Sony defend PSP

Friday 21 Jul 2006 : 00:06 AM



SCEA's senior vice present of marketing Peter Dill has given an interview to United Press International in which he fields some harsh questions about the problems facing the PSP. He tries his best god bless him but not much of it sounds plausable, for example...

Q. How does the recent announcement that major Hollywood studios will be cutting back on UMD movies affect the PSP?

A. SCEA has been providing the Hollywood studios with data on the PSP consumer, both from a demographic and psychographic point of view, in an effort for them to better tailor their product offering to this new and emerging market. As such, we have seen studios cutting back on releasing their full content on UMD, as unlike the DVD market, the PSP consumer is targeted. We are committed to helping the studios better understand our product and our consumer, and will continue to educate them as we evolve and enhance the functionality of the PSP.

We haven't heard BS like that since Comical Ali told us he would "kill all the infidels".


You can read the full interview by clicking here

Tags: Sony

Formats: PSP

Sony talks about E-distribution

Thursday 06 Jul 2006 : 14:54 PM



They're still not giving away any details but Sony are happy to talk up their "xbox live killing" e-distribution service. Still no details on features, prices or even a name but Sony man John Hight did have this to say in an interview this week with Gamasutra.

"We're looking for fresh, new ideas that fully exploit the power of PlayStation 3. Our 1st party projects are all unique to PS3. Some of our games, by virtue of their design and hardware demands, simply couldn't work on Xbox 360."

Hear that ? That's the sound of us still being completely underwhelmed.

He's basically saying that some of the games downloadable to the PS3 will use all of the machines processing power , that you'll be able to download games that are too cool to run one the 360. They haven't even shown us that they have any games that couldn't run on a 360, now they're telling us you'll be able to download them directly to the PS3!

Only time will tell of course if Sony's new online service can cut the mustard, we'd love to be proved wrong.

Tags: Sony

Formats: Playstation 3

Sony borrows about £400 million

Wednesday 05 Jul 2006 : 20:44 PM



£376,746,816.14 to be exact, or 80 billion yen.

Read into this what you will but this is the first time Sony has borrowed money from investors in 10 years. Sony hasn't been doing that well recently, it's consumer electronics division hasn't been doing that well and PS2 revenues must be starting to slip.

It would probably have needed to borrow some money anyway as it's invested huge amounts of money in the Cell processor and Blu-Ray and even with the hefty price tag of the PS3 it will still be subsidising that for a while so it's unlikely to see healthy profits from that until 2008.

Despite their huge console market share and brand loyalty you've got to say that Sony is taking a lot of risks at the moment, as are Nintendo with their new controller. The next year is going to be very, very interesting.

Tags: Sony

Formats: Multi Format

PS3 & Nintendo Wii launch titles rumour roundup.

Monday 03 Jul 2006 : 21:34 PM



There's been lots of talk about launch titles for this years 2 big console launches in recent months . Some were announced officially at E3, some have been announced by developers and some are mere speculation so we thought it was about time we cleared a few things up and gave you a (relatively) difinitive list of the games you'll be playing this christmas. The lists are compiled from a number of sources including retailers, developers,news sites and a bloke I met down the Fox and Hounds on Saturday night so don't quote us on this.


Nintendo Wii

Definitely:

The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Wii Sports
Rayman: Raving Rabbids
Red Steel
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
Dragon Quest Swords
Metroid Prime: Corruption
WarioWare: Smooth Moves

Probably:

Madden NFL 2007
Elebits
Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Excite Truck
Project Hammer
SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab
Cars: The Movie


Unknown:

Super Mario Galaxy
Metal Slug Anthology
Blitz: The League
Super Smash Brothers Brawl
Sonic Wildfire
Disaster Day Of Crisis
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers
Ant Bully
Marvel United
Open Season
Super Swing Golf Pangya





Playstation 3

Definitely:

Singstar
Warhawk
Formula One 06
MotorStorm
Killzone
Tekken 6
Full Auto 2: Battlelines
Sonic The Hedgehog

Probably:

Heavenly Sword
Fight Night Round 3
Genji 2
Fatal Inertia
Tony Hawk's Project 8
Gran Turismo HD
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Devil May Cry 4
Unreal Tournament 2007
Medal of Honor: Airborne


Unknown:

Grand Theft Auto IV
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
Call of Duty 3
Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway
WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2007
Resident Evil 5
Resistance: Fall of Man
Army of Two
Alan Wake
Alone in the Dark
Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII
Brother In Arms: Hell's Highway
Gradius
Driver 5
Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters
The Darkness
Project IM
Marvel United
Eye of Judgement
Golden Axe
Stranglehold
6Gun 2
Avalo
Dark Sector
Eyedentify
Fifth Phantom Saga
Final Fantasy PS3
The Getaway PS3
I-8
Infraworld
Killing Day
Mobile Suit Gundam
Ni-Oh
Omikron 2
Possession
Project Delta
ShadowClan
Vision GT
Angel Rings
Monster Carnival
Everybody's Golf 5


Lots of those PS3 'Probablys' and 'Unknowns' should make it onto the final list but details are hard to come by at the moment.

So far we think the PS3 list is looking impressive but we're still looking forward to the Wii more.





Tags: Nintendo , Nintendo Wii Launch , PS3 Launch , Sony

Formats: Playstation 3 , Wii

Sonys first Blu Ray player delayed again

Thursday 22 Jun 2006 : 18:24 PM



The release of Sony's first Blur Ray player in the US has been delayed again to 25th of October.

When you consider that HD-DVD drives have been out for a couple of months and that this is only a couple of weeks before the release of the PS3 this cannot be good news for Sony, who really aren't having a good time at the moment.

The unit is supposed to retail at $995 , which is nearly double the price of the Playstation 3, which makes us wonder why anybody would buy one ? unless Sony have really lost the plot and their PR department are doing this so that the PS3 looks like a bargain ? Even Sony aren't crazy enough to release a product which they deliberately don;t want to sell, just to make another product look cheap, are they ?

Tags: Blu-Ray , Sony

Formats: Playstation 3

Playstation 3 pre-orders start: Shortages expected.

Friday 16 Jun 2006 : 20:40 PM



Play.com are the first website to start taking pre-orders for the Playstation 3, which is due out late november.

Interestingly they are only selling the higher-end model with the 60GB drive, it seems like they've learned their lesson from the 360 launch even if Sony haven't.

However, it's not looking good for those of you that want one on launch day. Despite delaying the initial spring launch by over 6 months and Sony promising good stock levels, Play still have a notice saying that they can't guarantee delivery before Christmas. We don't know whether they're just being cautious after being burned by the Xbox 360 launch but that's not good news.

Also quite worrying is the fact that you can only buy it with 3 games (Formula One 06, Warhawk and Singstar), it's £550 and there's no £10 deposit, you have to pay the full £550 now!

Personally, after the mess that certain online shops made of the 360 launch we'd be inclined to pop into our local high street games store early and register our interest there.

Tags: PS3 Launch , Sony

Formats: Playstation 3