Tag Archives | PlayStation 3

Note to Rude Gamers: You Don’t Have the Right

Posted by Jared Newman on October 2, 2009 at 3:36 pm

I got a chuckle today reading about the failed lawsuit of Playstation 3 owner Erik Estavillo, who tried to sue Sony after getting banned from the Playstation Network for bad behavior.

If you’ve ever played a competitive online game, you know the type: Loud-mouthed, cussing, insulting, maybe even racist, sexist or homophobic. It’s not clear which of those offenses Estavillo committed while playing Resistance: Fall of Man, but it was apparently bad enough that Sony kicked him off the entire Playstation Network.

A few months ago, Estavillo sued Sony for $55,000 and asked that the company be enjoined from banning other players, on grounds that his right to free speech in a public forum was violated. He added that his agoraphobia (social anxiety) precludes him from socializing in public, so PSN was his only outlet. Estavillo further claimed that Sony effectively stole his pre-paid Playstation Store points.

Too bad. Game Politics reports that a judge has dismissed the case, ruling that a First Amendment claim isn’t plausible. After all, it’s Sony’s private network, and when you sign on, you agree to Sony’s rules. If there’s any question that PSN is like a public place, the tech law blog of Eric Goldman further notes that Sony’s network wasn’t considered a “company town,” because it doesn’t take on any functions of a municipality, virtual or otherwise. PSN is an entertainment venue, not a public service.

The bottom line is, you don’t have First Amendment rights in online gaming. You do have a responsibility to be courteous to those around you. For all the times that people ignore those principles in Resistance, Halo or Gears of War, I’ve got to pump my fist for the minor victories.

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Sony Stumbles With Blu-ray to PSP Copy

Posted by Jared Newman on October 1, 2009 at 12:41 pm

Starting in November, Sony will revert to its old, closed-system ways by packing a PSP-ready digital copy on its Blu-ray discs.

The reasoning is obvious: If you’re an owner of one device, you’ve got a reason to pick up the other. Why buy an iPod for video when the PSP gives you a chunk of your Blu-ray collection in digital form?

Here’s the problem: Of the two Blu-ray films that Sony Pictures will launch with a PSP-ready copy, only one will include a separate digital copy on DVD, playable on your PC, according to Home Media Magazine. So while Sony is offering the full range of choices for people who buy The Ugly Truth, those who purchase Godzilla won’t get a digital copy unless they have both a Playstation 3 and a PSP.

Sony calls this a “multi-platform” solution, but the only platforms being supported are Sony’s. To me, that seems like a backwards step for the company, which in May was professing its newfound love for open systems. Here’s what Sony chief executive Howard Stringer told Nikkei Electronics Asia in an interview:

“There was a time when it made sense to divide the market with closed technology, and monopolize a divided market, but that’s just not an effective strategy any more. In the Internet universe, there are millions of stars – millions of options that have been created through open technology.”

Indeed, Sony is turning a new leaf in some ways, such as its support for the open ePub format in its e-readers. But the Blu-ray promotion sends a mixed message: We want our hardware to support lots of media, but our media will only work with our hardware.

For perspective, see how Disney’s digital copies are available as a download in either Windows Media or iTunes format, whatever the customer chooses. I’m not sure that Sony could offer those proprietary formats through its competing Playstation Network, but by removing PC-ready digital copies, the company is headed down the wrong path.

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Gaming in Theaters Sounds Cool, Won’t Be Easy

Posted by Jared Newman on September 30, 2009 at 11:51 am

As a gamer, I’m enamored with the idea of playing a shoot-em-up on a 50-foot screen, surrounded by Dolby audio. And I can’t be the only one.

Unfortunately, these incidents are rare, but on Monday and Tuesday, the stars will align, and Sony will let people in four U.S. theaters try the upcoming (and universally lauded) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the Playstation 3.

If you don’t happen to live in Rosemont, Ill., Bellvue, Wash., San Francisco or Thousand Oaks, Calif., there’s good news: In a Reuters interview, Mike Fidler, Sony’s senior vice president of Digital Cinema Solutions and Services, suggests that this isn’t a one-off thing. In explaining that he wants more theaters to go digital, Fidler said that gaming “will be an important part of that equation.”

From Fidler’s remarks, it’s easy to dream up gaming nights, or perhaps the ability to rent out a theater for an evening of Killzone 2. A Canadian chain already does this during off-peak times, for the totally reasonable price of $169 for two hours and up to 12 people (a movie ticket doesn’t cost that much less at that rate).

