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 »
Engadget (linked above) writes: Hey, pal - remember that 160GB PS3 Drake's Fortune bundle we told you about back in August?
Well thanks to the totally awesome skills of one intrepid reader, we now know that they're available for purchasing pleasure at your local Best Buy (and other spots, we like to imagine).
From what we can tell based on that extremely blurry photo you see, the package will sell for a holiday-destroying $499.99, so you'd better hope grandma drops a big check on you this season.
The infamous Xbox 360 "red ring of death" (indicating a failed unit) has caused Microsoft - and its customers - untold pain in the three years since the console's launch in 2005, and cost it $1.15bn (£738m) last year.
Microsoft has never said publicly why the console was plagued with faults: it seems that poor production quality was at the heart of the failures - an all-round problem with no single cause except impatience on the company's part as it tried to become the leader in videogame consoles.
It was an ambitious attack. Microsoft's engineers started working on the Xbox 360 at least a year after Sony's engineers began work on the PlayStation 3, yet wound up shipping a year earlier. With the first Xbox, the company lost $3.7bn (£2.3bn) over four years, mostly because costs of the box - particularly its hard drive - were too high.
Bill Gates didn't really care about the losses; that was simply the ante for getting into an exciting ne... More »
This Christmas, both Sony and Microsoft are placing their bets on a bunch of ugly aliens and a couple of anti-heroes who are almost as ugly.
The massive gaming companies are going head-to-head in the build-up to the crucial holiday sales season with two much anticipated and very similar titles, Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2.
The games, both sequels, are first-person shooters, in which the player assumes the role of the man behind the big gun and the main antagonists are sharp-toothed aliens. Both games were released this week.
In Resistance 2, the invading creatures are called the Chimera, horrific beings that have the ability to turn mankind into disfigured slaves. In Gears of War 2, the focus shifts to stopping the evil Locust Horde, a subterranean race trying to exterminate the human race. In both titles, it's up to the dysfunctional hero to save the day.
But a far bigger battle is going on behind the scenes, where executives be... More »
So Microsoft is doing pretty good in Japan. Not great, but good. Good enough to beat the PS3 last month. This is the Xbox 360 display at Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara. Back in August, the Xbox 360 sold out in this very store.
If you've been to Akihabara, you know that this is a very large retailer. Lots of shoppers! So for Microsoft to sell out right here is a good sign, and it's great for the Xbox 360's reputation in Japan.
This demo set-up is not. Well, no, the set-up is fine, it's the upkeep. But just as Microsoft starts to gain ground in Japan, an old friend rears its ugly head...
Out of all the demo kiosk consoles Microsoft needs working in Japan... Doubt this will catastrophically affect Xbox 360 sales in Japan. Microsoft will most likely sell lots of consoles this holiday season. (So will will Nintendo and Sony. Everyone wins!)
September marked the Xbox 360's best month of 2008, in terms of sales in the U.S — its performance in Japan hasn't been too bad either.
Following a price cut that made the 360 the least expensive current generation console on the market, the company moved 347,200 units to American consumers. While it wasn't enough to supplant the Wii as the best selling console in the country, it was enough to beat the competition from Sony.
Kotaku spoke to Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, just after NPD sales numbers hit to get his take. Unsurprisingly, he seemed rather pleased with the company's recent hardware successes.
"We expect to continue our price advantage over the PlayStation 3 for a long time," Greenberg told us, pointing to the $199 price tag of the company's entry level Arcade console, assuming that Sony would issue no pre-holiday price drops. "And we feel confident that we'll outsell the PS3 this holiday season in North... More »
Per Grace Chen (Senior Manager, PLAYSTATION Store) today:
Hi again! The weekend’s here – time for your weekly update of new movie & TV shows on the PLAYSTATION Network.
This week we’ve added new video content from the following television series:
• American Chopper, Season 4
• American Dad, Season 3
• Astro Boy, Season 2
• Bones, Season 4
• Family Guy, Season 7
• Fat Guy Stuck in the Internet, Season 1
• Friends, Season 4
• Fringe, Season 1
• Gossip Girl, Season 2
• The Thin White Line
• Family Guy, Season 3
• Fringe, Season 1
• Privileged, Season 1
• Robot Chicken, Season 3
• Rules of Engagement, Season 1
We’ve also added the following feature films:
• August
• Bless the Child
• City of Men
• Deterrence
• Dragonslayer
• Flashback
More »
Sony converted a downtown Toronto art gallery into PlayStation 3 heaven Tuesday afternoon by outfitting the space with demo stations for dozens of games slated to be released over the holiday months.
Centre stage went to Sony exclusives like Resistance 2, the sequel to the PlayStation 3's top launch title. The second game in this popular sci-fi shooter series continues the story of WWII-era American trooper Nathan Hale as the fight against alien invaders moves from Europe to the United States.
There were half a dozen demo pods running the game, but a pack of excited reporters barred me from taking a turn at the stick. However, the detailed burnt out buildings and horrifically creepy aliens I managed to catch glimpses of over players' shoulders left me with the impression that Resistance 2 could be one of the most visually sophisticated console games of the season.
A first-party game that I did get some controller time on was MotorStorm: Pacific R... More »
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