Over at the Eidos montreal website, there’s a strange announcement for the recruitment of their “2nd ‘AAA’ project” which they hint begins with the letter “T.” They’ve already announced that they’re working on Deus Ex 3, so this new game must be a doozy. Odds are, considering the hint, it’s either a new Tomb Raider (meh) or a new Thief (woohoo!). Or possibly something completely new, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some more medieval stealth action.

Via Eidos Montreal

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Ah, this story just gets more and more hilarious. Odds are you’ve heard the tale of the Xbox burglar who was dealt a solid hand of internet justice after the console’s rightful owner, Jesse McPherson, posted the culprit’s Xbox Live Gamertag online. The ensuing harassment from the internet community eventually prompted the kid to return the ill-gotten system. If you haven’t heard the story yet, well then Philadelphia’s local Fox News recently ran a segment on it, which you can view above. For some reason, it always warms my heart a little when tales of the internet community putting their collective efforts to good use are picked up by the mainstream media. Also it’s kind of funny to hear a TV news reporter refer to the kid as a “wise ass.”

Via McFearsome

Frogwares Studios and Focus Home Interactive have released a demo for Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis (formally known as Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsène Lupin). This new demo contains several hours of gameplay and lets you play as the great detective, hot on the trail of Arsène Lupin, the famous French thief, who plans to steal a precious painting at the National Gallery in London.

This is the fourth game in the Sherlock Holmes adventure series and for more information, visit the official website and our previous posts. Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis is expected to be released for the PC sometime in the Spring.

Four days. That’s how long it took for the wrath of the internet community to cause a moron to cave and return a stolen Xbox 360 to its rightful owner. You may recall an interesting tale recently where a man named Jesse McPherson returned home to find his house had been burglarized and his TV, laptop, and Xbox 360 had been stolen. Not only that, but then he began receiving harassing voice messages on his new console from a person claiming to be the thief. So he did what anyone familiar with the powers of the internet would do and sent the internet after the thief by posting his story and the kid’s Xbox Live account online. After the story got picked up by Digg, the internet community leapt into action and managed to find out the kid’s real name, address, high school, phone number, AIM name, etc. Then they pretty much began harassing him non-stop over the weekend, leading the kid to hand-deliver the laptop back to its owner.

Well, now this story seems to have reached a somewhat happy conclusion as McPherson has reported that his Xbox has now been returned safe and sound. The kid’s mom dropped the console off on his doorstep wrapped in a white trash bag and then called him to tell him it was there. McPherson also said that the police now have a lead on the actual robber and “seem to be doing their job,” as opposed to before when he pretty much gift-wrapped a lead for them and had the door slammed in his face. But since he’s got his 2/3 of his stuff back, he asked the admin behind the wiki page with all the kid’s personal info to remove all the content; and they seem to have complied. And internet justice has prevailed.

Via McPherson’s Blog  [image via Weird Asia News]

Sit down, kids; it’s story time.

On March 12, Jesse McPherson returned from his trip to SXSW only to find that his home in Philadelphia had been burglarized. The thief made off with his TV, an old Powerbook, and his Xbox 360. Naturally, he was upset, so he took it upon himself to call up some local pawn shops in the area to see if anyone had come in trying to hock his stuff.

As luck would have it, the first place he called remembered a young man who tried to sell a Powerbook that had a few quirks similar to McPherson’s. So he went down there and snapped a couple shots from their security feed of the guy trying to sell the laptop. He contacted the police and told them he had pictures of the thief, but he never heard back from them. Meanwhile, this past Friday, his co-workers surprise him with a brand new Xbox 360 console.

Now here’s where things get really interesting. That night, McPherson goes home, hooks up his new gift, and recovers his Xbox Live account. The first thing he notices is he’s received a voice message from some random person. As it turns out, it’s the thief, who explicitly says he’s got the Xbox and offers to sell it back to him. McPherson calls the police, and the person on the other end tells him to call back during normal operating hours and then hangs up on him (note to self: never ever move to Philadelphia). Left with nowhere else to turn, McPherson did the only thing he could think of and posted the thief’s Xbox Live account on the internet. His story got picked up by Digg and within a few hours the internet community managed to uncover the thief’s name, address, high school, e-mail, phone number, etc. and even put together a wiki page to compile all of it.

Then he pretty much started getting harassed through AIM, a YouTube video, and probably every social site he’s ever subscribed to almost constantly. By Sunday, the kid actually shows up at McPherson’s house and gives him the laptop back. No word yet on the Xbox, but McPherson has said he will be in contact with the kid’s parents soon. I also have a feeling the kid will be giving up the Xbox soon, since his account’s bio now reads: “mY eFFinG xBoX brOkE sO i WoNt bE oN fOr aWhILe iF u NeEd Me SEnD mE a MeSsAgE aS lOnG aS iT aiNt vOiCe I wiLl GeT iT.”

