Super Street Fighter 4 Philippine tournament on May 7

While I was playing Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition i met the Street Fighter community here in the Philippines and they informed me of an upcoming 2 on 2 tournament happening on May 7. So if anybody in the Philippines interested in joining or even just supporting their event go check out the details now.

The tourney details are as follows:

Tourney details:

Where: G-Box, 3rd Flr, Robinsons Place, Ermita When: May 7, 2011, 10:30AM assembly/bracketing, matches start at 1PM What: SSF4 2v2 Team Battle How Much: 400 per team (200 per head)

Prizes: 1st prize - 5k 2nd prize - 3k

Both winners will receive Unisilver watches and GC's as well + TROPHY!

Rules and Format:

Format: Double Elimination

Hardware/Software: Tourney will be played on SDTVs and the PS3 Console Players are highly encouraged to bring their own sticks and pads, if you don't have one, you can ask willing people at the venue to lend you one. SSF4 console version will be used as we don't have AE yet for the consoles.

Match-type: Race to 2-sets, Race to 2 rounds, KOF style (winner stays)

Character selection: Characters are selected before the SET starts, NO counterpicking, 2 pre-registered chars per player. Same characters in one team is allowed.

REGISTRATION (IMPORTANT): People are highly encouraged to register their team on the site (online) so we get an idea on how many participants are expected to better prepare logistics and bracketing. We cannot promise anything for on-site registration. so hurry and register your team asap. State team name and the characters that will be used upon registration.

If any of you are interested in joining this event go to this thread now to register your team.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQBxHbrBRk]

If I can find a partner for the tourney I'll participate, if not i'll go regardless to support them. Here in the Philippines, Tekken is still the big fighting game but there's a big Street Fighter community over here doing their own tournaments every now and then. Again, if you're a Street Fighter player/fan or even a fan of any 2d fighting game, even if you don't plan to participate go support them. The community is called Pinoy2dfighters and they also support other games like King of Fighters, Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Blazeblue. You can go check their site here.

Portal 2 DLC coming soon for free

Yes you heard me, valve is being kind to us by giving us the first downloadable content of Portal 2 for free. The DLC will include new test chambers, leaderboards and challange mode for single and multiplayer challenge mode valve confirmed. It will be free for PS3 Xbox 360 and PC.

Free is always welcome and hopefully it comes out as a meaty DLC.

Hackers selling PSN data of over 2.2 million users [4/29/2011]

There are rumors that the hackers have the personal info (names, addresses, creditcard numbers, etc) of over 2.2 million users and tried to sell it back to Sony but with no reply. So now they are trying to sell them the highest bidder.

From; http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Security researchers said Thursday that they had seen discussions on underground Internet forums indicating that the hackers who infiltrated the Sony PlayStation Network last week may have made off with the credit card numbers of Sony customers.

The comments indicated that the hackers had a database that included customer names, addresses, usernames, passwords and as many as 2.2 million credit card numbers, the researchers said.

Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at the security firm Trend Micro, said he had seen talk of the database on several hacker forums, including indications that the Sony hackers were hoping to sell the credit card list for upwards of $100,000. Mr. Stevens said one forum member told him the hackers had even offered to sell the data back to Sony but did not receive a response from the company.

Although several researchers confirmed the forum discussions, it was impossible to verify their contents or the existence of the database.

When asked about the hackers’ claims, Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media at Sony, said, ”To my knowledge there is no truth to the report that Sony was offered an opportunity to purchase the list.” Mr. Seybold also pointed to a blog post Sony published Thursday that said: “The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken.” Sony has said that it could not rule out the possibility that hackers might have obtained credit card data.

“Sony is saying the credit cards were encrypted, but we are hearing that the hackers made it into the main database, which would have given them access to everything, including credit card numbers,” said Mathew Solnik, a security consultant with iSEC Partners who frequents hacker forums to track new hacks and vulnerabilities that could affect his clients. Mr. Solnik said that people on the forums had details about the servers used by Sony, which may indicate that they had direct knowledge of the attack.

Mr. Solnik said researchers believe that the hackers gained access to Sony’s database by hacking the PS3 console and from there infiltrating the company’s servers.

Dan Kaminsky, an independent Internet security specialist, said in a phone interview that he had also seen forum posts about a Sony credit card database, but he said he could not confirm who was behind the attack. “These attacks just keep getting larger and larger and larger,” he said. “The security measures technology companies employ today are just not robust enough.”

The San Diego office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is helping Sony with its inquiry into the hacking incident, declined to comment.

"Screenshots" from PSX-Scene forums

Just a little humor during Sony's worst time

Everybody including myself are pissed about the PSN outage, But some people find the funny side from this crisis. Check out this really short PS3 parody and smile a little.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwn4R_GexLM&feature=player_embedded]

Dragon Age II latest DLC announced

The latest DLC for Dragon Age II is out but it's not extra content, it's a set of new equipment for each class and it will actually cost you. Seriously Bioware? can't i just earn them in your flash game Dragon Age Legends? 

The complete pack is $5 on PS3 or $3 for each class individually (that's if PSN gets online soon), and 400/240 points on the PC and Xbox 360. It seems like this gear can be used by your companions so that's a plus I guess. Maybe people complained too much that you can't change companions gears? whatever the reason it's out and whoever is interested can check out the bioware site now for more details on Item Pack #1 .