Nick212004 Playstation 3 Blog

SonyPS3News.com IS OPEN!!!

2008-06-13T21:43:00.002-04:00

I have just launched my brand new site for all your PS3 and other gaming news. I have spent a long time and have put all my hard work into building this site and even though there are some points for improvement, I believe this site has come a long way. I will start updating the blog starting tomorrow so until then please be sure to read my first and only post currently to get to know a little bit about the site http://www.sonyps3news.com/ . Thank you guys for supporting me and please continue as you guys make me work harder and harder on the site. Be sure to email me at admin@sonyps3news.com to let me know what you think of the site so far and what improvements I could make. ALSO MAKE SURE THAT YOU REGISTER SO YOU CAN GET EXCLUSIVE EMAILS FROM ME AND LEAVE COMMENTS. ENJOY!!!

Posting

2008-04-06T19:48:00.002-04:00

Hey guys it is me again. My site is alomost ready and I can not wait for me to release it. Making a website takes a lot of time and concentration along with hard work. Looking for new for the Playstation 3 on many websites is also time consuming. So what I have decided to do is work hardly and put all my effort and time I have into the website and not update this site until then. Although this might let some of you down just imagine in about a week or less a brand new site with better and more news, more features, and overall a better website. Thank you and I hope you guys understand.

P.S. I will still check for comments and if you want to buy Eye of Judgement I will still be able to work it out.

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-04-05T17:21:00.001-04:00

I have a brand new sealed copy of Eye of Judgement for sale. This includes the Playstation Eye, Starter Deck, Pack, the software, and the camera holder and mat. I do not have a set price but will just sell it at the highest price offered that I get that seems reasonable. This will also support me and my site that I am building http://www.sonyps3news.com/ so I thought that selling a copy of this game would help. What ever offers I get will include shipping so take that into consideration when giving an offer. If interested please email me admin@sonyps3news.com or post a comment to this post. Thank you for reading.

Potential for better graphics on PS3 than 360, says dev

2008-04-05T17:19:00.001-04:00

Red Faction: Guerrilla producer tells VideoGamer.com dev team is "finding some of the challenges of the PS3 beneficial".

The PS3 has the potential to achieve better graphics than the Xbox 360, a Volition developer has told VideoGamer.com.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com at THQ's Gamers Day in San Francisco, California, this week, Jeff Carroll, associate producer in charge of multiplayer and PS3 on upcoming third-person action game Red Faction: Guerrilla, said that while developers will struggle with the PS3 at first, once they "figure it out" they will find "a very powerful system underneath".
Red Faction: Guerrilla, the third in the popular series, sees a switch from the FPS view seen in the first two games to a third-person view. Scheduled for a simultaneous Xbox 360, PS3 and PC release in THQ's fiscal year 2009, the game has come on leaps and bounds since its first-look public unveiling earlier in the year.
When asked if there would be any differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, Carroll replied: "We've got the PS3 running at a similar frame rate to the 360. We're finding some of the challenges of the PS3 beneficial. We feel like we're doing rather well with the PS3."
Carroll went into more detail on the benefits of the PS3: "We have been getting the physics system, the Havok system and our own proprietary destruction system running on the SPUs, as well as our animations. We're seeing quite a decent speed improvement now that we've effectively got that running on the SPUs instead of the CPUs."
Carroll agreed, however, that many developers have found the PS3 to be a challenging platform, and admitted that Volition shared that struggle, at first.
"We were like that at the beginning. But I think mainly because we had to get our destruction system running on the SPUs, we had to get it running well in order to succeed, we felt a tremendous pressure right at the beginning to learn as much as we could about the PS3. And our programmers have done a wonderful job."

When asked whether it is possible to achieve better graphics on the PS3 compared with the Xbox 360, Carroll said: "I think potentially you will. I think early on people are going to be struggling to figure out exactly how to make the PS3 work. But I think once they do they will see it's a very powerful system underneath. They both have their advantages. The Xbox 360 pushes polygons rather well, which for us, because everything is destructible, that means that we have a tremendous number of polygons in our game compared to regular games, we see a great benefit with the Xbox 360, but we just learn to optimise in different ways for the PS3."
In Red Faction: Guerrilla, players will be able to destroy every building they see through a combination of weapons, vehicles and explosives. Real world physics are applied to the structures, often leading to a collapse through real-time structural stress.
Carroll added that the game is "very much" pushing the PS3, "both in terms of memory and processing power".
You can see for yourself how Red Faction: Guerrilla is shaping up over at our hands-on preview, and cast your eyeballs over some brand new screens hot off the press.

http://www.videogamer.com/news/05-04-2008-7949.html

Sony: 2008 Will Be About PS3 Software, Blu-ray, Network

2008-04-05T17:16:00.001-04:00

Sony had some problems early on with PS3, but everything seems to be falling into place these days. A comfortable price point has been located, sales have been outpacing Xbox 360 lately, Blu-ray won, and there's a plethora of exciting games both on the shelves and coming later this year.
Naturally, Scott Steinberg, VP of Product Marketing at SCEA, is excited about what's been going on and what's in store for PlayStation 3 in 2008.
"The software lineup is here. I think we're at the point to say we're ecstatic about what we have in 2008. It's finally to the point where there are no standards uncertainties, so consumers now can evaluate us on the skills and attributes of our lineup, and we've got an incredibly diverse lineup," he excited told GD.BIZ in a recent interview.
He's equally enthused about the network.
"On the network side, we've stated that we're in a closed beta now for Home, we'll be rolling out functionality later this year, both for the Network and making Home public to others," Steinberg added.
And as for Blu-ray's victory over HD DVD, he said that "I think it's a huge win and it gives us a lot of momentum and also gives us momentum to stop talking about standards and start talking about games."
Perhaps the PS3 slogan these days should be "2008: Let's get ready to rumble!"

http://www.ps3news.ca/04042008/08/sony_2008_will_be_about_ps3_software_blu_ray_network

DualShock 3 hits store in two flavors

2008-04-05T17:14:00.001-04:00

The Dualshock 3 has finally hit US shelves and contrary to popular belief, both silver and black colors are available.

http://www.gamerevolver.com/story-229-DualShock-3-hits-store-in-two-flavors.html

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-04-04T10:12:00.002-04:00

Sony PS3 Dualshock 3 Controller ships Today

2008-04-04T10:07:00.002-04:00

The rumble is finally coming to Sony PS3 consoles in the United States. Amazon.com is shipping the wireless Dualshock 3 controller today April 4th for $54.99. Sony published a site listing compatible PS3 games where you can enjoy force feedback as we all know it from the PS2.Dualshock 3 compatible games include MotorStorm, Formula One Championship Edition, Resistance: Fall of Man, Gran Turismo Prologue, and many more. Several of the games will get the rumble compatibility through an update from PLAYSTATION Network. So keep your PS3 connected when you first play a game with the DualShock 3. See the Sony DualShock 3 page for all compatible games. More details about the Sony PS3 Dualshock 3 Controller on Amazon.com

http://www.i4u.com/article16037.html

Gran Turismo creator reveals his plans for GT5 - CVG's Kazunori Yamauchi interview

2008-04-04T09:58:00.002-04:00

After what seems like an eternal wait (extended by an unscheduled delay to its release thanks to "technical issues") Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is finally out here, but it's far from finished, series creator Kazunori Yamauchi explains.Sitting comfortably in Sony's flashy 3Rooms events HQ in London, Kazunori told CVG of the plans he has for his driving simulator, from a huge update this year that'll include car damage, to the whereabouts of the almost mythical PSP version, GT Mobile. And just what would he say to those of you that refuse to accept Prologue as anything more than "just a demo"? Let find that out first, shall we...?

Some refer to GT5 Prologue a "just a £25 demo". How do you respond to that criticism?

Kazunori Yamauchi: I fully understand the pain of the people that were expecting a full GT to be released, but it took us three years to get this far and it has not been simple. It's been very difficult to do. We just hope that everyone understands that we are trying our best.

Will the US get the content that was added to the UK version?

Yamauchi: The Japanese version was updated to match the UK version on the day of the UK release, so they are now the same. And the US version that's coming out is going to be pretty much the same as the UK version. There are still a lot of things we have left un-done in GT5 Prologue, so by fall [autumn] this year there will be another major update to the game.

What sort of content can we expect from the update?

Yamauchi: The major things that we're planning for the update will be to add community building features such as communication between players and also damage for the cars.

Damage? Awesome. And the online part of the game will be improved, too? Yamauchi: Yes, there'll be a focus on the online mode.

What's the current status with Gran Turismo Mobile for PSP and Gran Turismo for Boys (originally announced for PS2)?

Yamauchi: I don't think Gran Turismo Mobile will make this year, but we are hoping to make the PSP version a satellite game, like an addition to GT5. I have to apologise because so much of our effort and energy is going into making the PS3 version that it's making it very difficult for us to work on the PSP version. The same goes for Gran Turismo for Boys, but we're hoping to make that a feature within GT5.

So instead of making it a separate game, it will come as a simplified mode within GT5?

Yamauchi: Yes.

The improvements in GT5 Prologue over the launch day-released GT HD are huge. How close is GT5 Prologue to GT5 overall?

Yamauchi: In terms of quality and features of the game, and in terms of functionality, GT5 Prologue will ultimately reach an equivalent level to GT5. I think the major difference between Prologue and GT5 will be the number of cars and courses that will be included within the game, in that there will be many more.

The GT series is now in its fifth iteration and running on ultra-high-performance hardware. How close would you say GT5 is to real life now? Yamauchi: That's a really difficult question to answer, because there are so many more fun aspects of a car that's not just limited to driving. I hope that we've covered maybe half of the attractions of a real car, but there's still so much more to it.

Driving games strive for realism, but when they are as real as they are today, where do you see driving games going from here?

Yamauchi: We work within the PS3's hardware structure, and even that still limits what we can do - there are restrictions. There are still a ton of things that we can do as long as the hardware keeps catching up to us. There are also other advancements that can be made, like within GT5 we have the museum and GT TV modes, which widen the view, from the players' point of view, into the automobile world.

What have been the greatest challenges in developing GT5 for the PS3? Yamauchi: PS3 development itself is not so difficult. It's just that the level of quality that you can achieve on the PS3 is so high that the amount of data you have to prepare for that is massive. It just takes a lot of time and work. It was actually surprising to us; the level of detail you can put into the cars and the detail on the screen - you can almost feel it in tangible form. And that's what drove us to be even more precise with the data that we put into the game - that's the loop we got caught in. Although at first, we didn't think it would take this long to make.

A lot of the delay, you have said in the past, is due to making all those cars as detailed as they are. How do you go about making a car in the game look and feel similar to the real thing?

Yamauchi: There are various ways that we do this. We sometimes use photographs, and there are also times when a designer carves out a car, as if he were doing a play model or a statue. And then there are times when we actually get the real car and make precise measurements of the car itself. We try to simulate the handling of the car as closely as possible. All of the movements of a car are based on computer calculations. It's fairly rare that we actually get into a car and do real life comparisons. It comes out close enough just from our simulations.

Have you been impressed by any other racing games in recent times? Yamauchi: When new games are released, of course we look at them. But it's not like I play them through thoroughly. So I can't really say... (Laughs) I just kind of look at it, play it a little bit and then pass it on.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=186087

Sony Shutting Down Online Servers For Many PS2, PSP Games

2008-04-04T09:55:00.001-04:00

Boston (dbTechno) - Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that they will begin to shut down the servers for many PS2 and PSP games. The games announced will all go offline as of June 30, 2008.

The full list of games is mostly made up of PS2 offerings, with the moret popular releases being Jak X, Amplitude, and Twisted Metal Black Online.\

The only two games which will not work after the servers are shut down include EyeToy Chat and Twisted Metal Black Online due to the fact that they have no offline modes.

The full list is below.

PS2 Games
Amplitude

Destruction Derby Arenas

Everybody’s Golf

EyeToy Chat

F1 ‘04

Jak X

Lemmings PS2

My Street

Syphon Filter Omega Strain

This is Football 2004

This is Football 2005

Twisted Metal: Black Online
PSP Games
Lemmings

World Tour Soccer 2

http://www.dbtechno.com/gaming/2008/04/04/sony-shutting-down-online-servers-for-many-ps2-psp-games/

The Eye of Judgement Review

2008-04-03T08:25:00.002-04:00

Hey guys it is Nick here. As you probably have seen, I have a copy of The Eye of Judgement up for sale and am taking offers but I was thinking how do you know if this game is worth it? I have bought the game myself and am here to give a review for you. Please bear with me as this is my first game review so I will try my best.

REVIEW:

The Eye of Judgement is bringing something new to the gaming community. Sure there has been card videogames like Yu-Gi-Oh but not near as advanced as The Eye of Judgement. You actually have the real cards and you can make them come to life right before your guys on your TV.

This package is an unbeatable deal. For just $10 more than any normal PS3 ame you get the Game, the Playstation Eye, the Starter Deck, and a Pack of 8 cards as well as the things you need like the mat and camera stand. Just to point this out, the cards used for this game are very well constructed and made as they should be for the quality of this game. This has to be one of the best deals so far for the Playstation especially since you can use the Playstation Eye for many other things.

Now to the gameplay. When you start the game up and finish the easy set up for the camera and mat on the main menu there is a tutorial you can watch to help you get the basics of The Eye of Judgement. This video is very long (about 20 minutes) but is very informative and is reccomended before you start to play the game. Make sure you pay attention since you do not want to miss anything important that could affect your game. Now once you got the basics down if you have bought any extra packs like the one included or any more cards that were not in the starter deck, make sure to go to the card builder and register them in the deck you want to play with because if you do not do this, it will not allow you to use the cards that are unregistered in your current deck. So once your in your first game, don't expect to just go out and beat the computer everytime even on the beginner mode. I played on beginner mode about 7 times before I actually beat the computer. Now part of this could be because I am not very familiar with card games but I have read in many other places to that this game takes some practice. Once you get the hang of it you really start to get engaged in the game and once you become good enough you can try to take on online.

Now to the online. You better be ready to play good online because man their is some really skilled players online. I reccomend practicing offline until you can at least beat the computer at the hardest difficulty since most of the players online perform as good or better. Now we have all heard about people photo copying cards online and making the ultimate deck unfairly. Although this is true, from my experience out of maybe 25 games I think 5 of my games were played unfairly. Although this takes a little enjoyment out of it when someone is playing unfairly there is nothing like beating them when you do. Also, there is more fair games then unfair so you most likely will be playing more fair games. Other than this, it is basically the same thing online as it is offline.

Now for my final thoughts. I think The Eye of Judgement is a great game for almost anyone because it is so unique and there is no other game like it. But if you are experienced with playing with cards then this game was made for you and you should go out and buy this game without questions. This game leaves you with hours and possibly days of entertainment and will keep you engaged in the gameplay. This game performs almost flawlessly with the cards and works very well. The only negative things I could say about this game is that it does take some practice and getting used to, to be able to win. Also, online there is those players that play unfairly which can take some of the enjoyment you have online. Although those two things are present in the game, it does not affect the game much because of the creativity and uniqueness of this game.

8.5/10

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-04-02T11:04:00.001-04:00

GT5 Prologue Sells 374,607 Copies in 48 Hours

2008-04-02T11:03:00.001-04:00

The latest European sales numbers at VGChartz for “the week ending March 29, 2008″ show that exactly 374,607 Blu-Ray copies of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue have been sold. Considering that the game was released in Europe on March 28, those sales numbers could only apply to the two single days that it was available on store shelves. This, of course, is in addition to the one million European pre-orders and does not include the number of times the game has been purchased via PSN.
So, will you be making it 374,608 copies sold, or will you add your tally to the number of downloads? Vote in our official poll and share which version you intend to purchase.

http://www.gtplanet.net/gt5-prologue-sells-374607-copies-in-48-hours/

Warhawk Update v1.3 is Now Available for Download

2008-04-02T10:57:00.002-04:00

The Warhawk servers have now gone down for maintenance until 4PM GMT. However they have now made the v1.3 update available for download. To download the new update just start up the game and it will ask you to download the new v1.3 update. Its as easy as that.

The new features that are in the new update are as follows:

BIO-FIELD EMITTER (Creates a zone of healing for allies and a zone of damage for enemies)

MECHANIC FIELD WRENCH (can be used to repair allied vehicles and turrets as well as damage enemy vehicles and turrets)

Integration of Contest Winner Insignias and Paint Schemes

.50cal turret targeting enhanced

Point value update for CTF defend and flag-carrier kill

CTF Sudden-Death trigger fix

Disabled CTF Flag throw/drop functionality

New VOIP Functionality

HOME Game-Launching

Once you've downloaded the update you'll be ready to play when the servers go back up at 4PM GMT.What are you waiting for? Get downloading!

EDIT: A few features I have noticed:

The music has changed! It sounds a lot better, its not as annoying as the one before

You get a message above the respawn time telling you which team your on saying ECUDIAN or CHEVERON (sp) with their corresponding colours

The wrench can only be used 400 times each time (until you pick up new ammo), and takes around 20/30 points away each time you fix something.

The Biofield is in the same tab as the Land mines you press the d-pad up to select the different one

The wrench replaces the knife when you pick it up

I have 10 (20 all together, I think) new Paint jobs for my planes.

The new Insignia's look nice, better than the other ones anyway.

http://community.eu.playstation.com/showthread.php?t=242651

Xbox 360 With Blu-ray to Spark Price War With Sony PS3?

2008-04-02T10:56:00.002-04:00

DigiTimes is feeling pretty confident about the rumors they started yesterday regarding the Xbox 360 with integrated Blu-ray. They are so confident that they're predicting a price war as Microsoft takes on Sony's PS3 at its own game. Their sources claim that the Blu-ray Disc drive will cost Microsoft between $95 and $100 -- much higher than the $18 to $20 DVD drives already found in the Xbox 360. Microsoft is of course, expected to sell its new Blu-ray rig at a loss as is customary in the console market. Sony may then be forced to lower the cost of the PS3 and/or retaliate by increasing Lite-On's cost for the Blu-ray components (like the BD-ROM pick-up heads) purchased from Sony. Whatever the result, the competition would be nothing but good news for consumers of HD media... you know, if the rumor is true.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/02/xbox-360-with-blu-ray-to-spark-price-war-with-sony-ps3/

GT5 Prologue Tops Australian Sales

2008-04-02T10:53:00.002-04:00

GT5 Prologue races into the charts. VROOM.

For the fourth consecutive week in a row, we have a brand new number one. It's the mega cash-in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, apparently just sneaking into the full priced charts. You can read whether or not it's worth it right here. Can the series do no wrong in the eyes of the casual fan? Brain Training continued yet another resurgence, climbing a staggering eight places to end up in second place this week. Standing firm at number three is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games for the Nintendo DS, as its Wii brother falls out of the charts. Taking fourth place is the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock double pack on the Nintendo Wii. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare made a return to the top ten, taking fifth by force. After debuting to the top spot last week, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 has found itself in a rather disappointing sixth place - you can read Luke's generally positive thoughts on the game here. Climbing a spot to seven is Mario Party 8 on the Wii, while Super Mario Galaxy fell an unfortunate seven spots to end up at nine. Rounding out the charts is a new entry, God of War: Chains of Olympus, at ten.

Feel the Shock Next Week!

