A class action suit against Microsoft in regards to the Xbox 360 scratching discs if the consoles is tilted had some the documents presented in court unsealed and the contents revealed that Microsoft knew of the problem but pushed the console out the door anyway.

The document contains a quote from Microsoft Programmer Hiroo Umeno, that states:

“This is … information that we as a team, optical disc drive team, knew about. When we first discovered the problem in September or October (2005), when we got a first report of disc movement, we knew this is what’s causing the problem.”

Because of this, Microsoft sent some engineers out in the field to “investigate complaints that the Xbox 360 was routinely scratching discs during demonstrations” at retail stores. This is when Microsoft admitted that if tilted, discs inside became “unchucked” and subsequently would collide with the drive’s optical pickup unit. This would lead to deep circular gouges on the discs. In light of this news, Microsoft considered three different possibilities of fixed the problem, but decided against all three because all three would cost the company too much money.

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According to Reuters, it s looks like British customs officials will be very busy between now and Christmas since seizing fake Nintendo DS and DS Lite handhelds that were ordered over the internet.

The Nintendo knock-offs were ordered from a sites based in Asia for approximately £40 ($58) instead of the usual £100 ($146). The worst thing about these counterfeit devises is not only that they are totally fake, but according to British officials, they are potentially dangerous. Ergo, customs has issued a warning to consumers wanting to purchase what they think is a discount, but will instead be purchasing a fake system with harmful power adapters that could cause harm instead of joy once being unwrapped and used.

“At best these consoles would have led to disappointment on Christmas morning. At worst they could have caused serious harm or injury,” said Pamela Rogers, from HM Revenue and Customs. “UK consumers must be vigilant when purchasing goods online. Buy from a reputable or regulated site and, if purchasing from outside the UK or a new website, research the site – check all the facts before you buy.”

Nintendo’s fraud investigation company, ELSPA issued a statement as well:

“We are asking all concerned parents to be diligent — when a bargain seems too good to be true, it often is.”

The lesson here? Never buy anything from a site based out of a country known for fakes, a site you are unfamiliar with, or a product listed as “brand new” or “still factory sealed” that costs about $100 less than what the norm is–those are huge red flags. Most gamers are aware of this, but unwitting parents can sometimes be unintentionally ignorant of such things if they are unfamiliar with the product.

For those of you who have run out to your local retail store this morning to purchase the just released Call of Duty: World at War on the PC, Treyarch has issued a 317Mb patch fixing some of the minor issues you will encounter with the SLI support, multiple buddy invites, and weapon balancing amongst others.

The patch notes are relatively short so we have listed the entire list for you here:

• Mods are now enabled in Co-op, Single Player, and Multiplayer
• Improvements for SLI support
• G_Spawn: no free entities crash has been fixed
• Server no longer runs out of script variables
• License key is no longer required to run a Dedicated Server
• A Dedicated Server can now be started from the Command Line via Remote Desktop Connection
• Various fixes in Server Browser
• Players will no longer see multiple friend invites from the same friends
• When a player calls in a recon plane in a Hardcore match, the HUD will properly appear
• Clan Tags will now display in game where appropriate
• Map holes fixed
• Spawn improvements and weapon balancing
• Remote desktop now works with dedicated server

With the installation of Patch v1.1, from now on when you log into your game you will be automatically notified when a new patch is available–therefore you will no longer have to search the net or the official game site for one. To get Patch v1.1, you can visit FileFront here, or hit the badge below.

As of today, Call of Duty: World at War is also available for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS.

Banner day for Take-Two and GTA IV fans. Lots of news so I will just state the facts.

