Forget hunting for bargains and preowned games — amass an armada of pirates and watch those prices plummet!
News Blips:
Amanita Design cuts the price of its sleeper hit Machinarium to $5 in order to give pirates "a chance to redeem themselves." Although the 2009 adventure title is free of any woeful digital-rights management systems, Amanita founder Jakub Dvorský stated in a blog post that "only 5 to 15 percent of Machinarium players actually paid for the game." While the discount is available to everyone, the so-called "Pirate Amnesty" initiative is specifically targeted at (you guessed it) pirates. This is definitely an unconventional tactic in the unending war against piracy, but I don't see how slashing the price of a game will curtail further thefts. Thoughts?
Microsoft's patent for its Kinect peripheral reveals support for American Sign Language (ASL). Suitably proficient gamers can input letters, words, and entire phrases via ASL gesturing, opening up possibilities for low-key translation systems and converting speech to text. If this image from the patent is any indication, we'll also have a jolly old time twiddling our virtual mustaches. [GoRumors]
The Collector's Edition of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood contains some truly peculiar items. Among the standard gamut of a soundtrack disc, art book, and making-of videos, the sizeable box harbors a "hard copy strategy map" of Rome and a creepily twisted version of a jack-in-the-box — take your pick from a beaked plague doctor and an even creepier harlequin (available via GameStop preorder). Either Ubisoft is taking the Renaissance Italy motif too far, or I just stumbled into a Tom Holland film. [1UP]
A 250GB Kinect bundle appears on the packaging for a 4GB bundle. While Microsoft hasn't released any official word, an image lifted from the Australian packaging of the motion-control device reveals the inclusion of a larger hard drive, a glossy finish, and a headset. Since Australia is home to some of the deadliest creatures on the planet (like the aptly named "Deathstalker"), I would only open the box after a thorough decontamination process. [Joystiq]
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