Microsoft raises the ban hammer on Memory Units #xbox360 #xboxlive #datel

A few weeks ago I had almost bought a Datel 2GB unit so I could keep copies of my game saves after accidentally deleting them for a game I was playing off the hard drive. 

Finding the official memory units, for me at least is kinda hard.  I live in a small town and the two nearest Wallmarts don't have them, heck they don’t even have places for them with the xbox accessories anymore.  The Gamestop two cities over only had a used 256MB unit for sale that I passed on.  I went to the nearest Best Buy and they did not have the 512MB unit either, but they did have the 2GB Datel unit for $40 on the self and I almost bought it right there, but decided to pass and see online if I could pick it up cheaper someplace else.  I was still mulling it over when the Preview for the Dashboard update hit and shortly there after the announcement of the 3rd party memory units being disables in the new update hit.  I was a both a bit angry over it and relieved that I had not spent $40 on something that was soon to be useless.

I think the reason they are giving to cut down on cheating is only partially true, like many things like this (think DRM on music) it hurts the honest people more. In the end cutting off some memory units will be ineffective as when I was looking for cheaper prices online for the Max Memory unit I found places selling data transfer cables that let you transfer content and saves off the 360 hard drive and official memory units to a PC.  This change at best it will only be a minor inconvience to gamerscore hackers and the like.

I would not mind the 512MB units so much if they were like two for $15 or instead of $40 (well just dropped to $30 fairly recently) and you could actually find them in stores.  But as it stands it’s not a good option for people who want to backup saves and content because of price and capacity.

When retailers like Best Buy are selling 3rd party memory units with far more capacity and the same or lower price as the official ones, a person would be crazy to buy the official ones.  I wonder if Best Buy is still selling the Datel units, if they are they are going to have some pissed off customers in the near future.

As far as the bone heads that say "get a hard drive" well having all your eggs in one basket is not a really good idea, especially with hard drives where is not a question of if, but when it will fail.  I have a hard drive, I want a memory unit so I can keep a backup in case I do something stupid or the hard drive fails.

Talking about hard drives .... 120GB hard drive for $150 is just stupid ... looking at Best Buy (worst buy in my book) a Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB external USB hard drive costs $110!!  The Xbox 360 hard drive is just a standard 2.5" hard drive (like the passport) the only difference is it's designed to plug into the top of the 360 and has slightly different firmware so that the 360 recognizes it as official.

Microsoft if you really want your customers to buy online content, you should be selling the hard drives for something approaching normal market prices.  Sell a 500GB hard drive for $150 and you stand to make shit loads of money as people buy more DLC  without having to worry about space.

Most PC gamers don’t understand Servers #MW2 #PC #infinityward #modernwarefare2

I was on the forums of somebody that runs a server and they were talking to one of their friends on steam and they did not care if Modern Warfare 2 servers were dedicated or not and all that they cared about was "Hey, I don't care if the servers are dedicated or not as long as I can play on your sniper server"

That surprised some people on the forums, but from first hand experience I can state that 99% of all players probably don't understand about servers ... they are just these nebulous things.

The question is how many will notice after release ... here's hoping its a large percentage (on the order of 50%) will not like the change when faced with it first hand and just don't play online or move onto something else quickly.  If that happens IW will be faced with the fact that they went to far and have to rethink their strategy.


The game is going to sell well on the consoles and probably about what they expected on the PC.  But if it has no life on the PC they are not going to get the money from the DLC that they were hoping for on the PC side as a large number of people quickly move on.

Right now Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising online play stats have been tanking pretty quickly as PC players are getting a taste of a P2P game and the shortcomings it has.  Looking at Xfire, the number of hours being played has dropped from about 25000hr/day to just over 6000hr/day after two weeks.

Now the hope is that Activision does not decide something boneheaded and decide that PC gaming is not profitable and stops making CoD games for the PC.  They (Activision) are the ones that did not want to make a Modern Warfare in the first place, it was too risky and would not sell, Infinity Ward had a very hard time selling it to them.  Activision may just decide that since they sell 10x as many console copies (I'm not sure of the break down) that it's not worth their time to sell to PC gamers.

No reprieve for #ModernWarfare2 for the PC #IW #MW2 #COD

Well reading this article with an official response and this blog posting by FourZeroTwo it looks PC gamers wanting dedicated server support are not going to get it.

