The real reason for Max Payne 3's delay: Rockstar's artists were ordered to redesign the titular protagonist's tank top for a more believably off-white color stained with churrasco grease, beard dandruff, and the manly tears of despair.
News Blips:
Our dreams of delivering barrages of bullets as a portly, bald ex-cop escape reality once more: Max Payne 3 gets delayed until May. Developer Rockstar owner Take-Two Interactive explained the fresh logjam as a widened window to "ensure the game delivers the highest quality," a suitably deflective statement for fleeing Mass Effect 3's vice grip on March. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the third-person shooter will now hit shelves on May 15 with a PC version following on May 29.
Congress won't move the disputable Stop Online Piracy Act forward "without a consensus." In an official statement, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said "the voice of the Internet community has been heard" after postponing a hearing examining the bill's restrictive properties. Representative Lamar Smith (R, TX), who first introduced SOPA, removed a critical provision from the bill a few days ago that would enable the government to block access to websites accused of piracy and copyright infringement. Rep. Smith later announced that SOPA will receive its expected markup by the Committee in February. So no, it isn't dead. It's more like missing a few fingers, dealing with an uncontrollably bloody nose, and suffering from really bad gas — but it isn't dead.
International Game Developers Association Executive Director Gordon Bellamy thinks rising software costs inevitably accompanies cloud gaming's increasing popularity. Bellamy told GameSpot that as more robust digital distribution services such as Steam and Origin take root within the industry, so too will the necessity for more costly managing software and the monkeys…er, staff required for operating them. Of course, actually enlightening us layman schlubs on the intracacies of cloud storage would be a nice first step in cutting costs. At this point, I'm still wondering why it essentially takes a Mensa member to flip a burger.
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