Planning a LAN party to celebrate the launch of StarCraft II (whenever that is)? You can still do that, but you'll all have to be connected to Battle.Net first. Blizzard has confirmed that the upcoming RTS game will not support LAN play to further build up Battle.Net as the multiplayer solution for their games. That, and to combat piracy.

French site PSP Gen has got some curious and interesting tidbit regarding certain games that can actually recognize a Custom Firmwared PSP, which in turn blocks you from being able to play it. On such game is Evangelion: Jo, currently available only to the Japanese market.

The pirates have struck the X-mark again, claiming illegal booty with digitally ripped software. After hearing Rock Band: Unplugged's leaking into the Internet a month ahead of retail release, this bit of news brings another damper to the fight against piracy. It's been reported that The Sims 3 has now also found its way to torrent sites online, some two weeks ahead of its scheduled release (June 2).

Lots of big news for this week's recap, so you'd better stay comfy. There's a hell lot of games coming to the Wii and DS in 2009, and we have news on the biggest that the two platforms are gonna get - whether they're the Pokemon remakes, Monster Hunter 3, and a bunch of retro WiiWare games, we've got ya covered. With a lot of games coming, it probably explains why the DS sold a million last April, so the new DS owners will have a lot to play and choose from. Quit wasting your time reading this babble, 'cause you're gonna read them again in the full article. Or not.

Another bit of sad news for the PSP scene today as reports are coming in that the much awaited music game Rock Band Unplugged has already been leaked in the internet, less than a month ahead of its scheduled release date.


Discuss: QJ.NET's PSP Games Forums

Piracy is distressing. Metaforic CEO Andrew Mclennan said as much in an interview with Gamasutra, referring to the plight of piracy, particularly on the DS via the R4 cards. Echoing this sentiment is Nintendo, who as of last year has filed a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court for an injunction of the R4 as it causes "severe damage" to them. Since then, Nintendo has been hard at work on a plan, and we just might see it come to fruition by this holidays.

Everybody's got something to say about PSP piracy. Understandably enough, developers and publishers see the issue as a huge detriment. Dissidia: Final Fantasy director Takeshi Arakawa believes, however, that as bad as the piracy situation on the PSP may be, Dissidia is good enough to convince gamers to actually buy the game.

Unless you were born yesterday or crawled out of the rock you've been living under for years, you'd know that software devs are at wit's end trying to come up with a solution to them piratin' scallywags. In the case of this first time iPhone game developer, he didn't waste his time trying to come up with an iron-clad barrier to protect his stuff that hackers will always find a way to break, he takes a more subtle approach, and his take on piracy makes a rather insightful read.

This week in PSP news: a new OFW surfaces, home console game Dante's Inferno gets a PSP version, Sony finally lets out something concrete about their PSP offerings for E3, and SCEA senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille likens PSP piracy to Hannah Montana. No, not really, but he did call it "sickening". Which is close enough if you ask me. Read on for the PSP Weekend Warrior!

Sony's Peter Dille has claimed that they are confident in their 2009 strategy for the PlayStation 3 home video game console, both in pricing and in content. Dille also touched on the PSP's rampant piracy problem, calling it "criminal" and "sickening".