PlayStation

What a PlayStation 3 Mini Would Look Like

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 30, 2012 | 3 comments

Earlier today, Nintendo announced the Wii Mini for Canada. Offered at just $99, the smaller console is targeted at the budget contentious consumers though at a price. Unlike the original Wii which will continue to be sold along side the new iteration, the Wii Mini lacks any form of online connectivity and GameCube compatibility. Nintendo seems to think that probably a good portion of their user base probably didn’t own their previous system and were never interested in online play, seeing how the Wii is quite popular with the non-gamers, particular the elder crowd. This of course got us thinking, what would a PlayStation 3 Mini look like?

Sony Sells 525,000 PS3’s on Black Friday, PS+ Sales Up 259%

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 29, 2012 | 2 comments

By now, most of the big Black Friday numbers have been released. This includes sales of the new Nintendo Wii U and the Xbox 360 which beat it out. Appropriately so, all eyes have been on Sony to release their numbers and with no news, many began to worry. Luckily, those worries were for not as Sony has finally released their Black Friday sales figures for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Plus membership with some encouraging numbers. In the United States between November 18th and November 24th, Sony sold 525,000 PlayStation 3 units. This is an increase of 15% for the PS3 compared to last year’s Black Friday bundles while software and peripherals grew 9% over the same period last year. If you think that’s impressive, Sony has reported that PS3 sales for Latin America were up 200% when compared to last year, though no specifc numbers were included. Even the PlayStation Vita enjoyed robust sales though not quite as gangbuster as PlayStation Plus.

PlayStation All-Stars Gets Rated by the ESRB

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 29, 2012 | 0 comments

Have you seen the series ‘Elders React’ on YouTube where current trends like PSY’s Gangnam Style are shown to the older generation and their reactions are captured? Or better yet, have you heard politicians try to explain the internet as a series of tubes? If so, you know the hilarity that can follow and, a note to my future self: don’t be like that. Now, the ESRB is joining the list of “out of touch” with their rating on PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale, the beat-em-up/fighter for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Some gems include:

Players use swords, energy blasters, fireballs, bazookas, and melee attacks to deplete opponents’ health in dynamically shifting environments’

And

During one still-frame cutscene, a woman’s posterior is partially exposed.

After the jump, the entire hilarious written rating from the ESRB.

Hilarious Robot Chicken PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale Video

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 27, 2012 | 0 comments

Those who tuned into Robot Chicken last night were presented with a hilarious and game-appropriate portrayal of PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale. Available on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, the new beat-em-up/brawler from Sony houses many of the iconic characters from PlayStation’s past and current games. While many rightfully tend to point a finger at Sony’s lack of quality advertising, this 60 second spot should go a long way to prove that, at the hands of the right person, Sony’s deep history of quality content can lend itself to some fantastic advertisement. After the jump, we have the hilarious video for your viewing pleasure which takes a look at what your favorite game characters do between matches.

Editorial: Why $50 Games Are Hurting the PS Vita

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 19, 2012 | 7 comments

Just an hour ago, a conversation took place on Twitter in regards to the quality of Call of Duty: Declassified for the PlayStation Vita. So far, reviews and user experience has been less than stellar with reports of lag, glitches, and control issues. Many had seen CoD on the PS Vita as a knight in shining armor for the struggling console and it’s no surprise. CoD games sell and sell by the droves. A proper CoD game could really capture the market Sony is going for: those who wish to play console quality games on the go.

I’ve personally yet to play CoD: Declassified on the Vita so it’s hard for me to comment on the game. However, this led to another conversation on Twitter: the $50 price tag for CoD. Some have expressed their distaste that Activision would charge so much for a broken game. But even if it were a completely acceptable game, can publishers charge so much for PS Vita titles? After the jump, I explain why I believe these high prices are hurting the PS Vita.

Sony Sells 70 Million PS3 and 15 Million PlayStation Move

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 16, 2012 | 0 comments

Sony has just announced that after six years into the PlayStation 3’s lifecycle, the gaming console has passed 70 million units sold worldwide. The PS3 was famously launched a full year after the Xbox 360 with a much higher price point and continues to be offered in more expensive models. Despite this, the PS3 is now neck and neck with the 360 in worldwide sales and ahead if you consider the consoles been available for one less year. While many questioned Sony’s strategy to pack the console with advanced tech like the Cell Processor and Blu-ray, the bet has paid off dearly. Thanks to the PS3, Sony was able to win the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD war and bring 3D to millions of owners. Many also continue to point to the PS3’s strong exclusive games like Uncharted 3 which continue to push the PS3 while many see the 360 as having been tapped out. The PS3 is currently available in 59 countries.

Speaking of sales figures, we last heard about PlayStation Move sales over a year ago which sat at 8 million units sold. The gaming peripheral which is designed to work in tandem with many great PS3 games like Killzone 3, Resistance 3, and Heavy Rain how now crossed the 15 million units sold. Designed to counter the Nintendo Wii and Kinect for 360, PlayStation Move is able to offer more precession than the competing game consoles though it never caught on like either. Despite that, just this week, Sony launched the WonderBook, a new platform that utilizes the PS Move and PS3 to create a new immersive reading experience. Having been profitable from day one, its no surprise to see Sony continue to push the motion gaming technology which seems to be doing much better than we had originally thought.

Despite Reports, PS3 Still Banned in China

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 14, 2012 | 0 comments

In China, Communism is the rule and law of the land. That means, the Chinese government dictate what websites are accessible and pass the Great Firewall of China, how many kids you can have, and what gaming consoles are allowed to be sold. Sony unfortunately is not on that list and so for the past 6 years, sales of the PlayStation 3 have not been possible to the biggest market. It should be noted that The Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii share a similar fate as all gaming consoles were banned in 2000.

Not wanting to miss on such a large potential user base, Sony has done everything it can to get permission to sell its consoles. In fact, as of July 2012, