Blizzard: We Are Legion

By Geoff Duncan Published August 29, 2005

Blizzard Entertainment has passed a milestone: its massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft has more than 1 million paying customers in North America, cementing its status as the largest MMORPG in the world. Blizzard says this brings the total "population" of paying subscribers to its online games to more than 4 million. Since its launch in November 2004, World of Warcraft has been the top-selling MMORPG in North America. The company has been regularly augmenting the game with new content updates, and World off Warcraft has subsequently gone online in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and South Korea, currently the world’s most-wired nation.

But lest a million North American players seem like a large number, it may pale in comparison to the game’s audience in Asia: Blizzard launched World of Warcraft in China in June 2005 and had more than 1.5 million subscribers during its first month. The game is scheduled to launch in Taiwan later in 2005.

Former Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Gaming

The next Xbox may be backward compatible with every past Xbox generation, if publishers agree

A leaked memo details Microsoft's next console could play games from every Xbox generation, but there's a catch.

A leaked internal memo suggests the next Xbox console, codenamed Project Helix, could play games from every generation the company has ever released. If true, that would make it the largest game library on any console, especially since it's also said to support PC games.

Backward compatibility for four console generations

Gaming

Xbox may have a surprisingly smart plan for keeping physical games alive

Xbox’s leaked roadmap could rescue your old games from the disc-drive grave

Book, Publication, Comics

The fate of physical game discs seems to be set in stone, with an all-digital library becoming increasingly inevitable. Microsoft, though, may at least give Xbox owners a way to bring their shelves full of physical games along for the journey.

A leaked Microsoft roadmap sent to game publishers details the planned rollout of Xbox’s Disc-to-Digital program alongside a much larger backwards-compatibility push. The document reportedly targets August for general availability, October for the full launch of original Xbox games on PC, and a gradual Xbox 360 rollout beginning in 2027.

Gaming

Pwnage’s new gaming mouse lets users adjust click force and travel with a screwdriver

The 49-gram Pwnage Vanta also features a movable sensor and 8,000Hz wireless polling

Computer Hardware, Electronics, Hardware

Gaming mice usually let you adjust sensitivity, polling rate, and button assignments through software. Pwnage’s new Vanta goes a step further by letting you physically change how each primary click feels.

The company describes the Vanta as the world’s first lightweight gaming mouse with mechanically adjustable clicks. Turning a pair of screws changes how much force and movement the left and right buttons require, without replacing the switches or adding more electronics.