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 »
Movie pirates are distributing fake Blu-ray movie titles in China, which are essentially ordinary DVDs passed off as Blu-rays.
According to a WSJ report, the counterfeit Blu-ray discs are ordinary DVDs that hold the same movie content as the original Blu-ray but it is encoded in the AVCHD format. AVCHD is based on the MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video format, enabling recording of high-definition 1080i and 720p video onto cheap DVD discs.
"We are concerned and are assigning priority to this issue," said Mike Ellis, the Asia-Pacific managing director for the MPA.
The issue came into the surface last month when authorities raided a big stash of the new pirated discs in China, which is often at the leading edge of piracy trends.
The MPA estimates that within the next six months the high-definition discs could account for 10% of $224 million that its m... More »
We announced a few weeks back that you'd soon be able to buy Burnout Paradise on the PlayStation Store. We're now able to confirm that this will be released on this coming Thursday (25th of September).
Buying the game gets you all the original Burnout Paradise disk content. If you missed it, that's all 5 neighbourhoods in the Paradise City open world filled with hundreds of Road Rage, Stunt Run, Marked Man and Burning Route events. Every street in the city features a Road Rules record time and Showtime score to beat.
Take it online, and you'll witness the seamless arrival of up to 7 friends. Collaborate with them to beat 350 Freeburn Challenges – simple challenges taking you all over Paradise City.
Starting the game will then immediately trigger the download of all our updates, including the recent Cagney Pack and Burnout Bikes. A pack delivering PS3 Trophy Support will be released imminently and included for free.
With the PlayStation 3 40GB model slowly being phased out, it’s time to make room for a brand-new addition to the PS3 hardware lineup - an Uncharted Drake’s Fortune PS3 bundle.
In North America specifically, it’s slated to hit in November at an MSRP of $499.99 and includes the aforementioned game, a voucher for PSN title PAIN, a DualShock 3 wireless controller, and a 160GB hard drive.
Over in Europe, the bundle is due out October 31. Configuration-wise there will be no difference, aside from the fact that it’ll include an “additional PSN title,” according to SCEE, which may or may not be PAIN.
Sony was quick to mention that this bundle will retain “all the same functionality” as the new 80GB that’s popping up on retail shelves here in the U.S. That means no backwards compatibility, but you should be used to that now.
Press Release: Sony Computer Entertainment America Announces Limited-Edition Uncharted: Drake's Fort... More »
Sony's PS3 digital recorder Play TV has landed in the laps of UK gaming journalists, and there are more downsides than revealed earlier.
If you wish to record while you play, there is a warning that gameplay may be effected including slow-downs. In addition to this, the build quality of the device isn't too impressive and there is no 1080i recording and plenty of DRM.
To quote: But there are a few downers. In order to allow recording while you're doing other things on your PS3 (say, playing Haze) you have to allow 'background recording', and there's a warning that this may cause slow-down and effect gameplay.
Then there are those bomb-shells that we revealed a few days ago, namely no 1080i recording at launch and the inclusion of pesky DRM. Although we haven't yet had the chance to test it with our PSP, this will mean you'll have to record shows via Remote Play to watch them on your handheld console rather than just sticking them on a Memory Sti... More »
The latest Official PlayStation Blog entry may have revealed In-Game XMB Music Access, relating to the ongoing question that is "In-Game XMB Access - Will it have Music?"
On the PlayStation Blog, it lists the Burnout Paradise patch update content. To quote:
Plus heaps more, including:
- 1080i support for PlayStation 3 owners with “almost HD” sets
- Improved Standard Definition rendering for PlayStation 3
- Support for Custom Soundtracks on PlayStation 3
One thing stood out from the others.. "Support for Custom Soundtracks on PlayStation 3"
This could mean a couple of things, either each game will have it's own in game custom soundtracks, or Sony have succeeded in making In-Game XMB Music possible by just having the developer update the game to make the game compatible with the PS3's system & settings.
This morning we received word from the nice folks over at www.XCM.cc of their upcoming XCM 1080p Mega-Cool VGA Box (pictured below).
Features include the following:
- Supports PC video display resolutions up to UXGA (1600 x 1200 @ 75 Hz) or HD TV (up to 1920 x 1080)
- Supports 480i, 576i 480p,576p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p
- Transfer pictures from Game Cube, PS 2, Xbox, PSP slim, Wii , Xbox 360,PS3 consoles that can be displayed on a PC monitor (up to 1600 x 1200) or HD TV (up to 1920 x 1080)
- Supports SDTV, HDTV, XGA, SXGA, and UXGA video formats.
- Works on both PAL & NTSC system.
- Plug and play installation.
- Connect compatible YPbPr device to your VGA monitor Integrated YPbPr to RGBHV converter
- Applications: TFT LCD monitor, CRT monitor, Set-top box, Display projector
- Works on LCD TFT monitors
- Video output: VGA
- Automatic video source mode detection (fil... More »
With the Playstation 2 and the first Xbox being able to run select games in high definition, for example Grand Turismo 4 supported 1080i resolution. One would expect that in the age of ‘next generation’ consoles, the age of 1080p resolutions, that all games would, as a standard, support high definition.
Well it would appear that is not the case, with an increasing number of recent titles outputting native resolutions of lower than 720p. Such games are then up-scaled to meet this high-definition benchmark. On the one hand, what’s the point of paying for 1080p TVs, consoles and all the HDMI related accessories when the games you’re playing don’t even qualify as ‘high def?’
While the other argument is that whether this really matters, many of the games in question are actually some of the best lookers out there. And what’s the harm in sacrificing a few lines of resolution to secure a stable frame-rate?
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