The ScooterBlog

Ok, this shocked me. Not cause I have any doubts about how piracy works … the greatest challenge to a hacker is to go one step farther then anyone has before. It doesn’t even shock me that this game got hacked out to the Internet early … stores have to have this early to sell it at Midnight, and everyone would want a piece of this.

It shocks me that it’s 4 WEEKS early! And all thanks to the favorite patrons of the world (except not!) … the French.

So what from what I hear, that means that this version of the game can’t ever be a 10.0, cause it lies. It has a guy speaking in French kicking butt, and that just doesn’t happen. But the truth be told, if the PAL French release here works on US systems, this is a huge coup for the pirates …. of course, if you’re going to pick the company you want to fight, Microsoft may not be your favorite.

They did track down the DrinkorDie group who was initially responsible for a lot of Microsoft OS releases, and while I don’t remember if they got the people who initially leaked WIndows XP, I know they worked hard to. And now, you’re taking on a game that could gross as much as $400 million bucks (if they sell 8 million of them) before the end of the year. Imagine if any of the Lord Of The Rings leaked out to the ‘net in full DVD quality 4 weeks before it came out in theaters, cause that’s the scope of this.

Now in support of the people who are getting this, 2 thoughts:

1) XBox Live players, and they are about 1.2 million of them now, won’t be getting this release, or if they do, it will not effect their purchase of the game … cause the moment a modded XBox connects, it’s toast, no more online for that machine forever, and if Microsoft feels like it needs to go on the offensive, it will and it will increase what it does to find modded systems.

2) A lot of those people who have modded systems have left the new game purchase market anyways and gone all deadbeat, all the time.

3) These releases while publisized, do not make it to a large amount of people. Hardcores get it, and maybe they give it to a friend or two with a hard drive, but my estimation is still that under 1% of systems are modded, and Microsoft is hoping (and this is not unrealistic) that 1/3 of the XBox owners will get this game.

So this looks bad on Microsoft, but the end effect? It will exist, prolly a few million bucks out of thier pockets, but they will make $300-$400 million in sales on this game and it will re-invigorate the XBox a little further.

And this blog writer? Pre-ordered from my store, Game Junkie, and I’ll be getting my collector’s edition and prepping for tournament, 11/13, status as normal.

And I’ll follow this release too …. I’m gonna enjoy the responses from both sides, this could break the XBox more wide open then it already is, or could be the time when Microsoft really throws down the hammer more then ever. Time will tell.