2008-04-02T10:48:00.002-04:00

Rumble is back with the DUALSHOCK 3 wireless controller for PLAYSTATION 3. These are shipping to store shelves as we speak, so be on the lookout for them next week. Now I know that the list of compatible games is the most important thing to you, so we’re including that at the bottom of this post. The titles with an asterisk in the list below will require a patch in order to activate the rumble feature. The patch will automatically download to your PS3 if your console is connected online. If you are not connected online, check our PlayStation Knowledge Center for more information.
We will be launching a web page on the PlayStation website later this morning dedicated to informing you of what titles use force feedback. This list will be expanding as new titles become compatible, so be sure to be sure to check back. You can also keep an eye out for this icon:

This will be located on all new software releases that are DUALSHOCK 3 compatible.
Just to give you a small refresher course, the DUALSHOCK 3 wireless controller includes pressure sensors that rumble with each action. SIXAXIS technology is also included, so you can still use motion control, and the controller features Bluetooth technology for wireless gameplay. You can pick it up at any of the major retailers and at a cost $54.99 MSRP.

Here’s the complete list of titles supporting the DUALSHOCK 3 at launch:
SCEA - Formula One Championship Edition* (PS3)
SCEA - MotorStorm* (PS3)
SCEA - PAIN (PSN)
SCEA - High Velocity Bowling (PSN)
SCEA - MLB 08: The Show (PS3)
SCEA - Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3)
SCEA - Resistance: Fall of Man* (PS3)
SCEA - Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
SCEA - Go! Sports Ski* (PSN)
SCEA - Folklore* (PS3)
SCEA - Heavenly Sword* (PS3)
SCEA - Warhawk* (PSN / PS3)
SCEA - Super Stardust HD* (PSN)
SCEA - Snakeball (PSN)
SCEA - Toy Home (PSN)
SCEA - PSOne Emulation (PSN)
SCEA - Piyotama (PSN)
SCEA - PixelJunk Monsters (PSN)
SCEA - Blast Factor* (PSN)
Sega - Condemned 2: Bloodshot (PS3)
Ubisoft - Lost: Via Domus (PS3)
Ubisoft - Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2* (PS3)
EA - Burnout Paradise (PS3)
KOEI - Dynasty Warriors 6 (PS3)
Capcom - Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
Atari - Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit (PS3)
Disney Interactive - Turok (PS3)

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/04/02/feel-the-shock-next-week/

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-04-01T11:29:00.002-04:00

Microsoft Owns Patent for In-Game Custom Soundtracks

2008-04-01T11:26:00.002-04:00

One of the most wanted features missing from the Playstation 3 is the ability to use a custom soundtrack during gameplay. Movement has been made in this area with some games beginning to offer support, notably Super Stardust HD and High Velocity Bowling, but it’s yet to be offered for all games.
Though many expect the inclusion to come when Sony supports an in-game version of Playstation 3’s cross media bar, the implementation of this feature might just stay with the developers, since Microsoft owns a patent for this very functionality.
Microsoft implemented the ability to play your own music during gameplay in their first gaming system, the Xbox. The functionality naturally moved over to the Xbox 360, where Microsoft was patiently waiting for a patent to go through.
The custom soundtrack patent was submitted well before the release of the 360, presumably with the intention to lock down the feature for the next generation. It wasn’t issued until mid-2006, luckily just before the US/Japan release of the Playstation 3.
The US patent named “Method and Apparatus for Creating and Playing Soundtracks in a Gaming System” appears to cover any application that allows users to create soundtracks using their own audio tracks, such that they can be played during the execution of the game instead of the game’s default soundtrack.
Comprising of a thorough list of points and diagrams, the patents stand out claim is outlined thus:

1. A method comprising:
- receiving a request to launch a game in a gaming system;determining whether the game has a user-associated soundtrack;- if the game has a user-associated soundtrack:launching the game; andplaying the user-associated soundtrack;
- if the game does not have a user-associated soundtrack:allowing a user of the gaming system to select a soundtrack to play while the game is executed; andplaying a default soundtrack if the user of the gaming system does not select a soundtrack.

What does this mean for Microsoft’s competitors? Will this patent stop Sony from implementing the console-wide custom soundtrack functionality? This is possible, and could be the reason why it has been missing from the Playstaiton 3 for so long.

Sony may have already found a loophole in the patent to allow them to provide custom soundtracks for particular games, as long as the functionality is not system-wide. In this way they could avoid the patent. Microsoft could charge Sony for the privilege, but it would be a lot of wasted effort to patent this particular feature and then allow competitors to implement it.
Therefore, when Sony’s in-game XMB eventually comes around, custom soundtracks might be left on the cutting room floor. It will all depend on how constricting the patent actually is, and how kind Microsoft are feeling. Reasons for the in-game XMB delay may be found here - Sony are trying their best to get custom soundtracks installed legally.

http://www.ripten.com/2008/03/31/microsoft-owns-patent-for-in-game-custom-soundtracks/

Feature: PS3 vs Xbox 360: The release calendar showdown

2008-04-01T11:21:00.002-04:00

Microsoft won 2007, but Sony may win the war with a bigger lineup of must-buy games. Read on for the full release calendar showdown!

While the Nintendo Wii is off and running in a different direction (quite successfully), the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are left in a shootout for honor... and exclusive games. A few months ago, we began to notice a shift in the tides after Microsoft unloaded a volley of its biggest exclusive games: games like Halo 3, Mass Effect, and BioShock.
But now it's 2008, and Sony's poised to win the year with a huge list of compelling PlayStation 3 exclusives. Curious to see how the fight will pan out, we formulated a list of exclusive titles for the PS3 and Xbox 360 coming in 2008 and 2009. With Wiki pedia and our own notes as sources, we've constructed the definitive release calendar comparison.
But first, a few ground rules. This list will not include multiplatform games, sports titles, or downloadable software; we're focused on exclusive retail games. That means Grand Theft Auto IV is not a factor on this list, so go read about it here.
The Games
Xbox 360:
1. Ninja Gaiden 2

2. Left 4 Dead

3. Too Human

4. Gears of War 2 (SYSTEM SELLER)

5. Fable 2 (SYSTEM SELLER)

6. Halo Wars

7. Splinter Cell Conviction

8. Alan Wake

9. Banjo Kazooie

10. Halo Chronicles
PS3:
1. Gran Turismo 5 (SYSTEM SELLER)

2. Haze

3. Metal Gear Solid 4 (SYSTEM SELLER)

4. Metal Gear Online

5. Singstar

6. LittleBigPlanet

7. Resistance 2

8. Killzone 2

9. Motorstorm 2

10. SOCOM Confrontation

11. InFamous

12. The Agency

13. Final Fantasy XIII (SYSTEM SELLER)

14. God of War III (SYSTEM SELLER)

15. Tekken 6

16. Twisted Metal

http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/games/features/173228.shtml

SCEE quiet on 2.30 details, how new PS Store will be “deployed”

2008-04-01T11:15:00.001-04:00

SCEE refused to be drawn on details of details of Firmware 2.30 this morning, following yesterday’s confirmation that the PS3 software update would be needed to use the new version of PlayStation Store, to be released in mid-April in both the US and Europe.
“We have made no official announcement of the details of Firmware 2.30 or exactly how the new Store will be deployed,” a rep told videogaming247.
If the information released yesterday was correct, there should be a full Firmware release in the next two weeks, straight off the back of 2.20, which added BD-Live functionality only last week.
It’s all go, isn’t it?

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/04/01/scee-quiet-on-230-details-how-new-ps-store-will-be-deployed/

GT5 Prologue Becomes the Fastest-Selling PS3 Title

2008-04-01T11:13:00.001-04:00

Sony's budget PlayStation 3 racing title becomes the systems fastest-selling title.

According to Chart-Track, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has debuted at the top of the All Formats All Prices video game chart, knocking Rainbow Six Vegas 2 down a place to No.2.
GT5 Prologue becomes the fastest-selling PS3 title in a single week and the 19th overall best-selling title on the console.
SEGA's Mario and Sonic drops a place to No.3, while Konami's PES 2008 is up seven places to No.4 thanks to the newly released Wii version. Guitar Hero III falls a single place to No.5 and last week's new entry, SEGA Superstars Tennis, is up four places to No.6.
There are also new entries for SEGA, with Viking: Battle for Asgard at No.8 and House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return at No.21. EA takes the No.16 spot with C&C3 Kane's Wrath and Sony's God of War: Chains of Olympus only manages a disappointing No. 29..
There's not a great deal out this Friday, but expect strong new entries from Condemned 2 and Dark Sector.

http://www.videogamer.com/news/01-04-2008-7905.html

Blu-ray Adoption Rising Fast, Thanks to PS3

2008-04-01T11:11:00.001-04:00

With the confusion of Blu-ray Disc's format war with HD DVD now gone, 29.4 million homes worldwide will adopt Blu-ray by the end of 2008, new research claims.
Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) game consoles are driving the adoption of Blu-ray and will continue to do so through 2009, when stand-alone players finally become the dominant form factor, according to research released last week by the Strategy Analytics connected Home Devices service.
PC vendors such as Dell are already trying to grab their slice of the Blu-ray pie. Dell last week said it is offering an Inspiron 1525 notebook with an optional Blu-ray drive for under $900.
Blu-ray device sales in 2008 are predicted to hit 18.8 million units, including 4 million stand-alone players, 13 million game consoles and nearly 2 million PCs, the research shows.
This year, 10 percent of U.S. households are predicted to own at least one Blu-ray device, a figure that is expected to jump to 20 percent in 2009 and 44 percent by 2012, according to the research. That's up from 4 percent of U.S. households in 2007.
More than 132 million homes worldwide are expected to own at least one Blu-ray device by 2012.

http://www.crn.com/digital-home/207000741?queryText=Ps3

Metal Gear Solid 4 Soundtrack available for pre-order

2008-04-01T11:07:00.002-04:00

The Official Soundtrack for Metal Gear Solid 4 is available for pre-order from Konamistyle. Retailing at about $30, the soundtrack will be released on the 28th of May. No details on how many CDs or tracks will be on the collection, but guessing from the previous OST releases, you're getting a quality item no matter what.

http://n4g.com/ps3/News-129908.aspx

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-03-31T12:48:00.001-04:00

SCEA: Portable Copy Hitting PSP Later This Year

2008-03-31T12:46:00.001-04:00

After posting the PC World rumour earlier this month saying Portable Copy was going to be hitting the PS3 and PSP last week (and then finding out that, no it wasn't) I got a hold of Sony to find out what the time frame looked like.
I'm still pretty psyched about the ability to download my Blu-ray movies to the PSP for watching on the go.
Sony told me that according to Sony Pictures they expect to release the first Blu-ray disc movies with Portable Copy "later this year", but that they don't have a specific timeframe yet.
The technology, they told me, is currently under development, so Sony is also unclear on whether a PSP firmware update will be required to get it to work.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/03/scea_portable_copy_hitting_psp_later_this_year-2.html

Signs Suggest a Mid-life Crisis for PSP

2008-03-31T12:43:00.001-04:00

As our loyal readers know, every month here at PVG we keep a running list of the most promising upcoming games on both the PSP and DS. For the first time this month, the unexpected happened: there are absolutely no upcoming games worth getting excited about for the PSP in April. For the record, fanatical PSP owners in North America have a poker sim and a somewhat promising arcade compilation from SNK to look forward to this month (but nothing else!). Granted, the release of blockbuster games God of War and Final Fantasy: Crisis Core last month may help to explain the drought, as publishers are unwilling to go up against — or fall under the shadow of — those two monolithic franchises. However, looking down the pipeline, there are a few potential surprises, but otherwise very little to get genuinely excited about. So, what does this current situation mean? Are we simply in the midst of mid-life doldrums, or does this actually signify the beginning of the end for Sony’s impressive handheld? Instead of the usual rundown of hotly-anticipated games, we have compiled a list of signs that we may be entering the twilight years of the PSP’s existence.
A lack of highly-anticipated games
What PSP games are you most looking forward to as we slowly approach the 2008 holiday season? If you find yourself scratching your head with difficulty trying to come up with a single title, you can understand why this is worrying. Some of our favorite games around the office happen to be the kind of under-appreciated gems that continue to populate the PSP catalogue, so there will be plenty of titles for us to play (and review) this coming year. However, it is less certain whether Joe gamer is as excited as we are about upcoming cult hits like R-Type Command from Atlus, or Atari’s quirky ninja platformer, N+.
Murmurs of a hardware revision/update
There have been unsubstantiated but steady rumors that Sony is considering the release of a new hardware revision, a Sony-Ericsson branded gaming phone, or an entirely brand new handheld. We are not sure what improvements Sony might make in order to breathe new life into the current PSP platform (it already has GPS, for goodness sake) but certainly the prospect of a PSP 2 might make developers reluctant to pour resources into a costly PSP title. If Sony has something new in the works that they are not telling us about, it would help to explain the reaction of developers such as Ready at Dawn, who recently stated that they will not be working on another PSP game any time soon.
Touching is good
Nintendo has a winner on its hands with the DS, and their handheld has handily won in every possible category during the current round of portable console wars. That said, Nintendo’s success in no way diminishes the very real gains made by Sony in the handheld gaming market, which have been significant (it is estimated that Sony has sold 32 million PSP systems worldwide, to Nintendo’s 68 million). With the addition of a third contender, Apple, the field is now dominated by machines that make touch input the primary interface for playing games. That means that important third-party developers are more likely to invest in touch-screen gameplay mechanics for future titles, leaving Sony’s current console out in the cold as we move toward a touchy-feely world.
Very few original IPs
This has been a problem since day one, as third party developers have struggled to find the perfect fit for the PSP. Sony has perhaps fared the best at creating original content for their handheld, as the excellent Pursuit Force franchise has proven. In the coming months, however, the number of anticipated original titles has dwindled. It seems as if the preferred formula for most companies has been to take a successful franchise and then come up with some way to port it over to the PSP. It is telling that the two games fans are most excited about looking ahead in 2008 are Final Fantasy: Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts, both sequels spun off of more popular console titles.

Based on the anecdotal evidence presented above, it may seem like the best the PSP has to offer is actually already behind us. All is not doom and gloom for Sony fans, however. First of all, there are a number of ways that Sony could breathe new life into the current system, either by taking a different marketing approach aimed at different demographics, developing some strong first-party titles that take advantage of the exciting new GPS and camera peripherals, or by lowering the price and beefing up the downloadable content available from the Playstation Store. On the other hand, Sony may be happy with the results they have received so far, and may be getting ready to slowly phase out the current hardware in favor of a different, next-generation handheld. If the number of big game announcements begins to dwindle in 2008, we can expect to hear rumors of new hardware as early as holiday 2009. Of course this is just idle speculation, but remember that you heard it here first, folks!

http://portablevideogamer.com/2008/03/is-the-psp-dead-signs-suggest-a-mid-life-crisis-for-sonys-handheld/

FCC Approves New PS3 SKU

2008-03-31T12:41:00.001-04:00

While it's based on the 80GB architecture (CECHE01), Sony has apparently given a new PS3 SKU to the Federal Communications Commission for approval. The short-term confidentiality will expire on May 14th of this year, but hopefully Sony will provide an official statement before then. As of this writing it's still unknown whether this new model is part of an upcoming bundle (MGS4 perhaps?), the introduction of a new color (eg, a white 80GB PS3), or simply an updated version of the internal hardware (new Bluetooth module, WLAN antenna, etc).

https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=809146&fcc_id=

SCEE announces "mid-April" revamp for PS Store

2008-03-31T12:36:00.001-04:00

SCEE has officially announced a revamp for the PlayStation Store for mid-April in the PAL territories.
“The new design will deliver a hugely improved navigation system, much greater scope for categorisation and a dynamic new user interface,” said the company in a statement.
There will now be no content updates for the Store until it relaunches.
No mention was made of a US Store relaunch in the press release, which you can read after the link.
PLAYSTATION®Store to undergo April revamp
Customer feedback drives new design, interface and navigationUpdates on hold for two weeks; new-look Store launches mid-April
This April, PLAYSTATION®Store, the online content store on PLAYSTATION®Network, is getting a whole new look and feel – and it’s in response to feedback from the millions of PSN registrants in the PAL region.
The revamp comes in response to a survey last year which showed that many PLAYSTATION Store users wanted a better interface and easier navigation. The new design will deliver a hugely improved navigation system, much greater scope for categorisation and a dynamic new user interface.
Content will be suspended for two weeks while the improvements are carried out but users can look forward to a special update in mid-April.
There will be no weekly content updates between now and the re-launch, although users can still download content from the back catalogue, such as Warhawk™ and Gran Turismo™ 5 Prologue.
The PLAYSTATION Store revamp will not affect PLAYSTATION Network accounts or the virtual wallet system.

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/03/31/scee-announces-april-revamp-for-ps-store/

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-03-29T11:05:00.002-04:00

PSP-3000 referenced in PlayStation online manual

2008-03-29T11:03:00.001-04:00

Some intrepid PSP Fanboy reader found a green 65x13 GIF file label located within the PSP online manual for a 3000 series model. There are similar labels for the original PSP (1000 series) and its current revision (2000 series). Earlier murmurings of a PSP-3000 model came back in December when hackers discovered a suggestive file in firmware 3.80.While we wouldn't be surprised to see another revision sometime in the platform's planned 10 year lifecycle, we don't think this is anything more right now than some web designer being prepared for the future.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/28/psp-3000-referenced-in-playstation-online-manual/

IGN:Sony PSN Event Coverage

2008-03-29T10:57:00.003-04:00

If you own a PS3, you may be somewhat concerned by the lack of original PSN titles for the system. Stop your fears right here, as we've got video and hands-on information on five brand new titles that will be hitting the PlayStation Store in the next two months. The PSN drought will definitely be over soon.

:: PS3 Coverage ::

WipEout HD Hands-on(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- Anti-gravity ships prepare to rock the PSN.

WipEout HD Screens(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- A trio of futuristic racers hit the track.

New GT5 Prologue Details(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- GT TV news, updates and online info.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Screens(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- Go for the checkered flag.

Echochrome Hands-on(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- New details on Sony's spatial awareness puzzler.

Elefunk Hands-on (03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- Save elephants with creative engineering.

Elefunk Screens (03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- Saving the jungle, one elephant at a time.

PixelJunk Monsters Encore Hands-on(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- Go for rainbows in this new expansion pack.

PixelJunk Monsters Encore Screens (03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- Man the cannons and kill some monsters.

:: PSP Coverage ::

echochrome Hands-on(03.28.08 12:00 pm) -- New details on Sony's spatial awareness puzzler.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/862/862834p1.html

Sony PS3 with GT5:P Bundle for US

2008-03-29T10:53:00.002-04:00

-PS3 40GB
-Sixaxis wireless controller
-Grand Turismo 5: Prologue

Other packages available are: -Sports Package
-(MLB: The Show)-----------------$479.97
-Action Package (Call of Duty 4)----------------$499.97
-Fantasy Package (Enchanted on Blu-ray)----------$442.97
-Adventure Package (I Am Legend on Blu-ray)--------$443.97
Thriller Package (We Own the Night on Blu-ray)---$442.97

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644551853

MGS4: Not the End for Metal Gear?

