Quoting:
Guillemot has elaborated in interviews, as well, stating piracy on the DS -- in America, as opposed to Europe -- is a lot of the reason for their misfortune this time around. Rather than "cracking down" though, Ubisoft will be taking a cue from Atlus:
"Piracy is strong so we are working to put new figurines and new elements in the boxes that will change that in the future," said Guillemot, later continuing, "We see when we put other things with the product (people) go and buy the game. We need to make sure that the value is better when they buy the box then when they download (the game) from the Internet."
PC piracy is also noted to be "quite a lot", something the CEO implies they are working on internally, saying, "We are working on a tool that would allow us to decrease that on the PC starting next year and probably one game this year."
(via)

I'm interested in how this ends up... personally I support publishers in their attempts to find methods which stop as much piracy as possible and also don't iritate the normal consumer.
Perhaps some sort of registration download, like The Sims 3?

Could be good, could be terrible..time will tell. I'm optimistic. Ubisoft is well-experienced with DRM and customer opinions..I like to think it'll be an improvement on current methods. Disspointing they released at least two games on PC recently without DRM and judging by this they didn't sell well.
The DS thing is part of my optimism -- instead of going after flash cart makers, they're packaging extras with upcoming games.

I read that as "monkey wench".
Also, I think this is a good way to go. Digital data loses its value exponentially as bandwidth is raised as it can be losslessly copied to infinity (or as close as it won't matter), extra stuff need to be added that cannot be multiplied by a couple of clicks. Hence the current extra value of collector's editions with their exclusive boxes, action figures, artbooks, maps, mouse pads and whatnot.

In once sense it seems like someone at Ubisoft finally understands that the way to get people to buy your product is to add value, not decrease value through DRM schemes. But on the other hand the comment about PC games makes it sound like they're ready to roll out another boneheaded, value decreasing scheme for their PC games. But with only the very limited information available at this point, though, the only thing to do is take a "wait and see" approach.

I'm pretty sure we'll see some major publisher try the generic-thingamajog-designed-to-occupy-a-USB-port-for-no-other-reason-than-allowing-the-user-to-play-his-game strategy soon. It's a sufficiently good-sounding but bad-executing enough of a idea that some management dweebs should be ready to pounce on it and it's been a loooong time coming.
Though that method can also very easily be cracked. Which leaves us only with the personalised authenticator option, like the one you probably have for your online banking services. Obviously dongling one of those with each and every game isn't feasible, not for the end user and probably not for the publisher either. Can you imagine having systems set up to manage the authentication for all users, all games, across 10+ releases a year for 10 years?
Let's say you have 1 million loyal customers buying your games for 10 years ... that's 100 million dongles. Please, no.

Personally I don't mind DRM as long as it has no negative effects for me.
So far all kinds of DRM have existed of harassment of consumers and not of pirates.
It doesn't matter if it's a serial number (which we all got used to by now), online activations, disc in the drive, forced internet connection (C&C 4), etc.
If this would turn out to be something that's not bothering customers, it might be successful.
However I´ll guess like other DRM systems sooner or later it will get cracked.
That includes dongles which have been cracked in the past as well.
10 years of support for a pc game?
I'm interested in which publisher and/or developer gives such a long time support for games.
I know there are game series which are over 10 years old.
There's also Duke Nukem Forever which as been in development for more than 10 years.

3D Realms probably had cups of coffee that were in development for more than 10 years (but were going to redefine coffee as we know it)

All that time and money wasted on "anti-piracy" methods would be far better spent on producing better quality games. Although part of me actually wants to see them wipe out piracy completely. Just so they can no longer hide behind that excuse when trying to explain the poor performance of their latest shitetacular pile of crap.

Agree. I buy games. Lots of them. Ridiculous copy protection like Starforce make me not want to buy games. Also, what's with the internet for single-player games? That's kind of absurd. The CD copy protection is also ridiculous at this point. I buy a game, then I have to hunt down a NOCD crack, but someone who pirates the game gets a game that runs better in one file? That makes sense. I can understand online validation for a multiplayer game or something with lots of value added updates (NWN or an OS) , but put the keycode on the CD (and in a .txt file on the CD) so I can find it 5 years from now rather than having to scour my closet or use one of the master key codes.
I oppose all hardware based copy protection for the same reason I oppose manual based copy-protection or bizarre OS limitation workarounds - future-proofing (see: the disaser it is to get Ultima to run for more on that one). Wait 5 years. No on can ever find the key or manual, or worse it's not compatible with new hardware or software.
Oh well, I'm glad Ubisoft is realizing this. Put a cloth map of a fantasy kingdom back in the box, and I'll probably buy it. I'm a sucker for that stuff. It's a good plan. I like it.

They would find another excuse though :).

Yeah I think thats one stat I'd REALLY like to see, cost of securom vs estimated profits gained from its prevention of piracy
I doubt that any amount of spin could mask the failure of Olsen Twins Xtreme Skateboarding Makeover Challenge (I'm imagining you have to play a pair of anorexic tweens running after tony hawk with lipstick)

I think it's interesting that in the past year, alongside the rapid rise of harsh DRM schemes on PC games, we've also seen "DRM Free!" become enough of a selling point that digital distribution outlets actually go out of their way to mention that a particular title (or the entire catalogue) is DRM-free.
I didn't know what DRM was before Bioshock, although online music shoppers were probably sick of the term by that point.
I think the average purchaser still doesn't know or care much about it, though.

Here's one. ;)
In regards to Ubisoft declaring that they're making a tool, I can't help but expect that the pendulum will be swinging back in the other direction now and more stupid DRM will be employed. From his comment about the possibility of one title this year shipping with the new setup, I suspect it would be Assassin's Creed 2. Once it's released and we see what DRM approach they used, we'll know more about their intentions. After all, I bet they're betting heavily on it bringing them a good turnover.