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Poll: Would you recommend a contract-free iPhone
The iPhone 4 debuts on the 24th of June. I am one of the many users whose upgrade date falls after 1/1/11. Looking at the difference between no-commitment pricing and upgrade-date-after pricing, I've been considering the no-commitment option and coming up without many answers. The math is not particularly compelling. AT&T's new smartphone early termination fee (ETF) is now running at $325, reducing at $10 per month. If I re-up with AT&T, the math becomes a wash after just over 12 months of use. The ETF goes down to $200, the actual price difference between the after-1/1/11 versus the no-commitment. Either way, I'm still under contract for the next 12 months regardless, unless I pay my current $120 ETF -- and I don't particularly want to give up my $30 unlimited data.
THQ announces extension of WWE renewal notice; Pachter explains
THQ announced today that World Wrestling Entertainment has extended a deadline that allows the publisher to renew its licensing contract. The extension lasts until December 21, 2009 -- the original deadline was November 1. If signed, the agreement would be good through December 31, 2014. THQ is cool with the WWE, but it's not very chummy with JAKKS Pacific, its longtime partner in the WWE licensing venture. The wounds also run deep between JAKKS and the WWE. When asked for comment on the license renewal and further details regarding the three-way deal, a THQ representative told Joystiq that the publisher plans to renew its contract with the WWE, and then added, "Beyond that, I cannot comment."The business, politics and legal issues are certainly complicated. We spoke with Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter who laid out multiple scenarios, but in the end he believes the most likely outcome is that the joint venture between THQ and JAKKS will be terminated. If JAKKS enforces its (believed to be one-year) non-compete clause, then no WWE games can be produced. Neither side would benefit from that, however.Pachter suggests that the WWE's renewal deadline was extended to give THQ and JAKKS time to settle their issues. What it sounds like to us: THQ and WWE want to move forward as a couple, and the previous arrangement, featuring JAKKS as the third wheel, has worn out its welcome. Check out Pachter's complete analysis after the break.
The more you know: How to turn off automatic Xbox Live renewal
By default, Xbox Live is set to automatically renew Gold subscriptions when a user's current membership expires, but not everyone is down with a surprise credit card charge -- especially if they're rocking a parent's plastic. Thankfully, Xbox Live's Major Nelson has posted a quick guide to help users disable the automatic renewal process. The steps are simple: Sign in to Xbox.com and go to the My Account section. Click the Membership level link on the left. You'll see a page that has your Membership level, and the end date. Under that, you'll see your "Automatic Renewal" status (as shown above). If it reads ON, users can click the ON link and be brought to a page to turn the feature OFF. If you'd like to change the setting to ON or OFF -- Click the link, make your selection, then click next. You'll be returned to your Membership level page, where you can confirm your selection That's it. Easy as warm apple pie -- now excuse us, we just got hungry. [Thanks, Juan]
Blizzard renews TeliaSonera agreement
Blizzard has renewed their agreement with a company called TeliaSonera to provide bandwidth for them in Europe. They just made a very similar deal with AT&T for the US -- it's the bandwidth that connects their servers to the millions of connections that lead back to your computer as you play World of Warcraft. Paul Sams, Blizzard COO, says they've been pleased with the service, and that the contract renewal was for two years.It's interesting that we've seen Blizzard keep both of these agreements intact, but we already know that they'll cancel relationships they don't see as working (with the notable example of Netease's takeover in China). Of course, there are tons of factors that go into players' connections (including this server connection as well as your own ISP, your router and computer, and a number of other facilities and stops in between), but it would seem that Blizzard is happy with the way things are going in both the EU and the US with these providers. Of course everyone's personal experiences are different, and we've certainly seen our share of connection issues, but in general, the infrastructure on the networks is in a pretty good place.[via WorldofWar]
Prepaid Time Expired?
Apparently an error caused US accounts that should have been automatically renewed on April 20th or 21st to not be renewed - meaning some of you have been encountering a cryptic "Prepaid Time Expired" error when attempting to login, despite the fact that your payment information is accurate and up to date. To fix it, for now, just go to the account management page and re-enter your payment information by clicking "Change Payment Method." Of course, a lot of players are likely attempting to access the same page, which means you may have trouble getting there...
