CD Projekt Red is one of the few developers to argue against DRM in games. Still, that didn't prevent them from adding SecuROM to a version of The Witcher 2 upon release. Needless to say, the results were as they expected: it didn't work. 

In a presentation today during GDC, CD Projekt Red CEO Marcin Iwinski said the following:

"We release the game. It's cracked in two hours, it was no time for Witcher 2. What really surprised me is that the pirates didn't use the GOG version, which was not protected. They took the SecuROM retail version, cracked it and said 'we cracked it' -- meanwhile there's a non-secure version with a simultaneous release. You'd think the GOG version would be the one floating around."

Iwinski goes on to say that his company will never use DRM in their games again, because it overcomplicates things. To say it's refreshing to see a developer discuss the issue like an adult, without politicizing the issue, would be an understatement. Still, it's a rare perspective to see in the industry, and not likely to persuade other, larger publishers and developers.

After the presentation, Iwinski tells Joystiq:

"DRM does not protect your game. If there are examples that it does, then people maybe should consider it, but then there are complications with legit users."

Earlier today home theater systems company Sonos unveiled their latest sound system, the Sons S5, a wireless sound system built to function seamlessly with the iPhone.

Unlike traditional media players, the S5 doesn't require you to dock your device in order to enjoy your music. By using the Sonos controller app, one can easily stream all of their music, whether it be from an iPhone or the internet, through the media player -- no tethering required.

Features:

• Full control of your music experience with your iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac or Sonos Controller including your iTunes library and all of the popular online streaming services such as Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster, Siruis
• Crystal-clear, room-filing sound from 2 tweeters, 2 mid-range drivers and subwoofer built in
• Access to music from your iTunes library and most every online music service/internet radio station
• Best-in-class wireless technology for multi-room music
• Simple setup & expansion - simple to add rooms

If you don't like driver issues, Driver Sweeper is a free program we can wholly recommend using.

The long and short of it is before installing a new driver (like say, those new NVIDIA drivers released today), you uninstall the old ones, reboot, run Driver Sweeper to get rid of all the old bits lying around, then install the new set, thereby minimizing the possibility of any future conflicts or issues. We've been using it for some months now with only good results, so there's that.

Version 2.0 is released today, complete with an overhaul, Windows 7 support, lots of improvements and more. Grab it at Phyxion; link and changelog is below.

Driver Sweeper is completely rewritten from scratch at 2.0.0

• This version requires at least .NET 3.5 installed.
• UAC message requiring administrator access on Windows Vista and Windows 7 on startup if UAC is enabled.
• Resizable window.
• Lowered requirements to .NET 3.0.
• Windows 7 support.
  Only the final version is supported.
• Updated:
     - Improved ATi - Display cleaning.
     - Improved NVIDIA - Display cleaning.
     - Improved NVIDIA - PhysX cleaning.
     - Renamed AGEIA - PhysX to NVIDIA - PhysX
• Added many translations

Now that Realtek soundcard users are taken care of, it's time for Creative users to get some Windows 7 support. The company has added to its website today additional support for the OS, specifically, for its Audigy, Live! and X-Fi Xtreme Audio cards.

These new drivers constitute Beta version 1.04.0090, and should offer an overall improved experience under Microsoft's latest. Grab the set here, and visit Creative's Windows 7 - Driver Availability Chart for other card and product support information.

Realtek releases today its 2.25 set of HD Audio drivers, these ones being the first compatible with Windows 7.

Hit the link below and click 'Software' to proceed to the new driver set. Note download speeds vary arbitrarily depending on which site you choose, so shop around!

Folks may recall January's news of U.S. electronics retailer Circuit City shutting down, with us left wondering what would happen to its Canadian subsidiary The Source.

The news in this week tells us wireless, digital TV, internet and home phone provider Bell will be capitalizing on the losses, buying the chain out and "enhancing [its] growth"; it will continue to operate as an electronics shop on top of carrying all of Bell's services.