• Eurogamer has reported that exclusive DLC for GTA IV should be hitting the Xbox 360 sometime in November.
• Take-Two is reporting that the DLC will hit during the Q4 of their fiscal year 2009 (Nov 08-Jan 09)- so we will keep you posted on that
• The DLC will consist of two 10-hour episodes
• GTA IV had now sold over 10 million units

All of this comes on the heals of Take-Two’s financial report which was released this morning, full of bragging rights. For example,  Q3 revenues are up from $206.4 million to $433.8 million with net income for Q3 totaling at $51.8 million or $0.67 per share. If you pull up numbers for the same time last year, you will notice that they reported a net loss of $58.5 million or $0.81per share.

For the nine months ended July 31, 2008, net revenues were $1,214.1 million, compared to $689.2 million for the same period a year ago. Net income for the first nine months of fiscal 2008 was $112.1 million or $1.48 per share, compared to a loss of ($131.3) million or ($1.83) for the 2007 period.

No wonder they are not ready to hand the reins over to EA just yet.

For the full press release which includes a slew of boring numbers, hit the jump.

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Deep Silver, the games label of Koch Media, and French publisher Game Life today announced a game based on the popular children’s TV series “The Magic Roundabout” for Nintendo DS, Wii and PC.

For those unfamiliar with The Magic Roundabout, it was a five-minute long children’s show featuring stop-motion animation based out of France that gained enormous popularity in the United Kingdom. Broadcast between 1964 and 1971 by the BBC, the British version was different from the original French version in that narration was introduced to the series and was based upon the visuals instead of the script penned by creator Serge Danot.

At its peak, The Magic Roundabout gained eight million viewers, thanks to each five-minute show being aired at 5:40 p.m. each evening just before the early news. Consequently, the animated series gained a large adult following; thus making it the “Sponge Bob Squarepants” of its day. With its dry humor, distinctive visual style, and interesting storyline all centered on the roundabout (a carousel) in a park, speculation about possible interpretations of the show ensued. One being that each character was addicted to a different type of psychedelic drug, mostly due to the whole look of the show and the fact that many of the characters chewed on flowers and sugar cubes.

In the game interpretation of the show, all the well-known characters of the series will appear in a typical, humorous story created especially for the game: the magician Zebedee, an almost human creature in a soldier’s uniform with a spring instead of feet; he frequently went “Boing!” and regularly closed the show with the phrase “Time for bed”, the grumpy, shaggy dog Dougal, Florence the girl, Ermintrude, the pink cow with red spots who is fond of singing, Dylan was a dopey, hippy-like, guitar-playing rabbit, and many more.

The world of the The Magic Roundabout will be brought to life in a number of mini-games and bonus missions, based on the premise of, Zebedee promising Dougal a valuable gift if he is able to help everyone in the village on Friendship Day. The game makes creative use of the different platforms’ unique controls: for example, players control the flight of a paper plane by blowing into the microphone of the Nintendo DS, or uncover hidden objects by “shaking” the mouse cursor on the PC, or the Wii Remote in the Wii version.

The Magic Roundabout will be released for Nintendo DS, Wii and PC in the fourth quarter of 2008.

AMR Racing, mostly known for their Rock Band, Xbox 360 and other gaming gadget skins, is being eyed by Nintendo just in case they step over the line into copyright infringement.

The skins, currently being sold on Amazon, are “protective covers” for your Wii Balance Board, and the imgaes on them range from pistols, flags, scantily clad women, and the above posted picture of the green stuff.

A weird bit of news cropped up the other day that revealed how a lawsuit had been filed against Nintendo and then quickly withdrawn. The suit came from Morgan Creek Productions, who claimed Nintendo had used copyrighted music from their 1993 film True Romance a few years back in a commercial for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. So why was the whole lawsuit dropped in a matter of days? Simply put, Nintendo really did have permission to use the music, according a statement from them:

A lawsuit filed by Morgan Creek Productions, Inc. against Nintendo of America was recently dismissed. The lawsuit alleged copyright infringement by Nintendo for its use of the song “You’re So Cool” in a Nintendo GameCube television commercial produced by advertising agency Leo Burnett USA, Inc. In response to the lawsuit, Leo Burnett provided Morgan Creek Productions with a copy of a music license entered into between Leo Burnett USA, on behalf of Nintendo of America and Morgan Creek, for licensing of the song. The lawsuit was dismissed by Morgan Creek Productions the following day.

