Tag Archives: PlayStation 3 News

Insomniac Games said in its latest newsletter that it would be announcing its new Playstation 3 project at some point before the Penny Acrade Expo in Boston. PAX takes place from September 3 to 5, and Insomniac expects to have the title ready to demo at the Expo.

“We’re bringing our new game to a very special Penny Arcade Expo panel on Saturday evening (September 4th), at 6:30pm in the Serpent Theatre,” the newsletter reads. “G4TV’s Adam Sessler will moderate a panel with key creative talent from Insomniac Games as we discuss (and demo!) our upcoming PlayStation 3 project.”

The expectation is that the game will be Resistance 3, which has shown up both on a movie set billboard and in a Sony survey.

While they have since changed it, earlier in the day Sony posted in their new Sony Style 3D site that the PlayStation 3 is available “starting at $199.99.”

When clicking through, there was no links to PS3s available at that price point, but Maxconsole agrees that the error is pretty large for such an important website.

Speculatively, Max says Sony could be preparing a new PS3 model, similar to the Xbox 360 Arcade, that will strip some features (like the larger HDD) and sell for $199.

The move could make sense for Sony, which is seeing strong momentum in console sales against rivals Microsoft and Nintendo but still sells their console for $100 more than the Arcade model and the Wii. That being said, it is hard to see how Sony could strip anything from the console except for lowering the HDD size, which would not save very much money for the company at all.

No, you did not misread that subheadline: Sony’s unveiled a new PlayStation 3 Slim bundle that finally includes an HDMI cable along with a copy of the Game of the Year edition of LittleBigPlanet.

Since the PlayStation 3 has been on sale, those who owned an HDTV had to spend extra to get an HDMI cable to get the optimal visual quality that PS3s offered. It’s taken nearly four years for Sony to get around to tossing in a cable along with the unit, measured at six feet long to boot. LittleBigPlanet GOTY also makes a gracious offering of including 18 user-made levels, and seven DLC packs including the Metal Gear Solid content.

Amazon is currently taking pre-orders for the bundle right now.  It’ll run you $349.99 and will be released June 12.

As the Cannes film festival gets into its second week, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is preparing to launch a new highbrow film service for the PlayStation 3.
Called MUBI, and already available for PCs, the online service will be bringing a collection of over 300 films to the home console ranging from Jacques Audiard (director of Read My Lips and The Beat My Heart Skipped) to Franco Zeffirelli (Brother Sun, Sister Moon; Jesus of Nazareth).

The auteur output of Pedro Almodóvar, the Coen brothers, Jean Luc Godard, Takeshi ‘Beat Takeshi’ Kitano, and Gus Van Sant are also being touted as likely candidates for the service’s console debut.

MUBI also has a strong community aspect, encouraging viewers to discuss the films they’ve seen with each other and recommend new cinematic experiences to friends and MUBI members.

The company have also managed to tie up online distribution rights for various pieces of world cinema which have not yet been released on DVD, including Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation that specializes in restoring neglected films.

The MUBI service is tabled for an autumn launch, expected to coincide with the availability of new Wii-like motion controllers for the PlayStation 3, and helps to associate the machine with an aspirational lifestyle – as does Sony’s links with 3D TV.

CEO Efe Cakarel confirmed to PlayStation Europe that launch territories will be the UK and Ireland; France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar and Andorra; Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg; and Australia and New Zealand. Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark are also expected to be brought onboard before the service goes live.

Efe also revealed that short films are to cost £1 and feature length works £3 for UK users. The MUBI website currently prices shorts at €2 and features at €4.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is also preparing a marketing effort to promote and expand the multimedia and social capabilities of the Xbox 360, which has been able to link up with Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm since November 2009.

In North America, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii can all be used in conjunction with a Netflix subscription in order to stream a wide range of films. For European users, the MUBI deal works to bolster the existing PlayStation Video Store which provides more mainstream movies to North America, Oceania, and some European countries.