The deal is expected to be finalized by Q3 of this year; no price has been disclosed as of yet.

"(The) acquisition supports Bell's strategic imperatives to accelerate wireless and leverage momentum in services like Bell TV, Bell Internet and Bell Home Phone," said George Cope, president and CEO of Bell and BCE.

Bell shares closed down 2.54 per cent Monday at $24.20.

The Source previously ran under the monkier of Radio Shack until it was bought by Circuit City in 2005.

Circuit City has had a really rough 2008. First it saw a bid from Blockbuster, then some Sony trucks turned around on them failing a delivery due to bad credit, then they closed 155 of their stores, and finally, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. There's one final note to this sad tale: the chain is now shutting down completely. In retrospect, maybe a Blockbuster acquisition would've been a good idea.

They announced today they will be liquidating their remaining 567 U.S. stores after failing to find a buyer or figure out a refinancing deal. At the time CC filed for bankruptcy protection, they held 5-10% of the US video game sector. Circuit City was the nation's second biggest electronics retailer.

There doesn't seem to be any specific liquidation sale on their website, as one might expect, though its Canadian subsidiary The Source has an up to 70% off event.

Gamers often find themselves at a hard end of the audio spectrum, things are isolateed to headphone jacks or optical jacks and the rare situation where someone uses a few splicers to turn their headphone jacks into 6 audio out jacks. It never seems to be a pretty picture and most of the time the easy way out is just hooking up a 5.1 in a box to just get into action instead. The problem of course is the quality suffers most of the time using plastic cabinets without porting and no remote insulation of any form to help supplement the sound. Hardcore users will take the next step and use a digital line to their recievver to hook up a pair of bookshelf speakers and get some respectable sound but for those who want something more the KRK Rokit 8 seems to fill that void.

The G2 series is running about with great specs showing a Glass Aramid composite Woofer giving people some strength and flex for high power situations, while everything has a breaking point the use of this reduces the issue quite a bit and provides a wide range of frequency response without reaching a distortion point so fast that everything peaks and the driver goes into overload.

Key things to know:

Rokit 5 G2:

5" Woofer with dedicated 1" Tweeter
XLR support with RCA and TRS connection support.
75 Watt dynamic power bi-amp, 18dB Octave Filters
53Hz-20kHz response range per cabinet

Rokit 6 G2:

6" Woofer with dedicated 1" Tweeter
XLR support with RCA and TRS connection support
100 Watt dynamic power bi-amp 24dB Octave Filters
49Hz-20kHz response range per cabinet

Rokit 8 G2

8" Woofer with dedicated 1" Tweeter
XLR support with RCA and TRS connection support
150 Watt dynamic power bi-amp 24dB Octave Filters
45Hz-20kHz response range per cabinet

The cabinet focuses on audio response over high end abuse, the thing to note is that the 150w power rating is a great sign of actual output instead of using inflated burst / pmpo ratings and it signals a brief end to the often second thought inclusions of a subwoofer to make up for a lack of low frequency response by the actual drivers like many companies end up doing right now as the company has invested in the hardware itself. The XLR, RCA and TRS support seal the deal for many audio professionals with high end connection compatibilty.

For $300 - $500 set the Rokit isn't exactly cheap but it has the potential to deliver audio quality that rivals the $300 kits running around right now. For the more audiophile based users the sets will probably be quite a nice touch as some younger gamers often desire EAX5 with 7.1 over something that might provide higher quality output. If we get a chance to put these to the test we surely will, I've sampled KRK monitors in the past few months and the potential is pretty wild and very defined.

Anyone wanting more info can hit their site krksys.com

You've probably seen this happen in hardware or game forums before: the company behind the forums does something that upsets the user base, and people chime in, saying how they will never buy so-and-so product again. Well this happening to the extreme right now, on the forums of sound card, speakers (and other things) maker Creative Labs.

