GamerNode: Latest PlayStation 3 News

RUMOR: Sony drops funding of L.A. Noire

Surfer Girl, notorious for posting her supposed insider information, whether it be fact or fiction, has some new juicy tidbits on the Rockstar-published L.A. Noire. Most interesting is that the developers of the game, Team Bondi, have lost the financial backing that Sony Entertainment America provided.

She went on to say that the reason behind SCEA's decision was that Team Bondi continually missed deadline after deadline. If Surfer Girl isn't fibbing again, then this doesn't bode well for L.A. Noire's future--SCEA was the only company funding the title.

Of course, Team Bondi is now fully capable of porting the once PS3-exclusive game to the XBox 360 if/when the game is finished. I suppose it's good to hear that developers have no qualms about porting a title once they've lost a console man...

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GH III player lands Guiness record. 889,256 points...

Last weekend, a Guitar Hero III player by the name of Chris Chike drove two hours to a Play N Trade store in Bloomington, Minnesota to compete in the national tournament the retail chain was holding.

It was there that Chike not only bested his previous score of 870,647 points but also landed a spot in the Guiness record books and simultaneously earned himself a whopping $2000.

I'd say that's quite a feat considering this fellow won more money from just one tournament than some tourney players earn in their whole career.

However, the scary part of this news is that while we're all blown away by the examples of Guitar Hero skills we see on Youtube--Chris Chike apparently posesses even more talent than they do.

It would certainly be interesting to actually see this guy play.

[Via Joystiq]

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Rainbow Six and the Internet just broke up

Take away the Internet and you get some pretty angry gamers. UbiSoft released Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 yesterday for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 with much anticipation behind it. Rather than releasing two working games, UbiSoft decided to release only one, a corporate strategy that I would be hesitant to be part of.

Trying to play the PS3 version online is giving people more trouble than it's worth. With gamers on Ubi's official forums reporting frequent "unable to establish a connection to this game" messages, loads of lag and some claim, even a leader board hacker.

Most people are quick to blame UbiSoft for the problems with the game, but has anyone thought it might be the PlayStation Network? I'm always weary about free services because there is no guarentee behind them.

You have nothing in...

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Get some metal gear with your Metal Gear Solid

If there's one thing I don't like about Japan it's that I cannot read Japanese. I was totally bummed out when I discovered a site that had details about the Metal Gear Solid 4 PlayStation 3 (because that's not long...) bundle and I couldn't read it.Thankfully the good people at Kotaku have translated for me.

The Metal Gear Sold bundle, once thought to be a reissue of the Motor Storm bundle, has some surprises in store. This isn't your fathers 80gig PlayStation 3. Oh no. Aside from being packed in with a DualShock 3 controller anyone who can procure this particular PS3 will also get a limited edition color.

Oh, come on. Like you need to ask what color a Metal Gear Solid box is going to be. Obviously steel! I usually don't condone limited edition versions of consoles, probably because I h...

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Can the PS3 host an MMO to rival WoW?

Nowadays, the term MMORPG goes hand in hand with one juggernaut: World of Warcraft. While the MMORPG has generated plenty of funds not only for Blizzard Entertainment but for the PC platform itself, Sony may be planning an ace up its sleeve regarding the MMO potential for the PlayStation 3.

According to comments made by Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, he suggested that the PS3 can host an MMO that can rival the popularity of World of Warcraft but the key word is when?

When asked the question on if a MMO on consoles can do any damage to WoW, Smedley said:

"I absolutely do [think we'll see that], and in fact I think by having a stable platform where every customer has an online capable box is a huge, huge potential advantage in building an MMO because you've already got an onl...

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Tekken fans must learn patience

I have a ton of memories playing Tekken. Most of them include me being terrible at it, and wanting to play Mortal Kombat. There is no denying the fanbase here in the good old USofA. People really really like Tekken, and those people are in for a bit of bad news.

Though Tekken 6 is doing outstanding in Japan, New Zeleand, Canada and a bunch of other places, it doesn't look like it will be coming to American arcades. The lack of a Tekken 6 arcade here in the States is mainly due to Namco totally screwing over arcade owners last time around, and price.

Namco released Tekken 5 in December of 2004 to arcade owners for 6000 dollars a pop. Two months later the PS2 version of the game was released for 50 dollars. That's bad business Namco, bad business indeed. So for the launch of Tekken 6 t...

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Over 50 PS3 dev studios will use Gamebryo

Emergent Game Technologies must be feeling very good and proud because their beloved Gamebryo game development platform has been downloaded by more than fifty Playstation 3 development studios since February 17th.