Not to be a party pooper, but I see a major roadblock here. The best big-screen games — shooters and racing games — can at most be enjoyed by four people at a time, and even splitting the screen reduces the coolness factor. Given that a movie theater is designed to entertain lots of people, you’d be looking at minimal playing time with any more than a dozen participants. And let’s face it, most games aren’t that fun to watch from the sidelines.

If Sony does get the Playstation 3 into more theaters, I’m sure the Uncharted 2 event won’t be the last of its kind, but for most of us, I have a feeling that any significant gaming time in a theater will remain a fantasy.

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Wii Price Drops, Sony and Microsoft Beat Chests

Posted by Jared Newman on September 24, 2009 at 1:46 pm

Nintendo finally responded to the pressure from Sony and Microsoft, cutting the Wii’s price to $200, effective this Sunday. There were plenty of warning signs — store circulars, retailer’s internal e-mails, and plain old common sense — but now it’s official.

I’ve said my piece about the Wii’s holiday prospects, but I had to chuckle today at the indirect responses from Sony and Microsoft, who individually offered the same message. To paraphrase: “Hey, we’re making motion controllers too, you know!”

Exhibit A is Microsoft’s brag-laden press release about Project Natal, an upcoming 3D motion-sensing camera peripheral for the Xbox 360. Microsoft name-dropped a dozen publishers who are “actively working on games” for the motion controller, and spoke of a “high-powered panel” at Tokyo Game Show, in which a few top game designers will talk about how they love the new technology.

The message is that Microsoft loves third-party development, and wants to get publishers on board early on. That’s a not-so-subtle dig at Nintendo, which has a reputation for putting its in-house work on a pedestal. I’m still waiting to see whether the accuracy-boosting Wii Motion Plus will be adopted by more than a half dozen brave publishers.

Not to be outdone, Sony revealed some concrete information on its remote-like motion controller. Resident Evil 5, which was released earlier this year, will get a “Directors Cut” with motion controls, and 13 other titles are in development now. Some are existing games, like Flower and EyePet, while others are mysterious working titles, such as “Champions of Time” and “Eccentric Slider.”

I’d say Sony has been far more open about its technology than Microsoft, which makes sense because the Playstation 3 motion controller isn’t that revolutionary. It’s merely a ticket for the motion control bandwagon, and Sony’s trying to get on board by next spring.

Will the Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360 beat Nintendo at its own game? We’ve barely seen either in action, so it’s hard to tell on quality alone. But the Wii’s price cut, combined with undying interest in franchises such as Mario, will ensure Nintendo’s success for a long time.

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The Video Game Bundle Wars of 2009

Posted by Jared Newman on September 23, 2009 at 10:26 am

Evidence that the Wii will become a $200 console is piling up, with the latest rumor coming from Best Buy management. Engadget scored a screen grab of a company letter, warning that the price drop will happen on Sunday, following an official announcement this Friday.

Alongside price cuts for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 Elite, this is great news for anyone looking to buy a gaming console this holiday season. But even if you’ve got the itch now, consider holding out for the inevitable software bundles that will follow.

The Best Buy letter notes that stores should “use bundle bands to create bundles that tell a story and truly meet customers’ needs.” I’m not exactly sure what it means to tell a story with products, but I’ll bet Best Buy will try tacking on games and extra controllers to get you spending a little more. Those deals can work out in your favor if you are, in fact, buying the same things you planned to purchase a la carte.

Another thing to watch for are official bundles from the console maker. Ars Technica has a rumor that Xbox 360 Elites will include two games, Pure and Lego Batman, for the same $300 starting in mid-October. Sure, those wouldn’t be the first two games I’d choose, but for the same price tag they do sweeten the pot. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony and Nintendo started offering their own added incentives.

Just remember that your brand new gaming console is worthless without at least one game, and it’s not as fun without two controllers. As the holiday shopping season approaches, keep an eye out for bundles that will save you from spending too much beyond the console’s initial price tag.

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Calling It: 2009 is the Year of the Playstation 3

Posted by Jared Newman on September 11, 2009 at 4:50 pm

Even with the reduced-price PS3 Slim arriving at the tail end of August, Sony’s console gained considerable ground on the Xbox 360 and the Wii according to the NPD Group, coming in just behind the former by 5,400 sales, and the latter by 67,400 sales. Indeed, the stage is set for the PS3 to top both the Wii and the Xbox 360 in September.