2008-03-29T10:51:00.001-04:00

After bringing you the gist of what the Kojima Report podcast had to reveal this week, one might think that there's nothing else to be said. But then, one might be wrong. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has been touted as many things, not the least of which being a huge hit waiting to happen for Sony, just waiting to show what the PlayStation 3 is capable of. It has also been touted as possibly being the final Metal Gear Solid game helmed by Producer Hideo Kojima, and the final adventure of Solid Snake. And who knows? These things could all very well be true. But at the same time, this truth could yet mask a deeper truth still. Kojima Report host Ryan Payton might have let slip something more than he intended on the recent edition of the podcast when they began talking about the bonus preorder disc "Metal Gear Saga: Volume 2," exclusive to North America and Europe as its predecessor was when included with Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. In it, he discussed the lengths they were going to so that the case for Volume 2 would match and sit well alongside Volume 1, and during that conversation, he said the following to his guests:

Have you seen the Metal Gear Saga: Volume 1, do you have that? It's in that same kind of clear DVD case, it's designed [indecipherable], it's got that embossed silver on it. We designed it just right, right next to the Volume 1, so if you put it on your shelf, it's gonna be, you know, symmetric, and it's going to look like a collection, so hopefully if there's a Volume 3, it's gonna look-- [he pauses, and what he says after is hard to make out; sounds like he says "it's gonna look awesome," but is drowned out by Mark McDonald].

Now, let's stop and think about this for just a second. Metal Gear Saga: Volume 3? If the first was a preorder exclusive for Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, and the second was a preorder bonus for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and if MGS4 is speculated to be the end, then what could it possibly come with? After all, the guys at Kojima Productions would know better than anyone as to what they have in their future after Metal Gear Solid 4. And a fair bet is that such an item wouldn't be a preorder bonus for a new Boktai. We already know that Hideo Kojima is ready to move on to other ventures that lie outside the realm of the Metal Gear universe. And between Solid Snake's age thanks to FoxDie and imagery like this, it's at best questionable as to how much longer our heroic homage to Kurt Russell and Michael "Kyle Reese" Biehn will be around for. Of course, one has to ask, what is a Metal Gear Solid game without Kojima? But it's no small secret that Kojima has tried previously to step down from his role, which of course elicted some very negative reactions. But it would certainly not be the first time that a creator has stepped away from a franchise which they helped birth; creators of Sonic the Hedgehog Naoto Ohshima (character design), Hirokazu Yasuhara (game planner), and Yuji Naka (programming) have all left SEGA and the Blue Blur behind; Keiji Inafune, often regarded as the father of Mega Man isn't nearly as involved as he once was with the many, many successive series that have since spawned; and even Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and Zelda, is so busy overseeing so many of Nintendo's projects that he's not quite the creative force in those properties that he was when he imagined a carpenter braving a construction site to face a towering ape. Not to say it would turn out bad if Kojima handed the reigns over; Castlevania has made a nice name for itself ever since Koji "IGA" Igarashi took the reigns. As regards our protagonist, some may wonder how the Metal Gear Solid franchise could possibly continue without Solid Snake. But long before there was Metal Gear Solid, there was simply Metal Gear, and other iterations of the series have dropped that part of Snake's namesake for the likes of Acid and Ghost Babel though admittedly the latter was renamed "Solid" for the US release on Game Boy Color. And furthermore, true fans of the series know that Solid Snake, as well as his brothers Liquid and Solidus, are actually clones of the original Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, who later became a series villain. In addition to that, Raiden's role in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the presence of an Online game shows Konami's willingness to extend the role of protagonist beyond Solid Snake, and a number of avenues which they could follow in order to do so. Of course, this is all conjecture based on what we know from past installments in the series, plus Payton's words, though accidental they may be. Kombo will attempt to follow-up on this story, and see if fans of the Metal Gear franchise will have anything to look forward to after the Guns of the Patriots sound off.

http://ps3.kombo.com/article.php?artid=6507

Best Buy Confirms CoD4 Game of the Year for PS3

2008-03-29T10:50:00.002-04:00

Best Buy seems to have confirmed what we have all been wondering. Will there be a Game of the Year edition of Call of Duty 4 on the PS3? Well, the answer is yes.
According to the electronics retailer, the PS3 version with the Variety Map Pack will be shipping on April 24th, exactly 21 days after the Xbox 360 maps hit the Xbox Live Marketplace.
If you’re a PS3 owner and are looking to buy CoD4, it would be a good idea to wait a bit to get that extra content for free.

http://loot-ninja.com/2008/03/28/best-buy-confirms-cod4-game-of-the-year-for-ps3/

GT 5 Prologue agreement missing vital information, can't play offline

2008-03-29T10:48:00.001-04:00

Hi, I would like to inform everybody that the european PSN Store version of Gran Turismo 5 has some serious issues about the terms of service\user agrement.First of all, for playing you need to have your PSN Account connected to the network like Warhawk, yes, it means you can't play it offline.In other news the game can't be shared between different accounts, the license it's linked only to the PSN user that bought the game.BUT unlike Warhawk, when you buy the game those things dosen't appear in the terms of service\user agreement part of the page.

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=26461

Sony: Devs now seeing key to PSP success

2008-03-29T10:46:00.001-04:00

The PSP has been out since 2005, but developers are only now beginning to realise what makes a good game for PSP, admits the PSP marketing boss.
Talking of the recent good fortunes for PSP, Sony's John Koller said: "developers and publishers are now just starting to see what the keys to success are on the PSP.
"It's not like the console world at all, and it's something we've been preaching for a while," he added, pointing to key franchises such as God of War and Daxter appearing on the handheld in unique, handheld-specific incarnations.
The key is "making a unique game under that umbrella and making it creative and have it be something that you can't play on console," explained Koller.
"One thing we've noticed is that about 1 in 2, about 50% of consumers, are using the PSP at home. And if they are then... they don't want to buy the same console game that they play on a handheld.
"So, to avoid that kind of competitive play, a lot of developers and publishers are starting to say, 'all right, maybe it's time we start making games that are unique to that system under a strong umbrella'."
Koller also teased about a number of "key" and "expansionary" PSP announcements to come soon. "We have a number of key announcements that'll be made in the next few months that'll be kind of expansionary in what the PSP can do."

http://www.gamesradar.com/psp/psp/news/sony-devs-now-seeing-key-to-psp-success/a-2008032816648606055/g-20060313155021903080

Blu-ray Disc Sales Gain Ground on DVD

2008-03-29T10:45:00.001-04:00

Since Blu-ray finally won the format war, next-gen disc sales are gaining market share from DVD in the home video market.
According to data from Nielsen VideoScan First Alert, Disney’s Blu-ray title ‘No Country for Old Men’ drew 9.8 percent of its total unit sales from Blu-ray during its first five days in stores.
The Blu-Ray version of Fox’s ‘Hitman was even more popular - 12.6 percent of total customers bought the Blu-ray version during its first five days on sale.
In comparison, sales of HD DVD titles, prior to the format being dropped, were rarely more than 2% or 3% of a title’s total disc sales.
According to Adams Media Research analyst, Tom Adams, Blu-ray’s gains are based on the increased confidence of consumers to purchase Blu-ray discs, now the format war is over.
Adams expects Blu-ray disc sales to continue to grow, helped by the increasing penetration of Blu-ray hardware, and sales of Sony’s Blu-ray-driven PlayStation 3.

http://www.hdtv-news.co.uk/2008/03/28/blu-ray-disc-sales-gain-ground-on-dvd/

PSP… Potential thats ready to explode

2008-03-29T10:40:00.001-04:00

Since reading the news that PSP sales have increased 85%, I started to do a lot of thinking about the Sony PSP… Here are some things everyone should be thinking about, and may just tip the scales toward you making that purchase of a new shiny PSP.
The PSP was ahead of its time, and is coming into a renaissance.
The PSP has proven to be a different beast than the DS. The DS, like the Wii, is geared mostly to casual gamers, who like the pick up and play quick type games. That is what has made the DS shine. While the PSP has recently started to shine in the wake of very deep, time intensive games more on scale with the PS2 games of the past, while dropping the push for casual games.
This all started with the recent major hits being released such as Monster Hunter 2, FF Tactics, Patapon, GOW, and Crisis Core. There was only few titles as deep and as epic as those games the first 3 years, and all of those hits have been in the last 3-6 months.
I originally thought the PSP was going to be dead weight… After GTA:stories was released, I was actually disappointed in the quality of the 2 games, and thought that was the peak of PSP development.
But after what I witnessed recently with the quality of the above mentioned games, I see that this is probably about the halfway point on the PSP and it has about 3 years left, and those 3 years will be much stronger than the first 3.
So much added functionality such as skype, GPS, etc, and so many more potential functions. On top of quality games….The PSP is sure to see much much more success.
Remote play is great and I can see so much more being done with it… With update 2.2o on the PS3, you can now output the audio through your PS3, while using the PSP as a screen, thus turning the PSP into a wireless remote, where you dont even have to be in the same room to cho0se songs. You can play a few PSN games via remote play, you can play PSOne games via remote play, and even a PS3 game.
There is also the amazing potential of the integration of the PlayStation Network into the PSP, and not just the PC version. Sony has already announced that the PSP will get its own PS Store. Along with the PS Store redisign and the rumored music and movie download. This would help improve the PSP’s use as a media player.
With the recent sighting of a PSP-3000, one would assume, that we might see an even slimmer PSP, with built in flash memory. Who knows what other features could be added.
The PSP truly is the swiss army knife of the gaming industry.

http://sev1512.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/psp-potential-thats-ready-to-explode/

Eye of Judgement For Sale

2008-03-27T20:48:00.002-04:00

I have a brand new sealed copy of Eye of Judgement for sale. This includes the Playstation Eye, Starter Deck, Pack, the software, and the camera holder and mat. I do not have a set price but will just sell it at the highest price offered that I get that seems reasonable. This will also support me and my site that I am building http://www.sonyps3news.com/ so I thought that selling a copy of this game would help. What ever offers I get will include shipping so take that into consideration when giving an offer. If interested please email me admin@sonyps3news.com or post a comment to this post. Thank you for reading.

SOCOM.com Now Ready For Confrontation

2008-03-27T20:46:00.001-04:00

Green up, it’s time to go.
I’m happy to announce that SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation will be hitting store shelves and the PLAYSTATION Store on September 16th, 2008. You’ll be able to download it from your couch or pick up a copy at your favorite brick-and-mortar and get to business.
As we approach the release of SOCOM: Confrontation on the PS3 this September, we are very excited to announce the all new SOCOM community site: http://www.socom.com/.
We’ve been working for some time to grow and expand our support for the SOCOM community. The initial phase of SOCOM.com (Phase 1) will launch with the official Blog and Message Boards dedicated to the world of SOCOM. The Blog will be the place to go for the latest updates on everything SOCOM related; including screenshots, video, behind-the-scenes blogs and more. It will also give us a method to directly communicate with the SOCOM community. You can sound off in either the comments section for each post or in the message boards. We have agents gathering intel and dev team members will respond when they can.
When SOCOM Confrontation is released, we are planning to deploy Phase 2 of SOCOM.com: a whole new website which will integrate your SOCOM Confrontation experience onto the web. We’ll have more information on Phase 2 as we get closer to release.
Unfortunately, my hands are currently tied and we cannot provide any new screens or video due to a certain exclusive which is about to hit. Rest assured, we are going to bombard you with new media soon enough.
P.S. We are looking for a select few to provide early feedback on SOCOM: Confrontation in an upcoming Private Beta test. Only the top contributors at the Official SOCOM Blog will be selected. We are on the look out for people who have intense knowledge of all the previous SOCOM games and can also demonstrate their leadership in the Message Boards and Comments section. More details soon.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/03/26/socomcom-now-ready-for-confrontation/

No Madden in 2009. Good!

2008-03-27T20:33:00.002-04:00

EA Sports release a Madden NFL every year and every year I get disgusted at the consumer. At this point I don’t even consider Madden gamers true gamers. I consider them androids that are programmed to only play Madden sports; while neglecting all other great games in the process. Madden gamers don’t have the gray matter to fight EA Sports programming
The Madden game the gamers purchase usually have very insignificant updates from the previous version yet gamers still feel compelled to buy it. The Madden shamockery (“Sham”-“mockery”) has been around since the 1990’s, but in the 21st century it’s been rendered obsolete. The notion of spending $60 a year for a Madden game with updated features is ridiculous especially since the game industry now is making money hand-over-fist by selling downloadable content. Red Octane and Harmonix are raking in serious cheddar buy selling music tracks online. Halo3 and Rainbow 6 Vegas hit the jackpot with downloadable maps as well. Madden is the only game that doesn’t supply its audience with proper downloadable content that could be in the form of a new feature to extend the gameplay of the series past one footbal season.
Madden gamers would love to download draft picks, roster updates and player updates for the respective and following season as well. EA Sports is the only company that makes their fans base buy the game year after year. This is suppose to be the 21st century not the1990’s. Electronic Arts is the only company that doesn’t truly grasp this technical age. Gamers don’t need a Madden game every year. We need one great Madden game with a plethora of downloadable content. No Madden in 2009 maybe the step in that direction but what do I know. I like the EPSN NFL 2K series better anyway.

http://bg21gamers.podcastpeople.com/posts/21789

US PlayStation Store Update: March 27, 2008

2008-03-27T20:26:00.002-04:00

It's that Thursday again, you know the one where we get a store update. Lets see what we have coming our way today.

Games
flOw Bundle ($8.99)
Warhawk Price-Drop ($29.99)PSP Demos
R-Type Command demo (free)

Add-Ons
High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition Multiplayer Video Chat (free)
Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore Downloadable Songs
"How You Remind Me" - Nickelback ($1.50)
"ABC" - The Jackson 5 ($1.50)
"All My Ex's Live in Texas" - George Strait ($1.50)
"Baby One More Time" - Britney Spears ($1.50)
"Beat It" - Michael Jackson ($1.50)
"Billie Jean" - Michael Jackson ($1.50)
"Bizarre Love Triangle" - New Order ($1.50)
"Boot Scootin' Boogie" - Brooks & Dunn ($1.50)
"California Dreaming" - Mamas & The Papas ($1.50)
"Chain of Fools" - Aretha Franklin ($1.50)
"Chattahoochee" - Alan Jackson ($1.50)
"Crawling in the Dark" - Hoobastank ($1.50)
"Crazy" - Patsy Cline ($1.50)
"Don't Know Why" - Nora Jones ($1.50)
"Everything You Want" - Vertical Horizon ($1.50)
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" - Cyndi Lauper ($1.50)
"Hey Jealousy" - Gin Blossoms ($1.50)
"Hit Me With Your Best Shot" - Pat Benetar ($1.50)
"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) - The Four Tops ($1.50)
"I Hate Everything About You" - Three Days Grace ($1.50)
"I Heard it Through a Grapevine" - Marvin Gaye ($1.50)
"I Want You Back" - The Jackson 5 ($1.50)
"I'll Make Love To You" - Boyz II Men ($1.50)
"It's the End of the World as We Know it" - REM ($1.50)
"Jessie's Girl" - Rick Springfield ($1.50)
"Just My Imagination" - The Temptations ($1.50)
"Kiss Me" - Sixpence None the Richer ($1.50)
"Like a Virgin" - Madonna ($1.50)
"Love Shack" - B-52'S ($1.50)
"One Week" - Barenaked Ladies ($1.50)
"Oops!...I Did it Again" - Britney Spears ($1.50)
"Please Mr. Postman" - The Marvelettes ($1.50)
"Save Tonight" - Eagle Eye Cherry ($1.50)
"She Talks to Angels" - Black Crowes ($1.50)
"Shining Star" - Earth, Wind & Fire ($1.50)
"Son of a Preacher Man" - Dusty Springfield ($1.50)
"Take my Breath Away" - Berlin ($1.50)
"Virtual Insanity" - Jamiroquai ($1.50)
"When a Man Loves a Woman" - Percy Sledge ($1.50)
"You Really Got Me" - Van Halen ($1.50)
"Fame" - Irene Cara ($1.50)
Rock Band Downloadable Songs
Boston Pack 01 ($9.99)
“More Than A Feeling” by Boston ($1.99)
“Peace of Mind" by Boston ($1.99)
"Smokin'" by Boston ($1.99)
"Rock and Roll Band" by Boston ($1.99)
"Something About You" by Boston ($1.99)
"Hitch A Ride" by Boston ($1.99)
Turok Multiplayer Map Pack 1 ($4.99)
Unreal Tournament III Map Pack (free) (Morbias, Facing Worlds, Searchlights)

Game Videos
Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer 4 - "Everyone's a Rat" (free)
God of War: Chains of Olympus - TV spot (free)
Winter X Games '08 Play the Pros (free)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Mars Volta Video (free)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Thin Lizzy Video (free)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Weezer Video (free)
Warhawk Update v1.3 Trailer (free)
PURE Gameplay Trailer (free)
PURE CG Trailer (free)
Jean Wyclef’s “Fast Car” Music Video (free)Blu-Ray Disc Trailers
SPHE Fall 2007 TV Spot (free)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Blu-ray Disc Trailer (free)

Themes
Eye of Judgment Theme (free)Wallpaper
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots SNEAK OUT Wallpapers (free)

There is the update, ashame to see no PlayStation 3 demos although.

http://onaxis.blogspot.com/2008/03/us-playstation-store-update-march-27.html

GT5 Prologue Launches in Europe, Sells Out

2008-03-27T20:14:00.002-04:00

While we await for the final release of the greatest thing since sliced bread, we'll gladly settle for its prologue counterpart. We're so glad to settle, in fact, that Gran Turismo 5: Prologue's release in Europe has catapulted the game to the top spot on Amazon's UK site. It holds pole position (that's #1 in auto race talk, folks) in the PC and Videogames category on the online retailer. Furthermore, Play.com, one of the largest game stores in the UK, is reporting a sell-out for initial shipments.
Play.com has issued a message that initial shipments of GT5 Prologue, for March 25th, are all gone. If you place an order on or after today via Play.com, you will have to wait until March 31st for your order to be processed, and then-some for shipment time. What's especially impressive about this is it looks like PlayStation 3 owners still prefer the tried-and-true method of walking into a store (or going online) and actually owning a physical copy of a videogame.
We can't disagree. We also prefer to have a nice and sleek box, coupled with box art, booklet, and the actual disc. There's just something more satisfying about adding yet another gem to your library, as opposed to downloading it and having it stored on your hard drive. Still, if you prefer to go that route, you can always hit up your PlayStation Network account and drop 18-quid for the best damn racing experience ever...that is, of course, until the full thing becomes available. Remember, 60 cars, 6 tracks (with reverse and alternate routes), tuning, amazing physics, and online.

