs, according to a Carnegie Mellon University study.

The research found that a total 1 percent of U.S. residential energy consumption in 2010 was spent just on consoles, an almost 50 percent increase from three years ago.

To counter increasing energy costs, the study also includes power-saving suggestions to console developers. “We demonstrate that the most effective energy-saving modification is incorporation of a default auto power down feature, which could reduce electricity consumption of game consoles by 75 percent (10 TWh reduction of electricity in 2010),” the study recommends, “saving consumers over $1 billion annually in electricity bills.”

However, some developers are already one step ahead with features like the Xbox 360’s auto-standby, which puts the console on standby if it’s left idle for more than one hour. Sony’s PlayStation 3 has power-management software, but it’s off by default and users have to manually update it.  

|Source: CNET

News on Dragon’s Crown continues to trickle in and the latest development is a big one: Atlus is taking over publishing duties in Japan and North America.

Details are scarce, but according to PlayStation Blog, members of Atlus’ internal development team is now involved with the project as producer(s), particularly people that worked on the Persona series.

Sadly, the change in publishers means that Dragon’s Crown’s release has been delayed to 2013.

|Source: PlayStation Blog

Headline RePLAY – 3.29.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The producer of the Street Fighter series steps down, hackers can steal credit card information from pre-owned Xbox 360’s and Dragon’s Crown is not cancelled.

Yoshinori Ono, the man responsible for Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter x Tekken, is stepping down as producer of the franchise in the wake of being hospitalized last week.

Ono apologized to fans on Twitter for causing concern about his welfare and wanted to thank them for all the get-well messages. The Street Fighter producer then announced that he’s stepping down “for a while,” and that an unannounced individual has taken up the reins of the franchise.

In the meantime, Ono is going to still provide support but will stay out of the “limelight” while he contemplates about the “new future of fighting games” and assured fans that he’ll try his best to “be back.”

*Source: @Yoshi_OnoChin

If you’re thinking about selling or giving away your Xbox 360, you might want to reconsider: researchers at Drexel University discovered that with just common tools, hackers and modders can access the console’s hard drive to steal credit card or personal information.  

“Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information,” Ashley Podhradsky, a researcher at Drexel University, told Kotaku in a phone interview. “But they don’t do a great job of protecting the user’s data.”

Podhradsky noted that even restoring the 360 to factory settings won’t completely remove all the data it contains. She said Microsoft was doing a “disservice” to customers by not protecting their personal data better.

Alongside Drexel University colleagues Rob D’Ovidio and Cindy Casey and Pat Engebretson from Dakota State University, Podhradsky bought a refurbished Xbox 360 from Microsoft last year to experiment on. The team downloaded a basic modding tool to use to crack the console, which gave them access to its files and folders and resultantly was able to identify and extract the original owner’s credit card information.

“A lot of them already know how to do all this,” said Podhradsky. “Anyone can freely download a lot of this software, essentially pick up a discarded game console, and have someone’s identity.”

To combat the danger of getting your personal information compromised, Podhradsky recommends detaching your 360’s hard drive, connecting it to your computer, and using a program like Darik’s Boot & Nuke to wipe everything. She cautions that reformatting won’t be enough.

“I think Microsoft has a longstanding pattern of this,” said Podhradsky. “When you go and reformat your computer, like a Windows system, it tells you that all of your data will be erased. In actuality that’s not accurate— the data is still available… so when Microsoft tells you that you’re resetting something, it’s not accurate.

“There’s a lot more that needs to be done.”

*Source: Kotaku

After Dragon’s Crown mysteriously disappeared from Amazon.com and GameInformer happened to receive reports that customers had their pre-orders cancelled, it’s no wonder why cancellation rumors began to run amuck.

In response to all the speculation, Vanillaware illustrator Shigatake leapt into the fray on Twitter to assure fans that the game is most definitely not cancelled. “I personally can’t say much, but I’ll just say, regarding Dragon’s Crown, although there lots of rumors and conjecture, it’s still in development. Please wait patiently for an official update.”

Dragon’s Crown was initially revealed at E3 2011 as a spring 2012 title, but news of the game has been scarce recently despite its rapidly approaching release date.

*Source: Andriasang