Gamernode: Latest PlayStation 3 News

PS3: Stabilizing, thanks to 2.01 firmware

According to Sony, their next Playstation 3 firmware will improve upon the issues that gamers have been facing since the release of firmware version 2.0, such as disc read errors, boot failure, and game freezes.

Sony claimed the receipt of only "a relatively small amount of contacts" about these problems, but also announced, via PlayStation.Blog, that "Firmware v2.01 is a minor update that will improve the stability of PlayStation 3."

One can't help but wonder if this firmware update will fix the freezing problem found in the recently released Assassin's Creed. Hopefully it will, so that more gamers can enjoy that incredible interactive experience.

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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune wall scaling video

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that scaling walls and other large structures is one of my favorite things to do in videogames. With Assassin's Creed hitting stores earlier this week, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune coming next week, Id say things are looking good in the "satisfy-Eddie's-unnatural-urge-to-climb-stuff" department. The acrobatics coming our way in Uncharted are looking very much like those found in the Sands of Time series, or even Ico. Brendon will have the review up soon, so keep an eye out to discover how the game really feels. Until then, watch this video:

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Gamers fired up. Assassin's Creed freezes

Recent posts over on the Ubisoft forums have gamers all fired up over reported freezing issues with the PS3 version of Assassin's Creed.

Some gamers are indicating that the bug is occurring with the new 2.00 firmware release while others have reported that their AC game froze up with firmware version 1.94.

One forum member, harvard114, expressed his anger over the problem by saying:

"This is just uncalled for-

When games are selling at 60 dollars (or more) - I want a finished product. Now, I understand that AC just shipped, but all I'm asking for is a response from Ubi that the problems us PS3 users are having, will be fixed.

Judging from this topic, they're totally ambivalent to what's going on - or just ignoring the problem. All I want is a guarantee that what's going on will be fixed, and ...

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PS3 reaches first birthday. Execs say it's a hit

With the recent news that the PlayStation 3 is moving up in sales due to its recent drops in pricing, more good news follows. First off, the PS3 is one-year old!

Added to this is the news that PSN (PlayStation Network) online service has seen 60 million downloads and over 200 software titles made available for the PS3 faithful.

Jack Tretton, President and CEO of SCEA took the opportunity to speak about the PS3 milestone of reaching the one year mark and said:

"When we designed PS3 our goal was to introduce a system so technically advanced that it could stand the test of time and could take the industry in a whole new direction, which for PS3 was high-definition entertainment."

Tretton believes that the PS3 will follow in the successful footsteps of its other consoles as well.

"While we're ex...

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The Orange Box shipping for PS3 in December

Electronic Arts confirmed that the PS3 port of The Orange Box will ship in December. The U.S. will get the PS3 title on December 11th and Europe will get it on December 14th.

There were some initial rumors that the release date slipped to early 2008, but EA quickly issued a statement with Eurogamer about the revised release date.

So to sum it up, it'll only be a matter of time till PS3 owners can get their hands on the awesome compilation of games. Both the PC and the Xbox 360 edition of The Orange Box got perfect scores from GamerNode.

As usual, Valve didn't comment on the revised release date, but since EA is handling all the distribution in Europe, it appears they have the upper hand in releasing the news.

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PS3 sales double after the price cut

After dropping the price by $100 and making the console affordable, Sony is finally reaping in the sales they wanted. Sony sold over 100,000 Playstation 3 consoles during the week of Nov. 11. 

This is a huge spike from the previous sales numbers of 30,000-40,000 consoles a week before the price cut. "It's the breakthrough we've been anticipating," Sony CEO Howard Stringer said, "We've been holding our breath."

After four models ranging from 20- 80GB's and a few price reductions later, it's about time things start working out for Sony.

Better late than never.

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Insomniac sees PS3 taking "major leaps" in quality...

Brian Hastings, Chief Creative Officer at Insomniac, remains committed and hyped over the PS3 and it's future.

In an interview given to VideoGamer.com, Hastings said that the PS3 will continue to make far reaching improvements for years to come and reiterated the often repeated line that the PS3, at the moment, is only using a small portion of its massive potential.

"We're already seeing a big leap in what people are able to do with the PS3 now compared to a year ago, and we're going to see just as big a leap between now and the end of 2008. I think we're going to continue seeing major leaps each year in what people are able to do with the machine for at least three or four more years."

Hastings seems to be a diehard supporter of the PS3 as comments he made earlier this year in March predict...

