Police got a search warrant for Gilliam's home in the Bronx based off tracing info gathered by Microsoft and Gilliam's ISP. Seems he snatched an Xbox 360 - see? It's not so hard to specify the console in question - around Nov. 11, then hooked it up to play an online game (unspecified, but we'll forgive 'em). Evidently the console was reported stolen, and when law enforcement went back to Microsoft to ask if that machine had connected since the burglary, lo and behold it had. I'm assuming the monthlong intermission was to make sure everything followed search warrant and subpoena procedure.

When police cuffed Gilliam, they found loot from "about 200 car larcenies and a couple of burglaries," reports LoHud.com Consoles, mobile phones, GPS devices and other electronics were found in the trove. "We recovered so much, I just didn't know where to start," Pelham police Detective Rick Deer told LoHud.

Gilliam has the proverbial longer-than-one's-arm rap sheet. He was out on parole at the time of his arrest. He's looking at felony grand larceny charges.

Police Follow Xbox Trail to Suspect, Find Loot from 200 Thefts [LoHud.com via Hot Blooded Gaming]

The glitch appears to be triggered if one turns off the console right after the autosave at the end of Chapter 11. The game then loads up the hideout the next time the game is started, but nothing else loads from the corrupted savefile. Key features of the environment (I won't say which, for spoiler purposes) aren't available so there's no way to advance. You're just running around in a confined space, no way out.

An Ubisoft community developer acknowledged that the ACII team is aware of the problem and "are doing our best to fix this issue as fast as possible." Unfortunately, it doesn't appear a bug fix has rolled yet.

Reports don't say if this affects all versions or just one console, and if the latter, which one is even affected. I have not replicated this glitch - because I don't have the game. The best bet is to just manually save the game after Chapter 11 as soon as the opportunity presents itself. If you have a busted gamesave, your only option is to start over.

Assassin's Creed 2 Glitch Breaks Game [CVG]

The game in question is "Border Patrol" (sample its tastefulness above), a 2006 release that sees you trying to stop Mexicans from crossing the US border. The game tasks you with stopping three kinds of Mexican immigrants: Mexican Nationalists, Drug Dealers & "Breeders". Classy.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the game Dowdy, in his infinite wisdom, thought he'd pass it along to his office colleagues, along with the following recommendation:

THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!!!! Makes you feel better anyway, I did my part today, I kept a few from coming over!!! GET READY —- THEY ARE FAAAST! ! !

It will not surprise you to learn, then, that once this came to light (and he was sued), Dowdy resigned from his post.

Georgia City Councilman Resigns, Is Sued After e-mailing Racist Game [Game Politics]

This Amazon product pages list a game called Parent C. It's got the Halo Wars box art and the description of...something else. Check the game's feature set:

* 1-2 Player
* 28 fun-filled, adventurous mini-games.
* Collect treasures from the island with Rosella¿ and her animal family.
* Impress the Royal Court with your dance moves.

Locations you and your UNSC troops will visit include the Royal Ship, Harbor Village, Apollonian Castle and the Greenhouse. Unit customisation allows you to "design your own wardrobe of clothes fit for a princess". And the game has an eye on the future by forgoing a disc-based release in favour of a full digital download.

Parent C will sell for $29.99 when it's released....in your dreams.

Parent C [Amazon]

My footsteps echo up the stone spiral staircase as I take them two at a time. The rampart is lifted, one of the doors, sways slightly in the breeze.

"Hellooo?"

No one answers. Inside the tower are piles of boxes and envelopes. The lights are off. I wander around until I find Fahey curled up in a ball in the corner of the west atrium, spiders crawling out of his nose, his eyes rolled back in his head. Hmmmm, maybe I need to leave more than one person around to run the place next time we take off for the four corners...

The boxes, inside the boxes are scads of Halo thingies and doohookies. There's two McFarlane controllers, a wireless headset, reams of Microsoft points, rations, a first aid kit, dog tags, a Master Chief duffel bag, a limited edition copy of the game and a Halo 3 Xbox 360 labeled "generic" in big letters on one side. Why does it say generic? Oh right, they were going to laser etch my gamertag into the front of it, but I told them I'd be giving all of it away on the site.

