Today on Headline
RePLAY: The Nintendo 3D hits another sales milestone, the Star Wars: The Old Republic team experience layoffs and Blizzard
responds to Diablo III hacking
claims.
As PlayStation Vita sales
continue to drop in Japan, Nintendo 3DS sales continue to rise as it crossed
the six million mark this week in domestic sales, according to retail tracker
Enterbrain, Famitsu’s publisher.
From its debut on February
26, 2011 to May 20, 2012, the handheld sold a grand total of 6,017,206 units in
Japan alone.
According to
Andriasang and Media Create data, the Nintendo 3DS was also the fastest handheld
ever to reach 5 million in sales.
|Source: Famitsu via
Andriasang
BioWare doctors Greg
Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka have confirmed layoffs with the Star Wars: The Old Republic’s development team today in a statement
on the MMO’s official forums.
“Sadly, we are bidding
farewell to some talented, passionate and exceptionally hard-working people who
helped make SWTOR a reality,” said
the BioWare doctors. “Impacting people’s lives this way is always very hard,
but we’re ensuring the affected people are treated with dignity, fairness, and
respect.”
Despite the layoffs,
Dr. Zeschuk and Muzyka wanted to reassure fans that business will continue as
usual with SWTOR. “We still have a
very substantial development team working on supporting and growing the game,
and we feel we are in a strong position, with your continued involvement and
feedback, to continue to build Star Wars:
The Old Republic as one of the most compelling and successful online experiences
in the world today.”
|Source: SWTOR
In a coordinated
effort to tackle the Diablo III hacking
crisis, Blizzard has rejected allegations that hackers are bypassing
authenticators and have devoted forum threads to aid players in buffing their Battle.net account security.
“We’ve been taking the
situation extremely seriously from the start, and have done everything possible
to verify how and in what circumstances these compromises are occurring,” said Blizzard Community Manager Micah “Bashiok” Whipple.
“Despite the claims
and theories being made, we have yet to find any situations in which a person’s
account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging
into their account through the use of their password. While the authenticator
isn’t a 100% guarantee of account security, we have yet to investigate a
compromise report in which an authenticator was attached beforehand.”
In a separate thread
dedicated to Battle.net account security, Community Manager Stephanie “Lylirra”
Johnson explains that the rise of compromised accounts amidst the release of a
new game is nothing new.
“Historically, the
release of a new game—such as a World of
Warcraft expansion—will result in an increase in reports of individual
account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo III,” said Lylirra.
“We know how
frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re
dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net
accounts safe—and we appreciate everyone who’s doing their part to help protect
their accounts as well.”
|Source: Blizzard
