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While at Sega’s recent press preview event, Gaming Age was able to grab a few pictures of Sony’s Playstation 3 final development kits and near final Playstation 3 controllers. The kit itself looks pretty much like a desktop PC, with additional slots and indicators for the Playstation 3 specific hardware. The Playstation 3 controllers appear basically like they did at E3, with the standard dual analog configuration. Gaming Age also commented on how quiet the development kits were. This won’t really be an indication of the actual noise levels of the retail console, since that will have a different case and cooling configuration, it is somewhat reassuring that the development kits don’t run super hot.
Read More 
| Gaming Age
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As the launch date of the Playstation 3 gets nearer and nearer, industry analysts are busy trying to glean any information they can to make predictions on how console market share will shape up as Sony and Nintendo join the battle. Many predictions have Sony still sitting at the top percentage-wise, but ceding some ground to competitors Microsoft and Nintendo. Gamespot was able to talk with Kaz Hirai about his predictions for this generation of gaming, and about how the system launch is going so far.
Hirai, of course, is aiming at maintaining or increasing their share over the Playstation 2; Sony can’t very well go into the next round thinking they are going to lose. However, once Gamespot starts drilling into launch preparations, things start to get a little vague.
Sony still aims at getting 2 million units shipped worldwide. But contrary to reports a while back that the first PS3 units were rolling off the production line, Hirai admits that they “haven’t started manufacturing yet… they are, again, preparing as we speak to get the manufacturing going.” Retail merchandising is still being planned as well. Apparently, Sony still hasn’t solidified their launch lineup, but software can be delivered in a much tighter window. Still, retailers will need to start lining up the forced bundles soon, and Hirai isn’t willing to even estimate the number of titles that will be available.
Hirai also talks about the PSP: no re-design is planned soon, and Sony seems to be happy with the price point right now, so he again confirms that there are no plans to drop the price of the console. Right now it appears that Sony hopes that new features like the Sony Connect service will help turn things around, and that by offering downloadable video and game content, this will increase the value proposition for their handheld.
Read More | Gamespot
IGN Peeks At Final PS3 Development Kits
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3,
During the recent preview of Pseudo Interactive’s Full Auto 2: Battlelines for the Playstation 3, IGN was able to get a look at the final Playstation 3 development kits. According to their reports, the development kits were quite polished, which will be good news for consumers looking to pick up a console in a couple of months. First, IGN reported that the development hardware was both quieter and cooler than expected. Pseudo Interactive also seemed pleased with the development environment, and the wireless controllers worked well. All of the multiplayer sessions of Full Auto were handled with eight machines running over the PlayStation Network without lag, apparently, which also bodes well for online play in the future. The PS3 menuing system also seems to borrow a little from the Xbox 360 configuration; according to IGN, the PS3 menu was “easy to pull up in-game by quickly pressing the PlayStation button, which popped up an overlaid menu on top of the screen.” With roughly three months until Playstation 3 consoles hit stores in the US, it looks like things are actually dropping into place for launch.
Read More | IGN
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Official Playstation Magazine Editor Chooses 360
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
The blog world has been buzzing lately over the decision of one of the editors of the Official Playstation Magazine choosing to buy an Xbox 360 this holiday over the Playstation 3. Dana Jongewaard lists the following reasons: the $600 price tag, the lack of exclusive titles, and the crappy television set that she owns. These are all valid reasons not to choose the Playstation 3. However, this seems like kind of an empty choice. Magazine editors don’t get free consoles for their personal use. I’m sure the rest of the gaming world is shedding a tear over this. The fact remains that as an editor of the official Playstation magazine, that person has access to a Playstation 3 for use during the course of his or her job. Also, if Ms. Jongewaard only has a cheap 21 inch TV, why would she need the $600 version of the Playstation 3? Certainly the old television doesn’t have HDMI inputs, so the $500 version of the console would work just fine. Of course, a $100 price difference just doesn’t have the sympathetic impact that $200 does. A number of gamers are going to work the math and end up choosing the Xbox 360 over the Playstation 3. However, a person who already essentially has unlimited access to a Playstation 3 (even if it isn’t for “personal use”) buying an Xbox 360 doesn’t have much persuasive impact.
Read More | 1up
Gamers are approximately three months away from the launch of the Playstation 3, yet positive buzz seems hard to come by for Sony’s new console. At E3 2005, it looked like Sony had the goods to dominate the next round of the console war. But since then, it seems like Sony is getting battered by all sides by bad news. Jack Schofield at the Guardian looks at why Sony is having so many problems.