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/2787.html

Warhawk is now $29.99 in the PS Store

2008-03-27T20:09:00.002-04:00

Warhawk is now $29.99 in the PS store… Limited time only…
flOw is now being sold as a bundle, game + expansion…
Finally Rock band tracks are organized under “New Rock Band Releases”
Check out the rest after the jump…
PSP Demos
R-Type Command demo (free)
Add-Ons
High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition Multiplayer Video Chat (free)
Rock Band Downloadable Songs
“More Than A Feeling” by Boston ($1.99)
“Peace of Mind” by Boston ($1.99)
“Smokin’” by Boston ($1.99)
“Rock and Roll Band” by Boston ($1.99)
“Something About You” by Boston ($1.99)
“Hitch A Ride” by Boston ($1.99)
Turok Multiplayer Map Pack 1 ($)
Unreal Tournament III Map Pack (free) (Morbias, Facing Worlds, Searchlights)
Game Videos
Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer 4 - “Everyone’s a Rat” (free)
God of War: Chains of Olympus - TV spot (free)
Winter X Games ‘08 Play the Pros (free)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Mars Volta Video (free)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Thin Lizzy Video (free)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - Weezer Video (free)
Warhawk Update v1.3 Trailer (free)
PURE Gameplay Trailer (free)
PURE CG Trailer (free)
Jean Wyclef’s “Fast Car” Music Video (free)
Blu-Ray Disc Trailers
SPHE Fall 2007 TV Spot (free)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Blu-ray Disc Trailer (free)

http://sev1512.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/us-playstation-store-update-31708/

PSP to be Sony handheld of choice for the next 7 years

2008-03-27T20:07:00.001-04:00

Whether it be on the original model, or the newer slim PSPs, millions of people have been enjoying Sony’s handheld for over three years now. Recently IGN interviewed Senior Marketing Manager for the PSP, John Koller about the PSP’s three year anniversary. When asked what he thought the life cycle of the PSP would be Koller said:
“We’ve talked about the PSP being a 10 year product, but a 10 year product in the continued… how can I put this… in the continued lifecycle, so we obviously had the 1000, we have the 2000, so the PSP as it was first launched in March 2005 isn’t going to the be the PSP that it ends up as in 10 years, but it will still be a very strong portable gaming device that is centered in gaming and has a lot of multi-functional features.”
To simplify what he said, basically the PSP will be around for at least the next seven years. But, it will see different versions released with tweaks, much like the transition from the original model to the PSP Slim. Honestly this shouldn’t be a big surprise, Sony has done the same thing with the PS1 and is currently approaching nine years with the PS2. And no doubt we’ll be seeing a PS3 Slim somewhere down the line as well.
It also seems that Sony is planning more additional features for the PSP, other then what we have already seen. How many of those will make it out of Japan and out to other areas remains to be seen. Personally, I just want Sony to hurry up and get the GPS stuff to the states pronto. If I’m lucky, maybe it will be here by the PSP’s tenth birthday.

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2008/03/27/rain-psp-to-be-sony-handheld-of-choice-for-next-7-years/

Killzone 2 Dev Shoots Down KZ2 Release Date Rumors

2008-03-27T06:11:00.001-04:00

In a forum post over at the official playstion boards, Seb Downie - QA Manager - Guerrilla Games writes:

"Sorry folks, as before, please take any release dates, or months with a grain of salt. If we haven't announced it, it is not gospel."

http://n4g.com/industrynews/News-127831.aspx

Could Increased PS3 Sales Be Causing a Shortage?

2008-03-27T06:06:00.001-04:00

Sony has to be excited about its game console sales outlook for the present year. Followed by its victory in the HD format war, the PlayStation 3 seems to be enjoying the momentum it had lacked so far and that its competitors, namely Microsoft and Nintendo, had shared at different points in time during 2006 and 2007. With such a huge number of happy PS2 owners, the PlayStation 3 looked like a winner on paper but it faced mortal - and considerably cheaper - competition since launch. But if things go smoothly for the Japanese giant in the coming months, it could be set to dominate the console world once again, boosted by consumer thirst for a capable HD movie player. After all, the PS3 remains at large as one of the cheapest Blu-ray players. To some, one of the best players, too, considering Sony has kept rolling updates that last week made the PS3 the first official Profile 2.0 Blu-ray device. But the good news could stop there if Sony falls short of supply. This week we tried to gather information from retail and online outlets and they all seemed to be out of stock of 80GB models (the only model in production carrying backwards compatibility), although the cheaper 40GB models were still available from a number of establishments.

http://www.techspot.com/news/29498-Could-increased-PS3-sales-be-causing-a-shortage.html

Can 2 AAA Shooters Coexist?

2008-03-27T06:03:00.001-04:00

Much has been said about the PLAYSTATION 3 since it has been released. Critics have often attempted to say that there is a lack of quality titles available for the console. With this in mind the same critics have stated that Sony would be doing itself a disservice if it were to allow the release of Killzone 2 and Resistance 2 within the same quarter. Some have reported that Sony has confirmed plans to do this, but have since been debunked. (See here). My question to this is: What is the problem with releasing 2 AAA shooters in close proximity to each other?

I could start this argument by stating that this was not a problem when Mass Effect and Bioshock were released on another console, but that would be an unnecessary point. Instead I’ll ask you a simple question, if you are gamer and you are presented with a must have game what would you do? I’m guessing you would buy if you are interested. Let me tell you a quick bit about these upcoming titles, and you let me know if they peak your interest?

Resistance 2 as you know will be the sequel to the PS3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man. It will continue the story of Nathan Hale and will look to improve on all of the things that made the original great, in addition to fixing the things that held the original back. There will be an emphasis on the online aspects of the game as well. There will 64 player death matches and an 8 player online co-op mode. This is in addition to the various community features the game will offer including interactivity with myresistance.net. If you played the original, then you know this game is a must have.

Killzone 2 is 3rd entry in the Killzone series. Not much is currently known about the title other than it is continuing the story of Killzone and you will on the Helghast world, Helghan. You will take the role of Sev and will be able to take advantage of the new “Lean and Peak” cover system. So far all of the footage of this game has been simply amazing. The first entry in this series was a solid title that attempted to push the PS2 to its limits. It was followed by Killzone: Liberation for the PSP, which remains a popular title to this day. The amount of time and money that is being invested by Sony and Guerilla Games would cause one to believe that this will be a great title.

So are you interested? I know I am. Not only am I interested in both titles, I will definitely be purchasing both titles whenever they are released. Both will offer unique experiences that go beyond the gameplay, but extend to the story as well. Something that every shooter cannot say.

Sony would be giving gamers the opportunity to enjoy two great games in a relatively short amount of time. This in addition to silencing those that say that the PS3 doesn’t have must have titles. I already see several titles that I believe are must haves on the PS3, these 2 will only add to that. I’m putting my money aside for this early. Will you be doing the same?

http://sev1512.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/sony-sets-some-dates/

IGN: PSP Anniversary interview - The system's past, present and future

2008-03-27T05:51:00.002-04:00

March 26, 2008 - Launched on March 24th, 2005, this week marks the third anniversary of the release of the PSP in North America. The system has gone through a ton of changes since its inception, both in terms of numerous firmware updates that have added a plethora of new features, as well as the lighter and slimmer redesign.To celebrate its anniversary, we had a chat with John Koller, senior marketing manager for the PSP, to talk about the system's past, present and future. We hit on things like upcoming peripherals, UMD support, system packages and more, so PSP fans will find plenty of interesting tidbits inside. Have a read.
John Koller: So coming into last year -- and I think we may have spoken to you then, maybe on this anniversary -- we talked about year three of the PSP really kind of being the year when it was going to come out fighting and I think what we saw was, with the price drop and with the new hardware configuration, the PSP 2000, that we really saw an incredible jump in demand -- so much so that we really had a worldwide demand bump that was very, very significant and allowed us to increase our total shipments worldwide. So for us, in North America, we saw an 85% jump since the price drop in April of last year and we've really seen a wide variety of casual gamers get into the PSP market. Some of them are driven by the games, but others have been really driven by a lot of the multi-functional features and we've noticed a substantial increase in the amount of consumers using the PSP for music, using it for Internet browsing, using it for video -- which isn't as big a surprise to us, just because the PSP was really made for showing off brilliant graphics on the screen. So we've seen, as I mentioned, the demand coming from various places.
As we continued into the holiday, we saw a fantastic jump, and you saw some of the numbers there in sales, and I think a lot of consumers now are really looking forward to the games that are going to be coming such as the previously launched God of War, which has really been doing very, very well for us, Final Fantasy in a few weeks and then some of the other titles that'll be launching later in the year, but also some of the features that we've added. We've added Skype, we've added Internet radio, we've added some other multi-functional features that continue to expand what the PSP is and does. It continues to make it differentiated from the competition, whether it's the DS or the iPod or the Zune or the Zen or any of the other handheld devices that are in the space.

And for us, we look at this upcoming year as being the year when we can really expand our offerings. We've announced, obviously, the God of War Entertainment Pack, which is going after a little bit more of the hardcore that have jumped over to the PSP world, but we have a number of Entertainment Packs to come as well as some upcoming peripherals, such as the GPS system which we announced at CES, which are really going to aid some of the more casual or even family-friendly, as we go along, type of consumer and really try to expand our total base. Our numbers are strong right now; we've been very pleased from a corporate perspective and I think this going to be another very, very strong year for us. It's shaping up that way from a sales perspective already, so as we go along, I think that the PSP business is in very good shape and we're very pleased so far where we're at.

IGN: Okay, great. What's the lifecycle on the PSP going to be? Is it going to be in line with the console where you're talking a five or six year cycle, or is it something different in the handheld space?

John Koller: I'm going to parse that question a little bit. We've talked about the PSP being a 10 year product, but a 10 year product in the continued... how can I put this... in the continued lifecycle, so we obviously had the 1000, we have the 2000, so the PSP as it was first launched in March 2005 isn't going to the be the PSP that it ends up as in 10 years, but it will still be a very strong portable gaming device that is centered in gaming and has a lot of multi-functional features. We look at it just like our console business being a 10 year cycle, but we do see iterations as we go along to really adjust to the market. What we've done is the 2000 series adjusted to the market in terms of making it more portable. What we're seeing now, at least in the near- to mid-term, is going to be firmware updates that add features and other functions that the consumer's asked for.

IGN: You mentioned that there are some more bundles coming. How popular are the bundles? Is that a huge selling point for the system -- is that going to be the focus on how they're sold in the future?

John Koller:They have been extremely popular, and for us, corporately, it makes a lot of sense, but also from a gift giver perspective, we've looked at it and said... we saw the tremendous sales success of the Daxter Pack which launched last year, that launched the 2000 series. That was something that we had a game with Daxter, we had the Family Guy and then we had a Memory Stick and it was everything that a gift giver needed in the Holiday to just be able to pick up and take with them. And so we look for opportunities like that to show off what the PSP can do, so in the future, yeah, we're going to have the PSP Entertainment Pack be a central part of the business. The Core Pack will still obviously be very strong as well, so we look at it as a two to three SKU policy, as a Core Pack and then trying to have an Entertainment Pack or two that appeals to various areas of the demographic. As we look to expand that demographic, it's going to hit various parties, so God of War is obviously more of a hardcore play, but we have other thoughts in mind for future Entertainment Packs that hit other areas of that demographic to really continue to expand it.

IGN: Now a lot of these Packs that come out have some sort of movie tie-in, either where you copy the movie to a Memory Card or, in the case of the God of War Pack, Superbad's coming with it. It seems that, pretty obviously, UMD support as a whole as kind of fallen off and wasn't as strong as at launch. How is that going? Is that still getting a lot of push from Sony? What's the status of UMD support right now, and what's going to happen in the future?

John Koller: We're still very strongly supporting UMD. We recently launched a UMD program here, actually, where we're taking content from studios and release them -- using our distribution, sales and marketing strength -- to the market and we've seen some good initial numbers. We just launched this about a month ago, but it's been a good program for us thus far. I think that the issues that have come up with the UMD in the past have been well documented, but I think that we have noticed that the content and the pricing model weren't necessarily there for many of the studio offerings and so our goal with the UMD program -- especially in this initial push that we signed up with MTV -- is to be able to offer content that's relevant to the demographic and offers it at a price that the consumer is asking for. 70s romantic dramas for 30 dollars is a non-starter, but Jackass for between 10 and 15 seems like it's kind of hit a sweet spot. So for us, we look at that as a good data point for where UMD business can go and in terms of what it's added to the Entertainment Packs, the Entertainment Pack is inclusive of movies and games and other items, and so when we talk about a movie, we wanted to include a UMD just because of the available content. In the future whether we'll include a download or something like that, that remains to be seen. It's something that we continue to study, but for now it'll be on UMD, and I should mention that the God of War Pack features a game download, Syphon Filter: Combat Ops, which is kind of a good first step for consumers to be able to access the PC Store that we launched recently.

IGN: Speaking of the store, when are we going to see the PSP-specific store?John Koller: It's something that's being reviewed. It's not something that's specific right now, but certainly the PSP is very, very important to the store's future and vice-versa. The store's content is going to be critical for PSP expansion as we go on, and that's really why we wanted to include a game download with the God of War Pack because we want consumers to start realizing what the PC store can offer. It's something that we look at as kind of a big jump from our TiVo to Go offering, but when you think about it, if you get up in the morning and you're going on a trip or you're going to school or something, you can do a quick download of a game you want or content that you'd like. That makes a lot of sense for us, so I think that the importance of the PC store is going to continue. When it's going to be PSP-only remains to be seen at this point, but it is something that's important to us to review.

IGN: Continuing on with movies, what's the status of the ability to copy Blu-ray movies over to the PSP?

John Koller: Yeah, so that's a program called Portable Copy, which our Sony Pictures sister company initiated. It was their technology. They unveiled it at CES and it's something that as we get into the Summer you're going to see many/most of their Blu-ray titles include this code and basically what it allows is for consumers to be able purchase one Blu-ray movie and then be able to really port it over to their PSP, to their Memory Stick and bring with them. So it's really being called "second session," but it allows you to bring that content with you on the road, and it's just a fantastic program. There are a number of other studios that are interested. I know that Sony Pictures is championing it to all the studios and so we do think we'll see some growth in other studios as an option. Right now, it's just a Sony Pictures technology, but as we go along and you look at the really strong install base of the PSP, it makes a ton of sense as kind of an extra marketing push for studios to be able to add their code set.

IGN: So to be clear, this is something that has to be included with the movie as opposed to something you can do to any movie that's already out there?

John Koller: That's right, yeah. It has to be already included. We do think that most Blu-ray movies from Sony Pictures will include it starting this summer. There are some DVD movies that'll include it as well. The first one was the latest Resident Evil, and that launched, I believe, in November, so there'll be a few DVD movies as well that will be included in this program. It won't just be Blu-ray.

IGN: Gotcha. Let's talk a little about accessories for a minute. You mentioned the GPS accessory that's coming out and then there was a keyboard announced at some point. A lot of these things have been talked about for a long time, but were slow in coming to market. Why weren't we seeing them sooner?

John Koller: There's really a couple of reasons behind it, but we look for the best opportunity to launch in our market, and now as we are a global company and our other territories look at their markets differently vis-à-vis what the demand is from the demographic, we saw opportunity this year for GPS and the camera and the keyboard. Where in the past we didn't think the demographic had quite gotten to that point yet. In addition to that, we're able to flesh out some of the technical quirks and whatnot and really be able to offer a tremendous offering for the consumer. An example of that is on GPS, we were able to add 3D cities to the code and this is something that's not available really on any GPS right now, and it probably won't be on commercial GPSes probably for the next 6-12 months. Our European group or territory will be launching their GPS peripheral in the next few months. They're going to be ahead of the curve; we expect to be ahead of the curve here in North America in the time that we were able to spend not launching it here last year and holding it, being able to work on it. That allows us to be able to create the 3D cities and landmarks and things that are really unique, and to be honest with you, competitive against any GPS system on the market today. That was very important to us; we didn't want this to just be another kind of add-on. "Hey, nice you can see where you live," and, "nice, now I'm on Market Street, great." It was something that we really want to have this be a good offering for the consumer. Same goes for the keyboard, the keyboard is something we look at we look at it as an opportunity for consumers to be able to, on the PSP, to be able to interact, use the Internet browser, maybe, in an easier fashion. E-mail, IM, text, all those things that... it's required, and I think the consumer has been asking for. We needed the keyboard to be in such a state technically to be able to facilitate that and also to be portable. It needs to be something where you can either fold it up... you need it to be small enough that you can take it with you. So those things take some time, and the time that we allotted for it allowed us to launch this year with an offering that I think will be what the market demanded.

IGN: Do you think that the keyboard will sort of open up the system to be maybe more of a sort of a mini-PC of sorts where you have an office application or something where you can do some actual production work?

John Koller: Probably not as much on the productivity side. It'll be much more on the, I think, Internet usage side and really be able to facilitate entering URLs more easily, being able to able to e-mail, chat, forum posts, those sorts of things from the road. I think it'll be a little bit less of the productivity side, but it really depends on the brilliance of developers and what they want to put together, but we're not looking at it as a productivity development-type code set.

IGN: Shifting to software, how are software sales doing in terms of an attach ratio because it seems to us like the system is selling very well, but the software sales don't seem to match the hardware sales.

John Koller: Yeah, software sales are doing well. I think we look at, as a proof point, God of War. It launched about two weeks ago and has had unbelievable sales thus far and our retailers are very, very happy. I think the key, though, for software sales is two-fold. Number one is the percentage of consumers that are using the PSP for games, which has been hovering around 70 percent, but -- and that's since launch, by the way -- a lot of consumers are now interested in some of the ancillary, multi-functional uses of the PSP and so a lot of consumers are saying, "we're using this for music a lot now and movies and videos," so I think that they're still interested in games, but the other activities, the other multi-functional uses have also taking some priority.The second part is, I think, that developers and publishers are now just starting to see what the keys to success are on the PSP. It's not like the console world at all, and it's something we've been preaching for a while, but the PSP world is... the success points are key. A franchise umbrella such as a God of War or Daxter or a SOCOM for example on the first-party side. Making a unique game under that umbrella and making it creative and have it be something that you can't play on console. And I think the consumers really responded when those come together. Obviously, Daxter being from Jak and Daxter and SOCOM and God of War being from strong franchises under the console umbrella or bringing it over and having unique gameplay you can't get on a console. One thing we've noticed is that about 1 in 2, about 50% of consumers, are using the PSP at home. And if they are then... they don't want to buy the same console game that they play on a handheld. So, to avoid that kind of competitive play, a lot of developers and publishers are starting to say, "all right, maybe it's time we start making games that are unique to that system under a strong umbrella." You have a strong brand umbrella, you can do a lot with it. We've noticed some good sales strengths there on the software side.

IGN: Well, to the point of playing at home, there are a lot of the bigger titles that have come out on the PSP in the past year or two, and after the release on the PSP, have moved over to the PS2. Obviously this is going to make sense from a money standpoint because you're going to get it into the hands of more gamers, but it also seems like it could hurt potential PSP sales because gamers might say, "oh, I want to play Chains of Olympus, but I might wait for the PS2 version so I can play it on my TV."

John Koller: Yeah. Yeah, it's a very good point, and it's one we've wrestled with here and I know third parties have also. From our standpoint -- I can talk to the first-party standpoint -- it's that we've looked at opportunities after 12-18 months, usually on the north end of that, to provide console users with gaming content that was on the PSP and just to be able to show them what's available on the PSP and kind of whet their appetites. I think we've also tried to add some additional content on one side or the other, either the PSP or the console side, but that's something that's not a hard-fixed rule. For example, there's no plans right now for Chains of Olympus to come to the PS2. So those who want to wait are going to wait for a long time. We've done it for a few titles; we've obviously done it with the Twisted Metal series and a couple others, but it's not a hard and fast rule. I know on the third-party side, they have a little bit of a different financial structure than we do on the first-party side. There's some cost leveraging and some other things that they need to do, but we are really trying to make the point to all developers and publishers that when you provide the strong initial content under that strong brand umbrella on the PSP first, you'll see results and you'll see the financial gains that you want, and I think consumers have responded accordingly.

IGN: The last thing we're interested in talking about is Home, which is a PS3 product, but is there going to be any sort of specific PSP tie-in to that?