So let’s make the declaration, shall we? 2009 is the Year of the Playstation 3. Nintendo and Microsoft fanboys, delay your vitriol while we qualify this.

The “Year of the Playstation 3” has become somewhat of a punchline in the gaming press. According to numerous accounts, 2008 was supposed to be the PS3’s year, except that the console never dug itself out of last place in North America, and had no signs of doing so. (To be fair, Sony’s doing just fine overseas, as PC World’s Matt Peckham wrote last month.)

At the start of this year, when some were bold enough to back Sony again, chuckling ensued. But now, things are looking up. It’s already September, so there’s a lot of catching up to do and little time. Come the end of the year, Sony may still be on the bottom of the heap in annual sales, but it’ll have something its competitors don’t: Momentum.

Yes, I said “momentum,” the buzzword Sony’s PR team kept using to describe the Playstation brand even as it languished through the end of last year. No joke, Sony has it now, thanks entirely to the PS3 Slim and the price cut it brought along. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 seems to be stagnating with a pseudo-price cut, waiting for Project Natal to tap the casual audience. Same goes for the Wii, which desperately needs something to spark interest and stop the shedding of year-over-year sales.

Sony, on the other hand, has nowhere to go but up, and a cheaper, slimmer console is the best way to begin the ascent. Come 2010, the console wars will look a lot different.

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RROD Explained: You Play Too Much

Posted by Jared Newman on August 31, 2009 at 2:31 pm

Microsoft’s never been particularly forthcoming about the Xbox 360’s hardware issues. The company said earlier this year that the worst troubles are behind us, only to see new problems spring up. We’ve never heard an official failure rate (estimates vary, wildly), and after all this time, there’s no way to tell whether a working console is destined to get the dreaded Red Ring of Death.

So Eurogamer did the logical thing and asked a third-party console repairman, and learned that a major problem in today’s console failures is “cumulative damage.” In other words, the longer you own and play a console, the more likely it is to die.

Sony fanboys shouldn’t be laughing: Engineer Darren Thickbroom of Colchester Computers told Eurogamer that he’s seeing more and more Playstation 3 consoles come in for the so-called “Yellow Line of Doom.” Sure, Thickbroom is just one engineer, but his analysis does check out with my own Xbox 360 experience. After almost three years of use, my console suddenly and inexplicably stopped working a couple weeks ago, flashing the three red lights I’d heard and written so much about.

Of course, you can’t blame the console owner for playing the console. What’s really problematic, according to Thickbroom, is the general design of the latest machines, which pack powerful hardware into a tiny container. “Everything’s combined into such a small space, the heatsinks on the GPU are relatively small, there’s a lot of heat to dissipate and it can’t do it,” he said. Over time, the trapped heat warps the console’s motherboard, eventually hitting a breaking point.

Maybe instead of wishing for ultrathin consoles, we should by lobbying for the Playstation 3 Big and the Xbox 360 Fat. I’d rather have a fully-functional colossus in my entertainment center than a slim and sexy brick.

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Keep Your Old PS3, and Best Buy May Reward You

Posted by Jared Newman on August 26, 2009 at 4:06 pm

With every upgraded product launch, this is bound to happen: A few unlucky and ill-informed customers buy the old product, just before the upgrade is revealed and released. They complain, hoping to exchange their outdated product for the latest one.

If this happened to you with the Playstation 3 Slim (unlikely if you’re a regular around here), Best Buy may have an offer for you. A leaked company memo, acquired by Kotaku, says stores can offer a free game and a price match to anyone who takes their beef to customer service.

The games on offer — Infamous, MLB 09: The Show and Killzone 2 — aren’t bad, either. Add in the $100 credit you’d get back to reflect the Slim’s price cut, and you’ve got an enticing reason not to upgrade.

This, of course, isn’t a selfless maneuver by Best Buy. Though there’s no official date, the PS3 Slim’s launch is imminent. Amazon has the console shipping on Friday, and some stores around the United States have started selling it already. With no price difference at all between the old and new models, the original Playstation 3 will begin to look like a paperweight to prospective buyers.

