GamerNode: Latest PlayStation 3 News

PS3 sales in Q1 2008 twice that of 2007

Sony is steadily marching back into the thick of the console fight, and they've got the numbers to prove it. The company has announced that worldwide sales of the PlayStation 3 for the first quarter of 2008 reached a total of 1.56 million units, more than doubling the number sold during the same period last year.

The PSP, too, is selling more this year than last, shifting 3.72 million units worldwide, up from 2.13 million in 2007.

More numbers tell us that software sales are also on the rise, with the PS3 selling 22.8 million games and the PSP moving 11.8 million. Those are 18.1 million and 2 million unit increases, respectively.

The PlayStation 2 is the only piece of Sony gaming hardware to see a decrease, down to only 1.51 million units for the quarter.

Sony expects to sell 10 million PS3s ...

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Sony wants PS3 to appeal to a broader audience

Casual gaming seems to be having a pretty strong effect on the game industry as the big boss of Sony, Kaz Hirai, has taken notice and will be trying to shift the PS3 into the PS2's shoes...a game console that will appeal to a broader audience.

"If we're talking about the casual gamer, the PS2 is probably the right choice for them. We don't need the PS3 to feel like the console that will appeal to everyone at this point. We don't need to have one console try to be everything to everybody just yet," said Hirai.

He wants the PS3 to evolve. "Just as the PS2 marketing and positioning has evolved over the past ten years, we'll make sure the PS3 messaging evolves as well."

Hirai didn't specifically state what the "evolving message" is going to be, but if he is talking about following the footsteps o...

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Why no Red Alert for PS3. EA says "Too tough..."

About a month ago Electronic Arts revealed that Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 was pulled from development. No details were given as to why and no information was released about when the project would be started up again.

However, new information from EA says that Red Alert 3 was put on hold because it is too hard to program for. Amer Ajami, producer at EALA said:

"We actually announced a PS3 version early on but that was when we were still doing a lot of technical exploration of the architecture. PS3 is a very powerful system but as you guys know it's very exotic and tough to develop for and our engine really at the time wasn't designed for PS3."

However, not all is lost as Ajami said that EALA "might go back and do something with the PS3 later on."

Ajami's comment about the PS3 being "toug...

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Home to be delayed again?

Warning PlayStation 3 owners, Home may be delayed for a third time. While not confirmed by the Sony camp, a recent interview with Kaz Hirai is sure to have fans worried.

In the interview Mr. Hirai reflects on the last two Home delays and explains why he felt they were in the best interest of the product and the fans it would be reaching. Mr. Hirai feels it is better to release a fully featured and complete product as opposed to one which is half done. If Home is good enough, no one will complain once it finally hits.

"As I've said on numerous occasions, I'd much rather make sure we take the time to have a great service rather than rush something into the market - only for consumers to say: 'This is not enough for me.' I want to avoid that. If we have the right service, it doesn't matter wh...

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Resistance 2 beta now going worldwide

Insomniac says that the upcoming public multiplayer beta for Resistance 2 is going to be worldwide and not regional to just North America as originally announced for PSN's exclusive Qore (paying) membership service.

Insomniac said:

"For all of you folks outside of North America are up in arms because Qore is NA only, please don't worry. This is one of many ways to get in, and we plan to make the beta available in all territories, as we need to test all servers and worldwide play. Further details on how to get into the beta will be forthcoming."

This is good news for all PS3 fans. It may also be an indication that the original plans for making the public beta exclusive for Qore users would have shot Insomniac in the foot as subscriptions to the service are minuscule when compared against the ...

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Half off sale at the PlayStation Store

Sony is trying to lure the PS3 faithful into downloading game titles from the PlayStation Store. How? For a limited time only, PSN will be offering several downloadable games at half off.

Until July 31, the following games will be available for the price of only $4.99 per game (normally $9.99 each).

Pain: A game where you "get points by stringing together painful collisions and inducing chaos in the environment. It's the funniest game in town!"

High Velocity Bowling: In this bowling game, the SixAxis controller actually serves a purpose! You'll use the controller "...to simulate a genuine bowling swing with real lane environments, providing a truly next-gen bowling game.

PixelJunk Monsters: "Inspired by the popular and addictive "tower defense genre, PixelJunk Monsters takes the simple real-ti...

