Week of December 16, 2001
2002 Xbox Predictions
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(Friday 21 December 2001 13:26 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Universal Music to Prevent Ripping to Xbox
>> Universal Music Group has employed a controversial copy protection scheme on a new audio CD that is designed to prevent the music on the CD from being played on game consoles, as well as being ripped to a hard drive. The company this week released a new soundtrack CD called "Fast & Furious -- More Music," the first CD to be released in the U.S. with copy protection features designed to prevent the music on the disc from being duplicated on another CD or ripped to a PC's/Xbox's hard drive.
Universal plans to employ copy-protection on all of its CDs by the middle of next year. It also plans to refund sales of the "Fast & Furious -- More Music" to retailers who are confronted by disgruntled consumers who don't read a warning sticker on the case advising them of the copy protection.
The news comes a month after the launch of Xbox, which has a popular soundtrack feature that enables gamers to rip their music CDs to the console's hard drive and play them back in certain games. Of course, those who download MP3s will still be able to burn them to CD-RWs and rip them onto Xbox's hard drive.
Universal publishes the work of some of the most popular artists in the business today, such as Afroman, Fuel, and Mary J. Blige. Lets see how this pans out through 2002. If people vote with their wallets, we'd suggest boycotting Universal Music Group until they reverse this ridiculous idea.
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(Friday 21 December 2001 13:14 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Halo: #5 on The Top Sales List for 2001
>> Sam Goody, the sotware retailer, today announced its top-selling music, video and video game titles for 2001.
1. Madden NFL 2002 (PlayStation 2)
2. Grand Theft Auto 3 (PlayStation 2)
3. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PlayStation 2)
4. Gran Turismo 3 (PlayStation 2)
5. Halo (XBOX)
6. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PlayStation 2)
7. Motocross Mania (PlayStation)
8. Gran Turismo 2 (PlayStation)
9. Madden NFL 2002 (PlayStation)
10. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PlayStation)
note: this is NOT just for nov 2001 , it's for the hole year 2001 (jan-nov actually). 5th place for Halo ... not so bad. Where is nintendo by the way ? ;)
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(Thursday 20 December 2001 23:58 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Operation Buccaneer - What Was The Point?
>> Icrontic wrote a very nice article about Operation Buccaneer (warez raids). People interested in the "warez scene" should take a lookhere
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(Wednesday 19 December 2001 23:21 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Playstation 2 Outsells both Xbox and Gamecube
>> Despite various claims of both Microsoft and Nintendo, this article by the Los Angeles Times has the first independant salesfigures on all 3 next-gen consoles. And it seems the good ol' PS2 sold best this holiday season.
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(Wednesday 19 December 2001 11:13 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Innovations 2002 Awards: Xbox Honored
>> The 2002 Innovations Awards honorees were recently announced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) with many products spotlighting the advances in digital technology, wireless communications and gaming. Innovations 2002 is sponsored by CEA and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). This prestigious awards program gives manufacturers and developers an opportunity to have their products judged by a preeminent panel of independent journalists, designers and engineers.
The Innovations 2002 Awards honors the Microsoft Xbox video game system as the best in the Electronic Gaming category.
Honored products will be on display in the Las Vegas Hilton during the 2002 International CES (where the Xbox was first unveiled by Bill Gates), held in Las Vegas, Nev., January 8-11, 2002.
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(Monday 17 December 2001 20:10 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Xbox DVD-BOOT ?
>> Some interesting thread from xboxhacker.net :
"My Xbox hardrive crashed and now I get the blinking red/green around the disk eject button. When the system boots up with no disk I get the XBOX startup commercial but don't get the first access screen but instead get the call customer service ...
Now the interesting part. What happens next depends on the game. If I boot the system with star wars inserted It plays normally except when I try and access the harddrive in which case it shows damaged as the name it saves the game under. It appears that everything to run starwars is on the dvd. So theoretically you can make a Boot DVD.
If I try Shrek I get nothing just a blank screen after the big X-box title screen.
The last game I tried was gotham Racing it worked until it tried to access the hardrive and then said DVD is damaged."
It sounds cool , but I don't think the auth-check software it on the HD , it's probably on a ROM or in the bios ... but it's Microsoft so u never know ;)
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(Monday 17 December 2001 20:09 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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VGA hack soon ?
>> A guy on the xboxhacker.net forums posted some interesting info about the video cable connector. He is trying to find out if it would be possible to make a RGB->VGA cable. Check the thread
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(Monday 17 December 2001 20:04 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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Cheats/Hints section update.
>> Alot of cheats/hints have been added to the cheats section. Check it out ;)
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(Sunday 16 December 2001 19:59 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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BIOS: Never to Be Flashed?
>> xboxhacker.net posted this interesting info :
"The XBox currently contains a flashable boot ROM. However, after about the first year or so, the ROM will be replaced by a hard-coded "masked ROM." This means that we likely have little to worry about in the way of games updating this ROM."
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(Sunday 16 December 2001 19:06 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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NO VGA-adaptor for the box
>> We have found information that Microsoft will NOT release a VGA-adaptor (play your xbox games on a PC-monitor) for the xbox. Althought developers can use them , microsoft doesn't want to release it atm.
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(Sunday 16 December 2001 19:05 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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XBOX IDE Sniffer
>> Andy + Luke's xbox information area added a XBOX IDE Sniffer , check it here
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(Sunday 16 December 2001 19:02 EST) - (Category: (default)) - (Posted by::
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