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This weekend, PSM3 Magazine got their hands on a fully working Playstation 3. Today, they dropped a video and their first impressions of Sony’s new console. The video shows off the boot interface, which definitely shows the influence of the PSP in its design. Their quick impressions: the console is quiet, heavy, and attracts fingerprints like the PSP does. Their blog entry shows off jealousy-inducing pictures of the console in action, along with other impressions of the console in use.
Update: Sony made PSM3 pull the video.
Read More 
| PSM3
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Further Updates From GameStop Conference
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Rumors, Wii,
Victor Godinez, author of the Dallas Morning News article from the GameStop conference in Texas, has updated his blog with additional information. There are quick impressions of the various company presences at the show. Sony’s Resistance: Fall of Man was “pretty standard first-person shooter fare… well executed, fun to play, and graphically impressive.”
For the Wii, Godinez indicates that graphics have generally improved since E3. Sword fighting mapping isn’t 100% precise in Red Steel, but seems to be much closer than E3.
On pre-orders, the company line as of Sunday is still that there will either be very limited pre-order campaigns or none at all. GameStop appears to be really gunshy with the pre-order situation. It may be possible that GameStop will get enough console allocation assurance from Sony and Nintendo, but it isn’t looking particularly likely. However, there is at least one person on the 1up forum boards that claims to be a GameStop manager whose store will be offering pre-orders on Tuesday, October 10.
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| PunchButton DMN Blog
Read More | 1up Message Boards
GameStop Still Undecided On Wii/PS3 Pre-Orders
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Rumors, Wii,
Rumors had EBGames/GameStop opening pre-orders for the Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii starting this week, but that is starting to look unlikely according to reports from GameStop’s sales conference in Dallas.
A reporter from the Dallas Morning News was invited to tour GameStop’s conference. According to GameStop representatives, the final decision on console pre-orders has not been made. President of GameStop, Steve Morgan, believes that the company learned a lesson from its experiences with the Xbox 360 last year. If the company does offer pre-orders, the lesson learned is “caution and optimism at the same time.”
Little hard information seemed to be available at the conference regarding Sony and Nintendo’s console launches. Microsoft was showing off its Zune portable, which will be available in GameStop stores this November. GameStop’s sales conference continues into Monday, so a pre-order announcement could theoretically still be made then, but right now it looks like gamers will have to wait.
Read More | WFAA via GoNintendo
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Assassin’s Creed’s PS3, Xbox 360 Differences
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Adventure, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
Ubisoft Montreal recently previewed the Xbox 360 version of Assassin’s Creed for IGN recently, and while the games are “virtually identical” on the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, there are a couple of differences that have the Internet buzzing. In almost a throw-away line after discussing the control schemes and detailed animations of the game, Jade Raymond, when detailing some of the changes gamers will see in the Xbox 360 version, claimed that the focus was on achievements, plus “the hardware also allows for improved threading, which will improve even further the crowd AI.” Without further details, it is hard to make a real conclusion about what this means, even within the context of the game. Having better crowd AI would certainly seem to improve a gamer’s interaction with the game world, but doesn’t seem like something that would be a deal breaker in terms of platform support. But it does seem to highlight that there will be differences in the game experiences gamers will get on the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 above and beyond the look and the sounds of the game. It will be interesting to see how the base architectures of the machines will change gameplay for each console.
Read More | IGN
Rumor: Gamestop Wii & PS3 Pre-orders Coming Next Week
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors, Wii,
According to the website “bits bytes pixels sprites” (what, you couldn’t find a shorter domain name??) some folks have talked with Gamestop employees and found out that there will be a nation-wide managers/owners meeting this Friday, during which execs will learn about the allocations of PS3s and Wiis that each Gamestop will be receiving.
Given that this info is coming from a single Gamestop in Texas, it may not be the best lead we have. Still, it gives us a good reason to keep refreshing WiishList and PS3Me all next week. With under 2 months left, we’re getting really close to the launch window for both these consoles, and we’re beginning to wonder how much longer Sony, Nintendo, and our local retailers will keep us in the dark!
Read More | bitsbytespixelssprites.com < ugh>
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Confirmed For PS3, PSP
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Adventure, PlayStation 3, PSP, Role Playing Games,
An upcoming Official Playstation Magazine will confirm that Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls: Oblivion will be coming to both the Playstation 3 and the PSP, as had previously been rumored. 1up has more details; apparently, a new faction will be available from the start of the new version, called the “Knights of the Nine.” The PSP version will be less of a port, apparently, and more of an interpretation of the game, as the portable version will take place in a different setting. 1up has more screenshots of the PS3 version online.