Shofield traces the issues back to the Killzone demo shown at E3 2005; while Sony initially claimed this to be gameplay footage, but general consensus on the Internet was that this was pre-rendered. When Sony followed up at E3 2006, the demonstrations shown were markedly less impressive. Couple these issues with the general lack of polish of their pre-E3 announcement and one can see why mindshare in the gaming public started to shift.
Other high profile problems with Cell and Blu-Ray also surfaced, further tarnishing the PS3’s reputation. Shofield suggests that Sony’s methods of dealing with incorrect or bad news on the Internet hardly helps their problem. While Microsoft has Larry Hyrb and his Major Nelson blog to help defuse erroneous statements on the Internet, Sony responds via public relations. When the Sony heads of state do respond to bad news, their responses are typically seen as either arrogant or rude.
When Shofield talked to Phil Harrison, though, he got a fairly upbeat response. According to Harrison, 10,000 development kits have shipped, and many developers now have Blu-ray burners, so disc-based development is proceeding. Harrison claims that 100 games are currently in development. Sony still has its backers; there are developers that believe in the Playstation 3, and many believe that Blu-Ray can be a real differentiator. Given Sony’s past success, it is hard to bet against the company, but companies can lose large leads quickly. Witness Sega and Nintendo, whose missteps took them out of their leading positions in the console wars. Nintendo has since regained a lot of respect, but it has been a hard fight for them. Sony’s lead in the gaming arena means that the battle is still theirs to lose, but Sony will need some good buzz leading up to their launch to help them succeed.
Read More | The Guardian
Today’s Bad PS3 News: Atari, SNK Delaying Development
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, Fighting, PlayStation 3, Release Dates,
With the news of development costs for Playstation 3 games soaring (think Stranglehold or Heavenly Sword), a couple development firms are already starting to shy away from Sony’s expensive next-gen platform. The companies’ concerns are two-fold, actually - first, with the time required to create photo-realistic textures, character models, and animations, firms have to spend Hollywood-style sums to produce the expected content for the PS3. But secondly (and perhaps more importantly), with the PS3’s price tag there looms the question of whether the system will ever see the size of installed user base the PS2 has.
For these reasons presumably, Atari and SNK have both announced that they will not be supporting the PS3 platform in the near future. Atari has stated, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz that the PS3 will not see any new titles from the company “until 2007”. Given that Atari recently sold its Driver franchise to Ubisoft and has been seeing lackluster earnings reports, it’s questionable how much of an impact their announcement will have on Sony’s success. SNK is a slightly stranger piece of news - during a recent interview with Kotaku, they stated:
“There won’t be enough consoles at launch. Few consoles mean few software sales. We need to wait three or four years. Maybe 2009-2010 is a good time to release a game for the PS3”
Coming from most companies, this analysis would make a lot of sense… but SNK, whose success in the games industry has been mainly based on artistically brilliant 2-D fighters and side-scrollers?? For SNK, it seems like development costs shouldn’t really be an issue - the fact that the PS3 can shade 60 trillion pixels per second isn’t going to raise development costs much for the primarily hand-drawn Metal Slug franchise. More likely, then, is that they’re concerned with the second point above—SNK really doesn’t believe Sony is going to sell enough systems to make it worth their while.
Of course, the real irony here is that SNK has thrived in recent years thanks to the PS2’s success, and their interview with Kotaku re-affirms their commitment to that console. Will more developers see developing for the PS2 as an alternative to big-budget PS3 titles? It seems if more companies take that route, Sony could become its own worst enemy.
Read More 
| GamesIndustry.biz
Read More | Kotaku.com
EA Reports Financial Results
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Electronic Arts, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Electronic Arts today reported their preliminary financial results for their first fiscal quarter. The period ended on June 30, 2006, and while gross profit for the quarter was up 14 percent to $245 million, the company still reported a net loss of $81 million. Net revenue was up in both North America and Europe, but down in Asia. In this quarter, EA saw increased revenue from 2006 FIFA World Cup, with the tournament raising the game’s profile. CEO Larry Probst believes EA is positioned well to take advantage of the holiday launches of both the Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii, and the continued growth of the Nintendo DS. EA holds its position as the leading publisher for the Xbox 360, and Probst stated that EA is “on schedule with strong support for the launch of PlayStation 3 and we have increased our development efforts for the Nintendo DS and Wii.” EA’s fortunes are tied closely to the success of the various hardware platforms; their projections for the upcoming year are based on successful launches for both the Wii and the Playstation 3. The company still projects to lose money in the second quarter, which typically is not a strong driver of sales. For the full fiscal year, EA estimates earnings per share to range between net losses of $0.30 per share and break even. Given the risk involved with the Playstation 3 launch, EA’s goal of reaching break even during the fiscal year would seem to be optimistic.