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Haze not pushed back 'till 2008

The latest attempt by Free Radical at breaking new ground in the first person shooter genre comes in the form of Haze.

The game is an exclusive PS3 shooter that features futuristic soldiers relying on a substance known as Nectar too boost their abilities and putting them to good use by making quick work of rifle wielding combatants that oppose them. Not only that, but four players can co-operatively complete the game together via PSN.

While Haze is certainly keeping many adopters of Sony’s platform in baited breath to determine whether or not it’s a satisfactory shooter worth playing, UbiSoft revealed today that previous reports claiming that the title would be pushed back to 2008 were incorrect.

The title will be released in both Europe (December 14th) and the United States (at...

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Mark Rein: UT3 on PS3 looks better than Gears

Pro-G chatted up Epic Games' Mark Rein and got word about how the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 is shaping up. According to Rein, UT3's visuals on the PS3 will be better than Gears of War. Talk about powerful, because Gears' visuals were pretty darn good.

Rein said, "People are going to be pleasantly surprised. It's a really high end experience that pushes the graphics bar up even higher than Gears of War. There's more polygons, there's more stuff going on, there's more explosions and there's more things happening, so we're just really pleased with the way the game runs on the PS3."

Giving similar comments with Infinity Ward, Epic Games mentioned developing for the PS3 hasn't been particularly troublesome, but the company is used to developing with new platforms.

"You know, bringing a ga...

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The PS3 2.00 firmware update. It's looking good

The PlayStation 3 is getting another firmware update and the features included are promising. Nothing in this update sticks out as a stellar addition to the PS3 experience though (think HOME).

Instead it is the combination of all the enhancements which make this update a worthy evolution of the PlayStation 3.

The biggest addition is the Information Board. When activated, news will begin cycling in the top right hand corner while in the cross media bar. Game updates, featured downloads, breaking Sony news, and other miscellaneous items will now be a glance away.

The option to not display this Information Board is available, but Sony highly recommends it to be kept activated, (for obvious marketing reasons).

"You can choose not to display the Information Board, but you never know what you migh...

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MotorStorm DLC

The developers of MotorStorm keep churning out DLC, and fans keep buying it up. Today, a new server Update 3.0 patch will be available as well as the "Devil's Weekend" DLC.

The Update 3.0 patch adds DUALSHOCK 3 support, sensitivity settings for the SIXAXIS, and starting grid tweaks to balance the races. "Devil's Weekend" includes five new vehicles with three new skins each as well as 4 new tickets containing 10 races.

MotorStorm fans have at it, and start digging for more money because it doesn't sound like this will be the last of the downloadable content.

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Making Call of Duty 4 for PS3 was easy?

Infinity Ward, the developer of the Call of Duty franchise recently said making CoD4 for the PlayStation 3 was easy. The common conception is that the complex coding behind the PlayStation 3 makes producing games burdening, and difficult.

Infinity Ward credits its success "to allocation of resources... We haven't had any problems... and that's probably because of our development philosophy. We develop content-agnostic so we don't have a lead platform. We have a team working on each of the different versions and everyone else forms a team who makes the content platform agnostic."

Which is all good in theory... but wouldn't it be more efficient to have the entire team working under one system to develop the best possible game and not split resources? I'm no expert, and may be slightly retarded...

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Sony denies high failure rate for 40GB PS3

A Dutch website has accused Sony's 40GB PS3 as being a disaster as far as reliability is concerned. The report says that the newest of Sony's PS3s has a 40% failure rate.

To this, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has immediately sent out an official press release to categorically deny these charges.

David Reeves, President of SCEE said, "We are very proud of the quality and reliability of PLAYSTATION 3 and are disappointed that such extremely sloppy journalism has resulted in this totally inaccurate story.

"Since launching the 40GB PS3, we have experienced a fantastic jump in sales and the failure rates have remained at the very low level that we not only strive for, but have been achieving since the launch of PS3."

Normally, such rumors or reports about a game console's integrity are mer...

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Ratchet & Clank getting DLC in the near future?

In a recent interview with e-magazine D+Pad, Ryan Schneider of Insomniac Games revealed that there may be more content on the horizon for Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction. Specifically, he speaks of maps, demo, and trailers, but that doesn't rule out other forms of downloadable content.

"It's been great to have a network that can facilitate the map-pack downloads, demos and trailers for both Resistance: Fall of Man and Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction. The number of users on PSN has been rising steadily and we absolutely plan to support them with more new content coming soon."

Of course, Resistance has already had a bit of DLC, but this is the first mention of Ratchet & Clank on PSN. Only time will tell just what exactly is in store.

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God of War director leaves SCEA. GoW III coming

1UP shares the glum news that God of War II game director Cory Barlog has left Sony Computer Entertainment America. A Sony spokesman released a statement with the news; in addition, the statement inadvertently revealed that SCEA is working on God of War III for PlayStation 3.

"We can confirm that Cory Barlog, game director for God of War II, is leaving the SCEA SM Studio and we are grateful for his work and creative vision for the critically acclaimed God of War franchise.

Moving forward, we are confident in the God of War team, as they are an extremely talented group of people that are passionate about the franchise and dedicated to creating even more epic content with God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP and God of War III for PS3."

Considering that God of War and its sequel earned pl...

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Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in February

When it comes to racing simulators there are few which can stack up next to the Gran Turismo franchise. With unparalleled realism and jaw dropping graphics, Gran Turismo has earned its wings for being considered the premier racing sim (although the Forza franchise has been carving out its own impressive niche).

On November 1st, Sony Computer Entertainment America hosted the fifth annual Gran Turismo awards in Vegas. In addition to a live performance by Chris Cornell, lead singer of the now dead Audioslave, the winner for the "Best of Show" custom car was also chosen. The grand prize is the impressive immortalization of the winner's ride in the next Gran Turismo. This year's winner was a 2007 Audi TT, and it will be featured in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5.

While the festivities were the highl...

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Naughty Dog has an urge for Jak and Daxter

Evan Wells, of Naughty Dog, mentioned his urge to bring the Jak and Daxter franchise to the PlayStation 3 in a recent interview.

Wells and the rest of Naughty Dog continue to harp on how impressed they are with the PlayStation 3's hardware. The usual "only using approximately 1/3 of the processing power" line came up again.

The meat of the interview came when asked about future projects, Wells said, "Jak and Daxter--there are still a lot of people here who would love to work on the franchie again, especially using all of the cool tech that was developed for Uncharted. However, exactly when you might see that is still anybody's guess."

If things line up, PlayStation 3 owners may be getting another dose of goggles and elf ears, and Ratchet and Clank may have a little competition.

via [ps3center...

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PlayStation 3 40GB: Less is more?

Ever since the PS3 40GB's release, people have been talking about how it's the lesser stepchild of the standard PlayStation 3. Less USB ports, no backwards compatibility, and now they're downsizing the chips from 90nm to a mere 65nm!?

Some good news for the smaller version, eh?

German website, Heise Online, confirmed that Sony is indeed downsizing chips. The new 65nm chips are reported to reduce power output by about 60 watts, as well as reducing the sound by nearly 30%.

So if you're a power freak and are hating the fact that the PlayStation 3's aren't packing as much heat, be comforted by the fact that you're saving energy. Hippy.

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PS3 catching up to Wii sales in Japan

So how about that, Sony tweaks its PS3 business plan and sales improve! Over in Japan, the PS3 has been slowly creeping towards the Wii in sales; the Wii outsold the PS3 by 2 to 1 in October.

If you remember, we reported back in July that the Wii outsold the PS3 by 6 to 1 in June. So to see the comparative figure decrease is a good sign for the PS3.

Sales figures for the Wii is 110,415 units and the PS3 is 47,183 units in October, Reuters said on Friday. So how did the PS3 catch up to the Wii? Reasons point to the recent price cut and a meatier games selection.

Unfortunately, the Xbox 360 is still trailing far behind in sales; it only sold 18,717 units in October.

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Sony: 80GB PS3 having "phenomenal sales"

So how has the 80GB PS3 been faring in the gaming market? While we've already reported that the 80GB soared up the charts on Amazon.com not once, but twice in consecutive weeks, we haven't really seen concrete details.

GameDaily spoke with Peter Dille, vice president of marketing for SCEA, and he went into the subject a little bit while talking about PS3 advertising.

First, Dille said that to coincide with the debut of the new 40GB PS3 for $399, SCEA would release new advertising campaigns to showcase the cheaper value of the console. Dubbed the 'White Room', the new campaign, as Dille said, is "our largest ever behind a hardware platform". He elaborated a bit more on the campaign with the following.

"...we wanted to move beyond the 'power' message with a more high-energy, entertainment dri...

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