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Sony Looks To Outsourcing, 45 nm To Reduce Cell Costs
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3,
A Reuters report suggests that Sony may be shifting production of its Cell processor to outsourcing vendors in the future to reduce costs. The news agency spoke with Yutaka Nakagawa at Sony about the chip division at the company, and Sony is looking to significantly reduce its expenditures in that area. Sony predicts that they will be able to reach 45 nm circuitry for the Cell by 2009, but whether the production will be handled internally by Sony or by an outsourcing vendor is yet to be decided. Currently Sony handles the production of the Cell chip, a byproduct of the Playstation 2 days when the company found no other manufacturers with the technology to produce the hardware for that console. Now, Sony says that chip manufacturers have advanced to the point where it may not make financial sense for Sony to be the sole chip provider; ongoing price reductions in the manufacturing process of the Playstation 3 will be instrumental in helping Sony keep pace with Microsoft and Nintendo as they streamline production of their competing consoles.
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SCEE Talks F1 Championship Edition On PS3
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Driving, Hardware, PlayStation 3,
The upcoming F1 Championship Edition is looking really sharp; with the US release coming at the end of February and as a launch title for the European launch, Game Director Graeme Ankers talked technical details with N’Gai Croal’s Level Up blog about developing for the Playstation 3. Of course, nobody would expect someone from an internal development studio at Sony to badmouth the hardware or the tools, but the interview does give some insight into how developers will be utilizing the RSX GPU, the PPU and the seven SPUs in the console.
Read More 
| Level Up
Major Nelson: How To Mute Anyone In Xbox Live
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
This week Bungie offered up some details on dealing with bad trash-talkers when playing Halo 3 multiplayer: an in-game a-hole mute feature. Bungie’s feature is implemented cleanly in the UI: hit a button, highlight the player, mute for the rest of the session. Major Nelson, though, explains that this functionality is also available in the Xbox 360 dashboard, and he explains how gamers can mute (or avoid) bad actors on Xbox Live for any game. The process is a little more complicated, requiring a few more clicks, but it worth learning so that it becomes easier to avoid bad trash talkers in the future.
Read More | Major Nelson
Sony UK Sales Head Resigns Ahead Of PS3 Launch
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, PlayStation 3,
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Sony Computer Entertainment UK head of sales Kevin Jowett has left Sony for unannounced reasons. SCE UK stated that Jowett had left the company to “pursue new opportunities outside of the industry.” Jowett’s departure is interesting in that it comes mere weeks before Sony’s European launch of the Playstation 3; the effect of his departure will likely be unknown until after the launch happens. Given that the sales roadmap has likely been set for quite a while now, it is unlikely that any major changes will happen, but it sounds like Jowett worked closely with a number of Sony’s retail partners and a change in that relationship could potentially have a huge impact.
Read More | GamesIndustry
Xbox Rewards Challenge Live
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade,
The Xbox Rewards site is now live, but seems to be getting hammered as Xbox 360 gamers flood into the site to register. Right now, the only challenge available is the previously announced Old Spice Experience Challenge; this challenge runs from now until April 7th, according to the site. As previously mentioned, gamers will qualify for prizes depending on their Gamerscore level, earning anything from Xbox Live Arcade games, to Microsoft Points, to a full copy of Fusion Frenzy 2 for the Xbox 360.
Read More | Xbox Rewards
Casino Royale To First 500K European PS3 Registrants
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3,
The ‘semi-official’ Three Speech blog today confirmed that the first 500,000 gamers that register their Playstation 3 console in Europe will receive the Blu-ray release of Casino Royale. Unfortunately the movie will not be a pack-in for release, and users in non-English territories will have to wait until the localized version of the movie is available. Still, this would seem to beat the Talladega Nights pack-in that the US received; on the other hand, one would expect the incentives for the console release in Europe to be slightly better, if only for the high price that those consumers are paying relative to the United States.
Read More | Three Speech
Nintendo Drops 3 NES Classics To Virtual Console
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, Wii,
This week’s Virtual Console release consists of three classic NES titles, all selling for 500 Wii Points. All three titles are platform games and represent some of the better releases for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Kirby’s Adventure started a franchise for Nintendo. Kid Icarus is another significant platformer in the NES pantheon and often causes gamers to wax nostalgic. Ice Climber fits more into the classic arcade gameplay model, but still offers some retro fun.
Nintendo’s full press release continues after the jump.
Click to continue reading Nintendo Drops 3 NES Classics To Virtual Console
Sony Turns Duck Demo Into Actual Game
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Casual, PlayStation 3,
During Phil Harrison’s Q & A session at D.I.C.E., the Sony Computer Entertainment President revealed a new game to be released on the Playstation Network. The game Super Rub a Dub looks to be based around the infamous “duck demo” that Harrison showed off at E3 2005, and of course, gamers saw the original duck at the first E3 of the Playstation 2. The game will apparently be controlled entirely using the PS3 SIXAXIS controller, and Chris Kohler at Wired’s Game|Life blog has a few shots.
Read More | Game|Life
Pachter Predicts Wii Over PS3 In January
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3, Wii,
Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan is predicting that Nintendo’s Wii console sold significantly more units than the PS3 in January. He expects NPD numbers of around 500,000 Wii consoles sold to 300,000 Playstation 3 consoles sold by Sony. According to Gamasutra, the analyst is also predicting that game sales will increase year over year by 32%. Pachter believes that while the PS3 may be entering a lull, there is potential for sales of the console to rebound as hardware availability becomes more widely known, advertising increases, and better software titles emerge. Pachter also lays down his leading software title sales predictions as well. Of course, like many analysts, Michael Pachter’s predictions haven’t always been 100% accurate; he has admitted to overestimating Xbox 360 performance and also recanted predictions that there would not be a Bully sequel.
Read More | Gamasutra
Bethesda Clarifies Oblivion PS3 Rumors
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PC, PlayStation 3, Role Playing Games, Rumors, Xbox 360,
IGN’s preview of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion for the Playstation 3 seemed to trigger some debate about the release, particularly regarding the rendering engine upgrades and optimizations and the fact that many of the downloadable modules for the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game would be missing. Pete Hines, Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing at Bethesda tried to clear up some of the issues.
First, Hines clarified that the missing content for the PS3 version was not due to any technical limitations of the console. His explanation was that some of the content was not appropriate for the balance of the game for a new player and that for other content, Bethesda simply hadn’t had time to look into developing content for the Playstation Store; he believes that Bethesda will be making some content available at a later date. Bethesda’s decisions here seem a little flakey; saying that delaying the release of content so that gamers could have a better experience seems a little odd considering that an Xbox 360 or PC user that buys Oblivion this week can have the content on day one. Still, given the choice between having Oblivion in PS3 gamers’ hands earlier without Playstation Network support or facing further delays while Bethesda works on implementing downloadable content, one would certainly want to have the game sooner rather than later.
On the new hardware optimizations, Hines admitted that the PC and Xbox 360 would see the shader improvements in an upcoming release, but indicated that certain vague Cell-specific enhancements would be exclusive to the PS3. Specifically what those enhancements are were left undefined.
Read More | IGN
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