Read More | 1up
Rumored Best Buy Holiday Planning Presentation
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Wii,
Over at the NeoGAF forums, a user has posted a couple of slides that purport to be from Best Buy’s upcoming holiday console roll-out. If the slides are accurate, gamers would see the Playstation 3 demo area set up by October 20th, and Nintendo’s Wii kiosks set up on October 29th. According to the slides the current Xbox 360 console demonstration areas would be removed, and demo consoles would be moved to the shelving areas like the Xbox and Playstation 2 are currently featured. The new demo area would basically be a complete Sony home theater solution, from a Sony Bravia flat-panel television, a 7.1 surround system, and, of course, the 60 GB Playstation 3. Matching the Bravia LCD with the Playstation 3 will ensure that gamers will be able to see for themselves if a full 1080P video path offers an improved gaming experience.
Read More | NeoGAF Forums
PS3 Games May Empty What’s Left of Your Bank Account
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
If you’re planning on buying a PS3 at launch, chances are money isn’t a problem for you. So it won’t matter that now IGN is reporting that PS3 games may retail for around $75 - $85 USD. This is right in line with earlier comments from Kaz Hirai earlier, so you can’t exactly say they didn’t warn you. Still, it might be quite a shock to those of you out there that just barely scraped together the cash for a console.
The economics of the PS3 are not looking good right now - Sony has already agreed to take a loss on the console (which some analysts put at up to $300 / unit), so their main source of recouping money is by charging royalties for publishing titles on the console. But with game developers spending more and more to develop next-gen games, studios need to make a fair amount of money off of each title sold. Given that, Sony is quite reluctant to put too much financial pressure on studios and thereby alienate their already cash-strapped supporters. For Sony, this means either 1) not making any money or 2) raising the prices of games.
Update: Sony has clarified the pricing for PS3 games, stating that games will retail for up to $59.99 in the states, which is the same as titles for the Xbox 360. See the SonyStyle store here
Read More | IGN.com
Survey Says: Rumble Important To Gamers
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Market research company Ipsos Insight released the results of a survey conducted on behalf of Immersion Corporation indicating that gamers prefer to have vibration feedback in their gamers. Immersion, of course, is the current holder of a number of patents for vibration function in controllers, and recently won an injunction against Sony for their use of rumble technology. Some have suspected that this may be the reason that Sony’s Playstation 3 controllers will not feature rumble support.
So, the ground-breaking news from this survey is that 72 percent of gamers believe that vibration feedback enhances their game experience “most of the time.” According to their report, 74 percent of gamers were also unaware that Sony had removed rumble support and 58 percent were disappointed. Somewhat shockingly, 5 percent of the gamers polled would not buy a PS3 if rumble was not included. While many people like the rumble feature, it is hard to believe that this would end up being a deal breaker, despite Immersion’s wish that this would be true.
Ipsos also makes some interesting conclusions about the rumble/vibration feature. They claim that gamers are “unaware that this capability must be present in the console to experience vibration feedback with any gamepad controller…” Ipsos doesn’t seem to be aware of the genesis of the vibration feedback function. First, there is no indication that this support has been removed from the Playstation 3. Second, if this kind of support had to be built into the console then rumble could never have been added after the fact to the Nintendo 64 or the original Playstation. Certainly, one would have a hard time adding interactive rumble to a game that previously didn’t support the feature, but vibration feedback falls into the realm of support for software and the peripherals, not the base console itself.
Still, the survey does feature some interesting numbers about next generation console adoption. Separating the numbers from the vibration bias, it does appear that fewer previous generation console owners are going to be adopting the Playstation 3. The survey showed that among those owners, the marketshare numbers shift to 48 percent Playstation 3 owners, 37 percent Xbox 360, and 15 percent Wii. Ipsos doesn’t indicate if the option to purchase one or more consoles was given. Overall, the survey gives some interesting material for discussion, but given the relatively small sample size and the focus on vibration feedback, it is hard to give the survey a lot of weight.
Read More | Ipsos
Kaz Hirai Talks Playstation 3 Launch
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3,
Gamespot was able to catch up with Kaz Hirai at the Tokyo Game Show, and get some further details for the US launch that weren’t readily apparent from their keynote. Hirai’s focus for the US launch seems to be maintaining momentum; having a good set of launch titles is good, but Sony is equally concerned with making sure that the software keeps flowing each additional week past launch. Certainly this has been a problem for console launches in the past, where the Xbox 360 had a number of great launch titles, but follow-on titles really didn’t happen until the next year. Similarly, the PSP was heralded for its great launch line-up, but again, Sony didn’t have additional A-list titles immediately available post launch.
Hirai’s other concerns are console supply. He again reiterated that there should be approximately 400,000 units available for the US launch. He hopes to have 1 million units in the US by the end of the year, and despite Japan’s initial shortage, another million plus shipped to Japan. Part of Sony’s efforts to get as many PS3 systems into the US will include air freight shipments. Most of these units will be the premium edition; Hirai stated that this is mainly due to the desires of the retail supply chain. Major retailers overwhelmingly wanted the 60GB unit, so that’s what consumers are getting. Time will tell to see if this changes with the announcement of included HDMI in every PS3.
Finally, Hirai also confirmed that the PS3 network would be available from day one, supporting online registration, online gaming, and content downloads. Hirai’s video interview runs approximately 7.5 minutes and can be viewed on Gamespot.
Read More | Gamespot
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