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Sony Profits Drop 5% On PS3 Launch Costs
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP,
Sony’s 3rd quarter financial results reflect a 5% drop in net profit year-over-year largely due to costs incurred launching the Playstation 3. A BusinessWeek report on the financial results indicates that despite this loss, Sony has raised its guidance for the year due to its successes in the flat-panel TV and digital camera arenas. While the games division used to be a huge profit center for Sony, lately gaming has been dragging the company down. Sony missed its shipment targets for the Playstation 3, but still believes it is on track to ship 6 million consoles worldwide by the end of March. Still, Playstation 2 and PSP unit sales were down. Third quarter sales of the Playstation 2 were down 1.25 million units to 4.11 million sold, a decrease of roughly 30%. Sales of the PSP were down even more; the company moved only 1.76 million handhelds compared to over 6 million sold during the third quarter of 2005, a decrease of nearly 75%. Sony seems to be losing battles on two fronts right now, with lost opportunities on the Playstation 3 side leading to conversions to either Nintendo’s Wii or the Microsoft Xbox 360. The PSP is getting beat up horrendously by the Nintendo DS; while Sony’s handheld had held its ground for quite some time, its popularity now appears to be fading. Sony hopes to get things turned around with the Playstation 3 soon; console availability doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem as a lack of exclusive titles.
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| Sony Financial Release [PDF]
Read More 
| BusinessWeek
Gallery: Sony Profits Drop 5% On PS3 Launch Costs
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Wii Modchips Materialize
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, Nintendo, Wii,
A couple of modchips for the Nintendo Wii have surfaced on the web lately; the first would be the Wiinja chip, a bare chip mod. The second is a little more interesting, promising more in its featureset. Maxconsole reports that the CycloWiz mod solution for the Wii may be arriving as early as this week. The developers at Teamcyclops promise support for Wii backups, Gamecube Backups, and Gamecube homebrew games in an easy to install quicksolder package. The chip itself doesn’t seem to have a method to update it, and it doesn’t currently support Wii import gaming. Overall, though, the chip is an interesting start if hack does what it promises.
Read More | Maxconsole
Gallery: Wii Modchips Materialize
It looks like someone has found yet another use for Nintendo’s Wiimote: controlling an industrial robot. A couple of engineers at USMechatronics put together a software control program that let them control a Kuka KR16 industrial robot. Unfortunately, time limitations didn’t let them implement a real-time control scheme, but what they came up with is still pretty cool. Using existing PC driver software for the Wiimote and some custom VB.Net code, USM built a simple pattern recognition engine that would let the robot play back pre-recorded movements based on their similarity to the motions that the user would attempt with the Wiimote. The video shows off some of the results, some with a tennis racket mounted, and others with a sword. Handing a weapon to an industrial robot might just be how the robot revolution begins, but given the fact that other projects at the company include robotic sentry guns, it would appear that the company has ample methods to defend itself.
Read More | USMechatronics
Gallery: The Industrial Wiibot
Xbox 360 Q2: Sales Up, Losses Widen
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, Xbox 360,
Microsoft shipped 4.4 million Xbox 360 consoles in the second quarter, according to their recently released financial results. Xbox revenue increased 76% year over year, but the Entertainment and Devices division still posted a quarterly loss of $289 million. According to Gamasutra, Microsoft partially blamed the losses on the launch of the Zune and changes to the Xbox 360 warrantee program from 90 days to one full year. Speaking with investors via conference call, Microsoft also adjusted their full year estimates for Xbox 360 shipments down to 12 million, from its previous estimates of 13 – 15 million. Overall, Microsoft should be pleased with the sales of the Xbox 360 this holiday season, but the upcoming year may be challenging as the company competes head on with Nintendo and Sony for marketshare.
Read More | Gamasutra
Gallery: Xbox 360 Q2: Sales Up, Losses Widen
Nintendo Flys High On Wii, DS Sales
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,
Nintendo today reported its nine-month financials for the fiscal year; sales for the nine month period are up 73%, with a profit increase of 43%, according to an Associated Press report. Gross sales grew from 412 billion yen to 713 billion yen ($5.9 billion) for this year; profit grew to 132 billion yen ($1.1 billion) from 92.2 billion the previous year. Nintendo sold 3.19 million Wii consoles worldwide, and said that they shipped 4 million, leaving roughly 800,000 units in distribution channels. The company’s decision to avoid costly air freight probably hindered their distribution efforts. Nintendo also estimated that the Wii strap recall would cost the company approximately 1 billion yen, about $8 million. Nintendo also announced that they had sold 18.9 million DS handhelds worldwide, and in a related press release Nintendo of America announced that they have shipped 10 million handhelds in “the Americas.”
Read More | BusinessWeek
Gallery: Nintendo Flys High On Wii, DS Sales
Sony Announces European PS3 Launch Date, Price
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 3,
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe announced that the Playstation 3 will be available across Europe on March 23rd. Sony expects to have one million PS3 consoles available for the initial launch. Only 60 GB configurations will be shipped to Europe initially, for Euro 599 or GBP 425. At current exchange rates, this puts the UK price point at approximately 840 US dollars and the Euro price point translates to about $780. The pricing of the Playstation 3 has roughly a 50% price premium over the Xbox 360 Premium configurations in Europe, about the same in the US. The delay in Europe does give Sony the advantage of a fuller launch line-up; assuming that there are no further delays, this means that titles that missed the US launch will be available during the launch window in Europe, including games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Motorstorm It was also announced that the downloadable HD port of Tekken: Dark Resurrection will be available, a title that has not yet seen a release in the US. Hopefully the delay for Europe will mean that Sony’s launch goes much smoother than it did for other territories. Given the low bar the console set in the US and Japan, though, it seems that Sony has nowhere to go but up.
Sony’s full press release continues after the jump.
Click to continue reading Sony Announces European PS3 Launch Date, Price
Gallery: Sony Announces European PS3 Launch Date, Price
Sony Update Fixes Backward Compatibility Glitch
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3,
When Sony released the 1.50 Firmware update in Japan, most of the reaction on the Internet was muted; after all, the upgrade seemed to add support for touchless payment methods and Korean input text via keyboard. However, mentioned almost as a side note, was an update for backward compatibility for PS1 and PS2 games. However, now that the firmware update has dropped for US customers, the compatibility patch now seems to be one of the larger parts of the update. One of the biggest complaints about the Playstation 3 backward compatibility functionality has been graphical glitches in PS1 and PS2 games, particularly when using the advanced connection options of the PS3. The 1.50 update largely fixes these issues, making backward compatibility that much easier to enjoy. There are still some game-specific issues lingering, but PS3 gamers can now play a large majority of their PS2 games glitch-free. The patch gives hope that Sony is listening to the concerns of gamers and that future fixes may yet take care of the remaining issues with the console.
Read More | 1up
Gallery: Sony Update Fixes Backward Compatibility Glitch
20 GB PS3s Get Discounted In Japan
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3,
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.
Read More | Kotaku
Gallery: 20 GB PS3s Get Discounted In Japan
Xbox 360 Controller Tilt Mod
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, Xbox 360,
Enterprising gamer Adam Thole hacked together a tilt sensor for the Xbox 360 controller. The modification essentially replaces the functionality of one of the analog sticks on the Xbox 360; this allows existing games to use the tilt functionality. Thole has also published a video of the controller in use. The functionality doesn’t look bad, and might give an idea of how such control might be integrated into games.
Read More | Adam Thole
Gallery: Xbox 360 Controller Tilt Mod
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.
Read More | PS2 Scene
Gallery: PS2 Backups Booting On PS3
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