John Koller: There's certainly discussions, but it's nothing we have firmly in place right now. We look at Home as an opportunity to really connect all the broader online consoles we have, which happen to be PSP and PS3. It's a PS3 initiative, but there might be opportunities down the road; I don't think there's anything that we have hard and fast right now, but PSP is very, very important to our future business, so we look at all opportunities to be able to incorporate new technologies into it.

IGN: Well, that's all we have, unless there's something you'd like to add to any of the points that we've made, then... Yeah, thanks for that.

John Koller: Yeah, absolutely. We'll probably be talking to you in the next few months about GPS and some of the other exciting things I think that... We have a number of key announcements that'll be made in the next few months that'll be kind of expansionary in what the PSP can do. We've talked about GPS and some of the other things, but it's going to be a good year for the PSP and we continue to expand that base so we're very excited over here.

http://psp.ign.com/articles/862/862358p1.html

PSLegion: What you can hope for this April

2008-03-26T13:19:00.002-04:00

There are many new exciting additions you can look forward to this April. The coming month could be one of the biggest for the PlayStation brand. Here's why:
New PlayStation Store: inc Video Store and Music Store

At Demonstration PlayStation last month (which is a small conference for developers on the the future of the PlayStation brand), Kotaku was giving a run down on what was shown. These include the God of War PSP, Limited Edition MGS4 PS3 Bundle, and a new PlayStation Store. All but the new store have been officially confirmed but you can bet on this one too. Kotaku explained that the new store was like the SingStore as interface goes, and that North America will also be seeing a Video Store in the same month. They also speculated that the Music Store would also see the light of day. This is all we had to go on until a Sony rep in an interview explained how the PlayStation Network will be getting a major overhaul early April, mainly based on customer feedback. This almost confirms the new store which is very exciting. Sony has said for a while that Video on Demand will be coming to the PlayStation 3 sometime this year. It will be perfect timing too as both Microsoft and Sony are fighting to get the GTA crowd onto their platform. GTA IV is the biggest game coming out this year, and a huge percentage of PS2 and Xbox owners are willing to go 'next-gen' to continue their love of the franchise.Probability: 90%
PSP Firmware 4.00

The current PSP firmware is at 3.93, which goes ever closer to the 'big' 4.00. If the rumored new features are true, amongst them, DivX support, this will be one of, if not the biggest updates for the system. But what else? Well, this goes along with the store update but an actual PSP Store on the PSP is very likely. In a interview with Game Informer, Sony's John Koller talked about video downloads coming to the system in all shapes and sizes, and said it will be integrated with the PlayStation Network, and will be arriving shortly.Probability: 70%
Home Global Open Beta

Here's something we are never sure on where it stands. Originally planned Summer last year, then delayed till the Winter, then delayed to 'Q1' of this year, the Home Open Beta has been on the lips of a lot of PS3 owners. Desperation is one word to describe how some are feeling. I would like to say it would reach the goal of 'Q1' but with only a few days left, that's very unlikely. So when? Well again we go back to GTA IV. The Home Open Beta will get a lot of press, thus thriving sales of GTA IV for the PS3, and the system itself. It will also make current PS3 owners happy and relieved if it came next month. But as we have heard next to nothing on the issue, i'm afraid to say that its not too likely. We have heard quite a bit about the Metal Gear Solid Online beta for sometime now, which is due 'late April'. The Home Open Beta would be as big as that, so surely we would get as much notice? We can never know will Sony, but what we have heard in a recent interview is that Home isnt something which can be rolled quickly; its a slow process. So what we may have here is a beta which will slowly become available to more and more people, until its just right and gets an official release of 1.00 at E3 in July. Hopefully this process will start... about now.Probability (Global Open Beta in April): 40%

http://www.pslegion.com/news/what-you-can-hope-april

Sony slips LTH Blu-ray recordable disc support in 2.20 PS3 update

2008-03-26T13:18:00.001-04:00

While BD-Live got the majority of the attention in the PlayStation 3's 2.20 firmware update, it appears Sony has made another important addition by implementing support for cheaper organic dye-based LTH (Low to High) Blu-ray recordable discs. These version 1.2 BD-R's, announced back in September, are manufactured with a different process that allows plants to upgrade CD and DVD equipment more easily. Existing Blu-ray players can't read the discs, which debuted in Japan last month, without a firmware update. Sony Japan's upgrade web site notes the new support, confirmed by AV Watch; although it went unmentioned in U.S. press materials, we'd assume the upgrade made it over here for any of those looking to burn (slightly) cheaper Blu discs.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/25/sony-slips-lth-blu-ray-recordable-disc-support-in-2-20-ps3-updat/

Metal Gear Solid: Solid Snake, available now on Japan Playstation Store

2008-03-26T13:15:00.001-04:00

It seems that people in Japan are getting every thing. Konami has brought the Classic Metal Gear Solid originally released on PS1 to life again in Japan only. While US store seems unlikely to have one soon, since Konami of America has just released MGS the essential bundle.

http://n4g.com/News-127734.aspx

PSP Sales Up 85% in 2008 ; Sony Talks Plans Ahead for PSP and more

2008-03-26T13:14:00.001-04:00

According to John Koller, Sony's PSP senior marketing manager, US sales of PSP are up 85 per cent over last April. The console's price cut and new streamlined design has helped the company target a whole new demographic – namely the teenage consumer rather than the 20-something one – and users are adopting PSP for internet browsing on the move, listening to music and watching videos.Talking to Game Informer this week, Koller also spoke about how the handheld has now found its position in the market as a multifunctional device."We're finding in a lot of our research that the consumer's using the PSP because of its gaming but then also because it has these other elements as some of the other devices they own, but they don't want to bring four or five devices with them in their pocket. The PSP solves all of those multifunctional demands in one product."It's primarily centred as a gaming machine. That said, the multifunctional aspects differentiate it from any competitive platform — and that's including the DS and the iPod, the Zune and the Zen and all the other handheld products that are available in the market, inclusive of mobile phones."It's encouraging to note Sony is still viewing PSP as primarily a gaming device – some might have started to wonder with the appearance of a whole range of add ons such as GPS and a keyboard for internet surfing. Certainly, Koller's opinion seems in line with surely most gamers' when he says: "I think an area that we work hard on and will continue to work hard on is the game area. We want to create the most compelling content and work with developers to make sure that these aren't PS2 ports or console ports, and that they're priced appropriately."I think we need to get more of the God of War and Final Fantasy types — strong brand umbrellas that have very good gameplay underneath and are unique from the PS2."Moving on to what's ahead for PSP in 2008, Koller talks about console bundles such as the US-only God of War offering being important, the peripheral area (such as the camera, keyboard and GPS), and also says significant announcements will be laid down in the next few months going into E3.So, more PSP and PlayStation 3 cross functionality is planned – especially as PS3's install base grows – and "significant marketing" will be put behind educating consumers about PSP Remote Play.Meanwhile, the video-download service currently being worked on for PlayStation Network still doesn't have a firm date but Koller says it will be available shortly.The evolution of PSP since its launch has certainly been interesting to follow. It's gone from a lightly mocked gaming machine completely overshadowed by Nintendo's DS to an increasingly competent multimedia device that's thankfully home to plenty of must-play games, and one which Sony (finally) seems admirably committed to supporting, with an ever-growing number of innovative new features and add-ons.With even more plans throughout 2008, it seems the PSP could continue to grow in popularity throughout. What do you think, readers?

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/PSP+Slim+&+Lite/news.asp?c=6225

How to play MKV content on PlayStation 3

2008-03-26T13:11:00.002-04:00

Introduction & Requirements

TsMuxer - Download TsMuxer from the link and extract all the files to a folder using WinRAR. The PlayStation 3 (PS3) console does not support the MKV / Matroska container, but it will support much of the audio and video that can be stored in the MKV container. This guide assumes that the video and audio of your MKV file are H.264 / AVC and AC3 audio. For the record, DTS audio does not work with this process, you need the MKV2VOB method for that.
Open TsMuxerGUI.exe

After you have extracted all the files from WinRAR to a folder, run the TsMuxerGUI.exe file. This program is not very complicated at all but what it achieves is ground breaking for PS3 video. This process used to take quite a while, but TsMuxer automates nearly the entire process now. Anyway, let's get on with it. Make sure you are in the Input tab. Look at the blank Input files field, click the Add button beside this.
Open MKV file

Browse through your Hard Disk Drive for the folder that contains the MKV file that you want to play on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. Double-click it when you find it. TsMuxer will now take a moment to analyze the file before it shows you any streams.
Check Stream Information

If the MKV file was opened successfully, you should now be able to see the type of streams that you have in your MKV file. In mine, I have H.264 / AVC video (1280 x 720) running at 23.976fps (click to enlarge picture) and AC3 5.1 audio, very nice. However, there is a problem. Look closely at the track info for my video. It says.. Profile: High@5.1 This is not good because the PS3 only supports up to Level 4.1, not 5.1. However, the fix for this is easy and built right into the tsMuxer program.
Change AVC video to Level 4.1

Select the AVC stream that is set to Level 5.1 (if you have 4.1 or lower, skip this step) and you will see the options before the Tracks list changes (check my picture, click to enlarge). Beside the Change Level option is a box. Click it and a green tick will appear. Now click the drop-down box and select 4.1 from the list. This should ensure that the video will play correctly.
Set to M2TS Muxing

By default, tsMuxer is set to TS Muxing, which won't work for this process. Simply select the M2TS muxing option as I have done in my picture (click to enlarge). The option is located under Output. You also can now choose where to save the new M2TS file if you wish, although the default will be the same folder and filename as the original MKV, but with a .m2ts extension. This is usually fine. When you have done all of the above, click the Start Muxing button.
The Process

How long this process will take depends on the length of the original MKV file, and of course, it's file size. Hope that there will be no errors!

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/how_to_play_mkv_content_on_playstation_3_ps3.cfm

Killzone 2, Resistance 2 and LittleBigPlanet dated

2008-03-26T13:10:00.002-04:00

According to the latest Sony Computer Entertainment UK release schedule PlayStation 3 gamers will have plenty to keep them occupied this autumn, with three massive titles hitting stores.
Scheduled for release in September are LittleBigPlanet and Killzone 2, with Insomniac Games' launch title sequel, Resistance 2, pencilled in for a November release.
The titles are likely to go up against some heavy hitters from Microsoft, including Gears of War 2, Fable 2 and Banjo.

http://www.videogamer.com/news/26-03-2008-7860.html

29 Million Blu-ray Homes Expected This Year With HD DVD Dead

2008-03-26T12:49:00.002-04:00

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Blu-ray Disc victory in its recent format war with HD-DVD will propel this technology into 29.4 million homes worldwide by the end of 2008, according to the latest research published by the Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices service. According to, “Blu-ray Devices: Forecasting Sales and Ownership,” Sony’s PS3 games console will continue to drive the Blu-ray market until 2009, after which stand-alone Blu-ray players will become the dominant segment. By 2012 more than 132 million homes worldwide will own at least one Blu-ray device.
“HD-DVD’s withdrawal leaves the way open for Blu-ray to become a major revenue earner for technology vendors and content owners alike,” says David Mercer, Principal Analyst. “The 265 million homes that will own an HDTV by 2012, and Hollywood’s need for a new growth engine, represent huge incentives for the industry to coordinate marketing activities and demonstrate unified support for the successor to DVD.”
This Strategy Analytics report predicts that global sales of Blu-ray devices will reach 18.8 million units in 2008, including 4 million stand-alone players, 13 million consoles and nearly 2 million PCs. By 2012, annual sales of all BD devices will reach 57.4 million units. The largest market will be in Europe, with 26.4 million, followed by the US (22.6 million) and Japan (8.4 million).
The table, “Blu-ray Disc Devices: Household Penetration Forecast,” may be seen at http://www.strategyanalytics.net/default.aspx?mod=ReportAbstractViewer&a0=3862 (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)
About Strategy Analytics
Strategy Analytics, Inc focuses on market opportunities and disruptive forces in the areas of Automotive Electronics and Entertainment, Broadband Connected Home, Mobile & Wireless Intelligent Systems Implementation Strategies and High Frequency Market intelligence. For more information, please visit http://www.strategyanalytics.net/

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080326005743&newsLang=en

Blu-ray Sales on The Rise - '9 million movies Sold Since HD DVD Death'

2008-03-26T12:45:00.001-04:00

New data from HMR Research shows that the 9 million movies have been sold on Blu-ray since inception of the format in the United States, with 3 million of those having been sold during the first 11 weeks of this year. If this trend continues, Blu-ray is poised to sell nearly 15 million units in this year alone. The recent release of blockbuster Hollywood movies on Blu-ray has boosted overall sales. The Miramax release of 'No Country for Old Men' sold 68,000 copies on Blu-ray during its first week of sales, a huge accomplishment for a format where previous top sellers this year were selling only 30,000 copies during their first week of sales. As more highly anticipated titles get released onto store shelves, such as Fox's April 15th release of 'Juno', sales are expected to continue to grow throughout the remainder of the year.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1147

PS3 SYSTEM 2.20 UPDATE IS UP

2008-03-25T06:41:00.002-04:00

Download UPDATE 2.20

INCLUDES: Here are some of the other new features/enhancements that will be included in Firmware v2.20:

The ability to copy PS3 Music and Photo playlists to a PSP system. We introduced the ability to create Music and Photo playlists on the PS3 in firmware update v2.0. Now you can easily export your playlists to your PSP.

You can now play DivX and WMV format files that are over 2 GB. In addition, you can now display subtitles when viewing DivX files.

Resume Play - begin playing a DVD or BD disc from the point where you previously stopped it, even if you eject the disc and insert a different movie or game.

Use your PSP as a remote control to play back your music files on your PS3 without turning on your TV.

The Internet browser now displays some web pages faster. In addition [Save Target] has been added as an option under file. This option lets you save a file that is linked to a web page to your PS3 hard drive or storage media.

There are a few other tweaks and upgrades included in v2.20 - we’ll provide more specifics as the update is about to go live.

UPDATES:

Most notably, the update enables the PS3 to support Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, also known as BD-Live. You can connect now to the Internet while playing discs that support BD-Live to obtain additional content and special features. These features vary from disc to disc, and will keep your BD discs fresh with new content and in some cases exclusive content only accessible to owners of BD-Live enabled discs. On April 8th Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release The 6th Day and Walk Hard on Blu-ray; these titles will be among the first to take advantage of BD-Live. With this update, the PLAYSTATION 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player on the market with BD-Live functionality.

LingerInShadows - Not just a demo

2008-03-25T06:39:00.001-04:00

News has just hit the internet about a “in-game” demo that is “amazing” running on the PS3. This game seems to be the game that had a BBC reporter blown away.
4Sceners has uploaded an image gallery of screen caps of the video they were shown.
Not much is known yet about LingerInShadows. Hit the jump for a scoop you will ONLY read at Sev1512…
As many of you know Sev1512 has some friends on the inside…
Earlier this month I noticed a dev, on my friends list playing a game that I didn’t recognize. This game was LingerInShadows… I know its a game, because it had a PS controller/game icon, next to the title. I asked this dev what the game was, but never got a response.
So you heard it here first. LingerInShadows is not just a technical demo. Its a game, and I am being as bold as to say its the game that had a BBC reporter “speechless“

http://sev1512.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/lingerinshadows-not-just-a-demo/

God of War: Chains of Olympus Limited Edition PSP Box Art

2008-03-25T06:37:00.001-04:00

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) released the box shot of the upcoming God of War PSP (PlayStation Portable) Entertainment Pack. Look for this PSP bundle in June 2008.
The $199 bundle includes:

- Limited Edition Deep Red color PSP, with Kratos silkscreened on the back.

- God of War: Chains of Olympus UMD game

- A free download of Syphon Filter: Combat Ops

- Superbad on UMD (Universal Media Disc)

http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/3726/2/

Call of Duty 4 DLC Is In Certification And Info On PS3 And PC Map Packs

2008-03-25T06:35:00.001-04:00

The new Variety Map Pack for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is scheduled to be released on Xbox Live in the first week of April (3rd or 4th), was sent off to certification at Microsoft today. The map pack is going to be bringing four new maps to the game with the addition of Creek (seen above), Broadcast, Killhouse, and Chinatown (seen below) which is a modern-revision of the classic Carentan from past Call of Duty games.

Along with the new maps next week, we took this opportunity to slip in a change to the Clan Tags in the game along with a few other minor fixes. We heard your cries and will be tweaking the Clan Tags with this DLC patch (which adds support for the new maps). The new Clan Tag update will re-allow you to use special characters in your clan tags, but still prevents the exploit which allowed images (like Left Thumbstick and button images). Thanks to everyone who sent us feedback related to Clan Tags since the feature patch!
While the maps will be hitting Xbox Live the first week of April, PS3 users will STILL be getting the map packs, however it’ll be a little later (21 days later approximately) before they’ll be available on PSN for the same price. Right now plans for the PC version are unannounced but we are working to bring PC users the same content in the future, however logistics are being worked out on how to make that happen.
We also have a cool DLC Hands-on event going on in California, New York, and London I’ll be posting more about today. Sorry for the slow blog posting week, I’ve been slammed preparing for the release of the DLC, press, and upcoming events for it so I apologize if it’s taken longer than normal to post, or get back to your comments / emails!

Hands-on with the PS3 2.20 update -- and now, we wait

2008-03-25T06:33:00.001-04:00

Okay, so we dutifully updated our PS3 software to version 2.20, and took it for a quick spin. Granted, the removal fof portable copy from the release lowered our expectations, but we really wanted to see what BD-Live is all about. During the install, we got a dialog to "... allow Internet connection from BDs" that got our attention. Hello, BD-Live! The number of discs with BD-Live content makes for slim pickings, but we popped in a copy of "War." Based on what we've seen, you can strike this title off the Profile 2.0 list -- despite what we'd heard before about this being a BD-Live title, we didn't notice any special extras on our updated PS3. We uncovered the BD-Live enabled version of "Yakuza Fighter." It's without a doubt, the lamest game ever to grace our PS3: you set a sequence of moves and then pit your sequence against the other player. Once you're done, your scores and moves can be kept associated with your online profile for future fights. Think "scripted rock-paper-scissors" here. Even more disappointing is that we found it impossible to get the "Resume play" function to work with this title. The feature did work just fine on other discs, however, and is a welcome addition to our fragmented lifestyle. We'll hold off on a verdict until more BD-Live content becomes available, meanwhile perhaps we'll try to grab a copy of the other BD-Live disc, Saw IV, and see if the BD-Live Easter Egg hunt yawn-fest continues.

UPDATE: We found the BD-Live enabled game on War, and updated the post with the info. -

Thanks, Dave C!

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/25/hands-on-with-the-ps3-2-20-update-and-now-we-wait/

PS3 FW 2.17 Hole Give's Access to System Files ?