I’ve heard that you can still pick up the old Playstation 3 bundle, with LittleBigPlanet and the film Wall-E on Blu-ray, for the new price of $300, but I don’t expect that deal to last, as Best Buy doesn’t have the bundle on its Web site any more. Even so, Best Buy does not want those old units lingering on store shelves, and it certainly doesn’t want to be restocking old consoles that were already sold.

So if you’re a late buyer of the Playstation 3 Fat, speak up! If not, keep an eye on those old models, just in case any more deals come about.

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Five Questions About the PS3 Slim

Posted by Jared Newman on August 18, 2009 at 12:10 pm

ps3slim I’m taking a page from Harry here, as I know he likes prodding on upcoming products when their makers intentionally ignore salient questions. With Sony finally revealing a 36 percent lighter, 33 percent smaller, 40 GB roomier and $100 cheaper Playstation 3 today, I’m left with a few queries of my own.

What will become of the Playstation 3 Big?

Yes, I think it should be called the Playstation 3 Big, for as long as it exists. For now, the existing 80 GB model will be sold for $300, and the 160 GB model is reportedly going for $400. If the Slim is slated for an August 24 launch, as expected, will we eventually be able to scoop up the remaining Bigs for a discount? How about as a bundle with some software?

Will Sony send out more value comparisons?

Sony lost the early gamble on releasing a powerful but pricey gaming console, ultimately forcing the PR machine into action. It must feel good to finally be competitive on pricing, so I’m interested to see how Sony will flaunt it going into the holiday season. Finally, fresh ammunition for the console wars.

What are we looking at for bundles?

Right now, you can get an 80 GB Playstation 3 with LittleBigPlanet (a $60 value) and Wall-E on Blu-ray (a $20 value) for $400. That’s not a bad deal if you’re interested in the game and the movie (I am). When the Slim hits stores, will buyers get any discounts on pack-in games?

Why hate on Linux?

For most users, the PS3 slim will have the same functionality as the old model, but homebrew developers and Linux Lovers will be disappointed to see the removal of the “Install Other OS” feature. This allowed users to run other operating systems on the console, turning the PS3 into a personal computer or hub for homemade applications. I wonder what the harm was in leaving this feature on board.

The PSP Go is only $50 Cheaper?

Okay, that’s not really a question, and it doesn’t pertain to the PS3 Slim, but it’s a puzzler in light of Playstation’s rebirth as the value brand. Since I’m all about bundles, how about enticing consumers to buy both the slimmer console and the tinier handheld? I hear they work wonderfully together, after all.

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GamesCom, Where All Your Console Rumors Come True

Posted by Jared Newman on August 12, 2009 at 6:36 pm

So, E3 didn’t really pan out as the place to announce price cuts for video game consoles. The rumored PS3 Slim/$100 price cut remains a rumor, and the Xbox 360 is holding steady at $200 for the Arcade model, $300 for the Pro and $400 for the Elite.

Things will reportedly change at GamesCom, a conference in Cologne, Germany, which starts a week from today. While nothing matches the pre-conference hype of E3, we’ve got two rumors that could shake up the holiday gaming season if they come true.

First, Hong Kong gaming magazine GameWave brings word (via Joystiq) that the PS3 Slim will be announced at Sony’s press conference on Tuesday. An earlier report from French media outlet JVN said the same thing, quoting a “dealer specializing in video games” who said a price cut would accompany the announcement. Additionally, MCV wrote that PS3 stocks are drying up in the U.K., signaling a price cut.

We also heard from Kotaku today that Microsoft will discontinue the Xbox 360 Pro, replacing it with the Elite model at the Pro’s old price of $300. The Elite console has double the hard drive capacity (120 GB) and includes an HDMI cable. This rumor also comes from two places: a Meijer catalog due on August 30 and photos sent by Gamestop employees.

Neither rumor comes out of the blue. In June, a reliable source told Ars Technica that the Pro would be discontinued, and said some killer game and console bundles would help move the console off shelves. As for the PS3 Slim, there are simply too many rumors to mention here. Check out Joystiq’s PS3 Slim category tag to see them all.

What does all of this chatter leave us with? Nothing, of course, but I like the idea of GamesCom as the launching point for lower-priced game consoles. The holiday game rush gets its first legs in September, making an end-of-August price cut attractive to fence-sitters, especially if they’re tempted by the latest blockbusters. I’m generally not a fan of these price cut rumors, because they mostly just inflate our expectations with hot air, but this seems like the best possible time to expect things to happen.

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