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Hirai counters "360 will outsell PS3" statement

Sony Computer Entertainment president Kazuo Hirai recently chatted with MCV, and in between discussion about PlayStation 3 SKUs and Home, he countered Microsoft senior vice president Don Mattrick's E3 claim that the Xbox 360 would outsell the PS3 this console generation.

Hirai's response was simply that Microsoft's definition of the term "generation" may be different from Sony's, and he reiterated Sony's plan to support the PS3 for a long, 10-year lifecycle.

"The key word there is this 'lifecycle' or 'this generation.' As you probably know, we're working on a ten-year lifecycle, we've said that since day one and we've proven it with PSOne and PS2. I guess Don is saying they're also going to be embarking on a ten-year lifecycle, then? If they are then that's terrific, but I've never seen them...

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New Killzone 2 trailer for PS3 is here

A new trailer for Killzone 2 multiplayer is out.

The video is only about a minute long, but so far, it looks pretty good. One thing we know from the trailer is that K2 is coming out in February 2009, so hopefully, we'll all finally be able to see just how good Sony's answer to Gears, CoD4 and Halo3 is.

The maps look detailed and the action sequences are nice. Hopefully the gameplay will be nice as well.

For a look at the trailer, make the jump to the next page.

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New Killzone 2 gameplay video

Behold the latest video of what was once labeled a misrepresentation of how well the PS3 can perform. Does it surpass the graphic prowess of Gear of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, or Call of Duty 4? You be the judge. Too bad we have to wait until early 2009 to play this bad boy.

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Sony's got an Afrikan orchestra

Sony has remained relatively quiet about the upcoming photojournalistic safari sim, Afrika, for the PlayStation 3. The following video clip, however, is anything but that.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of the game's soundtrack by composer Wataru Hokoyama and his orchestra, who have done work for award-winning independent films, the Dungeons and Dragons movie, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Have yourselves a listen, and hopefully I'll have myself a gameplay session at E3 next week.

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A conversation with a Sony head

It's not often that one gets to sit down with the head of a major studio. It's even less often that one gets to sit down with the head of Sony's Worldwide Studio.  Luckily, someone did. (Unluckily that person wasn't me.)

Fortunately with the power of the Internet at my disposal I can easily direct you to not only ThreeSpeach, the 'semi-official' PlayStation blog, but also their interview with Shuhei Yoshida (the aforementioned head of Worldwide Studios).

Since the interview questions are being asked by someone who is quite literally on the Sony payroll they are more on the mild side.  It's more of a 'getting to know the guy who replaced Phil Harrison' piece than anything else but there are a few interesting bits hidden behind the fluff.

Mr. Yoshida talks about why there are fewer third party ...

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Despite rumors, Kratos NOT in PS3 Soul Calibur 4

It looks like the Ghost of Sparta will not be joining the cast of Namco Bandai's upcoming Soul Calibur 4 on the PlayStation 3, after all.

Last week, the internet was abuzz with rumblings from EGM's Quartermann that Kratos would be making a guest appearance in the PS3 version of the game. This was a highly believable claim, considering the franchise's history. Link, Heihachi, and Spawn all appeared in Soul Calibur III, and Darth Vader, Yoda, and Starkiller have already been confirmed for SCIV.

Unfortunately, the rumor was shot down during the latest 1UP Yours podcast, where it was confirmed that after spending hours with the game, Kratos is nowhere to be found.

Of course that doesn't rule out downloadable content to come later on, but for now God of War fans are out of luck.

[via 1UP, QJ.net]...

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Sony pulls 2.40 update for PS3 off servers

Yesterday it was reported all over the internet that firmware version 2.40 was crashing and freezing up PS3s after installation.

Sony has announced that it has pulled the update from its servers and will be keeping the PS3 community in the loop with "further information" as it tries to solve the issues, which Sony states, has only affected a small number of machines.

On the official PlayStation Blog, Patrick Seybold, director of corporate communications at Sony said,

"As has been reported on many gaming blogs and websites, we have temporarily taken Firmware v2.40 offline. We've received a limited number of calls from consumers experiencing an issue with installing the system software update on their PS3.

"While our consumer services department has seen a low volume of calls on this topic, w...

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Firmware update 2.40 reportedly crashes PS3s

The latest firmware update for the PS3, version 2.40, is apparently causing problems for some PlayStation 3 owners. Reports are coming in from the US PlayStation forums that the newest firmware is causing quite a few lock-ups and freezes on the game console.