Now how should I do that?

EA has told me this demo is coming to Europe 'very soon'. The moment it is released in Europe I will make a post. I don't know the exact date.

Demo:FIFA 08 Demo [Major Nelson's Blog]

In a recent interview Sir Howard seemingly delayed the European launch of the PS3 from March to April.

Not so says Sony, he just misspoke:

In a recent interview, Sir Howard Stringer stated that the launch for the PS3 in Europe and other PAL countries is slated for April. Sir. Howard meant to say the launch was set for "this Spring." The release for the PS3 in Europe and other PAL countries remains March. Please update any stories you might have posted on this subject.

OK, put down the torches and pitchforks, everything's going to be OOOOK.

OK, so I think we've finally gotten it officially cleared up. Earlier this week the Nation Academy of Television Arts and Sciences listed Nintendo and Sony as Emmy winners for "Peripheral Development and Technological Impact of Video Game Controllers."

Sony then put out a press release saying their Sixaxis had won. Turns out they jumped to the wrong assumption, it was their quite dated and legally-mired Dualshock that actually won the award. Whoops.

"In a press release dated January 8, 2007, SCEA announced we had been recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for the SIXAXIS wireless controller. Due to miscommunication between the two organizations, this information was incorrectly reported. SCEA won a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for the DUALSHOCK controller.

We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused."

OK, so is it stranger when we thought they were winning an Emmy for the Sixaxis or now that we know it's for the Dualshock? Brian Crecente

One of my friends just bought himself an Xbox 360 premium pack with PGR3 while we were in town. I wanted to see a live unboxing, so I helped him set it up. After getting whooped on PGR3 he decided to go online to find some easier meat. The box told him an update was necessary, so he told it to go ahead and update. Once the update had downloaded the box turned off, then the ring lit up again as it started to boot - normal enough, I thought. Then, as the Xbox logo whooshed past, the screen went black. Then some white multilingual text appeared, with the one english line saying that he needed to contact support. The error code E-71 was also shown, and the ring of light had a single red quadrant in the bottom right. He rang microsoft, who made him put his 360 through a string of tests (remove and reattach everything in varying orders) all to no avail - he was told to return the box to the retailer. When asked, the rep also said that he had recieved a number of phonecalls that day with the same symptoms and cause.

Good news and bad news. The bad news is that the update is bricking some consoles, the good news is that Microsoft is on the case and hopes to have the problem fixed with a dash update soon.

We're hearing from a small number of customers (less than 1%) that are having issues with the Fall Console Update. I've been told that the team should have an updated version in the next 12-24 hours. We'll let you know when the issue is resolved.

If you are having problems with the update for any reason, please call Xbox Support (1-800-4-MY-XBOX in the US and Canada). We're working with those affected to get them back up and running, and we're committed to making sure the update doesn't cause problems for anyone else.

So don't update your console just yet, unless you already have. I wonder just how much testing goes into a dashboard update, that how many different types of Xbox 360 consoles are out there. Brian Crecente

GameWad is reporting that on their third run through to the new World of Warcraft end boss, Kel'Thuzad, they finally made it to his lair, but the big cheese was absent.

Umm, yea, despawned as we ran in to make the 3rd attempt of the day. The "event" started as intended, and ended as intended, "combat" faded, no Kel'Thuzad in sight. Soft reset didn't help, and he's still MIA 15 hours later.

Let's hope it was a temporary glitch or a one-off screw-up and not something needing extensive patching. Has anyone else noticed this? Brian Crecente

Hardest WOW Boss to Kill is One that Doesn't Exist

Apparently Kaz Hirai either misspoke or was misunderstood (my money's on misspoke) when he was quoted as saying that Sony would have 2 million PS3s ready to ship by the end of the year. What he meant to say was that Sony is still on schedule to have 2 million unites shipped by the November launch and an additional 2 million by the end of the year. Meaning a total of 4 million units.

