So there we were, sitting on the couch playing a quick round of Buzz, when I start to smell burning plastic.  My friends thought I was nuts.  Five minutes later, they saw smoke.

The 4-port USB hub that shipped with Rock Band?  It was smoldering.  We had hooked up the instruments and turned on the 360 not ten minutes earlier, but decided to play one more round of Buzz before getting our rock on.  Maybe the rock gods were frowning on us, maybe EA released a product with a serious safety hazard.  Who can say?  All I know is there was a small electrical fire, and had I not been in the room my house would have likely burned to the ground.

I don’t really know what I’m going to do about this yet.  I’m certainly not going to sue.  Nothing was damaged (asides from my hands when I rushed to unplug it).  Besides, I’m Canadian.  We don’t do that.

I’m absolutely going to get in touch with EA.  I’m just not really sure what the best avenue for that would be in this situation.

And I’m going to write this post.  If nothing else it’ll help spread the word of a potentially dangerous situation that might warrant a product recall.

UPDATE: I’ve contacted EA via their support site.  Their advice?  I should plug it back in and try again.  Congratulations EA, your form letter just killed me.  Hit the jump for the full back-and-forth;

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Shacknews just posted some comments made by Michael de Plater, creative director behind the upcoming voice-controlled RTS Tom Clancy’s EndWar concerning the delay of the PC version. Evidently it would “cannibalize” the console sales since everyone would just pirate it on the PC.

“To be honest, if PC wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two,” Plater told VG247. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions of EndWar arrive November 7.

“The level of piracy that you get with the PC just cannibalizes the others, because people just steal that version,” he elaborated. “Piracy’s basically killing PC.”

You know I’m getting pretty sick of developers blaming piracy for a lack of sales. Where’s the data supporting their claims? Have they ever thought that just because people pirate something doesn’t mean that they had actually intended to buy it? A lot of people in this industry need to stop thinking that all PC gamers are crooked pieces of shit. It’s fucking offensive. I’m a PC gamer, I’m not a thief.

Ubisoft isn’t the only one who practices like this, EA has very similar views on their release dates. Dead Space releases on PC a week after the PS3 and 360 versions while the now much-hyped Mirror’s Edge has a PC version that got kicked back into some nondescript “winter” release date. Keep in mind that Mirror’s Edge is made by DICE who are widely known for the PC-centric Battlefield series.

Ubisoft and EA, I’d rather not have a PC version of the game if you’re going to keep on insulting me with your practices. Stop with the accusations with release dates and your feeble attempts at incorporating DRM into your games. I have companies who show their customers some respect to support if you’re not interested. Now where’d I put my preorder slips for Wrath Of The Lich King and Left 4 Dead…

If there’s been a more highly anticipated PC title in the past five years than Will Wright’s Spore, I dare you to think of it. The super ambitious game has finally released after a long and hard development to good reviews from game critics and an outpouring of negative reviews from pissed off Amazon users. Here’s a recap of what the hell’s going on.

Back in early May EA made the announcement that two of their upcoming and highly anticipated PC titles, Mass Effect and Spore, would be using a form of DRM, SecuRom, that would perform an online verification of the installed programs every 10 days. As it tends to do, the internet went ape shit. Two days later, EA backed off and changed it to an initial online verification instead of consistently repeating. Mass Effect comes out, there’s buzz for a week or so and then the hatred backs off…as it tends to do. Meanwhile, Spore sort of hung out on in the wings awaiting its release date. Continue Reading »

What better way to celebrate Labour Day than with a celebration of the major tenets of Soviet Russia? From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need. Loosely translated to modern EA-speak, it means the following; If you have the means to afford a Red Alert 3 pre-order, you can get Red Alert 2 free. If not, you can get the original Red Alert free.

Not too bad a deal, eh? Now hop on over to the Red Alert 3 website and get downloading, comrades!

[via VirtualReality.ca]

Knights of the Old Republic was exquisite. Bioware created a brilliant new universe within the existing Star Wars license by using the D&D ruleset and a hell of a lot of imagination. You’d be hard pressed to argue against it being the greatest Star Wars story ever told. Sure the Obsidian delivered sequel left a lot to be desired (more specifically, an ending), but all in all it’s a franchise we’ve been praying someone would get back to. For years now it’s been rumored that LucasArts and Bioware had teamed up again to bring us the third installment in the series, a KOTOR MMO. It’s officially gone from rumor to reality. KOTOR MMO is coming. I need to change my dipey.

From the reveal on Portfolio.com;

In an interview at E3 this week, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello said that EA is working on the next version of Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic, and it will most certainly have a massively multiplayer online component to it.

“We’ve got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development,” said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. “And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it.”

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? “Yes,” he said.

Read the full article here, then come back and join me in my giddy excitement.

We all had a laugh with the Bad Company “Metal Gear” video and now we get two news ones! This time it’s a send up of Gears of War and Rainbow Six. The Gears of War one is fantastic.

At SCEE Playstation Day in London, EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) released a new trailer for their upcoming game, Mirror’s Edge. EA is apparently claiming the trailer is showing real game play footage and if that’s true, well colour me impressed.

Mirror’s Edge follows the story of a runner, who is lucky enough to be graced with awesome name of Faith and works as a delivery girl who delivers important information in an alternative reality future that has become ultra paranoid about using electronic communications. She becomes a target of mysterious government forces when the information she carries becomes too important for her to deliver to its intended party.

Of course, Faith isn’t some damsel in distress as she’s able to kick some butt and take some names with some killer Matrix style moves. DICE also opted to not have Faith use guns in the game, but her enemies do, so gamers will have to choose between fight or flight tactics when faced with the oncoming projectiles.

The trailer sports a moment where Faith is balancing on a pipe as she makes her way across it and I’m thinking the developers might use moments like this to use the SIXAXIS controls for the PS3 version, much like Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune did. God, I hope not.

No release date has been announced for the game yet, but the game will be available on PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows when it does hit the market.