Yep, looks like the paperwork for that deal just got lost on Morgan Creek’s side of things. So, no harm, no foul.

Via Kotaku

Apparently, a lawsuit was filed back in June 12th against Nintendo over an ad for a four-year old game that featured music from a 15-year old movie. The ad (shown above) was for the RPG, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and it featured some cutesy visuals along with some cutesy music. Only problem was, that music was actually composed by Hans Zimmer for the 1993 film, True Romance. Thus, Morgan Creek Productions filed a lawsuit, stating:

Sometime within the past three years, [Nintendo] used the sound recording of “You’re So Cool” without authorization in a television advertisement for the Nintendo “GameCube.”

Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that [Nintendo] also used the sound recording at issue herein in other forum in order to generate sales for their product.

And then, just like that, the suit was dropped on June 18th. At this time, no one has any idea why they dropped the lawsuit in less than a week. It’s been so long since I saw the movie that I couldn’t say whether that’s definitely the same music. Still, it’s a little strange that this lawsuit is showing up just now.

Via GamePolitics

Laurent Fischer may have already issued an apology of sorts for his comments about how only “geeks and otaku” want the Wii’s storage problems to be addressed, but I feel David Jaffe’s blog on the subject still warrants coverage because he’s simultaneously very true and hilarious.

(For those of you who still don’t see what the big deal is, it’s the way in which Fischer meant what he said. It seemed pretty clear that he meant “geeks and otaku” in a condescending way; it’s got nothing to do with “geeks and otaku” being offensive. It’s the manner in which those words were delivered that has pissed people off.)

In the colorfully titled blog post “YOU **** ON MY HOUSE!!!,” Jaffe draws a comparison between Fischer’s comments and the movie Can’t Buy Me Love. (If you’re critical of Jaffe for having seen the movie, he says, “**** you, it’s a good movie.”) While he lays out the fact that he is a fan of Nintendo, he also believes that Nintendo should be very ashamed of comments like Fischer’s.

I like Nintendo. And I LOVE old Nintendo. And both old and new Nintendo have brought SO MUCH to this industry that they SHOULD be proud and excited and even a little cocky when it comes to their amazing accomplishments. Anyone in our business should envy their ability to read, direct, and redirect the market. And to also- when they want to- make some world class, ground breaking games.

But this statement, especially coming from a marketing person, reeks of one of two things:

a- arrogance at a level that should make Nintendo- if this statement reflects the core of the company- very ashamed.
b- a marketing person who has no real clue about games and thinks she’s being cute and coy by dissing the ‘geeks’ cause she thinks the mainstream loves them now….if this is the case, she really needs someone to sit her down and explain to her which side her ****ing toast has been buttered on for years and will eventually get back to being buttered on….

Even if you disagree with his choice of language, the man raises a point, even if he unintentionally(?) and erroneously labeled Laurent as a “she.”

Frankly, the only thing I felt Nyko ever did wrong with their wireless nunchuk was make something that was almost completely unnecessary.

Nintendo disagrees.

Bloomberg reports that Nintendo has sued Nyko for copying its patented designs and infringing on trademarks on the name “Nunchuk” and packaging. Nintendo alleges in its complaint that Nyko’s wireless nunchuk “wholly appropriates the novel shape, design, overall appearance and even the color and materials used in the Nintendo Nunchuk controller.”

Nyko spokesman C.C. Swiney said in an interview, “We have not knowingly violated anyone’s intellectual property and we’re still examining this.” Ohhh. Well it all must be a misunderstanding, then.

Nintendo, which filed the suit on June 10, is asking that Nyko stop selling the nunchuk and that it receive cash compensation.

Word to the wise: If you want a wireless nunchuk, run out and buy one now, before Nyko is forced to yank them from store shelves.

via Game|Life