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Sony Reduces Profit Outlook 62 Percent
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, PlayStation 3, PSP,
Sony today cut their profit outlook by 62 percent, blaming battery recall costs, the Japanese Playstation 3 price cut, and weaker than expected sales of their PSP console. According to a Reuters report, Sony reduced its profit target for the year to 50 billion yen from previous estimates of 130 billion yen. In addition, Sony reduced its PSP shipment target to 9 million units, down 25 percent from previous estimates. While Sony has seen the PSP console fail to meet sales projections, Nintendo has raised their sales target over the same period, making Sony’s assertions that they are holding their own in the market suspect.
Read More 
| Reuters
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Playstation 3 Gets Yellow Dog Linux
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, PlayStation 3,
Sony Computer Entertainment released a version of Linux for the original Playstation 2 through a hardware and software kit, and now it looks like that Playstation 3 will be getting its own version of the open source operating system. Terra Soft will be providing a version of Yellow Dog Linux for the Playstation 3. While the original Linux kit for the Playstation 2 was clearly targeted at Linux enthusiasts with its command line based installation, the new version from Terra Soft promises to be more user-friendly, with a graphical, single-click installation. While specific hardware and peripheral support has not been announced, Terra Soft has indicated that a number of software packages will be included with the distribution, including FireFox and OpenOffice, making the Playstation 3 potentially a fully functioning computer. This could open up the platform to homebrew developers as well, depending on how much hardware access is allowed by Sony.
Terra Soft’s complete press release continues below.
Click to continue reading Playstation 3 Gets Yellow Dog Linux
Read More | Terra Soft
Playstation 3 Could See Exclusive GTA IV Content
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Adventure, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360,
According to Eurogamer, Rockstar North is working on exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV content for the Playstation 3 on top of the already announced downloadable episodes for the Xbox 360. Speaking with a source “close to Rockstar North,” Eurogamer reports that the new content should be “much the same deal” as the Xbox 360, “except unique to the platform.” While far from being confirmed, exclusive content would certainly help Rockstar maintain a good relationship with Sony. And, of course, this would force true Grand Theft Auto fans to lay out more money to have all the content available to them.
Read More | Eurogamer
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IGN Says Near-Final PS3 Controller Feels Light, Cheap
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Screenshots,
IGN PS3 may be impressed with the PS3’s appearance and performance, but that doesn’t mean they like everything about the console. This week, in between 1) bragging about how they actually got to touch a real live PS3 and 2) putting the wireless controller through the ultimate stress test, they actually sat down and played some games on the machine.
While I’ve never found the PS2’s Dual-Shock controller particularly comfortable, IGN had even harsher words for the newly-renamed SIXAXIS. Among their complaints - light weight, plasticky feel, and hard-to-use shoulder buttons. Could it be because, say, the controller was quickly and shoddily designed to mimic some of the Wii’s functionality?? Only Sony execs will ever know… Anyways, see IGN’s full thoughts after the jump.
Click to continue reading IGN Says Near-Final PS3 Controller Feels Light, Cheap
Read More | IGN PS3
Playstation 3 Pre-Orders Kill Amazon Japan
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3,
This Sunday in Japan brought the availability of Playstation 3 pre-orders for both the 20 GB and 60 GB versions of the console. CheapyD, proprietor of Cheap Ass Games was online and ready to place his pre-order. Apparently, the massive amounts of traffic hitting the site was able to bring down the Japanese shopping cart system. Ultimately, the pre-order was placed, but the full recap is available at CheapAssGamer.com.
Read More | CheapAssGamer
Playstation 3 Television Commercials Appear
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3,
It looks like Sony’s television advertising campaign has started to hit the airwaves, and of course the ad has been uploaded online. It would be too straightforward for Sony to show any gameplay video at this point, so gamers get treated to an abstract commercial promising that “the wait is over” and the launch date of November 17th. Now, for most people, the wait really won’t be over on launch day given the small quantities of the console that Sony is shipping, but the ad at least offers hope for thirteen-year old kids on rooftops across America.
Read More | NeoGAF
Analysts Talk Latest NPD Data
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Xbox, Xbox 360,
The latest NPD data showed strong September sales growth; 38% over 2005. Nintendo and the DS showed strong growth, and the “next generation” transition doesn’t seem to have hurt the industry as much as expected. But hidden in the NPD data are some interesting points that various analysts have started to dissect. GameDaily reports on analysis from Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities, and Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel. Pachter sees the PS2 growth as a good sign, with software sales up 12 percent compared to last year. But the original Xbox has been fading fast. As one looks at the numbers, it appears that the Xbox 360 is completely cannibalizing the original Xbox user base. The Xbox 360 seems to be pushing better than expected software sales, a good thing for Microsoft.
