Me too. While it is kind of funny (if true), I would have liked to have seen the result of an un-pirateable game. If the sales were the same, or less, than AC1 then we could finally have stopped worrying about piracy and concentratedon sales.

If you're planning to do this as some sort of protest this is the wrong way to go about it; Ubisoft will just point at the piracy statistics and say, "aha, see? This is why we have this DRM!" If you're helping the statistics grow you're not helping at all.
Only the Russian one has been cracked so far (because of language differences it wouldn't work on an English version). As for DRM differences Ubisoft was previously using StarForce in Russia and the like but now that they have their own DRM scheme they will surely use that worldwide to save some money and help grow their "platform".
For reference the game officially launches on March 4 in Australia and New Zealand with Europe and the US following a few days later. As usual the pirates will have most likely cracked the game successfully before it hits stores. So much for Ubisoft's wondrous new DRM.

That's kinda funny, because when people are pirating the game, it's quite obvious that the DRM doesn't work. In that light, the statement "this is why we have DRM" is pretty stupid. But then again, publishers never seems to have any rational statements to come in this regard.
But as for myself and this game; I'll probably borrow the PS3 version from a friend.

Yeah good point...I mean normally they see it as a need then to have stronger DRM. But you can't have much stronger than this, so really, where do you go from here besides permanent connection + limited installs + disk check / running your PC business completely into the ground. :P

That's easy. You install the game only on your own servers, and allow the customers to stream it via an online subscription service. Customers with bad connections need not apply. They might even dream up some completely infactual numbers to convince themselves that this approach earns them more money since the piracy rate would be essentially zero.
This isn't a speculation, such services have been in the works for a while.

OnLive is doing that, and Gaikai, and that other company that nobody cares about.
Of course it won't hit the big time unless a publisher with very little brain (in this case Ubisoft) will do this.

I have to agree with you. Now Ubifail can just blame piracy and call it a day.
However the situation "DRM is not cracked, yet the game has poor sales anyways so Ubi has to admit their vision of DRM was an epic failure" was too good to actually happen.

There is always place for improvement. I mean:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/5/9/

Yeah, these games are 3/4 of the way there. They should've just made a service like that or something.

OnLive has already signed up some major publishers--EA being one that I recall off-hand--so publishers would probably sign up with OnLive or the like rather than setting out on their own. If the technology works--and that's a big if--it's a publisher's ultimate dream: gamers possess nothing, the experience can be altered or taken down whenever they please, and the piracy and second hand markets would not affect it; the only way to pirate would be to use l33t haxx0ring skillz to break into the server and copy the master files (which might not even run on normal systems without the appropriate backend). Warez groups are good at what they do, but they aren't that good.
Ubisoft's solution is the same as an MMO, but it worked for MMOs because the official experience is superior to any emulated server. If OnLive ever launches I wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft jumps on board and/or licenses the technology and makes that the next version of this DRM.

I think people are forgetting Starforce. Ubisoft had poor sales on a lot of Starforce games while they weren't cracked for months to come. Not only did they never admit that the piracy obviously didn't increase sales that much (none of their Starforce games really sold that well AFAIK), they seem to have blamed the bad sales on Starforce. It's been rumoured that Starforce was used as scapegoat for the low sales and while I agree Starforce most likely had an impact, it still goes to show how reluctant Ubisoft are to admit that a piracy-proof game would still not have a big increase in sales.

There is. You just have to look the right places. I use it since i (explecit language) hate the protection on the game!
I bought the game, so i can anything i frigging please!

strong drm = bad sales
stronger drm = good sales!
What the shit, Ubisoft.
Go back to Starforce. I actually wouldn't care at this point and would buy AC2.
I'm gonna pray every night their games bomb. Or they do great so more people realize what a godamn travesty this is.

The best outcome is that a shitload of people buy the game and then get screwed over when the game server goes down for a week and they can't play it.

That's a point.
Chances are, that media attention on "We can't play this game because Ubisoft servers have a maintenance" will overshadow "pirates are evil, because they cracked our revolutionary DRM and we have low sales".
In the end, what are their customers more interested in? The fact that they can play this game, or that someone else cracked it? :) If I bought it, I wouldn't care less about some people cracking the game later. I hope this DRM will get Ubi customers angry enough to actually make an impact ("Pirates" are already pissed off and will download the game anyway :)