201w ago - Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has predicted that Sony will cut PS3's price before October 1, 2009 if US hardware sales continue to slide.

Speaking in a note today, Pachter estimated that US Wii, 360 and PS3 sales will show a year-on-year decline of 43 percent for June.

To quote: "We think that the console manufacturers will therefore be forced to consider a price cut before year-end, with Sony cutting the PS3's price by October 1," he said.

"Further, we do not think that Nintendo's hardware forecast figures are achievable without a price cut, and we expect one around the same time as the PS3 price cut.

"It is likely both manufacturers will cut by $50, with Sony making up any lack of increased demand with a software bundle.

"We expect Microsoft to follow suit, giving us confidence that US software sales will grow later in the year, notwithstanding negative sales in the early part of the year."

Pachter predicted sales of 350,000 Wii, 225,000 Xbox 360 and 165,000 PS3 consoles in June today. The June NPD releases this Thursday.

201w ago - Update: UltimatePlayStation.com appears to be back online, and Vespene Gas/Editor & Graphics of GameTrailers stated: "Sony can't keep leaks. Spoiler: It's Real"

The Web site this originated from (UltimatePlayStation.com) has been shut down by Sony to kill any evidence of it's existence. However, they have not taken down the YouTube video (below) yet. Enjoy!

To quote: "I'm sorry the video is very short and very low quality, but my phone is ancient and the memory is very low, but I hope you believe me when I say this is in now way a fabrication."

The details are as follows, taken from the Web site now seized by Sony:

• It has a 120GB HDD.
• Two USB Ports





• The 'touch' button for eject and on seems to be gone, and there are now these random buttons.
• The PS icon is now white instead of colored.
• No more card reader
• PLAYSTATION 3 is gone, rather its PS3. It says this on the bottom as well for some reason.
• The guy was selling it with a DualShock 3. Whether it...

203w ago - Although the original article is quite dated, we haven't posted on this here yet... so for those who didn't already know:

Similar to Skype, Jajah is a VOIP service which has modified its interface to allow gamers to make calls using the PS3 browser.

According to this report, users will be able to make "free or cheap" phone calls, though the number has to be pre-configured.

To quote: "Jajah now brings free or cheap calling into the living room and away from computers. Initiating a call with Jajah can now be done while lounging in front of the TV with no need to fire up the computer," said Roman Scharf, a Jajah co-founder.

"This means that the whole family, regardless of interests or technological skills, can make cheap or even free calls from their normal home phone."

206w ago - How come we've yet to see Valve develop something for the PS3? Being one of the better game developers out there, you'd think they'd be one of the first to get in line tweaking with the PS3's hardware.

Apparently, that's not the case as they seem to find it too complicated.

Tom Leonard, Valve Game Designer, had this to say when asked about this very issue over at E3:

"The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward. We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform... I didn't come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish.

I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun."

206w ago - A few months ago SCEE confirmed news that Andrew House would be replacing David Reeves as president.

That being said, it appears the new president of SCEE isn't wasting any time taking over the reins from David Reeves and causing a stir.

After having been in his new office for only a little over a month, House is already making daring statements, telling Edge-Online in an interview that he believes Wii owners will eventually 'upgrade' to PS3, and that the PS3's lifecycle could "significantly" exceed ten years.

To quote: "If you look back at previous lifecycles, like PS2 versus N64 [sic], we have lots of data that suggests that lots of people bought into N64 as their entry level gaming device, and were happy to upgrade to a more powerful machine later in the lifecycle when the price point was right for them."

"I think we're going to see this later on PS3, and the fact that it's a Blu-ray player as well and that there's a [greater] wealth of network based experiences than are perhaps available on the device they already have will add to the proposition. I think that will...