Obama: Xbox or Wii? And Other Odd Video Game Stories From The Week
It's been a fun week in the world of video games. Polish gifts! SWAT teams (real ones)! Japanese booze! Here's what you may have missed:
- Polish prime minister gives President Obama a copy of a video game for stopping by. Prime Minister Tusk presented Obama with several gifts to commemorate his visit including the collector's edition of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Well, at least it was the collectors edition. Is Obama a Wii, PSN or Xbox guy?
- Xbox user forgets it's just a game, sends SWAT team to rival's house. Eugene, OR, police raided a house after a 911 caller said he had just shot his father and was about to kill himself. The 26-year-old resident had done no such thing. He was apparently targeted because he refused to give another player content that he had created for a game called FortressCraft. This is just the latest example of a trend called "swatting": Idiots settling scores with foes via fake crime report.
- Video-game branded booze. In a sure-fire way to appeal to the press, Sega sent out bottles of the Japanese drink awamori labeled for the game Yakuza: Of The End. (I hope that makes more sense in Japanese.) You can't improve on the classics for getting good PR.
- Chinese prisoners forced to mine for gold ... in World of Warcraft. At the Jixi labor camp scores of prisoners are forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. By Chinese prison standards that's practically humane treatment.
- And speaking of China ... a Chinese teen swapped his kidney for an iPad2. In a story that seems tailor-made for Snopes: The 17-year-old went online to find a way to raise money for an iPad 2, according to Shanghai Daily. "I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it," he told the Daily. "A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan [$3,100]." In case of organ failure, start buying gadgets.
- Is anyone still keeping track of the number of times PSN has been hacked?
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