There's general agreement that Sony stumbled out of the gate with the PlayStation 3. Months of intense hype were followed by a late launch (fully a year after the Xbox 360) and a staggering $600 price tag for the deluxe model.
Even worse, the PS3 didn't initially have any real must-have exclusive titles, and despite the power of its vaunted Cell processor, multiplatform games from third-party developers didn't look appreciably better than the respective titles on the Xbox 360.
Since then, the company's been modifying the PlayStation product line to better fit the competitive market landscape. As of August 2008, a new "bargain" PS3 is available with a larger, 80GB hard drive, and a "deluxe" model is due in November, doubling the capacity to 160GB.
Both, however, lack backward compatibility with PS2 games and do not come with flash card readers. If those features are a must, it might be best to pick up the 80GB "Metal Gear" bundle version on eBay w... More »
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo may dominate the global market for video games, but they don't rule in every corner of the world.
The extremely high cost of new video game consoles and games in Brazil has led to unusual market conditions in that emerging country – and a potential market for video game hardware makers. Due to high import taxes, new consoles like the PlayStation 3 regularly fetch in excess of $1,000 USD in Brazil.
However, an intrepid Brazilian company called Tectoy hopes to capture a portion of the young, casual gaming market in Brazil with the launch of their Zeebo home console.
This innovative piece of hardware presents the first credible challenge to the popularity of the other big three manufacturers, and lights the way toward other potential opportunities in markets south of the equator.
Under the hood, the Zeebo is no slouch, especially considering that i... More »
David Hasselhoff aka "The Hoff" has posted the following on the PS Blog today:
It’s The Hoff again... coming to you from Korea, where I am filming a new movie. Now that the elections are over, let’s concentrate on the real nitty gritty... PAIN: Movie Studio!
With only 1 day left before the Hoff invades your PS3, I had to make a call into the Ryan Seacrest show on KIIS FM to tell all the listeners in Hoff-land to come check me out this Thursday! We talk about my new role in PAIN: Movie Studio, my upcoming movie, K.I.T.T. and more!
If that’s still not PAINful enough for you, check out PAIN’s producers, Travis and Jason, talking about The Hoff and how they got me into PAIN: Movie Studio on the new PlayStation Nation Podcast!
Do you really want to hurt me? Holla at the Hoff in PAIN: Movie Studio beginning this Thursday... More »
In just a few days Mirror's Edge will arrive for PS3 (Nov 11) and XBox 360 (Nov 14), which contains many other game tunes as part of the soundtrack.. and EA has made available five of these from the entire soundtrack for download.
You can grab these five tracks for free by downloading them HERE. (29.4MB)
Based on reviews from the demo, it appears many gamers are quite excited about Mirror's Edge thus far. We can not wait until the retail version arrives!
Sony and Universal Pictures have joined forces to deliver the PoP Entertainment vending machine. The new vending machines will hold PS3 games, Blu-ray discs, DVDs and allow for digital downloads... and at least 150 movie titles should be in the vending machines at its launch.
A video of the PoP Entertainment Vending Machine is available HERE.
To quote: The PoP “entertainment vending machine” is a brand new venture between Universal Pictures and Sony entertainment to allow punters to grab their favourite DVDs, Blu-ray discs, PS3 games and downloads 24/7.
So you’ll be able to sate any midnight movie cravings or post-pub PS3 needs, and the touchscreen vendo will also let you browse trailers before you buy.
What’s more, you’ll also be able to instantly feed your multimedia whims by downloading music and movies direct to most MP3 or MP4 players or SD cards... More »
Google's hotly anticipated push into operating systems for mobile phones was a media sensation, but HTC's version of its Android-powered device is falling short of the hype. Critics say the "Google phone," which went on sale Oct. 22, is a little clunky with design flaws like no earphone jack and an oddly jutting chin. Close, but no iPhone killer.
Zune video MP3 player - Price: $230
Microsoft's latest answer to the iPod, with 120 gigabytes of storage and a 3.2-inch high-resolution color screen, is a vast improvement over the original Zune, which debuted in 2006. But the new Zune faces the same problem as the iPod: Smartphones and other Web-enabled devices chock full of features (think iPhone) threaten to render these one-trick players obsolete.
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Though many previously bundled applets now will ship separately to Windows 7, Windows Media Player remains part of the core OS. Windows 7 will ship with Windows Media Player 12, which includes some surprising new features.
The UI itself is brighter and lighter than WMP11. Some buttons and toolbar items have been moved around, but the experience should be pretty familiar to users of version 11. What does represent a big change is the removal of the Now Playing button, which in WMP11 switches to a view showing the current playlist.
This is because WMP12 completely separates library management from what's currently playing, with two distinct player modes; Now Playing view, and Library view. Library view contains all the library manipulation features that should be familiar from WMP11. Now Playing view contains the current playlist, visualizations, and videos.
There's also a new taskbar miniviewer that works with the new Windows 7 taskbar, and WMP... More »
Today PSP developer FreePlay has released UnBar v0.1, which is an expansion of UnBeat (also linked below, unpacks PSN game 'Beats' .BAR files). UnBar processes the .BAR files from the Home BETA for PlayStation 3.
From the ReadMe File: To use this program, just drag/drop a .BAR file onto the .EXE, or run it from your command prompt/shell with the .BAR file as the argument.
I can't guarantee it'll work ALL the time, but it seems to work OK with the Home Beta 0.86 files. It can correctly identify the following:
* Various types of XML files used by Home
* Unicode XML files
* Java classes
* MIG, ... More »
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