242w ago - MTV's Stephen Totilo was once not a huge fan of PlayStation Home, however with more interaction and information with the service his opinions have now changed.

While Totilo has all sorts of of ways to talk to others about Games, for those who haven't found a way to connect with like-minded folk then Home should suit them just fine.

To quote: My impression has been changed. What I hadn't seen or had explained to me when I entered "Home" on my own those few months ago, was the function and helpfulness of the community. "Home" will be pointless if no one's in it, if its central plazas are empty. Buser said they won't even launch "Home" -- an event scheduled for this fall -- until they meet their goal to "have a kind of community to show people around." The idea is it's all social.

You go to an area of "Uncharted" to find out what people there think of the game or to ask for a hint. Yes, some of us would go to NeoGAF or Metacritic or GameFAQs for that kind of stuff. But perhaps the average PS3 owner wouldn't. For them, perhaps "Home" is the answer to questions they barely knew they had: Where do they go to meet people just like them?

I could see Buser's point about how socially empowering "Home" may be, even if his demonstration barely...

256w ago - Even as the current console generation marches on, PlayStation 2 sales and software both have kept reliably chugging like a newly-slimlined little Energizer Bunny. But Sony's fiscal 2008 annual report shows that both PS2 hardware and software have begun to demonstrate a decline.

Sony sold .98 million fewer PS2s than it did over last fiscal year, and PS2 software sales are down 39.5 million units year-over-year, too.

According to the report, Sony is planning on continuing decline for the PS2 in its ninth year since release. "However, on the back of worldwide hardware expansion, there are plans for a diversified portfolio of software titles to be released, and, thus, Sony will strive to maintain the scale of this business," said the company.

How are Sony's other platforms stacking up? Chart, and more delicious numbers, after the jump.

Still, though, PS2 software sales dominated over PS3 and PSP software, with almost three times as many units sold. Interestingly, it's the PSP that's sold more hardware than either the PS2 or PS3, moving a total of 13.89 million units, over four million more than last year.

PSP sold 55.5 million units of software, a small .8 million-unit bump over last year, putting it on par with PS3 software at 57.9 million units. PS3 software made a grand...

265w ago - GTA 4 goes on world-wide release tomorrow (although numerous retailers have starting selling it), and while it'll undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest games ever made, its effect on the industry as a whole might not be so great.

You see, GTA 4 is so brilliant, so far ahead of pretty much ever other game released on consoles to date, that it's going to be hard to get back into the groove of playing 'normal' games.

It might well be unfair to compare every future release to GTA 4, but it has set a benchmark that, even only a few years into this console generation, might not be bettered. Open-city action games are likely to feel the full impact, with THQ's Saints Row 2 and Midway's This is Vegas both looking dated before they've even been released.

It's not that they look like bad games; they just aren't going to be GTA 4. I loved the original Saints Row and, perhaps foolishly believed GTA 4 wouldn't be all that different. In reality GTA 4 seems like it's a generation ahead in terms of game design.

It would be wise for publishers to hold off on new releases for a while. GTA 4 took me 40 hours to play through, and that took quite a bit of dedication over a few days. If you're only playing it for an hour or two per day and want to dabble with online multiplayer, you're...