"Emergent has done some real breakthrough work in creating technology that streamlines development, supports multiple genres and puts creative control back into the hands of PS3 development teams," said Emergent CEO Geoffrey Selzer.

"Gamebryo represents a refreshing, new approach to game development -- one that brings to bare a flexible, modular, foundational platform that easily integrates with a studio's proprietary technology, is consistent with current game developers' work flow, and maximizes SPUs of PS3. This empowers game developers to make their own creative mark with eac...

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Konami president thinks MGS4 is a system seller

Konami president Fumiaki Tanaka certainly expects big things from Metal Gear Solid 4. The game is due to arrive on the PlayStation 3 this summer, and Mr. Tanaka is expecting lots of sales, even though the PS3 install base is relatively small compared to the other current-gen consoles.

When asked if he was concerned about this issue, he responded with the assertion that gamers are simply not buying the PS3 because Metal Gear Solid 4 hasn't been released yet. He takes it one step further, saying that even other publishers aren't producing games like they will in the post-MGS4 world. How's that for confidence in your product? He said:

"Now, potential users are going, 'When that game comes out, I want to get a PS3,' and they're waiting for that title to come out. When MGS4 comes out, othe...

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Quantic Dream founder details Heavy Rain

If you never got the chance to play Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit in PAL regions), then you missed out on something great. All is not lost, however, because in addition to picking that game up on Xbox Originals or Steam (you're doing that right now, right?), you can read about developer Quantic Dream's current project, Heavy Rain.

Quantic Dream founder David Cage spoke with Dutch magazine Chief about the upcoming title, painting a clearer picture of what to expect whe the game is released on the Playstation 3 later this year (or possibly next).

"With the release of Fahrenheit, we gave the adventure genre a new grammar. We brought new ways into the genre, new words if you want to see it like that, a new vocabulaire. With Heavy Rain, where going to expand on that same grammar.

I don't want to d...

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Cheating gets you red carded

Consider yourself warned. If you cheat in Pro Evolution Soccer, Konami will strike down upon you with furious vengeance. Not only will you be barred from any competitions (such as the one that is going on now for preorder costumers) but you will also be banned from their online leader boards for a year. 

Konami just banned one of their top players due to cheating so don't think you're going to get any leeway here. The current tournament has a prize of £50,000 ($100,670). That is some serious cash, and Konami needed to have some serious rules.

I always think it's great when cheaters get punished. It may be the cynic in me, or it may be the lawyer-game player, either way, I'm glad Konami is making sure their online experience is top notch. And to ensure a smooth experience sometimes you h...

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GT5 Prologue trailer looks incredible

Here's some homework for all of our faithful GamerNode readers. First, get ahold of a video camera - any kind will do. Second, find yourself a city-turned-racetrack, where a bunch of souped-up consumer cars compete for loads of dough. Third, shoot a video that looks better than this 30-second clip of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. You can't. Check it out:

(Ok, so maybe you could if you actually tried, but I wanted to be all dramatic about it.)

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PS3s make black holes collide

We are slowly discovering that the PlayStation 3 can do just about anything. It can run videogames, play movies, fold proteins, power Air Force supercomputers, cook bratwurst, etc. Now, it can apparently make black holes collide, as well.

A group at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth have procured a partial donation of no less than 16 PlayStaton 3 consoles and arranged what they are calling a PS3 Gravity Grid. The purpose of this envy-inducing rack of technology is to perform the double-precision floating point operations necessary to calculate the space-time effects colliding celestial bodies may have on one another. Namely, black holes.

It's a bunch of highly technical stuff they are trying to do, but it could prove very useful to our understanding of outer space and the way...

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Big changes coming to PSN in April. Video?

As of right now, few can argue the dominance of Microsoft's online platform, Live, but that isn't stopping Sony from trying to fight back. You can be sure they don't plan to be a red carpet to victory for their rivals in the Xbox camp, anyway.

John Hight recently spoke with Gamasutra about the PlayStation Network, where he revealed that "a pretty big change" will be coming in the beginning of April.

"We give [the PSN team] a lot of feedback based on how our customers are reacting to things, and I think you will see a pretty big change in the PlayStation Network in the early part of April, where we roll out some new interface stuff largely based on customer feedback.Simplification, cutting down on the number of mouse clicks, making it easier to find stuff that you want to find... that's kind ...

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US Air Force buying truckloads of PS3s

Apparently all that noise Sony was making about the PS3 being mindbogglingly powerful wasn't just hot air, according to a request filed by the United States Air Force.

The USAF trying to arrange a deal with Sony to supply 300 Playstation 3 consoles. The 40gb model no less. (Apparently the Air Force's research doesn't involve backward compatibility.)

