Black Friday sales for the video game industry were excellent. Nintendo sold 1.8m systems for the week ending November 29 while machines from rivals Microsoft and Sony combined to sell about 1.1m units.
Software sales were quite strong as well, but the vast majority of the spike this week is simply from the fact that Americans spent $10 billion ($30/per American if every American shopped) on Black Friday according to various reports, and a lot of that went to video games.
Last year, Black Friday week sales were strong as well, but Wii, DS, and Xbox 360 saw significantly better sales this year. PS3 had the weakest Black Friday to Black Friday growth, at 13%, and PS2 declined.
Sony's machines accounted for about 1 out of 3 video game machines sold (31%) during Black Friday week in 2007, this year that ratio is down to about 2 out of 9 (22%) as the shares for Microsoft and Nintendo increase.
Although Wii had a smaller percentage incr... More »
For the time being this is simply a rumor, however, French site JV247.com (linked above) is reporting that a game publisher told them Sony was planning to add PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility in a recent PlayStation 3 Firmware Update... but pulled it at the last minute.
They continue to mention that it may be added in a future update, and that we may see PlayStation 2 games on the PlayStation Store.
Adding fuel to the rumor is news that the original Medal of Honor and the ESRB-rated PlayStation 2 game "Rayman 2: Revolution" are slated for the PlayStation 3, which usually means they’re going to pop up on the PlayStation Store at some point in the future.
As always, more details to come as they are available!
Sr. Producer Rusty Buchert of Sony Santa Monica Studios shared the following today via PS Blog:
Hi all, it’s Rusty again from the Santa Monica Studio. We are getting ready to launch Everyday Shooter PSP on the PSN store today, and we are really thrilled about how it has turned out. Between Jon Mak, Backbone Entertainment and us, we have Jon’s thoughts about how everything went on getting this made. Hope you all like what we’ve done.
First things first: the seaweed is gone, but the hashbrowns are still in the freezer.
So Rusty wanted me to write a little blog post about Everyday Shooter for PSP. I don’t really know what to talk about so I guess I’ll start chronological and see where that goes.
I actually tried porting Everyday Shooter to PSP way back around December 20th, 2007, and stopped around December 27th, 2007. Here’s an old video I found from back then:
Tonight, X-Play brought you the release date for Killzone 2, the highly-anticipated FPS from Guerrilla Games and Sony!
That date: February 27, 2009 for the United States. There is no word on other territories yet. There were a lot of rumors about the 17th, but it will be 10 days later. Get your pre-orders in!
X-Play also revealed two new weapons: the Bolt Gun and the Flamethrower, which can both be seen in the following video:
The end of the video also sports the official announcement of the release date if you don't believe me!
Below is another Killzone 2 video interview on the game's robust multiplayer component including details about the games innovative "Warzone" gametype!
The "Warzone" gametype, which can be seen in the video, rotates through all the available gametypes as the match plays out. It could start as a team deathmatch game that transitions t... More »
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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There can be no doubt that sales of the Xbox 360 in the US have remained strong over the last 12 months, surprising many who had claimed that 2008 would be the year of the PlayStation. With the holiday season fast approaching sales can only go one way - up.
Back in late 2007, Microsoft was heading into the festive season having wrapped up Halo 3 and Gears of War - both huge system sellers that helped the Redmond giant put it’s stamp on the year as having the most consumer £/$’s spent on its platform.
But many questioned whether Microsoft could continue its dominance through 2008 - with only a few anticipated titles on it’s schedules for the year ahead such as Fable II and Too Human (lol?).
Tell that to those crazy folks below though - This was spotted during Black Friday sales in the US as bargain hunters stalked Xbox 360 Arcade units. Only in America...
Warning: Changing your PSN email or password via the PS3's XMB account management tool will corrupt your save files! Sadly, PlayStation 3 Firmware Update 2.53 does NOT resolve this issue.
There is a large thread (linked above) over at the PlayStation forums regarding error 80022d11 (save file created by another user).
Once this occurs, trying to load a save file for a game that supports trophies will give you the option to either start over (wipe the save file) or sync trophies (which fails). At this point trophies will no longer work and save game files for any game that supports trophies will no longer load.
The only work around at this point is to delete your PS3 user account (not to be confused with your PSN user account) and create a new one (which you can link to your existing PSN account).
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