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At a recent Blu-Ray demonstration in Japan, Sony showed off a little of the interface and video playback for the Blu-Ray capabilities of the Playstation 3. Famitsu managed to get a shot of the interface, and it looks largely like an expansion of the PS2 DVD playback UI, or perhaps an enhanced UMD playback UI from the PSP. Sony is apparently shooting for 75 Blu-Ray titles within the year in Japan, and average retail is targeted at 5000 Yen, or about $42 US. Sony also discussed the BD Java features of the player, as well as the Internet-based BD Live content.
Read More 
| Famitsu
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Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, seems to be making his rounds around the press lately; he talked recently with Gamespot, and over the last couple of days he talked to Dean Takahashi at Mercury News and Daniel Terdiman at c|net. The goal of these interviews seems to be reassuring the public that Sony is still making its milestones as it continues the march towards their November launch, and trying to establish what Sony believes is the value proposition behind their expensive new console. Though Hirai has stated that manufacturing of the PS3 has not started, he reiterates that this does not put them behind schedule. When Takahashi used Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as an example, Hirai’s response was that Sony has “tighter control on manufacturing.” Sony’s roots are in electronics manufacturing, so that level of experience will definitely help; however, the Playstation 3 promises to be one of the most complex pieces of electronics that they have made to date with a number of new, untested technologies that may provide challenges that the company did not foresee. Hirai’s responses to c|net took a similar tone; they are still on track, and Microsoft’s past experiences with console shortages can not be paralleled with Sony’s approach.
Hirai also believes that Sony is ahead in the software development phase. He noted that Microsoft had not announced the same number of titles that Sony has at this point, and touted the 27 playable titles that will appear at the Tokyo game show. If rumored leaked memos on the Internet are to be trusted, the US launch promises 19 games, comparable to the launch lineup that hit the Xbox 360. Hirai again touted the supposed advantage that Blu-ray will give Sony in their software titles; Sony really needs consumers to believe that what Sony brings to the table is worth the $100 - $200 premium that the PS3 holds over the Xbox 360.
Finally, the oddest question came from c|net, where they asked if there was a chance of a PS3 version without Blu-Ray; this was basically dismissed by Hirai as a “nonstarter.” It will be interesting to see what happens post-Tokyo Game Show, and what the eventual console allotments for the three territories will be.
Read More 
| Mercury News
Read More | c|net
Looks like we opened a can of worms over at Gear Live in article written by Rob Stevens as it pertains to why he believes that PS3 is set to fail in the next-generation console wars. Rob makes an interesting arguement, and the readers are filling in, giving him a piece of their minds - both in support of his opinion, as well as vehemently against it. Go check out the article and let us know what you think - will the PS3 be a failure despite the success of the PS2?
Read More | Gear Live
Latest Gear Live Videos
Gran Turismo HD Screens Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Driving, PlayStation 3, Screenshots,
One of the demonstrations that Sony made at E3 was a super-high resolution version of Gran Turismo, tentatively called Gran Turismo HD. The technical demo utilized the assets from Gran Turismo 4 ran at 1080p resolutions at 60 frames per second. Now, Japanese site Game Watch has made a set of full resolution screen captures from the technical demonstration available for download. At their site, users can grab a ZIP file with 10 high-resolution images. The sharpness of the images is amazing, and the screen grabs show some effects like depth-of-field. The environments are a little sparse, since they are based around the Playstation 2 version of the game, but still give gamers hope for what a full version of Gran Turismo could be for the Playstation 3.
Read More | Game Watch Japan
Sony Previews Tokyo Game Show Software List
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, PSP,
Sony recently released a preview list of some of the software titles that they will be highlighting at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, and Siliconera has a translated list. The PSP list seems a little light, but there are a couple of titles of interest, like the new Ace Combat, a new Ratchet and Clank, and the latest in Namco’s Tales RPG series, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. Sony’s partial list of Playstation 3 titles include the latest Devil May Cry and Armored Core releases, as well as Resistance: Fall of Man and, of course, Ridge Racer 7. Given the proximity to launch, one hopes that a great number of Sony’s announced titles will be near release quality.
Read More | Siliconera
Insomniac: Resistance “Could Only Be Done On PS3”
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: First Person Shooters, PlayStation 3,
Resistance: Fall of Man should be one of the more anticipated launch titles for the Playstation 3. The game garnered a lot of positive attention at E3 for its next generation graphics, gameplay, and back story. Ryan Schneider of Insomniac Games recently demonstrated a current build of the game for MTV. According to Schneider, what MTV saw “could only be done on the PS3.” Insomniac dropped some details from the backstory for the game, but more interesting were the technical details. The company is still working on implementing tilt functionality in the game, but indicated that the controls would be used for close quarters combat. Also interesting was the size of the game; the current version takes up 22 gigabytes on the Blu-Ray format. Schneider declared that 1 gigabyte is used for music and vocals; the rest of the space is used by “graphics, level data and programming code.” Finally, Insomniac discussed some of the unique weaponry in the game.
