Headline RePLAY – 7.13.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Nvidia gets hacked, EA is invested with always-online games and Tecmo Koei gets their own games confused.

No one is safe from the hackers, not even graphics card manufacturer Nvidia. Nvidia recently revealed that hackers have swiped up to 400,000 usernames, email addresses, “hashed passwords with random salt value” and publicly accessible “About Me’ profile information from their forums.

Nvidia assures users that the company didn’t store any passwords in “clear text” and that they are working to restore the forums soon as possible while employing additional security measures to “minimize the impact of future attacks.”

The graphics card manufacturer strongly recommends that users change any identical passwords that they might be using elsewhere.

|Source: Nvidia

EA is “investing quite a bit” into always-online games, says Maxis’ Lucy Bradshaw, emphasizing the need to provide “really great service” to make the model work.

“I think that’s why we have to be really, really good about the service that we provide,” the senior vice president told Videogamer.com. “Electronic Arts is investing quite a bit in making sure we’re locked and loaded. If you’ve seen some of our recent launches they’ve been really quite flawless. Battlefield had huge amounts of players and stayed extremely stable, and think SWTOR was one of the most absolutely stable MMO launches.”

Bradshaw also addressed the concern about internet drops with always-online play. “We have a nice, graceful way of dealing with those kind of things so that you’re not going to lose stuff. That’s the beauty of being asynchronous, is that we are able to be very graceful about how that online connection works and stuff. I think we’re going to be in a really great place.”

|Source: Videogamer.com

In what can only be defined as a major "Oops!” moment for Tecmo Koei, buyers of the PSP’s Sangokushi VIII found themselves with the copy of the wrong game on the UMD—specifically, Sangokushi VII.

Tecmo Koei is aware of the issue and posted a notice on the Game City portal site, stopped all sales of the game and is in the process of organizing a replacement program for current owners.  

|Source: Andriasang

Headline RePLAY – 1.13.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: South Korea finally rates Diablo III, Nvidia opposes SOPA and SEGA answers the “hard reset” controversy.

The South Korean drama to get a rating for Diablo III by the Game Rating Board ends today after much debate over the game’s Real Money Auction House (RMAH) feature, an addition that authorities associates with gambling.

DualShockers reports that the average waiting time for a game to receive a rating in an Asian country is usually 15 days, but Diablo III took about a month plus several delays due to concerns over the RMAH.

The RMAH was ultimately nixed for the Korean market, but Diablo III is now on its way to be released in South Korea and rest of the world in a global release.

*Source: DualShockers

It’s not just videogame publishers and developers that are voicing their opposition to SOPA; graphics card manufacturer Nvidia joins the opposition after releasing a statement denouncing the bill.

“NVIDIA wasn’t consulted by ESA in formulating their position on SOPA,” said Nvidia’s Bob Sherbin. “Our position is this: we oppose piracy, as it hurts our game-developer partners. However, we do not support SOPA. We don’t believe it is the right solution to the problem. We remain committed to working to address this problem in a constructive and fair manner.

Nvidia is a member of the ESA like Nintendo and Sony, but unlike them, clarified their position and noted that ESA’s support of the bill was done without their input. However, like Nintendo and Sony, by default they’re proxy supporters because of the ESA.

*Source: Nvidia

Yesterday, in response to a concerned gamer over SOPA, a SEGA customer support rep advised to perform a “hard reset on the device” or uninstall and reinstall the app.

Obviously, the reply was out of context and simply bizarre. After the e-mail made its rounds around the internet, SEGA answered with a light-hearted and apologetic video that can be seen below.

*Source: SegaAmerica