Mark your calendars baseball buffs, because Sony’s bringing Major League Baseball to the PlayStation 3 and you’ll be able to sign up for the service by the end of this week. According to the New York Times, Sony and Major League Baseball are joining hands to offer out-of-market baseball games live over the Internet courtesy the PS3. The move comes just a few months after rumors that rival Microsoft was courting ESPN to stream live sporting events on the Xbox 360.

The service will be subscription-based, meaning you’ll pay for the privilege, though it’s not clear how much it’ll cost. MLB.TV charges $99.95 per year or $19.95 per month for basic service, and $119.95 or $24.95 a month for the premium alternative with home or away game selection and enhanced playback controls.

Invoking a year-old marketing pitch, Sony Computer Entertainment America vice president Peter Dille says the company’s “repositioning” the PS3 as a ubiquitous media hub and not just a high-end video games system.

“This is more than just a game console,” Dille told the Times. “This is a device that is redefining how content is being delivered to the living room.”

Redefining? Well, sort of. PC’s have been capable of streaming live video to living room TVs for over a decade. Game consoles like the PS3 or Xbox 360 don’t bring much new to the table, they simply offer service providers an opportunity to ratchet up subscriber numbers.

That’s enough to shake the tree in itself, of course. “Redefining” or no, demonstrable mainstream demand for centralized media services has instant ramifications for the biz–ramifications that dovetail with a push toward “cloud-based” computing. It reassures and encourages risk-averse content providers to green light hub versions of their own services, say offering alternative cloud-based versions of things you can only get currently through cable or satellite packages. How long before majors like HBO or SHOWTIME offer live streaming options through set-top consoles like the PS3 or Xbox 360? The cable news channels? Local affiliates? We’re already able to watch non-live shows and snip-clips from channels like Comedy Central or The Cartoon Network. What’s standing between that and live streaming alternatives?

Presumably this won’t go over well with cable TV providers, though MLB chief executive Robert Bowman dismissed suggestions baseball fans would migrate away from cable or satellite viewing. “There’s no empirical evidence I see that our fans are substituting one for the other,” he said.

The glitch that nerfed my old-style “fat” PlayStation 3 and temporarily ‘bricked’ millions of others worldwide appears to have vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.

At approximately 3:45pm PT, reports began flooding gaming boards suggesting units were coming back to life after a time-date error that left them unable to connect to Sony’s PlayStation Network or play certain games offline. I’d been waiting for GMT +0:00 to pass, but risked powering up early based on the sudden deluge of anecdotal evidence.

For starters, the screen color was different at startup, a kind of deep green (hello March!) suggesting some internal mechanism had silently triggered and automatically switched the date setting (the PS3 draws its default color scheme from the system clock). A glance at the system date confirmed it was now sometime in April 2010. To paraphrase the guys on How I Met Your Mother, Future-PS3 had apparently solved Current-PS3′s problem.

Tapping over to the system’s time-date settings, I ran an auto-sync–a feature that wasn’t working during the glitch–and the system auto-righted itself to March 1, 2010. One last thing to check, and sure enough, my copies of Heavy Rain and White Knight Chronicles loaded without incident.

Just to be extra-sure, I powered up my debug PS3, and presto, it too was working again. Thank goodness, because I’m on the hook for a Final Fantasy XIII review–not the sort of game you want to fall even a single day behind on.

Sony has yet to update its international blogs or Twitter feeds, possibly because the company’s collectively collapsed from stress-exhaustion, but more likely because they want to be sure things really are back, not just bits and pieces. I can vouch for my own recovery–two units, one retail, one debug, but that’s it.

If you want to test yours safely, power up, then before doing anything else, run a time-date interent sync. If it works, you’re back in business, and if your trophies don’t seem entirely right, try performing a manual trophy sync.

One thing’s for sure: Sony has some ‘splainin to do.