Read More | MTV
Madden ‘07 Out Now for Every Platform Imaginable
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Electronic Arts, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Gamecube, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Sports, Wii, Wireless, Xbox, Xbox 360,
It’s that time of year again! Time to go out, be a good little drone, and pick up a copy or three of this year’s Madden iteration. This year you’ll be able to pick up the ubiquitous franchise on PC (Windows), Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube, DS, PSP, GBA, and yes, even your mobile phone (hey, where’s my BeOS version??!?). And of course, when the Wii and PS3 launch in a few months, you can get your Madden on with them too.
The good news is the console versions at least seem to be garnering fairly respectable reviews across the board - IGN.com, Gamespot, and 1up.com all give the franchise fairly high marks (7.7 - 8.5) for its notably improved graphics, online play and added features like Create-A-Player. The bad news, of course, is that you probably won’t be able to play the game online for more than about a year and will have to fork out another $60-$70 next year to keep playing.
Still, the popularity of Madden is absolutely staggering - analysts predict that the title could become a million-seller within as little as 5 days, and could earn EA about $210 million in revenue for the year (about 7% of its total annual revenue of $3 billion). Click below for the Reuters news brief.
Read More | Reuters
Following Kaz Hirai’s recent interview with Gamespot, gamers were concerned with a couple of statements. First, that production of the PS3 had not yet begun, and second, that:
…even if you do the simple math you’re talking about less than 700,000 units per territory, per major territory, between launch and the end of the year. So even if there was some fluctuation—you give Japan more, you give the US more, what have you—you’re going to end up with some shortages.
This statement is based on calculations that would seem to indicate that Sony was targeting only 2 million units this holiday. Sony Computer Entertainment of America issued a correction, stating that they were still on target to have 2 million units at launch, and another 2 million shipped by the end of the year. Still, if Sony still has not started production, around now is the time that consumers should start getting antsy. If Sony were able to manufacture 1 million consoles per month, production needs to start soon to fulfill the launch quotas.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Wired Magazine Wonders: Can the PS3 Save Sony?
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, Internet, PlayStation 3,
While everybody else is wondering exactly the opposite (shouldn’t it be “Can Sony save the PS3”?), Wired Magazine’s Frank Rose in their September issue looks into the history, politics, and economics of the PS3 and points out why it might be Sony’s last chance for redemption as an electronics manufacturer. Among other things, he points to the fact that Sony’s electronics division has seen profits plummet since 2001 and has had only one profitable year in the past five years. Along with these facts, he goes into the usual doom and gloom that we’ve seen from a variety of outlets so far - consumers don’t want/need a Blu-Ray drive; the console’s too expensive; the Cell processor’s too tough to program for; the manufacturing is too expensive. Still, Rose manages to get some interesting comments from some big names in the industry and other analysts.
Says Rishad Tobaccowala, of ad giant Publicis, talking about Sony’s strategy:
It’s very un-Japanese. It’s betting the company. If this thing bombs, there is no second coming. Everything else about Sony is a sideshow. This is the show
To be fair, Wired’s article also points out that this is not the first time developers have complained about creating for a new console, or that speculators have had jitters about a new disc format - many of the same issues being discussed now were pertinent back at the launch of both the PSOne and the PS2, and Sony has fared quite well from both of those.
For now, you’ll have to check out the article on news-stands, as the contents haven’t yet been released online. When it does hit though, you should be able to read the article using the link below! For now, you can head to news-stands and pick up the latest issue, September 2006, which features Beck on the cover.
Read More | Wired Magazine
For those gamers that want to check out the Playstation 3 interface, a video featuring a direct feed has been placed online. IGN got permission from Sony to delve into the video, and featured it on their weekly podcast. The interface clearly owes a lot to the PSP in terms of the look at feel, and at the current time could best be described as “minimalist.” From the video and audio options, it looks like full HDMI support is in place, and the 1080p resolution is a selectable video option. Online friend management is also sparse and it is unclear how much this will change before the console release. In-game, the dashboard acts very similarly to the Xbox 360; pressing the Playstation 3 button brings up the console, which is transparent rather than a side overlay like in the Xbox 360.
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