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20 GB PS3s Get Discounted In Japan

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3,

Akiba It looks like 20GB PS3s have gotten temporary price reductions from some Japanese retailers; Kotaku has pointed out a post on the Akiba blogs showing some retail chains in the country reducing the price of the 20GB model by 10,000 Yen, around $80. We know PS3 sales have hit somewhat of a lull recently, so stores may be aggressively reducing price to reduce stock levels. Continued price reductions can not be sustained without support from Sony; if sales continue to languish, Sony might have to reduce the price of the 20GB system even further.

Oblivion Developer: Blu-Ray is Slower

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, PlayStation 3, Rumors, Xbox 360,

Blu-Ray Disc The latest shot in the HD-DVD / Blu-Ray battle has been fired, this time coming from Oblivion developer Bethesda Software. According to the developers of the game, the Blu-Ray drive data rates are slower than those on, for instance, the Xbox-360’s DVD drive. Says Todd Howard at Bethesda:

“Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower.”

What does this mean? Well, in general, longer load times and more cacheing to the harddrive. In fact, in order to get Oblivion to load on the PS3 as fast as it does on the Xbox-360, Bethesda duplicated key data from the game, storing it on multiple places in the disc to lower access times. There’s no word on how much of the code was duplicated, but it still seems to go against Sony’s message that developers need 50GB of storage space. It sounds like, if the drive were faster, the HD-DVD standard of ~30GB / disc could be adequate.

Retail Channel Has PS3 Availabilty, No Wii

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii,

American Technology Research’s recent stock check of the retail channel is showing PS3 availability but no Wii availability, according to a Reuters report. Analyst Paul-Jon McNealy found 28 of 52 stores had Playstation 3 consoles for sale; none of the 52 stores had any Wii consoles at all. Apparently most stores had single-digit availability, with one store having more than 60 machines in stock. Without further data, it is hard to judge what the stock situations actually mean. Nintendo could be trickling in Wii consoles as they try and sate demand for the game system worldwide. Sony claims that the recent pockets of availability are due to their continued efforts to fill their shipping channel. Future sales numbers will be the only way to determine whether Sony’s claims are correct or if demand is really softening.

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New Classic PS1 Titles To Hit Playstation Store

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3, PSP, Retro,

Wip3out Sony has announced plans to drop a bunch of new content into the Playstation Store, according to Gamasutra. The company is making two classic PS1 games available for PSP transfer: Wipeout and Jet Moto, a couple of the more popular titles for the original Playstation. The titles will feature the standard $5.99 price point for all Playstation releases to date. In addition, owners of Genji: Days of the Blade will be able to grab a free alternate armor pack. Sony is also planning on releasing a multi-player upgrade for their downloadable launch title Blast Factor. The upgrade will not be free; gamers will have to pay $2.99 to get access to the new content, giving perhaps some insight into how Sony plans to handle add-on content in the future.

Japanese PS3 Shipments Hit 1 Million

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3,

Playstation 3 Sony Computer Entertainment Japan today announced that PS3 shipments in Japan have reached 1 million consoles, according to a Reuters report. Sony’s initial targets were to have 2 million consoles shipped by the end of the year; with today’s announcement, it looks like while Sony made its shipment targets in the US, the company missed its goals in Japan by two weeks. The announcement comes after Japanese analyst Nomura Securities indicated that Sony might miss its worldwide shipping targets by as much as 25% due to lackluster sales. Actual PS3 demand is somewhat hard to gauge, and gamers will probably have to wait for January NPD sales numbers to know the truth. Certainly the initial demand surge has slowed and finding a console has become much easier. Gamestop is trying to drive sales through a $100 PS2 trade-in offer, but still offers expensive bundles online for pre-order only.

PS2 Backups Booting On PS3

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3,

Some enterprising gamer has figured out how to boot PS2 backups on the Playstation 3, assuming that one is willing to dismantle the PS3 and cut a hole in the top cover. Basically, the swap trick is an implementation of an existing hack used on the older Playstation 2 machines. The mod is interesting mainly because it shows off how deep the hardware compatibility for PS2 games goes, but if one really wanted to play back up Playstation 2 software, it probably makes a little more sense to pick up a cheap slimline PS2 and a Swap Magic disc rather than voiding the warrantee and risking the health of a $500 to $600 game console.

Gamestop - Trade in PS2 For $100 Off A PS3

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Hot Deals, Internet, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3,

Gamestop’s obviously got some PS3’s in stock, and they’re looking to get rid of them. Their most recent deal offers you $100 off a PS3 (either the 20GB “crippled” version or the 60GB hotness) if you trade in your PS2, a second PS2 controller, and a PS2 8MBB memory card. If you’ve got a second PS2 lying around for those times when you’re getting the infamous “disc read error”, then this might be a good deal. But until Nyko releases their USB-to-PS2 controller adapter, you might want to hold off… the lack of complete backwards compatibility and the lack of PS2 ports for games like Guitar Hero might leave you with an empty feeling inside.

Rumor: Saints Row Coming to PS3?

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, PlayStation 3, Rumors, THQ,

EBGames/Gamestop’s website is quickly becoming the source of choice for new game rumors that end up being true. So when their website listed Saints Row for the PS3 and then quickly took it down, it set off quite a buzz. Now keep in mind, Gamestop probably has their fair share of bad web programmers and crappy database administrators working for them, so this could all just be a simple mix-up of placing the game under the wrong console. But if we didn’t fan the flames of interesting rumors, we wouldn’t be good bloggers, now would we??!

Nyko To Release USB-to-PS2 port adapter for Playstation 3

Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, PlayStation 3, Rumors,

Description One of the big disappointments for fans of Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution and similar controller-specific games was that the Playstation 3 wouldn’t be featuring PS2 ports of any kind on it’s sleek black exterior. Fortunately, it looks like Nyko’s got you covered. Sometime in the near future, Nyko will be releasing a USB-to-PS2 controller port adapter that’ll have you shredding up “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” in no time. The good folks over at Kotaku were the first to break the news, and state that the controller adapter will work with the Guitar Hero guitar which presumably means that it should work with all other “non-traditional” PS2 controllers.

Now, Sony just needs to make sure that the backwards compatibility updates for the PS3 keep on coming…

Japanese Hardware, Software Markets Show Massive Growth

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360,

DS Lite Japanese publisher Enterbrain has released the software and hardware sales totals for 2006. According to a report from Gamasutra, the publisher is claiming that Japanese video game hardware grew year over year 160%, while software sales grew 125%. The best selling hardware for the year was, of course, the Nintendo DS, moving over 7.5 million handhelds. Software sales charts were also dominated by the DS, which represented 8 of the top 10 titles of the year. Leading the list was Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The top non-DS title was Square’s Final Fantasy XII for the PS2. Wii Sports made the top 100 in the 21st position, but no title for the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3 were represented on the list. Nintendo managed to completely dominate Japan this year, and so far there are no signs of this changing any time soon.

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