The problems may be associated with the earliest versions of the PS3--a similar situation that also surfaced with the release of GTA IV where the loading screen remained frozen during installation.

One forum member described what happened after he updated to firmware 2.40. "Well, I downloaded version 2.40 put in metal gear solid 4 and i get a black screen forever..i cant even get demos to start..I got my Ps3 on Launch day..So my warrenty (sp) is out now..Any advice? I can take a vid if anyone wants."

One user said that his PS3 power butto...

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PS3 firmware 2.4 info explosion

According to anonymous sources of the shadow ninja variety, Sony is planning to unveil their newest PlayStation 3 firmware, version 2.4, sometime right around this year's E3 Media and Business Summit.

The major improvements expected to be a part of this update include a "trophy system" to rival Xbox achievements, improved integration of social networking features, and in-game access to items in the PS3 Xross Menu Bar (XMB).

As you can see in the following leaked screenshot of what appears to be the PS3 trophy page, awards will be arranged in a tiered structure, and will consist of bronze, silver, gold, and platinum types. Platinum trophies will only be awarded after a player has collected all other trophies for a particular game. The other tiers are likely to correspond to achievements with ...

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Sony takes a huge beating on PS3 research

So we can all agree the PlayStation 3 has swallowed the most money out of our pockets for a gaming unit. Sorry PCs you don't count. One would think then, Sony would be rolling in the dough.

Think again. Turns out Sony has actually lost money, in the billions of dollars, for the past two years since the PlayStation 3 has been on the market. In 2007 it was $2.16 billion dollars in the hole and in 2008 a mere $1.16 billion.

The PlayStation 3 has cost Sony over three billion dollars and thanks to the slow uptake due to the initial high price of the console, Sony doesn't look like it is recouping the loss as quickly as it would like. The majority of the money was lost in research and development. In order to create a machine which could last for years, give developers mountains of power to wo...

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Older gamers prefer PlayStation 3?

According to a new study by Experian Consumer Research, Sony's PlayStation 3 seems to have captured the eldest end of the gaming market, apparently being the most popular videogame console among customers 45 and up. The Xbox 360 leads in the 35-44 year-old range, and the Wii has claimed the youngest demographic in the study, gamers between 18 and 24. For the 24-34 year-old crowd, all three consoles are relatively equal.

Among other things, the study examined Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners' leisure activities outside of gaming. While 360 owners were shown to be far more likely than PS3 owners to read gaming magazines and equally as likely to play board games or read books, PS3 owners spend more time attending antique shows and doing needlework.

This is all compelling data, but one must als...

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MGS4 Database now available on PSN

To understand everything that the Metal Gear Solid franchise has put on the table you would most likely need a Cliffs Notes booklet handy. From spies to who is the son of who, and who killed him when he was dead before while someone else was controlling the controller.

So if you are one of those gamers who want to know a little more about the backstory of MGS, Konami yesterday provided players a database that will hopefully answer all of your questions.

According to the official PlayStation Blog:

"The MGS4 Database is a free, downloadable interactive application that contains the official knowledge base of everything that is Metal Gear, reaching all the way back to the very beginning of the franchise. Including complete storylines, character profiles, relationship diagrams, and much more! T...

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Metal Gear Solid 4 sells well in Japan

As of right now, Metal Gear Solid 4 has sold approximately 465,000 copies in Japan in the first week of sales, putting Konami on the top spot of the charts. We are not quite sure how big of an impact it had on PS3 hardware sales, but Famitsu believes somewhere in the range of 70,000 sales just for that week. What we do know is that the week prior to release, MGS4 shifted 10,856 sales of the PS3.

The top 40 was made up of 15 games on DS, nine on Wii, three on PSP, two on PS3 and one on PS2.

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Heavenly Sword 2 a no go?

While it was a huge hit at E3 2006, Heavenly Sword didn't turn out to be the monumental smash hit Sony had been hoping for. The game was good, but had some lingering problems that stopped it from being a system seller.

Talk of Heavenly Sword 2 has persisted for some time, but there has been a new rumor surrounding the franchise -- that the sequel had been canceled.

Ninja Theory, who worked on the original Heavenly Sword were not the creative minds behind Heavenly Sword 2, though. According to the unconfirmed story, due to some poor treatment by Sony, Ninja Theory very quickly decided they wanted nothing to do with their previous partner and would move on to bigger and better prospects.

But don't worry, because even though original news articles stated they were literally packing their bags...

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