Sony’s Kaz Hirai, who has been managing the PlayStation division for a decade now, has been promoted to the very top of the Sony ladder: he replaces Howard Stringer as the CEO and President of the company. Hirai will assume his position on April 1, and Stringer will be moved to Chairman of The Board.

Hirai is famously known for his “Riiidge Racer” outburst during an E3 presentation when showing off the PSP many years ago. Video above.

Last week we published an editorial called “The Hypocracy of PC gamers“. We’ve received a ton of feedback and emails from readers, some good, some bad, but we also got emails from a few game developers as well. One developer wanted to share his story on how piracy affected his studio. These are his thoughts.

I run a small independent PC game studio (which will remain anonymous), and we have a slate of smaller puzzle and RPG games that we’ve made since 2009. We sell the games on Steam and other downloadable services, in addition to selling them on our own site, completely DRM-free. In 2011, we had 12 developers and artists working on new titles, and working on getting our games on the iOS platform. Sales were decent throughout the years, enough to support us and ensure that we could keep updating our games. Then our entire catalog of games was posted on The Pirate Bay and spread to other torrent sites.

“The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%”We didn’t think much of it at first, piracy affects everyone in this industry, and we believed that sales wouldn’t be affected too much and that gamers would appreciate supporting the devs and buying DRM free games. Then sales went down. A lot. The “bundle” of games hit the torrent sites in January 2011, and by March, sales were down 50%. By May, they were down 80%. We tried to respond to the piracy of our games in several ways. We lowered the price on Steam by 33%. Sales picked up a tiny bit, but it’s impossible because you’re competing with free. We had Steam sales, bundle packs, everything we could. It wasn’t enough, and by October of 2011, I had to let go half of my team — 6 people. We’ve restructured now to focus entirely on iOS games. I dunno how it’ll turn out, but developing on PC and supporting our PC games is not an option any longer. We just can’t afford it.

It’s easy for gamers and game journalists to get on their soapbox and proclaim they know how to fix the piracy issue, they always seem to “know” what developers should do (“Put it on Steam”. “Don’t use DRM”, “Use clever advertising” etc.). But you’re not the ones who have to manage a studio, you’re not the ones who have to make sure your developers get paid so they can feed their families. Our studio was doing just fine before our games hit the pirate channels. Then it all went downhill.

There are some claims that piracy causes millions of lost jobs in the US. I dunno about those numbers, maybe they’re true, maybe they’re much lower. But I know that piracy cost at least 6 jobs in 2011. Six people that I had to fire. Talented, hard-working folks with families.

So to all of you Pirate Bay supporters, all of you “experts” on Internet freedom who support “sharing” and who claim that “it’s not stealing”. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of those 6 people: fuck you.

UPDATE: Our contributor emailed in this addition to the post: “For all those who ask: I won’t name my company nor the games we make. I’m fully aware that my statements go against most gamer’s beliefs on piracy and I have no intentions of drawing the wrath of the Internet to my company, which is already struggling. And this has nothing to do with quality — our games had a great fan base and we were doing just fine for two years before the games hit the torrent networks.”

Darksiders 2 is almost upon us and for those craving even more from the Darksiders world, THQ has announced that you’ll be able to sink your teeth into an upcoming novel based on the universe. The novel, called Darksiders: The Abomination Vault, is written by Ari Marmell and is a prequel to the games. The novel will be out in May.

It seems there can’t be a single week without Zynga copying a popular Facebook game and releasing its own clone. Last week the makers of Tiny Tower accused Zynga of copying their game and releasing it as “Dream Heights”, and now developer Buffalo Studios points out to VentureBeat just how similar Zynga’s new bingo game is to Buffalo’s Bingo Blitz. They released an infographic showing the similarities, which you can see above.

By ruthlessly copying games and concepts, Zynga has become one of the most hated game developers over the past year. And rightfully so — the large company employs thousands of people and still manages to steal creative ideas from much smaller developers. Tiny Tower, for instance, only has 3 developers, while Zynga’s Dream Tower may have had hundreds working on the project.

Worse, Zynga has been very open about how they do business, with its CEO reportedly telling employees, “I don’t want fucking innovation. You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers”.

Microsoft recently filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum in order to get the domain name halo4beta dot net (don’t visit the site, it’s a phishing scam). The site claims to offer Halo 4 beta access, but it’s in fact just a way of scamming users. It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this, and it’s good that Microsoft is taking swift action. Unfortunately, this being the Internet, it can be quite difficult to track down the owner and operator of the domain.

The next generation Xbox console, rumored to be named Xbox 720, will be sporting a GPU based on the Radeon 6000 series, according to a rumor from IGN. The Radeon 6000 series was launched last year, and the Xbox 720 version will reportedly be close to the Radeon HD 6670 — a mid-range GPU. Despite being a mid-range GPU in 2011, it’s still said to be 6 times more powerful than the current Xbox 360 ATI GPU. Mass production of the chip is said to start in late 2012, which could mean a new console launch at the very end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013. Compared to the Wii U, another new console that’s launching this year, the Xbox 720 GPU will be around 20% more powerful.

Finally, it appears that Microsoft is coming to their senses and will abolish the MS live point system in favor of a regular $ price tag. According to a report from InsideMobileApps, Microsoft will abolish MS points across all services, including Windows Phone, Zune Marketplace, and Xbox Live.

The change will take affect by the end of 2012, and all prices will be based in real currency, depending on the user’s location/region. Microsoft Points have been a little scammy from the start, where the actual points are lower than the dollar amount paid, e.g. 400 MS points cost $5.

More and more clues are emerging about next generation of video game consoles that should be released within two years. The latest clue comes from Gears of War developer Epic, a company which also makes the popular Unreal Engine. A recent job posting is looking for a “Technical Artist” to work on “multiple new and existing IP’s across multiple platforms”. The job ad goes on, hinting at next gen hardware:

“Your goal will be to attack the more complex issues that arise when we push the technology envelope, both in production on current hardware, and prototyping for next-generation hardware”

This could also be a possible indication of Unreal Engine 3. As for next-gen consoles, Nintendo will be releasing the Wii U this year, while Microsoft and Sony are reportedly already hard at work on the next gen systems, which should see release in 2013 or 2014.

By now, you should know that it’s possible to create virtually anything in Minecraft, no scratch that, it’s possible to create everything in Minecraft. Including re-creating Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The project is called “Hyrulecraft”, and its goal is to recreate the entire world of Zelda: Ocarina of Time inside of Minecraft, complete with NPCs, dungeons, etc. Fore more details on Hyrulecraft and how to play it, check out this run down by GenGame.

If you’re going to get a lower back tattoo, also known as a tramp stamp, you might as well do it properly. Like the female in the picture above, sporting what is arguably the best Zelda tattoo ever. Also, those pants make no sense. Also also: If you’re interested in knowing who the girl is, she verified the picture on Reddit.