There’s really no justice quite like internet justice. Some people have pointed out that a threat left on Xbox Live is flimsy evidence that this kid is the actual thief and not just the guy who bought it off the thief. That may be true, but it’s still a little hard to explain how an internet search that started with an Xbox Live account brought back a picture of a kid who looks a lot like the guy trying to pawn a Powerbook that sounds remarkably like the stolen one. Besides, even if he weren’t the one who broke into McPherson’s house, he still knowingly bought some stolen goods and then bragged about it to the rightful owner. That’s worthy enough of some internet backlash, I say.

Via McPherson’s Blog

You may remember that last week, at GDC, Harmonix pretty much announced that the song from Portal, “Still Alive,” was coming to RockBand by having Jonathan Coulton sing it live on stage at the Valve party. And you might have heard a few accounts from people who were there that some drunk guy tried to copy the song onto his own memory card before being stopped by someone from Harmonix. Well, it turns out that guy actually has a LiveJournal blog where he posted his own story about the whole affair. Apparently, he was admittedly tipsy when he decided to step on stage and ask the CEO of Harmonix — who had been drumming — if he could take the song. He doesn’t recall what was said, but he somehow came to the conclusion that it was alright for him to just take it. As he was trying to download the song, someone else from Harmonix stopped him and deleted the file from his memory card before giving it back to him. He later apologized to the Harmonix employee who busted him and learned that the file wouldn’t have worked on a retail copy anyway. He also explains in his blog why he thought it was alright for him to just take the track:

Don’t try this at home, kids. The only reason I did is because I am an acquaintance of Alex [Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix] as well as good friends with several Harmonix folks, and game industry friends give each other free swag all the time. Remember, making an unauthorized copy of copyrighted material is theft.

Yes, he’s such good friends with some of these people that it seemed perfectly fine for him to just steal stuff from them, not to mention mess with their jobs; what a great friend. The icing on the cake is how he explains that breaking copyright law is theft and that people shouldn’t do it, when that’s exactly what he was doing. Seriously, the only valid excuse here is to just say, “I was drunk,” and leave it at that. You can read his full story by clicking the link below.

Via Algorithmancy’s LiveJournal

UK police in Huddersfield are hoping to locate the owner of a Wii by releasing descriptions of the Miis found on the system. The system was recovered after a man was arrested on theft charges and is believed to have been purchased as a Christmas present. The Wii contains 16 Miis with names such as Seb, Pheebes, Nicks, Ellie, and Evie and has an ID code of 7901 7431 3732 8898. If anyone thinks this might be their lost Nintendo console, they should contact the Kirklees CID.

There’s a new security feature for you. Just make a Mii that looks like you and name it, “If found, please return to (insert name and phone number).”

Via Huddersfield Examiner

Warren Spector has made quite a name for himself over the years for his involvement in such groundbreaking titles like Wing Commander, Thief: The Dark Project, and Deus Ex. That’s a pretty extensive career, but don’t get too used to having him release more classic games every so often. In a recent interview, Spector voiced his concerns about the growing time requirements for game development, which may prevent him from making many more games:

“Game development requires an intense amount of energy,” Spector, who is 52 years old, told Eurogamer in an interview published today. “It requires a level of focus and dedication and belief and confidence and time. What it means, in an ideal world, I may work on five more games in my entire life. More likely probably three given how long they take.”

Well, dang. I suppose that says something about how much the gaming industry has grown when some of its biggest pioneers are already looking at retirement. Still, it’s sad to know there will be one less person out there dedicated to making great games.

Via EuroGamer

The Consumerist recently decided to investigate claims of ill-doing by the Geek Squad, who specialize in electronic and computer technical support. After hearing numerous claims by former and current employees of “agents” copying files off of customers’ computers, they decided to investigate. They put some pornographic files on a computer and then rigged it to record a video of itself. Then they took it around to several Geek Squad locations and had the agent perform simple tasks, like installing iTunes. After a few fruitless attempts, someone finally took the bait. The Consumerist managed to capture a video of an agent downloading the porn and some personal files onto his company-issued thumb drive. They then reached Geek Squad CEO, Robert Stephens, for a comment, but declined to reveal the identity of the porn thief.

This just further proves my claim that every man, woman, and child should just have their own personal batcave for storing their porn. It’s time to fight the problem at its source, people.

If you want to see what leaked information looks like, this is the place to be. This thread in the Gametap Forums has all the details of the ‘leak’, confirming the impressive list of new franchises.

The graphically depicted thread includes the information that the Hitman series, Thief series, and the Bloodrayne series are all coming to Gametap. Not only that, but the thread goes on to detail the fact that the Legacy of Kain series and Wing Commander IV are also coming to the online gaming service.

If more game announcements were done like this one, I’d really enjoy my job more, I can tell you that.