The public relations fiasco started just this last weekend. A man who worked on drivers for Creative sound cards as a hobby was known to be a savior of the community: unlike official Creative releases, his Vista drivers actually worked. So people loved him; his forum name was Daniel_K and legions of Creative card owners would thank him, after using his drivers, after having numerous troubles with Creative's own releases. Personally, I own a Sound Blaster X-Fi, and never had any troubles using it in XP; but judging from time spent in Creative's forums, their Vista drivers were substandard in many cases, preventing many customers from fully utilizing their sound cards (or using them at all, for that matter.) In a perfect world, you would think that Creative would have been happy to have a dedicated smart guy working on their drivers in his own time -- but this is not a perfect world.

Phil O'Shaughnessy, the VP of Corporate Communications for Creative Labs, sent a letter to Daniel_K, asking him to refrain from posting, or working on, his drivers anymore: "...we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP." Mr. O'Shaughnessy cited legal obligations that prevent 3rd parties from working on their drivers, because they contain code that is licensed from other companies.

Daniel_K agreed to not work on the drivers anymore.

Then the forums exploded.

In a matter of a few hours, propelled to the public's eye thanks to news aggregates such as Digg.com, legions upon legions of Creative card owners chimed in. Most signed up to the forum just to say how they would never ever buy a Creative card again, and how choked they were that Creative released sub-standard Vista drivers for far too long. Many smelt a conspiracy, suggesting that Creative purposely was limiting the functionality of their cards in order to encourage a enforced obsolesce on their products -- so people would be forced to buy new cards.

The forum thread is continually growing; it is currently up to 200 pages of pure vitriol and anger over Creative's move. Here is one of the thousands of posts: "I've bought $1000 worth of Creative products going back to the Soundblaster 16 including speakers and a DVD Rom. I was going to buy the XFi to replace my Audigy 2 ZS on my next build. At a critical time for the company, with descrete sound cards being a dying breed, Creative needs the enthusiast market. So why go and kick us in the teeth?"

In less than 24 hours, a boycottcreative.com website has appeared. [April 3rd edit: Reference to Newegg posting on Creatives forum deleted, as this has been confirmed as a illegitimate (see comments below.)]

You can read all the colorful and interesting forum posts over here. Hell hath no fury like a gamer scorned.

Afternoon update: There has been some forum chatter about filing a class action lawsuit against Creative Labs, because they have been putting 'Vista Ready' stickers on their sound card boxes, when in fact, the sound cards do not run well in Vista (according to numerous reports.) Creative might be taking the threat of a class action lawsuit over false advertising seriously, as they recently appended the following message onto the bottom of their website's forums: "Pricing, product specifications and availibility are subject to change without notice. Package contents may vary according to the different regions." Adding further evidence to the fact that this message was added in haste (perhaps panic), is that they spelled 'availability' incorrectly. (Pointed out by forum guy MJC420. And thanks for linking to Neoseeker, Palewook.)

April 2 update: It appears Creative might be back-tracking slightly now, in thanks to the public outrage. While it looks like the popular Vista drivers aren't coming back, a 'Audigy Support Pack' the brings stuff like DVD Audio and Hardware MIDI to the discontinued Audigy line is coming back.

While Creative's beef with Daniel_K's drivers may legitimately be that the drivers include IP that they can not distribute, they are having a very poor time communicating this with their customers, or making and conciliatory agreements with the sound card using masses. The pent-up displeasure with Creative and its "weaksauce" drivers continues to flow through the official forums.

Further update: Daniel_K spoke to Wired magazine, and gave a detailed list of all the stuff Creative did to limit the functionality of their products, and his thoughts on the situation. For instance, you can basically update your Audigy cards to the functionality of and X-Fi cards by using his modded drivers. While the physical hardware is very similar across the different series of sound cards, it was the Creative drivers that said xxx function would, or would not, be activated.

"Creative purposedly modified the Audigy drivers to disable some features when Vista is detected and also purposedly introduced some bugs to prevent some XP utilities from running," Daniel_K says, in one part of his letter.