Microsoft is going to kill the original Xbox Live service completely on April 15th.

Yep. On April 15th a whole slew of games will go dark, including Halo 2.

On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community.

They don't say what the benefit is, meaning that there really probably isn't one beyond their being able to shut down or repurpose a number of servers.

No word on whether the old DLC packs will die as well (such as the Halo 2 map packs), but they likely will.

Say what now? An Internet Drivers' License?

Meanwhile, Dick Brass has an op-ed in the Times about Microsoft's troubles in innovating, caused by (what he sees as) a corporate culture where groups sabotage projects that compete with them.

Interesting reading...

"War. War never changes."

This is an absolutely wonderful teaser trailer, even if I weren't already sold on the game merely on the strength of Fallout 3.

Over at TBM, an article detailing how CrispyGamer died.

The new idea of journalists as unrelenting marketers on Twitter and Facebook is apparent to anyone who has friends who are writers. While Teti had the temerity to say no to the board’s offer, writers who are also video-game consultants would likely fall over themselves to have the big bucks Teti turned down. Except their work can’t be trusted. The ultimate question, at least for the world of video-game journalism, is: Does honest editorial quality matter any more? Certainly for the most interesting video-game site on the Web, it no longer does.

Unfortunately, this has become the unspoken rule for game reviews. Can you trust the content of big sites? Probably not. If they had early access, they're reviewing on the promise that certain bugs will be fixed (word to the wise: they almost never are). If they had special access, they will feel pressured to give a positive review or else not get access in the future. If their company also sells ads, they'll get pressure from the ad side.

Calling a mediocre game a mediocre game, when your ad revenue depends on selling the intended blockbusters, is hard to do. It's hard to do in the best of times, when you're going against the hype. I'm saddened for the loss of Crispy, because they were what I was hoping would be a model for the industry: a bigger name that could reflect the ethics the gaming community hopes for.

There's an article over at Savygamer (a UK site) asking a few game designers what they think about DRM:

TIGA’s research shows that the majority of video games developers (60%) see piracy as a problem for their business and most also see this as a constant or increasing problem for their business going forward (90%). However most developers view the actual threat of piracy to their business survival as low (60%) with only 20% ranking the threat as medium and only 10% considering the threat to be high (10% had no view).

It's heartening to see that they're starting to see "piracy" as little risk to their business, but the solutions they're coming up with (up to and including Ubisoft's ridiculous "be online or you can't play" setup) have just been bad news.

Vertigo. Massive, massive, massive amounts of vertigo.

Y'know, I can't think of this as anything other than business suicide.

Really. Single-player games that freeze if you lose your internet connection? No way.

The price we pay for not requiring the CD in the drive, and for being able to install a game we’ve legally bought on as many machines as we want, is to be permanently online when playing Ubi games. It will authenticate itself online each time you load it, and then save remotely every time you save. This is, to stress, a game perhaps bought in a shop. So from now on, beginning with Settlers 7, potentially all Ubi PC games will require you to check in with them to let them know you’ve started playing their game, and then tell them every time you save, send them all the data in doing so, and then say bye-bye when you’re done playing for that day.

The price Ubi will pay, is nobody in their right mind will buy their games anymore.

Cartoon Network has hired Weird Al. Hopefully this is the start of them getting away from the abysmal, awful stuff they've been running the past few years.

Without going into too much detail, the good folks at Cartoon Network decided that they liked me and wanted me to provide some content for them – series, features, animation, live-action… they were open to anything. So after a couple years (yes, really) of the lawyers going back and forth, we finalized a deal – now all I have to do is start making stuff! The first thing I’m on track to do for them is, in fact, a live-action feature film.

Go Al!

The Playstation3 may have been opened wide for iPhone-type "unlocking":

I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.

Potential upside? Perhaps a real, fully functioning Linux kernel that can run even on the newest PS3's that lack even the PS3's older, crippled "other OS" option.

Potential downside? Less-legal applications.

This time, it's to clone the might Auroch.

Yeah. Cattle of Unusual Size. What's next? Possibly Rodents of Unusual Size?

The interesting trick is, it's not (this time) direct cloning. Rather, they're taking "related" animals, and attempting to crossbreed them in order to re-create something very similar to the extinct beast:

Breeds of large cattle which most closely resemble Bos primigenius, such as Highland cattle and the white Maremma breed from Italy, are being bred with each other in a technique known as "back-breeding".

At the same time, scientists say they have for the first time created a map of the auroch's genome, so that they know precisely what type of animal they are trying to replicate.

"We were able to analyse auroch DNA from preserved bone material and create a rough map of its genome that should allow us to breed animals nearly identical to aurochs," said team leader Donato Matassino, head of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology in Benevento, in the southern Campania region.

"We've already made our first round of crosses between three breeds native to Britain, Spain and Italy. Now we just have to wait and see how the calves turn out."