Gadgets & Technology

Quake Live

Quake Live is in essence the 10 year old first person shooter Quake 3: Arena, intended largely for multiplayer, made to be played in a browser and free save for the odd bit of advertising in loading screens, etc. As someone who has been with the Quake series since the first game, this sounded great. However, the 10 years since Quake 3: Arena have seen a lot of changes in what is expected from a game and it simply feels that Quake 3: Arena is too old to keep up.

First, to start with the good aspects of Quake Live. The game itself ran smoothly enough, the installation all worked fine and the advertisements intended to keep it running were noticeable but not intrusive. The server browser system worked well, customisation options were all pretty good and there were a number of servers that were somewhat busy. Loading times were all pretty quick and the skill matching system is a good idea. However, the negatives presented by the game cancel almost all of these positives out. Read more…

xBox Live

Xbox Live users are now free to express their race, religion, nationality and sexual orientation in profiles at the popular online videogame community.

Microsoft on Friday modified the Xbox Live code of conduct for some 23 million members of the network accessed through Xbox 360 videogame consoles.

“Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs,” Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten said in a letter to users of the service. Read more…

Sony PlayStation 3

Sony Corp. said a glitch has knocked PlayStation 3 users off the game console’s online network, and the company warned that data loss could occur if gamers continued using the machines.

Sony said in a blog post Monday that the problem was likely caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system, reminiscent of the Y2K bug a decade ago. The problem is affecting older PlayStation 3 models, but not the newest slim version that went on sale in September.

The company urged customers not to use the older PlayStation 3 systems until the problem is resolved, warning that doing so could cause errors and make it impossible to record gaming achievements and restore some data.

Sony would not say how many users were affected by the problem, which comes just as PlayStation 3 sales are picking up. According to the NPD Group, 276,900 units of the system sold in January in the United States, up from 203,200 a year earlier. In December 2009, meanwhile, nearly 1.4 million PlayStation 3 consoles were sold in the U.S.

Errors that PS3 users started seeing Sunday include the date of the systems being reset to Jan. 1, 2000.

The problem was reminiscent of the Y2K bug, in which programming shortcuts caused some computers to malfunction in the new millennium because they interpreted “00″ as the year 1900. Although a mass computer meltdown didn’t result, as some people had feared, hiccups were reported around the world.

Other problems resulting from the Sony glitch can include an error message saying the user has been logged out of the online game network. Users’ game trophies — their accomplishments — can also disappear.

Sony is not the first to deal with a Y2K-like bug years after 2000. At the end of 2008, thousands of Microsoft Corp.’s Zune media players unexpectedly crashed, prompting references to “Y2K for Zunes.” Microsoft said at the time that the failures, which affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models, were caused by a problem with their internal clock.

Sony said Monday that it hopes to resolve the problem within 24 hours.