The filing leads one to believe that the Air Force isn't interested in gaming necessarily, but rather the Cell Processor that lies within. They must believe it has some kind of super human power if they're so interested as to buy 300. The number 300 is a little bit odd though, can't they share?

My guess is that they're reasearching stress levels for the Cell and they are expecting many of them to break.

They cite the reason for purchasing the PS3 ...

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Rumor: Crysis for PS3 adds more

Did you know that Crysis is coming to the PS3? I didn't either, but according to the latest issue of UK magazine 'PSW', "it's no secret Crysis is coming to PS3". Right, well until we get further confirmation I am going to label this a nice little rumor. Here is what the article says:

"First up, we have Crysis. Now it's no secret that Crysis is coming to PS3 this year. The excitable, hard-worked coders over at Crytek have said as much in many interviews - they've even produced a new, multi-platform engine in readiness - but the real juice here is that it won't be a straight conversion of the PC game. We understand PS3 Crysis will be an almost 50% new game, with many of the original games staff taken off PC Crysis months before release to begin to work on Crysis 2 and a port to PS3 that w...

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Kojima says MGS4 too big to fit on Blu-ray

Maybe Sony was onto something, after all, when it decided to put the Blu-ray player inside the PS3. 50GB of storage space on one disc is nothing to sneeze at and many thought that the full capacity wouldn't be utilized by a video game for some time to come. 

But Hideo Kojima, creative genius behind the MGS series, has not only reached the capacity of 50GB for Metal Gear Solid 4, but has actually surpassed that threshold.

Truth be known, Kojima explained that some improtant MGS4 elements and features had to be compressed down in order to fit on a Blu-ray disc. He complained that MGS4 could have been an even better game if the dev team had more room to work with.

This is quite astounding considering 50GBs is quite a large amount of storage space for a video game. Considering that the blu-ray s...

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New EyeToy tech has some potential

Sony has some new technology rolling out for their tragically underutilized PlayStation Eye. MTV Multiplayer is reporting that this new tech allows for the system to automatically detect where the player's face is and track its motion.

Whereas previous technology like this required players to wear some kind of strange apparatus on their heads while they played in order for it to be effective, this new tech does not. All you need is a face.Sony speculates that this could have great innovative and immersive impact on games like first-person-shooters and boxing titles. They say that it could be used to peek around corners, or dodge incoming punches. So far though, no one has announced any specific plans on how they are going to integrate this technology into their games.

It's a shame they coul...

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Backwards pricing for backwards compatibility

Japan loves their PlayStation 3. Japan loves their PlayStation 3 so much that people are paying 69780 Yen (668.28 USD) for a used 60GB and 63800 Yen (611.01 USD) for a used 20GB.

Pretty crazy prices when you can get a brand spankin' new 40GB for the low, low price of 37581 Yen (359.91 USD, that's nearly half for those who didn't pass third grade math).So why are the launch boxes going for so much money? The difference is more than gigabytes. Since the launch of the PS3, Sony has slowly been stripping out the backwards compatibility of their machine and only the 20 and the 60 gig versions can play the entire PlayStation library.

The current 40 gig box can't play a single PS2 game. And that can be a problem for people with large PS2 libraries. I personally have seen PS2 collections that...

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GTA IV 'roughly 100 hours to finish'

When the guys over at  videogamer.com went to Rockstar's London HQ, they asked a spokesperson how long it would take to finish the game--the answer was "about 100 hours if you take your time. 

Use Niko's phone, get tons of playtime. Niko's phone is used to call contacts, arrange drinking sessions, sort out dates with women and call in jobs. It will also be the gateway to GTA IV's still secretive multiplayer side of the game.

"If you're not in a rush and you answer the phone when it rings it'll take about 100 hours to complete", said the spokesman. "It's harder to distinguish between main and side missions - there are loads of both. But there are more main missions than side missions. It's not as clear cut as it used to be because of the phone."

I'm not really surprised at this announcement ...

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White PS3s coming?

Lots of news on the PS3 front, mainly focusing on new bundles for upcoming games such as Metal Gear Solid 4. Over the past week, reports from retailers across the U.S. say that the current 40GB Spiderman 3 bundle is about to wind down.

Retailers say that they've stopped receiving this version of the PS3 and have been told to expect new 40GB units without any movie tied in.

Some stores have already received shipments of new PS3s with the model # CECHH01, which is the model number for the new white Playstation 3. It looks like we won't be seeing these smooth silky white PS3s until the black Spiderman 3 bundles are gone. The price of the new PS3 model will remain at $399.

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