2008-03-24T20:43:00.001-04:00

Team PS3HaX member Spiker has reported he has found a way to access the PS3 system files. It has been confirmed that the files are accessible on firmware 2.17. Still in the initial stages in his work, Spiker told us that there is still no way to view or edit the files, but it has opened up a small path that can hopefully lead the PS3 scene to something big.So far he has found a way to alter how the PS3 Blu-Ray drive runs (Made the disc suck in halfway then spit it back out), and tinkered a bit with the PS3 shutdown/boot up process.

http://www.ps3hax.net/announcement/3722-access-system-files-found-under-fw-2-17-a.html

Unsurprising: Warhawk dev working on new game

2008-03-24T20:41:00.002-04:00

Dylan Jobe replied on March 23, 2008 at 9:08 am

#1 Support our community with free updates … “Check”
#2 Support our community with new Boosters … “Check”
#3 Begin development on new game … “Check”
The team and I’d like to think that we can, rather *should*, support the game we’ve already released and work on a new title at the same time.
We take the support of our players and our current game very seriously and don’t want abandon them just because we are looking at new development.
I know if I was a player and a dev ditched me I’d be pissed.
just my 2-cents.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/03/21/warhawk-contest-winners-plus-v13-trailer/comment-page-1/#comment-50290

PS3 Firmware 2.20 BD 2.0 Dated For April 8

2008-03-24T20:39:00.001-04:00

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is targeting April 8 as the date it will release its first batch of Blu-ray Disc titles that can be connected to the Internet for more bonus materials and features.
The musical spoof "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" and the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi thriller "The 6th Day" will be the studio's first two BD-Live titles. Their release coincides with the launch of a new software update for Sony's PlayStation 3 that makes the game console the first Blu-ray player with Internet connectivity, an ability known as "Profile 2.0."
Ultimately, all Blu-ray players will be Profile 2.0. When the format launched in June 2006, Blu-ray players were of the basic Profile 1.0 kind, meaning they could offer neither picture-in-picture nor Internet connectivity, something the doomed HD DVD rival format offered from Day 1.
Now, the big push is for Profile 2.0 players, which are slated to start coming to market in the next few months. Accordingly, studios are scrambling to produce final spec BD-Live software as well, with Lionsgate leading the charge in January with "War" and "Saw IV" -- a bold move, considering there weren't yet any players on the market that could tap into the discs' Web-enhanced content.
Sony's two BD-Live titles each include exclusive downloadable theatrical and home video previews along with a FAQ about BD-Live functionality. "Walk Hard" includes three featurettes that star Bill Hader as Derek Stone, a historian and expert "Coxologist." These featurettes are available only via the BD-Live download.
BD-Live titles also have the potential to enable a wide range of Web-based features, including ringtone and wallpaper downloads, peer-to-peer interactions, live virtual events and gaming.

http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSN2429776820080324

Warhawk Patch 1.4 to include new Game Modes

2008-03-24T20:37:00.001-04:00

Dylan Jobe replied on March 23, 2008 at 9:25 am
"You are exactly right!
As you know we keep updating you guys with new free stuff along with new boosters.
So while I can’t say too much, I can say that the team is hard at work on developing some new game modes.
We have a lot of new designs at various phases of development so I can’t say which ones will make the cut for the v 1.4 patch just yet…but rest assure that the next patch *will* have new modes, and of course, they will be free."

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/03/21/warhawk-contest-winners-plus-v13-trailer/comment-page-1/#comment-50316

MGS4 Limited Edition PS3 Available For Preorder ; Cost $729.90

2008-03-24T20:35:00.002-04:00

Limited Edition MGS4 Playstation 3 can be pre-ordered for $720.

LaptopLogic reported that Sony plans to debut a gunmetal Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition Playstation 3 on June 12 in Japan for 51,800 Yen ($520).
Our reader David pointed out you can pre-order it NOW for a whopping $729.90 at Game-Asia.com. The store will offer Free shipping worldwide.
Inside the box you'll get Metal Solid 4 Guns of Patriots, Dual-Shock Controller 3 (with gunmetal finish), and Bonus materials.
Is it worth $720?

Thanks DavidIsInterested for the tip.

http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/detail.php?id=4641

PS Home open beta coming April 18th

2008-03-24T20:32:00.001-04:00

My efforts to pin down an exact source for this have met with little success, but it’s worth noting that many PS3 forums are alive with persons who claim to have received an email invitation to participate in the OPEN beta for Playstation Home on the PS3. This final phase of the roll out for this highly-anticipated Second Life-ish time suck is reported to be set for April 18th.For those a little late to the game, Home represents a social experience that allows players to customize their own online habitat by creating a home for their virtual selves. The experience will be tied to several currently menu-driven interfaces within PSN, but also offers some really interesting possibilities for gamers.
Overall, the concept is to give PSN users a living and breathing community that delivers a social experience that rivals, or exceeds the popular (though rather plain-looking) Xbox Live.
I’d like to hear some feedback from both the folks who have participated in the closed beta, and those on the outside looking in at Home.
Please share your thoughts on these questions.

1.Does Home, as a concept interest you, and why?
2.Do you think something like Home would hold your interest beyond the initial roll out?
3.Would you be willing to PAY for Home (monthly)? What about for add-ons and accessories to pimp out your virtual crib?
4.Is it fair to call Home a Second-life knockoff?
5.What challenges do you think Sony is facing or will face as Home goes public?

http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/03/playstation-home-how-much-for-that-virtual-lamp.html

Five Things Wrong With Sony

2008-03-24T20:30:00.001-04:00

Sony found itself in a precarious position at the start of this console race. It launched at a price that instantly cast a shadow on the system, raising questions of its viability as a platform. Initially, through a drought of games and its high price point, the questions raised looked more and more likely to become a reality. However, with a respectable 2007 slate of exclusive titles, an even better looking 2008 game lineup, and the Blu-Ray format riding high with HD-DVD exiting the market; things are starting to look up for Sony.
Yet, there are questions that still linger. Below are five things wrong with Sony.
5. Downloadable Content
This will probably come off as a bit of a nitpick, (and there is probably some truth to it) but I still feel this is a valid complaint. The PlayStation Store, for all of the good things about it, is woefully inadequate. It’s not that there is no content available, (though, I would argue that content is somewhat lacking on a couple of fronts) but it’s the way that Sony decided to update their store. Instead of filtering the content out through the week, they decided to just give people one giant cluster of content every Thursday. The only way I can rationalize the decision is that people will know which day will have items up in the store, but even then, it’s a perplexing strategy.
What this means for PlayStation 3 owners is that they will have to wait for content. Sure, it’s not long, but for some pieces of content, a two to three day wait can feel like an eternity if you’re really looking for a demo or a Rock Band track. If you have the content to place on the store, do it. Why make people wait?
But hey, at least Sony isn’t charging you for pictures. (Right, Microsoft?)
4. Price
It’s a testament to the power of the PlayStation brand that we can sit here and still talk about the PlayStation 3 as a successful system, even with all the pricing challenges that it has faced. Ever since the phrase “five-hundred and ninety-nine US dollars” was muttered out of Kaz Hirai’s mouth, it sent gamers’ wallets into cardiac arrest. A series of two $100 price cuts have made things a bit more reasonable, but we’re almost 18 months into the PS3’s life: How much is that $399 price tag harming them?
With the inflated price, there is an obvious complication: It’s harder to convince people to buy your system. With a higher price, people are going to wait until there is “the” game to get. We’re talking about Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Halo, Mario, and Grand Theft Auto. They’re much less likely to take a chance on the great games like Resistance: Fall of Man when the barrier to entry is still too high.
3. Can You Please Add Another SKU?
This isn’t a problem that is endemic to just Sony, but it’s still a terrible problem. They have had four different SKUs that all do different things: A 20GB model that doesn’t have wireless, a 40GB model that has no backward compatibility and only 2 USB ports, a 60GB unit that has flash media drives, and an 80GB model that has “limited” backward compatibility. It’s hard to keep track of for me, and I’m constantly inside the “gaming scene”.
So what about people that are the life-blood of the industry? Parents and so called “casual” gamers that are picking up the system for a game or two aren’t going to know which one is best for them when the features are so wide-ranging. The worst part is that Sony (and Microsoft as well) will continue to add SKU after SKU that will further confuse the market.
2. Sixaxis Motion Controls? Remember those?
Perhaps it’s a condemnation of the entire control setup that Sony envisioned for the PlayStation 3, but it appears clearer by the day that Sixaxis motion controls have been a failure. I will admit that in some instances the control system has been put into some good, subtle use. (One example being in Resistance: Fall of Man where you have to shake off Chimera zombies that are chomping at your neck) But we weren’t promised a simple subtle change from Sony; this was supposed to be the feature that replaced “old” technology like rumble.
Instead, we got games like Lair that did not offer a more immersive control setup. It controlled worse and was frustrating. Games like Warhawk and Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction also featured motion-control capabilities, but in both cases, the analog sticks were preferable to the motion controls that were simply not responsive enough.
Perhaps I was hoping for too much out of the motion controls, but I believed that it would aspire to be something that changed the way we played our games. Instead, it’s more of a bullet-point that you can put on the back of the box, but doesn’t add much more than a neat touch. Prove me wrong, Sony.
1. Lacking A Reason to Get On
I honestly don’t get a lot of use out of my PlayStation 3, outside of their first party releases. At least in 2007, most of their titles were very solid single-player experiences, but past that, there was nothing that is keeping me on my PS3. Essentially, Sony is lacking that big multiplayer game that draws people together.
This might all be rectified by year’s end, however, if all things go according to plan for Sony. They currently have games like Metal Gear Online, LittleBigPlanet, Resistance: Fall of Man 2 and Home to try and carry the PlayStation Network flag. LittleBigPlanet and Home are probably the bigger cogs because the online segments in those games could be timeless. Home, while having all the question marks above its head, (the biggest one being “are people going to use this?”) has the potential to be extremely cool. LittleBigPlanet has the potential to be even bigger. Halo’s Forge mode got me extremely excited for a game like LittleBigPlanet. Allowing anyone to create their own levels and share them with the world is such a clever idea. You can only hope that the idea will be executed well.
And that’s part of the problem for Sony right now. These games may or may not live up to expectations, and if they don’t, we’re back into a situation where there is no game that forces me to make regular use out of my PlayStation 3.

http://www.zerocontinues.com/2008/03/24/five-things-wrong-with-sony/

Digging for Truth in the PSN Leak Story

2008-03-24T20:26:00.002-04:00

Last week several media outlets received a leak from an unexpected source claiming to be a tentative schedule for downloadable content on the PlayStation Network. Initially, the leak was treated with cynicism, but, as many are beginning to discover, cold hard evidence is painting a much brighter picture.
What is this hard evidence then, you might ask? The best way to find out is by looking at what lies inside the schedule.
You have your HOME; your Resistance 2 trailer, Wipeout HD, and WarHawk: Operation Broken Mirror. If you take a closer look, though, you may find a small little title known as Ratchet: Quest for Booty. This title just popped out of nowhere. At least, so it would seem. Not so for the forum members who frequent MyResistance, Insomniac Game’s official forum for their latest franchise, Resistance.
For the better part of the last month, these members were busy cracking codes. Codes? What for? Well, that was for them to discover. The codes were released as Easter Eggs in the music video Insomniac put together for the Game Developers Conference weekend.
Within the video they had hidden four codes in the form of magnets. One of those codes was the infamous QBLDC4. This was the code that needed to be broken.

Thanks to several hints offered up by Insomniac’s Community Manager, James Stevenson, and fellow comrade Rolf Mohr, the members of MyResistance narrowed down their options to a few select guesses.
The first correct part was DLC being Downloadable Content, but the rest of the letters were illusive: Beta? Quarter? These didn’t appear to fit with Downloadable Content.
On top of this, Rolf tipped the fledgling interpreters that they were very close to the answer without even knowing it. Still, the code crackers went from hot to cold, boiling to freezing.
After weeks of discussion and intense debates, the board members started getting disillusioned and fell into a rut. Hoping to rescue them, JS tried to set them on the right track. They were told to think outside of the box. Many ideas came up and only divided the unit more.
Eventually, one of the members asked that even if they had guessed the correct answer would JS confirm it. Regardless, the team continued to work, but demanded more hints. In response, he decided to reply with a cryptic message:

Hmm… *glances around the network drives*
I see lots of hints…but will I post them on the message board?…not so much.
“You know, it’d be sort of inconvenient if you guys figured it out, [be]cause it could probably be a magazine exclusive or something[.]

Shocked by the response and overcome with confusion, the small band continued to persevere. They attempted several more guesses, but were then informed that they had missed a clue entirely. As a result, the team doubled back and looked through a long list of hints given throughout. Gradually, they began to weed out most of the guesses that did not abide by what was given. Finally they arrived at an approximation of two values. The answer either had to do with quests or characters/races.
Their final guess before the leak broke out was Quest for B_ Downloadable Content, with no word for B.

When the image made its first wave on the net, the forum members caught it and noticed that within the list was a title known as Ratchet: Quest for Booty. With that, they had their final word. As of now, Insomniac has made no comment on the title’s existence, but many believe that this is due to other developer projects.
By confirming the identity of one game on the list, the theory is that the rest of the items on the list are also correct. Since then, an uncomfortable silence has followed in its wake. Should we be expecting these titles to be released, or not?
What gives even more credence to the DLC holding true, is the fact that there was yet another Easter Egg within the (pin)Ballz video reported earlier. An obvious one which we noted on the video’s release, were the numbers 0708.

It had always been thought to have been a date for something, but now we can confidently claim that this date, July 2008, was referring to Ratchet: Quest for Booty, since this is the date listed on the leaked schedule.
To add to the turmoil, Sony released a statement with the following remark:

Internal working documents naturally have proposed dates against titles, but these change frequently and dates are not confirmed until issued as part of a press release or formal announcement. The same applies to titles of games, which may be working titles or placeholders subject to later confirmation.
As a result, no weight should be given to titles or dates that appear in this document, other than to those which have already been formally confirmed

Naturally? Really? Besides the obvious no comment reply, notice how the press brief included “subject to later confirmation.” Ratchet would follow this rule. An exclusive magazine reveal is expected.

This Sony comment hasn’t stopped others from believing the list to be true in its entirity. On top of the typical HOME is being released around the same time as E3 theory, there has been one interesting deduction to go along with this state of affairs. Educated gamers have begun to notice that the same day the R2 trailer goes live, along with several other add-ons and expansions, the PlayStation store is reported to undergo a major revamp.
These ideas may seem highly convincing, but any hopes for a formal confirmation continue to slip rapidly away. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open. As we draw closer and closer to the timeframe the schedule details, we will discover more and more about this increasingly suspicious reveal.

http://www.ripten.com/2008/03/24/digging-for-truth-in-the-psn-leak-story/

PSP Sales Over 30 Million Worldwide ; Divx Support in FW 4.0 ?

2008-03-24T20:24:00.002-04:00

To think that over 30 million PSP’s are floating out there somewhere is quite a thought. The resent jump in hardware sales is most likely due to the resent release of Final Fantasy: Crisis Core and God of War: Chains of Olympus. The sales figures will jump even more when Monster Hunter 2nd G gets released worldwide. I did however expect Japan to have the majority of PSP console sales but to my surprise America came out as the victor with 12 million sales versus the 8 million from Japan.What makes it even more interesting is that the PSP was the best selling console beating the very popular DS with approximately 14000 units for the week. Even more interesting is the fact the PSP is currently the third best selling console worldwide beating the Xbox 360 and PS3 with over 10 million units.The current best selling PSP game for the week is God of War in America, Monster Hunter 2nd G in Japan and strangely enough Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 in the rest of the world. The rise in PSP sales is not only due to the new games but also the extra addition in console colors (Japan has the new Mint Green edition) and new applications like GO!Messenger and Skype.Seems like 2008 is a really good year for the PSP and with rumors of DivX playback being included with the version 4.0 firmware who knows what can happen.

http://www.pspsa.com/2008/03/psp-sales-over-30-million-worldwide.html

Nintendo scared of PSP emulation and piracy?

2008-03-24T20:21:00.001-04:00

The lack of PSP software sales is apparently due to piracy figures for the console. Now while their might some truth in that statement I also believe it’s due to lack of great quality titles. Strangely enough there are more PSP titles scoring over 80% on Gamespot reviews than DS titles. Just look at how the sales figures raised when God of War COA, Final Fantasy CC, Monter Hunter 2nd G and Patapon where released. This tells me that great quality titles equal good console sales (yeah pretty obvious).Piracy however is something that has been plaguing the PSP for some time now although the same thing was present with the PS1 and PS2. Still today the PS2 however sells extremely well.Here’s a quote from PSP Fanboy regarding the piracy problem…“Piracy is ruining the PSP. Although quality titles continue to come out on the handheld, many have been wondering: where are the software sales? Hardware has done incredibly well since the release of the redesigned PSP-2000, but PSP software still fails to make it to the top of the charts. What's to blame? It's easy to blame pirates, who take advantage of the easily circumventable security of the system.”Everybody who owns a PSP is very well familiar with the term custom firmware or the name Dark Alex. I do however support CFW in terms of running homebrew applications but I don’t support piracy.As we all know CFW allows the PSP to run various emulators such as NES, SNES, Arcade, Atari, Gameboy and even Genesis (which might also explain the fairly low sales of the Sega Genesis Collection). Hardware wise the PSP has more than enough power to run DS emulation but there’s a little problem though.Nintendo was fully aware of the fact that the PSP is a stronger unit therefore making it possible to run emulation of the DS. I’ve read on various forums people reckon this is why Nintendo also decided to rather go for touch screen and dual screen making it fairly impossible for the PSP to properly emulate the DS. Imagine the DS was just an improved version of the Gameboy Advance. Emulation would have been fairly easy on the PSP and this might have even caused a real dip in DS hardware and software sales.The current rumor is that Sony plans to implement some new security in the upcoming firmware 4.0 for the PSP resulting in discontinued use of the Pandora Battery fix. How true all these rumors are I honestly don’t know but we’ll see soon enough.

http://www.pspsa.com/2008/03/nintendo-scared-of-psp-emulation-and.html

Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony Disagree On Demos For Downloadable Games

2008-03-24T20:19:00.001-04:00

Over the last few weeks I’ve been asking top people at Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony about game demos for the downloadable games offered via Xbox Live Arcade, WiiWare and PlayStation Network.
I can’t get the same answer twice.
Microsoft – yes, demos are a must

Nintendo — no, demos are not required

Sony – sometimes demos are good, sometimes bad.
Keep reading to find out why they feel differently.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/03/24/microsoft-nintendo-sony-disagree-on-demos-for-downloadable-games/

Amazing In-Game Demo Shown Running on PlayStation 3

2008-03-24T20:17:00.001-04:00

A website known as 4Sceners have uploaded an image gallery of screen caps they received when they viewed an amazing in-game demo on the PlayStation 3. They said the game's graphics were truly in-game and looked better than Crysis, KILLZONE 2, and Metal Gear Solid 4.The translation is rough, but they describe the video as opening up with the PlayStation 3 logo showing. The video is called Linger in Shadows. They say the experience was so intense. The gallery features many animals, such as a huge cat showing near a Greek temple, and a dog. They say the quality is something to be desired. We have no idea if this is a game, because of translation. But if you could help us out, here is the original link.

http://onaxis.blogspot.com/2008/03/amazing-in-game-demo-shown-running-on.html

Sony: PSP Portable Copy Not Coming with FW 2.20

2008-03-24T20:15:00.001-04:00

Turns out it's a good thing I was so dubious.
SCEA contacted us today to let us know we were right to doubt, the Playstation 3's firmware 2.20 update will not include Portable Copy support, despite reports to the contrary.
Too bad, I'm about to go away on a trip for a few days and was thinking I might be able to bring some movies with me. Of course, I'm also still confused about whether all Blu-ray movies will be copyable or if it will be only for movies that have an extra PSP file included on the disc.

http://kotaku.com/371533/sony-psp-portable-copy-not-coming-with-22

Worldwide PS3 releases for the week of March 22nd

2008-03-24T05:42:00.001-04:00

More games! While the US doesn't get Gran Turismo 5: Prologue until next week, they have Dark Sector as a consolation prize. What's the consolation prize for that? Here's the full release list:

US Games
Dark Sector [Free digital comic at amazon.com]
Viking: Battle for Asgard [Circuit City is offering a free $10 gift card with purchase.]