Reading both of the articles it I'm starting to think that they see what they are doing as being the savior of PC gaming by making it more console like.

It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face, destroying what makes PC gaming different from console gaming is not saving it. It’s just turning the PC into another console by locking out custom maps and mods that people like creating.

A prime example of the power of the modding community is Counter-Strike, this game started out as a mod for the original Half-Life game created by two people.  This mod is still probably one of the most popular games based on the HL engine and has been ported to the source engine by valve.  Without CS millions of players would not have bought HL and later when Vale took it over the stand alone game.

No dedicated servers or mod tools for COD:MW2 #MW2 #COD #ModernWarfare2 #IW

Well this week is becoming replete with gaming companies doing things to piss-off their users.  First it’s Microsoft readying a mandatory update to kill non-Microsoft memory units, now Activision and Infinity Ward is basically trying to kill off the existing PC gaming community and replacing it with something different.

The news was broken to PC gamers by FourZeroTwo at Bash & Slash that there was not going to be any dedicated servers and that it would be replaced with IW.net matchmaking service. I think that Robert Bowling (Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward) expected applause from the hardcore gaming crowd that he was talking to but just heard dead silence.

Dedicated servers and modding (custom maps, rules, new game types) have been at the core of the PC gaming community since the beginning.  Every online multi-player FPS has survived because people have been able to extend the games to get greater value out of them.

What it comes down to is Activision and Infinity Ward are trying to do a few things.

1. Make the online PC gaming experience more friendly for casual gamers.
2. Create a way of selling add-ons like they do for the console versions of the games to add extra income.
3. Free themselves from the dependence of 3rd parties (server operators) for the success of their game.
4. Manage the life of the game so that next year when the next version game is ready to hit the shelves they community is ready to move on because they have played the shit out of the stock maps.

Despite all the noise that is being made in the PC gaming community about this issue, I have the sinking feeling that the decision is final and we are seeing the current PC gaming community being forcibly replaced by something else.

PC gamer may still be able to make a difference by speaking up about the issue, tweeting, writing blog and forum posts and filling out the online petition against this decision.

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Next #XBOX360 update to disable unauthorized storage devices I may go #PS3

According to this tweet..

majornelson Using an unauthorized memory unit in your #Xbox360? You'll want to read my latest blog post: http://bit.ly/3QhY3D

The blog post then goes on to say..

Don’t use unauthorized Xbox 360 Storage Devices

When Preview Program members start receiving the Xbox 360 system update next week, one of the changes is that unauthorized Memory Units will no longer work with the Xbox 360. If you’ve moved your profile or saved games onto one to “back it up,” you’d better move it back onto an authorized Xbox 360 storage device prior to taking the update. If you continue to use an unauthorized Memory Unit after the update, you will not be able to access your stored profile or saved games.

If you need help identifying officially licensed Xbox 360 storage devices or accessories you can read more about the licensed accessories program on Xbox.com

Well I’m not currently using any unauthorized 3rd party storage devices. I have looked at them because of the ridiculous price of the 512MM Memory card and 120GB hard drive.

For $30 price of the 512MB I can walk into any retailer and buy at least a 8GB USB thumb drive.  I want to have a place besides my 360 HD to keep my save games and profile information.  So I don’t have to keep them on my HD which may have a failure or just safe keeping in case I delete them by accident.  This is especially handy for cases when a game like Mass Effect II comes out and you can use your old game saves in the new version and have your player’s experience carry on.

Some people on the forums are saying “good it will stop the cheaters”, I call “Bull Shit” on this about the only thing cheating this stops is gamer score, which is e-penis waiving anyways.  Most the other cheating is done via packet manipulation over the network as almost all games are peer to peer and this is not rocket science to do.

The only reason MS wants to do this is to keep people from transferring downloaded content to other systems, and that they can stop already by having the content tied to the consol’s serial number.

Shit like this makes me think o buying a PS3 … user upgradeable hard drive and able to use any USB storage devices as external storage.  It’s a shame that Sony took out backwards compatibility, there is such a library of PS2 titles I’ve not played that I always wanted to try out.  Uncharted 2 looks like such a good game and it’s only available on PS3 and then there is the blue-ray drive you get.