Here's there official statement on the whole deal:

"Unfortunately Kaz Hirai's comments in the recent GameSpot interview regarding PLAYSTATION 3 production were misunderstood. We are still on schedule to ship 2 million units for our mid-November 2006 launch and additional 2 million units by the end of the year for a total of 4 million units."

I'm surprised they didn't want to clarify whether they have started producing the PS3s yet. I mean, he said they haven't and they can't be right... can it? Brian Crecente

When is an ad not an ad? When it's disavowed by the CDC. Ian Bogost had a little sit down with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about their ill-conceived anti-gaming ads. Yesterday, he bumped into someone at the CDC's Atlanta office who told him they ads were not officially part of the CDC's VERB Youth Media Campaign. Here's the deal:

Faye Wong, Director of the campaign, explained that the "Give your thumbs a rest" ads were indeed created by Saatchi & Saatchi New York, one of the agencies retained by CDC for the campaign. Saatchi even submitted the concepts to the CDC for consideration, but the CDC rejected them. "This is an ad that was never approved for use," explained Wong. "As with all advertising, the agency presents multiple concepts, and the rejected ones died, but this one has been released for reasons the CDC doesn't understand."
She further clarified that the ads were never moved forward to focus testing or media placement, and they never appeared in magazines like Teen People or the gaming magazines where other VERB ads ran. "VERB targets kids 9-13," explained Wong, "and it is aimed at getting those kids to become more physically active. We present kids with a range of 'verbs' and hope to get them motivated to run, swing, climb, swim—whatever makes them physically active." According to Wong, formal evaluation of the broader VERB campaign suggests that it has been effective.

Wong goes on to theorize that perhaps recent employee turnover at Saatchi led to the killed ad campaign making it into the wild. However it happened, it appears the leaked ads have soured the CDC on Saatchi.

"It raises a caution, whether with Saatchi or anyone else, that they should be aware that this mistake should never happen again. We have communicated to Saatchi that we are very unhappy about the release of these rejected print ad concepts."

Sure, the CDC didn't' approve the obnoxious ads, but let's face it, the images really get to the heart of what the CDC was trying to say. I wonder if the CDC realizes just how big a deal this is? Brian Crecente

CDC: We did not approve anti-gaming ads [Watercooler Games]

If you go to the ad now, both the smoke and the logo have disappeared.

In an official statement Sony said:

In a recent update to the PLAYSTATION 3 section of www.us.playstation.com website, an external error was made during the upload process and the Apple icon was mistakenly placed on the site. We immediately fixed the problem and apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

What's the deal with Sony advertising these days? In recent months we've seen graffiti, bizarrely inappropriate subway ads, a racially-charged billboard and now hinky video. Maybe it's time for Sony to hire a new advertisement company. Brian Crecente

Apple Logo Pops Up on PS3 Site [Kotaku]

Msoft Marketeer John Porcaro reports that he went and spoke to the BC team and were told that Msoft is in the testing phase of another batch update which should hit in a few weeks. The list will include at least a dozen titles, JP reports.

What I find most interesting about the post is the fact that it somehow manages to never mention the fact that BC has become a hot topic is because Peter Moore shot his mouth off about it.

Hello, he's the guy running things. Oh, and according to our survey 40 percent of those who voted think it's very important, while only 13 percent either never use BC or think it's not important at all. Brian Crecente

Backwards Compatibility Update Coming Soon [GameScore Blog]

Neuros sends word that the latest Playstation Portable firmware update, version 2.7, can cause some major problems with their Mpeg-4 Recorder 2.

We don't think Sony did this on purpose, but, for now, PSPs with the upgraded firmware won't play files recorded with the Recorder 2. A second result of this issue is that any files you may have recorded previously with the Recorder 2 would need to be converted to play on PSPs having the upgraded Version 2.7 firmware.

Until we solve this problem, we strongly recommend that, if you have not already done so, that you wait before upgrading your PSP firmware to Version 2.7.

Neuros said they are working to come up with a free firmware for their recorder and have alerted Sony to the problem in hopes that they too will look at the issue. They are also working to come up with a free program that will convert old files recorded with their device to a format the PSP's new firmware will play.