EU Games
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
Everybody's Golf: World Tour
Viking: Battle for Asgard
40GB PS3 + GT5: Prologue

Asian Games
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
The Golden Compass

Fancy playing Gran Turismo 5: Prologue this week, Americans? Import it. You might encounter some issues, should any DLC be made available, but you'll be able to play it a whole week early. Release dates are constantly subject to change, so keep in contact with your local retailer in case anything changes.

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/03/23/worldwide-ps3-releases-for-the-week-of-march-22nd/

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue makes another apperance at New York Auto Show

2008-03-24T05:41:00.001-04:00

With Gran Turismo 5: Prologue set for release this Friday and having received over 1million pre-orders already, its no surprise that this popular franchise impressing many. So much so that Subaru have created there own Gran Turismo 5: Prologue booth for the New York Auto Show which people try out Subaru's cars on the game.

3 Screens and a Logitech Driving Force Pro make this a great set up.
This follows on from earlier in the week when it was shown that Lexus will also be promoting there products using Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.

http://www.pslegion.com/news/gran-turismo-5-prologue-makes-another-apperance-new-york-auto-show

MGS4 Limited Edition Detailed And Priced For U.S.

2008-03-23T19:27:00.001-04:00

I walked into work today and we got an email saying we're now taking reserves on the MSG4 Limited Edition version.The limited edition will retail for $84.99 and include the following:A Blu-ray containing 2 making of documentaries, and interview with Kojima4 chapters of the graphic novelMetal Gear Import Soundtrack CDReserves for the limited edition will also get an exlusive Metal Gear Solid 4 artbook at time of purchase.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10315976&postcount=1

[Tutorial] Install Windows XP on PS3

2008-03-23T19:18:00.002-04:00

Installing Windows XP to your PS3

I made this in an attempt satisfy some requests and to babystep some people into PS3 linux.

What You Need:

PS3 Usb Keyboard Usb Mouse Ethernet Cable A Windows Xp Install CD Nlite Computer with Internet (semi fast because you need to download a 700mb iso file) CD or Dvd Burner CD or Dvd Patience Is a different distro already installed? If so then skip step two of preparing your ps3 part 1.

Prepare your PS3 Part 1

1. Plug your PS3 into your tv, plug in the power cable, plug in your keyboard, mouse, and plug in your ethernet cable 2. Turn on your PS3 Scroll Left, Go to Settings> System Settings> Format Utility> Format HDD , Read Note on Next Line (This deletes all savedata on your PS3 backup your data before hand with the backup utility if you don't want to lose your saves.) Now select Either Option it doesn't bother I recommend only giving 10gb to Linux and keeping the rest for the PS3's side.

Obtain your Linux Disk:

1. Download your favorite version of Ubuntu I recommend Xubuntu 7.04 Feisty found here http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/ports/releases/feisty/release/xubuntu-7.04-desktop-powerpc+ps3.iso 2 Burn the iso to a disk either a cd or dvd, using a program such as imgburn, nero, clone cd, etc

Preparing your PS3 Part Two:

1. Put in your Newly burned Linux Cd/ Dvd in the PS3 2. Scroll Left go to Settings> System Settings> Install Other OS, it will search and install otheros.bld off the disk 3. Scroll Left go to Settings> System Settings> Default System, Select Other OS, select otheros, and press x to reboot

Important Note:

Your console now won't boot to that XMB you're aware of, it will load kboot instead, if you want to load the XMB again just hold down the power button when you turn it on and it will change the default system to the xmb.

Installing Xubuntu:

1. Press enter at kboot 2. Wait for it to load the live distribution of Xubuntu (About 5 min) 3. Click the install shortcut on the Desktop 4. Follow all the prompts, when the window exceeds your tv screen, hold alt and left click to slide the window around. 5. Remember your username and password, it's real simple just follow all the prompts, it should take about 30-40 mins

Here’s the install prompts:

1. Select English, Forward 2. Select the city with the time zone you want, forward 3. Select your Language (English), and Keyboard (US English) 4. I recommend to Select Guided Use Entire Disk, forward 5. It’ll complain hit continue (don’t worry it’ll work) 6. Hit forward, you shouldn’t have any accounts to import 7. Enter your Name, Login Name, Password, and what Network Name you want your PS3 to be DO NOT FORGET YOUR LOGIN OR PASSWORD, or you will have to reinstall Linux, click Forward 8. Click forward to accept all your settings you provided, it will now start self installing 9. Go find something to do for at least 30 min I think mine took 45 min to do this step. 10. When finished it will pop up a window, just click restart now 6. When it reboots take out the cd, press enter at kboot, wait, then login at the login screen with your username and password. (If it didn’t reboot right and it just displays a flashing underscore, just take the cd out, and flip the power switch in the back off then on, and it should load kboot.) Freeing Up Some Ram:

1. Click Application> System> Services, type your password in 2. Uncheck everything but Cpu Frequency Manager, Graphical Login Manager, Hotkeys Management, and System Communications Bus 3. Consider Installing Fluxbox (Only if you feel ok with the risk of having to reinstall linux.)

Changing Screen Size:

This step is not needed if you have just a regular non hdtv as there won't be other screen options available. 1. Discover what type of TV you have, is it a lcd, a plasma, crt, old tube, and become aware of different screen sizes available. Mine is a 32" Lcd Flat Screen, supporting at highest 720p 2. Open Terminal (Applications> System> Accessories> Terminal) 3. Type sudo apt-get install ps3pf-utils, this will install the ps3videomode command 4. Now type ps3videomode -v, this will provide all options for the command 5. Now you want to discover which video modes work, just start guessing. Personally I use ps3videomode -v 3, if you try an option and it garbles your text press the up arrow delete the number and type 1 and press enter. This should bring it back to the way it was if not press enter, and type ps3videomode -v 1. 6. Keep trying your options, if an option garbles your text it probably works but you just need to change it in the kboot.conf file before linux boots. If it displays just a black screen it's probably a bad mode, try another. 7. Now to assign our video mode at startup do the following. 8. type sudo su, you should now be root be careful in this mode as you can screw some stuff up and have to reinstall 9. type nano /etc/kboot.conf, This opens the kboot in a text editor. Add ps3fb:mode:xx at the end of each quote, it should look like the following. Remember to change the xx to whatever video mode you decided upon. Linux=’/boot/vmlinux blah blah blah quiet splash video=ps3fb:mode:xx’ Old=’/boot/vmlinux blah blah blah quiet splash video=ps3fb:mode:xx’ 11. Now Press Control-X, y, save as kboot.conf by pressing enter 12. Now type sudo reboot Installing Qemu

1. Open Terminal (System> Accessories) 2. type sudo apt-get install qemu, press y

Installing Windows XP

1. Create a folder on your desktop labeled Windows or whatever 2. Open the folder, right click in the blank space, and click open terminal here

Create HDD Image for Qemu:

1. In terminal type qemu-img create xp.img 2G, this creates a 2gb hdd for use in qemu

Create Windows Xp Install Disk with Nlite

1. Google around for a good guide for making a decent Nlite iso with minimal system requirements. My disk is down to about 95 mb in size, but it can go much further lower in size, this is just with some of the minor crap removed.

Moving your finished Nlite iso to your PS3:

1. When finished copy the ISO to your PS3 either by usb stick, ipod, burning the iso file to a disk (not the iso), or whatever means you got. 2. When done put it in the Windows folder you made on the desktop, this should be the same folder as xp.img 3. rename it to something simple such as xpinstallcd.iso

Running Qemu

1. Open the Windows Folder, right click, click open terminal here 2. type qemu -cdrom xpinstallcd.iso -hda xp.img -m 64M -boot d , Note the 64 is the amount of ram you would like to reserve for Qemu, remember you’re running Linux already and more isn't always better 3. A new window should open running a virtual machine (emulation) of a X86 Processor which can Run XP 4. After XP is installed all you need to do to run XP is to type qemu -hda xp.img -m 64M Transfering Files to XP

1. Make a iso of the files with a tool such as poweriso, magiciso, etc 2. Copy the file to your ps3 put it in your Windows folder on your desktop, and mount it as a cdrom. Here's what the command may look like: qemu -cdrom files.iso -hda xp.img -m 64M 3. Copy the files off your CD drive in XP

Guide by mopx

http://www.ps3hax.net/ubuntu-linux/3679-tutorial-install-windows-xp-ps3.html

PS3 UTIII MODS: Model character Master Chief and More

2008-03-23T19:10:00.003-04:00

Master Chief
Crysis Character
Marcus Fenix (GeOW)
Gus (GeOW)
Gears Locusts
Spawn

http://forums.gametrailers.com/showthread.php?t=345809&page=1

PS3 Firmware Update Enhances Blu-ray Capabilities

2008-03-23T19:08:00.001-04:00

Sony announced last week it plans to release new firmware for its PlayStation 3 video game console. The new update will expose new capabilities in the PS3's Blu-ray Disc player.
The free update for PS3 users in North America was to be posted by the weekend.
Blu-ray Disc is the heir apparent to the crown of high-definition optical media formats. The format battled against HD DVD, which manufacturer Toshiba recently discontinued.
The updated firmware enables Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, or BD-Live, to be supported on the PS3. BD-Live enables Blu-ray Disc makers to incorporate additional interactive features including downloadable video content, ringtones, games and more.
The firmware also exposes "Portable Copy," which enables PS3 users to copy a standard-definition version of the Blu-ray movie to a PlayStation Portable (PSP). You can transfer music and photo playlists from the PS3 to the PSP and use the PSP as a remote control for music playback using "Remote Play." DivX and WMV playback functionality has been improved, along with new Internet browser settings and additional AV settings.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143742-c,dvddrivesmedia/article.html

GT5 Prologue Preview

2008-03-23T19:01:00.002-04:00

We received a preview build of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue earlier this week and proceeded to download it over the course of nine excruciating hours. While none of the online elements of the title were available in this build, we gave the complete offline experience a lengthy test drive. Even while navigating menus, it’s easy to see that Prologue oozes of quality. There are several disparities between the US build and the Japanese release (besides the fact that we can now understand what we’re selecting). Minor elements, like event menu, have been adjusted for the expanded audience. In addition, there is a bounty of purchasable cars that weren’t obtainable in the Japanese release that made their way into the US adaptation.

You’ve got enough credits in the beginning to acquire a single ride, so we opted to pick up a 2005 Volkswagen Golf GTI. We then worked our way up from class C to class A races, earning credits and purchasing scores of vehicles from different dealerships along the way. The six tracks (the US version includes the High Speed Ring track, which have been a staple in past Gran Turismo titles) were varied in difficulty and play style. We enjoyed the fairly laidback Daytona, where sly slipstreaming tactics were key to out-driving the competition. The London track almost resembled a tech demo; while the entire game is gorgeous, this particular track is meticulously detailed. It isn’t our favorite layout however, as that prestige goes to either the track seen in GT:HD, Eiger Nordwand, or the full Suzuka circuit. Both Fuji Speedway layouts felt a tad too forgiving, and as for the High Speed Ring, it’s still the same track that you know and love. One of the massive distinctions of this build from Japan’s is the ability to tune your car to your liking. There are a plethora of categories, from power and weight to complex ones like front/rear torque distribution. Note though that we weren’t able to perform any adjustments until after we cleared the first set of races, class C.

The gem here is the offline multiplayer. This two player split-screen mode offers a chance for you to humiliate your friends on any of the game’s six adjustable courses. Each person can select their car (which must be previously owned) then proceed to adjust their amount of steering assist, level of traction control, tires, physics variety (Standard and the more realistic Professional) and so on. When racing split-screen, there’s absolutely no alteration in visual quality from the single-player game. The framerate lacks any drops whatsoever, though there aren’t 11 other cars racing, just the two. Regardless, the mode is both a technical achievement and a blast. While we’ve loved playing this offline version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, we’re greatly anticipating taking all its online features for a spin. We’ll have a full review for you when that time comes.

http://www.psu.com/GT5-Prologue-Preview-Preview--a0003165-p0.php

HAPPY EASTER!!!

2008-03-23T09:41:00.002-04:00

Hey guys I wanted to tell all of my readers to have a HAPPY EASTER and enjoy your day off of work if you are. Even though it is Easter, I am not going to stop posting news for today so the news will be updated today so stay in tune with that. Also, the progress for my site http://www.sonyps3news.com/ is going by pretty well but I am not expecting it to be up until next week and I will post something on here to let you guys know when that is ready. Lastly, with the gamestop giftcard giveaway we are just a few clicks away so if you guys can click on them today I can have the drawing potentially tomorrow. Thank You and enjoy your EASTER!!!

Sony PS3 firmware 2.16 found on PAL GT 5 Prologue?

2008-03-22T11:20:00.001-04:00

The latest update from the underground Sony PlayStation 3 scene puts a mysteriously unreleased PS3 firmware into the spotlight. Firmware version 2.16, just one minor spot shy from the latest version of Sony's next generation console software, was allegedly found to exist in PAL versions of Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. This development came after the fact that many have pondered over the significance of firmware 2.17. It was said that 2.17 came with complementary network code for GT 5 Prologue, though tangible evidence wasn't provided at the time. Previously, members of the underground have believed that the latest firmware version should have been version 2.15 after they had probed a debug leak of that firmware much earlier.Speculation that version 2.16 may have been the prototype firmware to be best for GT 5 Prologue have risen, but then claim that Sony discovered holes that could be exploited and decided to update the software to 2.17. In order to best analyze the code, the team at PS3Hax has released the full firmware package of version 2.16 and 2.17, which are targeted at budding and experienced PS3 hacking teams to experiment with. More updates as we get them.

http://www.qj.net/Sony-PS3-firmware-2-16-found-on-PAL-GT-5-Prologue-/pg/49/aid/116446

Sony In Trouble With Blu-Ray..Kinda

2008-03-22T11:17:00.001-04:00

The bells! Oh the bells! Those bells! That damn tinkling of the bells! It would seem they are ringing louder for Sony than they are for me. The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) is up to their necks in papers looking into patent infringement allegations related to Blu-ray disc players and other products, with the “spotlight” on Sony.
The fanciful people at USITC were hesitant to give more info on the claims, but did decide to throw us a bone and let us know that the investigation relates to:

Short-wavelength light-emitting diodes and laser diodes used in such electronics as handheld mobile devices, traffic lights and high-definition DVD players.

Thanks for that! I think. But exactly who had their panties in a bunch about this we all ask ourselves. The investigation was sparked by Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, a Columbia University Professor Emeritus, who filed a complaint in February stating that a variety of U.S. imports infringe on her patent and should be blocked.
You hear that world? The court is going to stop the digital economy market just like that. Well, maybe if the investigation is deemed susceptible. If it does happen, however, Sony shouldn’t look too Blu. Weird orange guy representatives Nokia, winking baldy LG Electronics, “Where you at” Motorola, and Panasonic maker Matsuhita Electric Industrial were also cited along with many others in the USITC’s report.

http://whatifgaming.com/sony-in-trouble-with-blu-raykinda

Next PS3 firmware one more reason to buy console as Blu-Ray player

2008-03-21T08:09:00.001-04:00

For many people, Sony's oft-maligned PlayStation 3 video game console had one no-doubt-about-it selling point: when it launched, it was by far the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market.
That's no longer true, what with plenty of low-cost players flooding the market now that Blu-ray has effectively vanquished HD DVD as the next-generation playback standard.

The PS3 will once again offer users the most advanced Blu-Ray features, despite the console's tepid appeal to video gamers.(Credit: Sony Computer Entertainment of America)
But with its announcement of a forthcoming PS3 firmware upgrade, Sony has once again given consumers a reason to buy the console for little more than its Blu-ray capabilities.
As Sony said, the new firmware will allow users to take advantage of something called BD-Live, and to dynamically download "additional content and special features" associated with movies on Blu-ray.
That means, Sony argued, that BD-Live "will keep your (Blu-ray) discs fresh with new content and in some cases exclusive content only accessible to owners of BD-Live enabled discs."
As an example, the company pointed to the planned April 8 Blu-ray release of two Sony films, The 6th Day and Walk Hard, both of which will have features accessible under BD-Live.
"With this update, the PlayStation 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player on the market with BD-Live functionality," Sony bragged.
Therefore, once again, consumers who want to be on the cutting edge of Blu-ray technology have one distinct place to go for it: the PS3.
Never mind that not once in the blog entry about the firmware upgrade on the official PlayStation blog does Sony use the words "video game." Never mind that in the mind of the video game community, the PS3 is the bastard child that's being outclassed at every step of the way--at least in sales--by Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360.
If you're Sony, do you care? Not if you can get people to buy the machine--which, unlike the Wii and the Xbox is available everywhere with no delays at all and has been throughout the past many months--to take advantage of the newest Blu-ray features.
After all, they say, when faced with lemons, make lemonade.

http://www.news.com/8301-13772_3-9899758-52.html?tag=blog.promos

Ready to Rumble: New DualShock 3 vs. Sixaxis

2008-03-21T08:03:00.002-04:00

We crack open the PS3's new DualShock 3 to see how this new rumble-enhanced controller compares to the Sixaxis and DualShock 2.

We screamed, cried and begged for rumble, and Sony came has finally come through. The PS3's new DualShock 3 controller has been out in Japan since late last year, but doesn't hit the rest of the planet until next month. So we imported one and gave it a test drive, then cracked open the DualShock 3 to see what kind of changes Sony made to make rumble happen. We also opened up an original Sixaxis and a PS2 DualShock 2 for comparison. Take a look at the pics to see what we found.

The original Sixaxis. In bright light, the casing is slightly see-through, producing a little bit of a cheap-o look.

