SCEE President Reeves says PS3 installed base is 300,000 ahead of rival in PAL region
Sony has moved to dispel Microsoft claims that Xbox is outselling the PS3 in Europe, revealing internal figures that say its console has sold 300,000 more units than Xbox 360 in PAL territories.
And the company doesn’t feel it has to follow Microsoft and further ignite consumer interest with a price cut of its own anytime soon.
SCEE president David Reeves told MCV that Sony will remain focused on the value offered by the PS3 and its extra functions and services – at its current £299 SRP.
“No we are not going to go down in price; neither are we going to go down in price on PS3 in spring time either. Absolutely not, whatever you might have heard to the contrary,” he said – referring to purported ‘leaks’ from a Sony meeting two weeks ago that claimed Sony had a price cut planned for March ‘09.
The answer is no, they are not. In fact, they are doing pretty well for the difficult position that they are in at this point in time.
What Sony really needs to focus on right now is profit, and NOT the fanboys nor the console war. A lot of PlayStation fans out their feel the need for Sony to drop the price of the PS3 so it can “beat” the 360 in the console war, and in my opinion that is selfish.
Sony is currently losing profit on every PS3 sold and the only thing they need to focus on right now is making profit. If you factor in all the obstacles in front of the PS3, you would come to the conclusion that the PS3 is doing rather well for it being the most expensive console on the market especially with the economic recession and Sony’s lack of marketing.
Now look at all of these challenges the PS3 is going through and then look at the PS3’s sales. You cannot deny the fact that the PlayStation brand is the strongest in the industry.
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Atari president Phil Harrison has revealed that there is a generation of kids being born today that will most likely never buy a physical media product. Therefore, they will not buy a DVD, CD, and never buy a game in a box.
To quote: Phil Harrison is convinced that the game industry’s future audience will not be reliant on physical forms of media.
Speaking to Edge, the Atari company president said that “there’s a generation of kids being born today and probably already alive who I’m pretty confident will never buy a physical media product. They will never buy a DVD, they will never buy a CD, and they will never buy a game in a box.”
Harrison and Atari CEO David Gardner are already gearing the company towards this perceived trend. Back in September Gardner explained that the future of Atari lies in online play and distribution, with the former EA executive declaring that “within five years 90 per cent of our products will be onl... More »
Update: The LBP 1.05 patch adds star ratings to levels - you can now see the current star rating of a level (providing it has enough feedback).
The LittleBigPlanet v1.05 patch for PlayStation 3 is now available. It went live last night and is just 15MB in size. There isn't any word on what is new, but we're sure it brings with it some fixes and minor improvements.
To quote: The Planetoid observatory has just seen that the Little Big Planet 1.05 patch is now live. It went live at around 11pm GMT / UTC and is a teeny tiny 15MB in size.
Like previous patches, there has been no official word on it so right now there is no news on just exactly what this patch contains. We’d put our money on it being some minor stability fixes, much like patches 1.01, 1.02, 1.03 and 1.04 did and they were all around the same size.
Media Molecule did, only a few hours ago, announce their commitment to improving key areas of the game: Searching, Mo... More »
Bluepoint Games President Andy O'Neil was pleased to reveal today that Blast Factor for PlayStation 3 will offer PS3 trophies as of this Thursday.
To quote: Hey All! We’ve had a lot of email over the last few months asking about Trophies for Blast Factor, so I’m very pleased to announce that a new updated version of Blast Factor with that sweet Trophy goodness will be winging its way to your PS3 this Thursday!
We’ve had a lot of fun putting the Trophy challenges together, and we reckon that we’ve got a good selection for Blast Factor fans of all abilities. Watch out though, there are a couple that are going to be a challenge to even the most hardcore of Blast Factor players!
We’ve added 25 Trophies in total across the original game and the 2 expansion packs, with around 15 Trophies in Blast Factor: Basic Research and its 90+ levels, and 10 Trophies split between the Multiplayer expansion and Advanced Research with its addition of... More »
Various video game publishers have spoke out recently to either condone or criticize second-hand video game sales for eating into their profits.
Atari president Phil Harrison isn't worried though, as he says their future strategy is to make games that people will want to keep hold of stating: "it's no coincidence that the most valuable games, the one's that have the most lifetime as a game experience, are the one's that don't get resold, that don't get traded.
The games that have the embedded community, the embedded commerce, the extended, expandable experiences, are the one's that you would never want to trade, the one's you want to keep hold of. And that's perfectly in line with our future strategy so we're not that concerned about it," he said.
To quote: Speaking at the Atari Live event in London yesterday, the publisher said t... More »
PlayStation Network Executive Producer Kevin Furuichi made the following announcement via PS Blog today:
We have good news for you this month. As our way of saying “Happy Holidays,” the PlayStation Network is offering the Single Episode version of Qore Episode 07 (December ’08) for FREE* in the PlayStation Store. So, this month is your chance to check out an entire episode of Qore starting this Thursday, December 4th.
Episode 07 begins with an inside look at EA’s “Skate 2,” the sequel to the game that redefined what it means to ride a virtual board. Then, Audrey Cleo rolls over to Skatefest ‘08 in San Diego for a spin around the boarding scene.
Next, Veronica Belmont makes her way to Capcom to check out two of their latest projects – “Bionic Commando,” the re-imagining of the classic 8-bit franchise, and “Flock,” a really cool PlayStation Network game that definitely does not... More »
Capcom USA has unveiled their delivery of a real Bionic Arm from Japan. Check it out below, modeled by Capcom's resident babe Marisol.
To quote: Today, we got the Bionic Arm. It came in a crate with some mysterious Japanese writing (probably a warning of the pure awesome inside), and a dead give-a-way in english as it says "Bionic Arm" in big letters.
Marisol was kind enough to strap on this prop for some pics to show off how cool this thing is. It would have been cooler if I could have found the button for the lights. But there's no obvious switch on there that says "lights."
Instead I spent a good five minutes pressing things that looked like they could be buttons while it was sitting on my desk(I was guarding it from the droolers). As I was looking, I realized just how much detail went into this piece of equipment.
Every rivet, bolt, screw, the hosing... It's all hand painted down to the most minute detail. The arm is an e... More »
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