Consumers based in the US who bought Orange Box product keys from an online retailer in Thailand are having their copies of the game deactivated.
Orange Box developer and Steam operator Valve issued a statement late last week defending its behaviour. "Valve uses Steam for territory control to make sure products authorized for use in certain territories are not being distributed and used outside of those territories," the company said.
>
"In this case, a Thai website was selling retail box product keys for Thailand to people outside of Thailand. Since those keys are only for use in Thailand, people who purchased product keys from the Thai website are not able to use those product keys in other territories."
Consumers who have since bought a new domestic copy of the game but could still not get the new Orange Box to work, have been told to contact Steam directly.
"Some of these users have subsequently purchased a legal copy after realizing the issue and were having difficulty removing the illegitimate keys from their Steam accounts," the statement continues. "Anyone having this problem should contact Steam Support to have the Thai key removed from their Steam account."
Frank Yu a former Microsoft China employee has given us the lowdown on console piracy in China. He doesn't reveal too much except for what is already known, the Wii is modded, the Xbox 360 is modded and there are chips for sale which can be disabled and so forth as well as stating that MS are always impressed by the speed and efficiency that hackers work on the motherboard. Another interesting point is that he believes it is not illegal to sell the chips just actually sell consoles pre-modified. And lastly, Yu remarked that you can buy the whole library of DS games on a DVD for around $12.
I know the pirates and the modders in China. They are able to chip the Japanese Wii but the US Wii has more protection (Editor's Note and, presumably not hacked because of the availability of the Japanese Wii). For games like Paper Mario, that needed a firmware update on the Internet which even modded Wii's could get. On the new Metroid, the Internet update does not seem to work for modded Wiis this time...(no doubt) a solution is being created.
Yes, the Xbox 360 hardware is totally broken for pirated games...however, if you leave your mod chip active MS will detect it and shut you out of Xbox Live. I have heard rumours of mod chips that can be switched off so that it toggle between a modded Xbox and an unmodded one to go on Live. I have brought many MS Xbox people to the shops here in China that do the modding (its not illegal to install the chip as far as I know but it is illegal to technically sell the console) (Editor's Note: Frank used to work for Microsoft in China). Folks at MS are always impressed by the speed and workaround that hackers and modders do to the motherboard. Of course we don' t tell them we're MS...there are a lot of foreigners who go to these shops too.
Not too much demand for PS3 here...ergo no modding or pirated games that I know of. The whole DS library is available on DVDs here for perhaps USD 12 for the whole set. You still need a Supercard or R4 mod/card (Editor's Note: see previous articles on Nintendo piracy) for the DS but there is no need to install anything, its just a cartridge like any other game with a slot for a Micro SD memory card.
Features:
(v1.1) Extra compatability for some DVD movies
(v1.0) Defeats all current Xbox Live detection attempts
(v1.0) Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 360 backups
(v1.0) Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 1 backups
(v1.0) Boots all Xbox 360 originals
(v1.0) Boots all compatible Xbox 1 originals on Xbox 360
Creating Ixtreme Benq firmware
Copy your orig.bin into the appropriate folder (Fast or Quiet)
Run the "Make iXtreme firmware" batch file
This will create a benq-ix.bin file for flashing
Use the excellent Doshflash program by Schtrom to flash your Benq drive with the benq-ix.bin file.
MOST people will have never heard of Kamloops, an exquisitely beautiful city in British Columbia, Canada.
Surrounded by achingly beautiful mountains and lakes, it began as the crossroads for the fur trade and now is the preferred "sea-change" destination for Canadians.
It's the last place on earth I expected to learn about the latest research on video games.
Most Australian families own a video game console, be it PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Wii.
Most boys are playing an average of 13 hours a week, as opposed to a much more modest five hours for girls.
What should attract the attention of Australian parents is the finding that the more their children play, the less likely they are to do well in school.
It would appear the fast-moving, interactive and fun virtual world is finding it difficult to compete with homework and text books.
Researchers found an inverse relationship between academic performance and time playing games.
Cyberathlete Professional League Joins with X Factor Tournament to Host $1 Million “Halo 3” Xbox Competition
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Cyberathlete Professional League® (CPL®) announced today that it will host a $1,000,000 “Halo® 3” Xbox 360™ competition at the Extreme Winter Championships taking place Tuesday, December 18 to Saturday, December 22, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas, Texas.
The $1,000,000 “Halo 3” competition is being organized by X Factor Tournament, a new e-sports management organization in exclusive partnership with the CPL.
The winner of the $1,000,000 “Halo 3” Xbox 360 competition will receive a $250,000 instant cash payout at the CPL Winter event. Other prizes will be paid to at least 64 places. The competition is open to gamers worldwide and does not require pre-qualification or previous tournament experience.
The online registration will open Tuesday, October 30th. More information will be available on Monday, October 29th at Halo3Competition.com.
For information on travel and hotel accommodations visit the Extreme Winter Championships website located at TheCPL.com/winter/.
Angel Munoz, Founder and President of the CPL, said, “We are thrilled to host this enormous $1,000,000 Halo 3 open competition and to announce it on the tenth year anniversary of our first event. X Factor Tournament has deposited $1,000,000 to a designated bank account for prize payment, making it the largest videogame competition ever.
“We invite the community of gamers to join us in this landmark event, which we hope will usher a new era of large-prize open competitions available to gamers of all skill levels, and not just the elite few,” Munoz continued.
Charles Kano, President of X Factor Tournament, said “After months of conversations with the diverse videogame leagues it became very obvious to us that CPL has the experience, knowledge and brand recognition to help accelerate our growth in this new sport. We are excited to commence our CPL relationship with the $1,000,000 Halo 3 competition and we look forward to offering more open tournaments in the months to come.”
Build Your Empire: 'Rise of Industry 2' Coming to Xbox, PS5, and PC Rise of Industry 2 (@RiseofIndustry), the innovative sequel to the hit indie business tycoon game is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC. Navigate the competitive industrial landscape of ..
HQ Network: 11,301 | 
Guests: 7187 |
Members: 0
I know the pirates and the modders in China. They are able to chip the Japanese Wii but the US Wii has more protection (Editor's Note and, presumably not hacked because of the availability of the Japanese Wii). For games like Paper Mario, that needed a firmware update on the Internet which even modded Wii's could get. On the new Metroid, the Internet update does not seem to work for modded Wiis this time...(no doubt) a solution is being created.
Most boys are playing an average of 13 hours a week, as opposed to a much more modest five hours for girls. 
The $1,000,000 “Halo 3” competition is being organized by X Factor Tournament, a new e-sports management organization in exclusive partnership with the CPL. 
What's New:
