Rockstar Patches GTA IV's PS3 Online Play

Rockstar Games just confirmed that they have released a patch for the Playstation 3 version of GTA IV which was causing issues with online play.

Rockstar Games has released a GTA IV patch for Playstation 3 today that prevents Gamespy’s servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up. We continue to monitor the performance of the game both on and offline and will provide further updates as necessary. We want to assure everyone that, together with our hardware partners, we continue to strive to give our fans the best possible interactive entertainment experiences possible. This update will ensure that everyone will experience Grand Theft Auto IV the way it was intended. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

Looks like Microsoft's prep work for the game mostly paid off.

A Wii For Grownups

Leigh Alexander has an interesting proposal (one that will never, ever happen, but interesting nonetheless): two versions of the Wii console to rid the system of the pesky Friend Code system (which is, as Alexander points out, frequently a pain in the ass):

Friend Codes are a pain, right? The Wii doesn't have the sort of lobby system that just about every other game machine has managed to perfect. The mechanism exists, sure, but I've never seen it function usably. If current reviews of Brawl are to be believed, it's best to match up with a friend than to try and get a random battle.

Of course, the Wii is a family console; I don't think Nintendo has anything to gain from making it easier for random strangers to hook up with kids on the internet. But why don't they make like Xbox did and offer different console packages?

Clearly, the Wii is selling like hot cakes and Nintendo doesn't need to do anything; but it would be nice to have the option of dumping the clunky Friend Code system, no?

Wii For Grown-Ups [Sexy Videogameland]