The new DualShock 3. Notice the solid black casing, unlike the slightly see-through Sixaxis. It's 40% heavier than the Sixaxis, giving it a more sturdy feel.

http://www.gamepro.com/sony/ps3/games/features/170808.shtml

SOCOM Confrontation Special Forces Unveiled

2008-03-21T08:01:00.001-04:00

As we revealed early this month, the May issue of EGM has a blow-out cover story on SOCOM Confrontation. Along with the loads of other Confrontation info in the story, you'll find a list of all the different special forces included in the game. Joining a special force is now a perk associated with joining a clan; solo players will still be able to play as either commandos or mercenaries, but special forces (and their associated uniforms, gear, and weapons) will only be available to clan members.
Only, er, we got the list a little bit wrong in the mag. So here, for the first time anywhere, is the complete, correct lineup of special forces available at launch, complete with links to Wikipedia entries for the real-life organizations.
Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEALs, United States)
Special Air Service (SAS, United Kingdom)
Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK, Germany)
Unidad de Operaciones Especiales (UOE, Spain)
1er Régiment de Parachutistes d'Infanterie de Marine (1er RPIMa, France)

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3167041

MGS4 Promotional DVD's being sent out already

2008-03-21T08:00:00.002-04:00

Konami have started to send out Metal Gear Solid 4 Promo DVDs to those who have pre-ordered Metal Gear Solid 4 already. (In Japan)I discovered this while looking around eBay for any MGS4 merch for myself and noticed a listing for it going at an amazing £85. I then stumbled across a user on GameTrailer's named Deathseeker who also had been send the disc from their pre-order. No word on what's actually on the disc from the eBay selling or Deathseeker, but ill update as soon as we hear.

http://metalgearsolid4.net/2008/03/20/mgs4-promotional-discs-being-given-away-with-mgs4-pre-order.html

A Better Look At MGS4's "Steel" PS3

2008-03-21T07:57:00.001-04:00

We've seen scans, but they were small. And the colours looked a bit off, didn't look very "steely". Here, then, are some proper shots of the "Steel" edition of the PS3, which will be available as part of the Japanese Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle. Looks...well, like gun-metal, really. Highly appropriate. Console's above, with a pic of the "Steel" DualShock 3 after the jump.

http://kotaku.com/370500/a-better-look-at-mgs4s-steel-ps3

High-Def DVD Goes to Next Level With Blu-ray

2008-03-21T07:55:00.002-04:00

The high-definition-video war may be over now that Toshiba has conceded defeat for its ailing HD DVD format, but those interested in buying a high-def Blu-ray Disc player still might want to wait for new features coming in the fall.
Sure, existing Blu-ray machines can play the nearly 500 Blu-ray titles available. They can deliver gorgeous, top-of-the-line 1080p resolution on compatible high-def televisions. But the next crop of Blu-ray players will be compliant with the upcoming Profile 2.0 standard, which adds Internet connectivity to the machines via a feature called BD-Live.
"Imagine being able to download high-definition trailers to current theatrical releases right to your TV, or selecting additional language tracks or other online bonus materials," says Josh Martin, a senior analyst at consulting firm Yankee Group.
Depending on the disc, BD-Live will also let people chat in real time during films, type in their mobile phone numbers for free movie-related ringtones, play online multiplayer games or upload custom-made audio commentary.
Sony has announced two upcoming Blu-ray machines with Profile 2.0 support: the BDP-S350, available this summer for $399, which can be updated to the latest profile over the Internet when it's available; and the BDP-S550 ($499), which will ship with Profile 2.0 in the fall.
"Technology always evolves, and new features are added to platforms continually, whether it's a Blu-ray machine or other consumer electronics products," says Chris Fawcett, vice president of home video at Sony Electronics.
The new Sony players will include extras such as built-in or expandable memory and multiple audio technologies, including Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio or DTS-HD Master Audio decoding, depending on the model.
The Sony PlayStation 3 ($399) video game system, which also has Blu-ray playback functionality, offers a future-proof solution. Sony says the Internet-connected console can download an update for the Profile 2.0 standard.
For now, the most up-to-date Blu-ray players offer picture-in-picture functionality, also known as BonusView. That allows simultaneous video and audio streams so that you could, for instance, have a small window with video commentary while watching the feature film. Unlike regular DVD players, Blu-ray machines also let viewers turn on some bonus features, such as director commentary, with one button on the remote, as opposed to leaving the film to visit the disc's main menu.
Not for everyone
Many people who decide to wait to buy a BD-Live-capable Blu-ray machine probably won't even use that feature, notes Martin. "These upcoming players aren't for everyone, especially for those who just want to watch the movie," he says.
The BD-Live players connect to the Internet via an Ethernet plug in the back of the unit. But "not everyone has a broadband connection in their family room," notes Sandra Benedetto, spokeswoman for the Blu-ray Disc Association trade group.
Will BD-Live-enhanced discs work with current-generation Blu-ray players? Generally, yes, Benedetto says. "The BD-Live feature just won't be available."
The death of HD DVD will not mean automatic victory for Blu-ray, says Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at JupiterResearch, the New York-based IT research firm. "With high-quality and cheap 'upscaling' DVD players at one end and HD downloads more common, the Blu-ray folks will need to work hard to win the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers to adopt."
All kinds of features
Consumers who buy the newer Blu-ray machines should keep in mind that the Blu-ray Discs themselves must also support advanced features such as BD-Live and BonusView.
Lionsgate's horror sequel "Saw IV" is heralded as the first BD-Live-ready Blu-ray Disc. It contains an interactive feature called MoLog (short for movie blog), where viewers can share their own audio or video content or join an online discussion using an onscreen keyboard. While the disc came out in January, the online BD-Live features will have to wait until the Profile 2.0 standard is here.
Fox's "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem," available on Blu-ray on April 15, will include a BonusView picture-in-picture reference guide called Weyland-Yutani Archives, letting viewers hack into the movie-based corporation's secret computer to read about "all things 'Alien' and 'Predator,'" says Fox. The franchise's first BD-Live content won't be available until later this year when Fox reissues the original "Alien vs. Predator" on Blu-ray with a multiplayer online game called "Alien vs. Predator vs. You," demonstrated at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Disney's first BD-Live title will be a Blu-ray Platinum Edition of "Sleeping Beauty," scheduled for October release.

http://lancastereaglegazette.gns.gannettonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/TECH03/703080895/1001/tech

Counting Rupees: The year of the PS3...'is it actually true ?'

2008-03-21T07:53:00.002-04:00

Apparently, 2008 is the year of the PS3. After what most consider a very shaky first year, the media is abuzz with a comeback for the company that was once king of consoles. EGM's March issue proudly proclaims on its cover that it's "The Revenge of the PS3". EDGE's December issue was entitled "The Empire Strikes Back" and even Joystiq's PS3 Fanboy has given us 10 reasons why the PS3 is back in the swing of things. Some analysts have proclaimed that the PS3 will do at least as well as the 360 in 2008, and others have the PS3 edging out the 360 by 2010 or even the Wii by 2011. Clearly, everyone is pointing to 2008 being a turning point of sorts for the Cell-powered beast. But is it actually true? Let's focus on, at least initially, Sony's battle against the 360. Certainly, the PS3 has a lot of things going for it. Blu-ray has officially won the next-gen DVD war; upcoming games, such as Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2, and LittleBigPlanet show tremendous potential; and it has seemingly found a price point that people are willing to pay (as they did originally for the 360). In the US, at least so far this year, Sony has managed to outsell the 360 according to January and February NPD figures. But will it be enough?January's NPD results had the PS3 topping the 360 by 39k, a reversal from the previous month's 400k advantage for the 360, while February showed a 26k advantages over the 360. At this rate, using numbers from VGChartz, the PS3 would need nearly 18 years to overtake the 360 in the US. If this didn't look bad enough, Microsoft also claims that it's had supply shortages for its console early this year. If true, Sony has an even steeper hill to climb assuming Microsoft can work out these "shortages." Sony has to rely on other opportunities that present themselves this year. Certainly, its Blu-Ray win is one thing that it hopes will generate momentum. Unfortunately, so far, people haven't looked like they're in a hurry to buy the PS3 now that Blu-Ray has won. From January to February, after Warner Bros. effectively ended the format war, the PS3's sales only went up 4%, while 360's sales went up 11%. Perhaps since the format war wasn't officially over yet the news hadn't taken effect yet. It could also take some time before clarity in the HD disc market actually trickles into the console market, particularly if this old survey is still an indication of people's knowledge of the PS3's Blu-Ray capabilities. While the PS3's perception on this has probably improved, Sony also likely realized that it needed to continue to increase awareness of movie-playback capability. The fact that a Spider-Man 3 Blu-Ray was being packaged in with PS3's over the holiday period is certainly an expression of that, as is the "Movie Pack", which comes with 3 movies, that is going to be made available in Europe very soon (and I'm actually surprised something like it isn't going to be marketed in the US as well). Assuming Blu-Ray gains in popularity, it could certainly accelerate the PS3's adoption at least until Blu-ray players hit a mass-market price, after which, most people looking for a way to play Blu-ray movies will probably opt for the standalone player. For this very reason, I'm not confident that the PS3's inclusion of Blu-ray will help it narrow the gap with the 360. If not Blu-ray, then perhaps the games will help propel Sony into the lead? After all, Halo 3 moved quite a bit of hardware last year, so couldn't MGS4, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, and Gran Turismo 5, among others, do the same for the PS3? No doubt, there is a lot of hype behind those titles, but unfortunately for Sony, they're no Halos. Granted, nothing else really is, but they're no Marios, Brawls, or Mario Karts either. Hell, Gears of War sold nearly as many copies as MGS3, MGS3: Subsistence, and Killzone combined at a time when the PS2's base was substantially larger than the 360's currently. As much praise as the MGS series has received, they don't have an extremely wide appeal. LittleBigPlanet, obviously as a new property, is completely untested and it is hard to tell whether it will reach the PS3's current demographic, as it seems more in tune to Nintendo's. Gran Turismo may be, surprisingly, the strongest property here; its last outing selling nearly 9 million copies, but again, with a 100+ million installed base. None of this is to say that PS3 owners shouldn't be celebrating these game releases, but as properties, they have not proven to be "killer apps". Easily, Sony's biggest games from the last generation were the Grand Theft Autos, all of which sold more than 11 million copies each, and whose newest installment is a multi-platform game with exclusive content going to the 360. Despite the strength of its lineup and without an exclusive like GTA, Sony may not have a killer app.Sony is, for its part though, playing it smart with the properties it has by creating what are likely to be fairly popular and lucrative bundles for both MGS4 and Gran Turismo 5 (in Europe anyway). While I'm sure that MGS4 will sell fairly well by itself to the hardcore PS3 crowd, packaging a well-known exclusive name with a PS3 could help less hardcore fence sitters decide that it's the system they want, particularly in a year with no Halos on its closest competition. Still, while the 360 doesn't have a Halo, it does still have some high-profile games coming out. If Microsoft is able to market exclusive games like Gears of War 2, Fable 2, and Too Human effectively, it may well be able to counter the impact of the PS3's new games, particularly if the games fail to impress as Lair and Heavenly Sword did. Even with positive reviews, there's still no guarantee that they'll sell as well as "killer apps" are expected to, as Ratchet and Clank Future and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune demonstrated. If the games still don't sell well, it's unlikely they'll drastically improve the PS3's sales. Sony's going to need quite a bit of positive buzz around its system and these games if they hope to make up its nearly 7M unit deficit to the 360 in the US. I'm not sure I see it happening by 2010, 2011, or at all. Which brings us to an interesting possibility: can the PS3 take 3rd place in the US but overtake the 360 in the world market? There may be an opening for Sony here. As we all know, the 360 has sold abysmally in Japan. Sony has already sold about 1.4M more PS3's than Microsoft has 360s, and this trend will probably continue, if not accelerate. If we simply take the average sales of the consoles on a monthly basis from the time of their release, the PS3 would net roughly 5M consoles alone from Japan. In Europe, the PS3 is closing fast and is about 500k consoles behind the 360. Indeed, Sony expects to overtake the 360 in Europe this summer. Projecting in a similar manner as before, surprisingly, the PS3 nets another 5M against the 360 over 3 years from Europe and other PAL regions. The PS3's strength in Europe and Japan could very well offset its weakness in North America, but if the 360 can retain its strength in the US, it will be pretty close in the worldwide numbers. Obviously, over even more time it looks quite possible that the PS3 will surpass the 360's worldwide numbers. As for catching the Wii like some analysts have suggested? Considering the Wii has so far more than doubled the sales of the PS3 in nearly every region in the same time frame (slightly less than double in Europe), has consistently been selling out at least in the US every month it's been available, and continues to dominate in sales around the world every month, this seems exceedingly hard to believe. Certainly, sales are not static and the Wii could slow down as the PS3 speeds up, but starting almost 12M units down with no real signs that it can outsell the Wii, it would take a serious stumble by Nintendo to lose its lead here. By my calculations, over 3 years, the PS3 would need to net over 300k units per month to catch Nintendo now. We've seen no precedent for this yet, and even with new games coming out for the PS3, it seems unlikely that the momentum would shift so drastically in its direction. I would think that for Sony, just gaining parity with weekly Wii sales would be considered a huge success at this point, let alone surpassing its sales by a few hundred thousand units. So, is this the "Year of the PS3"? Perhaps as a gamer, as the system seems to have many of the "big exclusives" this year. As far as its sales, things are a bit more mixed. While the PS3 is likely to overtake the 360 in Europe, it still looks unlikely that its situation will change in US, even with the success of Blu-ray and a potentially strong software lineup. Still, the trend in sales worldwide looks like it could settle comfortably in second place. Ironically, before the 360 launched, everyone considered whether a console could succeed on a worldwide scale without succeeding in the all-important Japanese market. To some extent, it looked like the US would be big enough to determine its success. But that was apparently only part of the question. The other part is whether a console that performs marginally in the US can actually compete at the worldwide level (at least for second place). Seemingly, Sony is set to demonstrate that the answer is yes.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/20/counting-rupees-the-year-of-the-ps3/

Official Metal Gear Solid 4 site updated; MGS4 merchandise

2008-03-21T07:51:00.001-04:00

Just recently, the Metal Gear Solid 4 Official teaser site has been updated with some of the merchandise including the Playstation 3 bundle, a charge stand, and what appears to be some MGS4 headphones.(?)It also shows some of the pricing;Standard Edition: 8,800 YenSpecial Edition: 9,900 Yen40GB Special PS3/Special Dualshock 3 bundle: 51,800 Yen

>> MGS4 official teaser site

http://metalgearsolid4.net/2008/03/20/official-metal-gear-solid-4-site-updated-mgs4-merchandise.html

GameStop predicts continuing PSP 'supply issues'

2008-03-21T07:49:00.001-04:00

Video game retailer GameStop recently held a conference call to discuss its corporate earnings. They discussed the shortages of Wii and Xbox 360. While the 360 hardware situation will be alleviated shortly, the retailer predicts it will take six months for Wii supply to effectively meet demand. Interestingly, GameDaily notes that "the one platform GameStop is anticipating some supply issues with is the PSP."During the holiday season, the PSP was quite a difficult item to find. Many retail stores continued to run out of the hardware -- has supply been an issue since? It appears that sales of Sony's handheld are doing surprisingly well. A quick look at last month's NPD shows that PSP is continuing to gain momentum.

http://www.pspfanboy.com/2008/03/19/gamestop-predicts-continuing-psp-supply-issues/

MotorStorm 2 has a name

2008-03-21T07:48:00.001-04:00

Last week while visiting Sony to record the last Game3 Dave sat down to have a chat with Warwick Light (GM of Sales/Marketing) to talk about the year ahead. From this interview we not only gained insight into what we can look forward to and the games that Sony are backing to be successful, we also learnt the name of the next installment of MotorStorm will be called MotorStorm: Pacifica
The island setting obviously playing part in the naming of the new game, as mentioned in Speakpulp #59 I am very excited as it is the fast paced sort of racing that I enjoy.
Girls in Hula skirts? Shark and Pirate infested waters? Corned Beef? I hope it has it all.

http://www.geekpulp.co.nz/2008/03/21/motor-storm-pacifica/

PS3 firmware 2.20 bringing BD-Live interactive Blu-ray this month

2008-03-20T17:07:00.001-04:00

The Blu-ray 2.0 spec (or BD-Live) is just days from launch. Sony just announced that the next PlayStation3 firmware updated -- v2.20 -- will add the new interactive features to your PS3. As such, PS3 owners should expect downloadable video content, ringtones, interactive movie-based games, and the always intriguing "more" when the software is released in "late March." In other words, in the next 11 days. The update will also allow you to copy photos and music playlists over USB from your PS3 to your PSP. The rest of the new features after the break.-- "Resume play" will enable PS3 system to start playing a Blu-ray discand DVD at the point it was stopped, even if the disc had beenremoved.(*1)-- "Audio Output Device" will be a new Remote Play setting, enabling PSPto serve as a remote control for music played through PS3.-- PS3 system's Internet browser will be enhanced: Video files directlylinked from a Web page will be able to be streamed, and the browser'sview speed will be improved.-- DivX and WMV format videos that are larger than 2GB will be playable.-- "Mosquito Noise Reduction" will be added as an AV setting in thecontrol panel of the DVD/BD player for improved movie playback.(*2)*1 BD-J format disc is not supported.*2 BD discs recorded with BDMV format are not supported.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/20/ps3-firmware-2-20-bringing-bd-live-interactive-blu-ray-this-mont/

SCEE confirms no in-game messaging in 2.20 PS3 firmware

2008-03-20T17:05:00.001-04:00

SCEE’s just confirmed that there will be no in-game messaging included in version 2.20 of PS3’s firmware, just announced and to be released before the end of March.
“No,” a rep told videogaming247 when asked if the functionality would make the update. “Otherwise it would have been included in the press release.”
You can take it as read, then, that in-game XMB access is also off the menu for now.
The big news for the firmware upgrade is the inclusion of BD-LIVE options, which allow users to access extra content and features through Blu-Ray movies.
System updates include the ability to play DivX and WMV files over 2Gb and a “resume play” feature that plays Blu-rays and DVDs at the point they were stopped, even after the disc has been removed.

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/03/20/no-in-game-chat-in-220-ps3-firmware-says-scee/

Why PSN beats XBLA

2008-03-20T17:04:00.001-04:00

Issue 13 of the free PlayStation 3 magazine, P3Zine, includes all the usual previews and reviews, but also has an editorial on how PSN is starting to show a different and more exciting trend to XBLA. Looking at the lists of the top 10 titles on both platforms, they comment "You could argue that it merely shows that Xbox Live Arcade appeals to a different audience to PSN, but that’s missing the point. Sony’s list is the one which will make heartening reading to small independent developers, proving that even those ideas that might seem relatively niche can have huge success at the right price. Seeing the superb Flow in pole position is particularly satisfying..." and go on to argue how Sony has managed to make a better platform for downloadable, casual games.You can download the magazine here, or go straight to the page inside the magazine here. All you need is Adobe Reader 6+ installed. The mag is free.

http://n4g.com/News-125655.aspx

Major US store anticipates PSP stock shortages

2008-03-20T17:01:00.002-04:00

News reports of shop shelves running dry of the Nintendo DS (and console bigger brother DS) are pretty frequent. In fact, they're repeated about as often as that terrible Nickelback Rockstar song is on our local radio station.Which reminds us, our local game shop still gets so excited about having Nintendo consoles in stock it feels the need to publicise the fact with a scribbled note stuck in their window. It's like there's war on and Nintendo feels the need to ration the things.PSP stock shortages have been less of a concern for Sony comparatively, but according to US site PSP Fanboy, US games retailer GameStop is expressing concerns that demand for the console is soon likely to outstrip supply. In a recent conference call held by the retailer it was said to be "anticipating some supply issues with the PSP".US sales figures show PSP sold extremely well during February, shifting 243,115 units throughout the month. An achievement no doubt spurred on by launches of games such as Patapon and WipEout Pulse, and likely to be further driven by the release of God of War: Chains of Olympus.Sony keenly points out these figures demonstrate a year-over-year sales increase of 38 per cent, which is a substantial achievement for a three-year-old piece of hardware, although the release of the Slim and Lite also massively drove sales at the end of last year.Whatever the reason for PSP's sudden surge in popularity – improved hardware, bigger name games or just gamers now wanting a different type of handheld experience than that offered by DS – we're pleased it's finally getting to share some of DS's spotlight. Look out for scribbled "PSP - now in stock!" notes coming to a game shop window near you soon.

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/PSP/PSP+Slim+&+Lite/news.asp?c=6150