Per Grace Chen (Senior Manager, PlayStation Store) today:
Hey, everyone. It’s time again for the PlayStation Store weekly update.
Add-on Game Content
LittleBigPlanet Sack in the Box Costume (free)
A community costume for SackBoy!
File size: 1.04 MB
LittleBigPlanet LocoRoco Costumes ($2.99)
A costume kit for SackBoy! Contains 5 different costumes.
File size: 1.04 MB
BioShock PS3 Challenge Rooms ($9.99)
Experience the intense, terrifying world of Rapture like never before with the all-new PLAYSTATION 3 exclusive Add-On Game Content featuring three unique Challenge Rooms and some very cool extras. In “A Shocking Turn of Events,” rescue a trapped Little Sister in a disturbing carnival in Rapture. In “The I in Team”, defeat a Big Daddy using only your wits. In “Worlds of Hurt” plow through eight rooms filled with the worst Rapture has to offer.
File size: 402 MB... More »
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 »
Will splashing out on expensive RAM make a real difference to PC performance? And if so, how much should you buy? We supply the benchmarks and lay the details bare.
According to legend, Bill Gates once concluded that “640KB of memory ought to be enough for anyone” (a legend he’s at pains to repudiate). These days it takes more than 800 times that much RAM just to make Windows Vista work smoothly.
But as the idea takes hold that more RAM is always good, we’re increasingly seeing home systems armed with a vast 4GB of storage. Indeed, with 64-bit Vista gaining traction, we’re sure the 8GB home PC can’t be far away. Is there any need for this much memory, or is it a waste of money beyond a certain point?
This month we set out to discover the truth. Armed with a comprehensive set of benchmarks and a big stack of DIMMs, we’ve tested performance on both XP and Vista to find out how much memory you really need.
Has there ever been a better video game series than the Zelda video game series? Maybe the Super Mario, Castlevania, Metroid and Mega Man series, but after those, Zelda has no competition.
The single factor that contributes towards a great gaming series is the amount of great games in the series. The same cannot be said for the Double Dragon series, for example, where it fell drastically in quality after Double Dragon 2.
In the Zelda series though, the games seemed to get better with each subsequent addition. This is rare for a video game series, and the Zelda series has been able to accomplish this with flying colors. Controversy will be heard in the sequencing of this list, but that only goes to show how strong each game in the series was.
5. Link’s Awakening
Who thought that Link’s Awakening would be as good as it was on the Gameboy? This game packed in as much information and detailed story line as any of the Zeldas f... More »
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today announced a new initiative called Shoot!.
Shoot! will deliver series of short films that will be free to download from 13th November via PlayStation®Network for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) or PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable), allowing owners to watch cutting-edge film from up-and-coming directors and experience this unique content.
The films will also be screened across Europe on ShortsTV from January 2009.
Press Release: Six of Hollywood’s award winning filmmakers Armendariz, Bruckheimer, Kounen, Rothermund, Vinterberg, Winterbottom have chosen an emerging film director from their own country to mentor for the project. The emerging directors then created a short film, shot in High Definition, based on an open brief, shaped only by one of a number of words that capture the essence of PlayStation: Play, Create, Share, Connect, Discover and Challenge.
The emerging directors will showcase their mo... More »
Wal-Mart Stores is rapidly downsizing shelf space for music CDs while increasing availability of Blu-ray and consumer electronics in select locations, according to a new report.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail behemoth, citing a 23% drop in CD sales during the first four weeks of the fourth quarter, continues to scale back inventories of music packaged media; supplanting it with electronics and movies.
“We believe Wal-Mart is increasing its exposure to consumer electronics, video games and Blu-ray, and reducing floor space devoted to CDs and standard DVDs,” said Richard Greenfield, analyst with Pali Capital, in a note.
Greenfield said the chain’s floor space devoted to DVD, including Blu- ray, ranged from up modestly to down slightly.
Pali reported that an accelerated rate of sales decline for CDs combined with the slowing of digital unit sales had resulted in Q4 total unit sales declining 11.6%, compared to a 11.3% de... More »
Last week we reported on PlayStation 3 Firmware Update 2.51 for Demo units, however, until now all we could do was speculate on what changes it offered.
According to Product-Reviews (linked above), it appears as if Sony's PS3 2.51 (or next) Firmware update will be fixing the 2.50 black and white issues that seem to be caused by the PlayStation 3 forcing your TV to 60Hz.
This problem is apparently to do with older TV’s and does not affect HDTV’s or some models of PS3, as one PR user said that it can be corrected by going to video settings and scrolling all the way to the bottom and change the 50Hz setting from auto to 50Hz.
To quote: Thought I’d give Sony a ring too. They confirmed that they do know about it and the next patch will fix it. The only thing they couldn’t do is say when that patch would come out. But the rep said it was like... More »
What’s not to like about PS3? Playing videos games, accessing PlayStation Network, intuitive firmware updates via WIFI/ LAN/Flash Media, abundance of video formats support and least but not last, most consistent and fastest loading time Blu-ray player to date.
Japanese site PhileWeb has put a 2nd generation BD recorder, a few 3rd generation Blu-Ray standalones, and the good old PS3 on test; no surprises here, PS3 once again came out on top in terms of disc loading speed.
If you have one of those older generation Blu-ray players, you know how frustrating it can be when it comes to loading BD-JAVA interactive menu. Painfully slow! The newest Sony entry level BDP-S350 and a $2,000 flagship BDP-S5000ES promise an improvement in this area, but how do the 3rd generation BD players stack up against the cell-power PS3?
Still behind... test after test PS3 has proved to be the fastest l... More »
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