Read More | Electronic Arts
Wired: The Infinite Arcade
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
On the surface, the concept of an infinite arcade would appeal to most gamers. Stretching out like some kind of video game equivalent of Borges’ “Library of Babel,” the infinite arcade would promise every kind of game experience ever created. One of the ways the industry is trying to achieve this is through the downloadable game business model. David Kushner of Wired Magazine explores this concept, through the eyes of the gaming industry.
There have been some successes in this arena; Kushner brings up Geometry Wars, one of Microsoft’s hits on their Xbox Live Arcade service. Peter Moore seems to believe that downloadable content is the future: “…the concept of driving to the store to buy a plastic disc with data… will be ridiculous.” Both Sony and Nintendo seem to be eager to offer similar content. Valve has built their Steam service, and Turner Broadcasting has invested heavily into the subscription service Gametap. Even the vaporous Phantom was trying to cash in on the downloadable bandwagon.
From the perspective of the game publisher, this model is attractive from a financial point of view; digital downloads are cheaper, there’s no manufacturing or inventory to take care of, and there is no competing for shelf space. However, there are other benefits that go unmentioned in the article. Digital downloads with secure authentication can help reduce piracy; when a user is determined to have violated the terms of service, their rights to the game can simply be revoked. Moore believes the plastic disc will become a quaint concept, but as the disc goes away, so does the concept of ownership. While future generations might laugh at having to buy cartridges and DVD-ROMs, the current generation values the ability to have ownership of physical media.
The other option that content providers may be salivating over is the ability to make consumers pay for the same content, over and over again. In the physical media world, providers make this happen by staging various DVD special editions over the years; witness George Lucas and his fan-base provoking staged Star Wars releases. In the physical-media free world, content providers can now fragment their content. Developers offer game collections with multiple games; the individual games can now be sold separately at $5 a pop. Gamefly gets users on the hook for $9.99 per month to continue playing their old content. Used games become a thing of the past, and forget returning games that don’t deliver on their promise. Downloadable games can be locked to a specific console, so users can’t let a friend borrow a game that they have finished. Backwards compatibility becomes a joke when gamers that buy a new console have to re-purchase all of their downloaded content anyway.
The infinite arcade seems like a dream, but way that game publishers provide the content would appear to take away a lot of freedom from the gaming public.
Read More | Wired
Mova: Next Generation Motion Capture?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
Motion capture has long been a method for computer animators to realistically portray action in a game or movie. Movies like the Lord of the Rings and The Polar Express have used the technique to try and bring life to their animated characters. At the same time, one of the challenges of computer animation has been avoiding the “uncanny valley.” The phenomenon posited by Masahori Mori defines the feelings of revulsion that occur when artificial entities approach, but don’t precisely mirror real life. Gamers who have seen the Heavy Rain trailer can attest to this problem in the gaming world.
Dean Takahashi of the Mercury News talked with Steve Perlman about a new technology that might help reduce the uncanny valley from games and movies. The company, Mova, is pursuing a new technology they call Contour, that allows for better resolution capture of facial animation. According to Perlman, the technology promises to be faster and more accurate, requiring less touch-up work. The company hopes to have a finished product available by this fall. The article also links to an example of the results of a motion capture session; the resolution does seem good, but it is hard to judge the effectiveness of the technology without an in-game context.
Read More | Mercury News
Playstation 3 Will Give You “Entitlements”
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Hot Deals, Internet, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
Kaz Hirai was right! Microsoft really does copy everything Sony does. Who knew that, by launching their “achievements” system, Microsoft was actually preemptively copying Sony’s original idea of “entitlements”. See, the idea behind this completely new concept is that, by achieving certain goals in PS3 games, you will be awarded so-called entitlements which give you unlockable points, awards, and of course bragging rights amongst other gamers! What an innovative and addictive gameplay idea!
Sarcasm aside, this does seem like a wise move by Sony. Given the popularity of the 360’s achievements system, this seems like a great way to keep gamers interested in their PS3 games and logged-in to Sony’s online service. But next time, try to come up with a better name and some actual innovation, OK Sony?
Read More | British Gaming Blog via Opposable Thumbs
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