78w ago - Sony Network Entertainment Digital Distribution Manager Ro Hernandez has announced that The Studio games and art will be opening in the Americas tomorrow after debuting in Europe.

To quote: After much success in Europe, we are excited to launch PlayStation's digital art platform - 'The Studio' - across the US, Canada, Mexico and Brazil in the PlayStation Store tomorrow.

Games and art converge on PSN with The Studio's unique collection of dynamic and static themes, which give PSN users access to affordable and cool art in their homes and on the go.

Thanks to our partner Studio Output, PSN users across the Americas will be able to further personalize their experience on PSN with the finest offerings in everything from urban street art to illustrations that have been uniquely digitized into new static and dynamic downloadable themes from PSN.

In a first for the platform, Studio Output will bring in a series of guest designers from the music and fashion worlds alongside renowned artists. Headlining the new contributors are global stars Kasabian, who have just released their fourth album 'Velociraptor', as well as no. 1 UK urban artist and...

237w ago - Black Friday sales for the video game industry were excellent. Nintendo sold 1.8m systems for the week ending November 29 while machines from rivals Microsoft and Sony combined to sell about 1.1m units.

Software sales were quite strong as well, but the vast majority of the spike this week is simply from the fact that Americans spent $10 billion ($30/per American if every American shopped) on Black Friday according to various reports, and a lot of that went to video games.

Last year, Black Friday week sales were strong as well, but Wii, DS, and Xbox 360 saw significantly better sales this year. PS3 had the weakest Black Friday to Black Friday growth, at 13%, and PS2 declined.

Sony's machines accounted for about 1 out of 3 video game machines sold (31%) during Black Friday week in 2007, this year that ratio is down to about 2 out of 9 (22%) as the shares for Microsoft and Nintendo increase.

Although Wii had a smaller percentage increase, it increased almost as much as DS did in raw units sold (470,000 vs. 610,000). Five Xbox 360s sold for every two that sold last week, an impressive increase.

PSP had a percentage increase almost as great as PS2, and DS in percentage, but it was only about a 170,000 unit increase. PS2 and PS3 each saw increases of almost 100,000 units...