Still, things don’t appear to be completely rosy in the Xbox 360 camp. Jeetil Patel feels like the Xbox 360 is underperforming. Tracking the Xbox 360 versus the original Xbox’s sales path seems to indicate that the Xbox 360 has moved fewer net units than the original Xbox at this point in the console life cycle; the lack of units during Microsoft’s holiday launch last year really set the company back. In addition, NPD data has the total Xbox 360 sell through at approximately 2.7 million units. Japan adds only a fraction to that number, with well under 200,000 units sold through in that territory. An optimistic projection for the Xbox 360 in the rest of the world might match the US total. At this point, it is starting to look like Microsoft’s projections of a 10 million unit head start by the time the Playstation 3 launches was extremely aggressive. With probably just over six million Xbox 360 consoles moved worldwide to date, Microsoft would have to nearly double their worldwide sales in October and November to match their goals before Sony’s November launch of the Playstation 3.
Read More | GameDaily BIZ
PS3 Online Network Service Preview
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, PlayStation 3,
Not a whole lot is known about Sony’s online functionality for the PS3. The service has been announced as free, and Sony promised to support functionality similar to that of Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Eurogamer was able to get a more detailed preview directly from Sony, as to what gamers can expect when they get their console online. Previously published reports have shown off the cross-bar, the PSP-like UI for the console. Sony’s Phil Harrison also described the included web browser, which should be a fully standards enabled browser to allow access to rich content on the Internet.
Eurogamer delves a little more into how users will be managed on the console. Sony has a concept of a master account and associated accounts. Master accounts have full access to their content, while an associated account can be restricted to allow kids access to the machine. Sony says that this will be a single sign-in for all of the network enabled games. How this will integrate with third-party back-ends like GameSpy and Xfire was not discussed.
Finally, Eurogamer also got a preview of Sony’s online store system; there are some interesting concepts for the store that are discussed, including Sony’s online walleting system. Interestingly, Sony has indicated that all store items will be priced in local currency rather than an ambiguous points system. While there isn’t a ton of new information in the preview, it is interesting to see more of what Sony has planned for their online ambitions.
Read More | Eurogamer
New Survey Shows PS3 First, Xbox 360 Last
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
A new survey from recently the recently formed research company Interpret shows the Xbox 360 trailing in mindshare in the next generation console wars. Interpret’s survey targeted 2,000 online users; these users were then apparently weighted against 2004 Census data. In the data released to Next Generation, the weighted data shows 8.9 million consumers ready to pony up money for the PS3, 5.7 million would purchase the Wii, and 800,000 would buy the Xbox 360 at full price. It’s hard to attach much weight to the survey, though, without further information.
While Interpret LLC is a new company, its founders consist of veterans from ratings giant Nielsen; there is a lot of experience at the helm. But without more particulars, it is hard to judge if Interpret’s extrapolations are valid. There are some interesting points from the research; Interpret believes that while Microsoft has had tremendous success over the past year, the company has not been able to expand its audience beyond the hardcore gamer. It is also easy for gamers online to get an insulated view of the industry. Certainly, Sony has had a lot of bad news related to the Playstation 3, but a lot of this information will not trickle down to the mainstream audience. While this survey paints a bad picture for Microsoft, there is a huge gap between surveys, statistics, and the real world.
Read More | Next Generation
Xfire Announces PS3 Middleware Solution, Wii Possible
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Nintendo, PC, PlayStation 3, Wii,
When 1up apparently found clues pointing to Sony using Xfire as a matching service for their Playstation 3 Network, Sony representatives were quick to downplay this as a part of the Xfire integration for Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom and not as a part of Sony’s official network.
Xfire today clarified their support on Untold Legends with GameSpot, indicating that on the PC and PS3, Xfire will be providing “cross-platform text chat and friends-list features” with support for new features in the future. In addition, Xfire will be licensing their middleware to other companies that want to bring advanced matchmaking features to the Playstation 3. Xfire also let slip that they were in talks with “one other console maker,” so unless Xfire is very confused, this would likely be Nintendo.
With the announcement that Untold Legends will support Xfire, and Full Auto 2 will utilize GameSpy’s services, it is starting to look more and more that Sony’s online network may be more bare-bones, with its own sign-in, but leaving more advanced networking features to established companies for the time being. This doesn’t preclude Sony from implementing these features in the future, but it does seem to indicate that Sony doesn’t quite have everything laid out right now and are instead leveraging partnerships to get the functionality that they want.
Read More | Gamespot
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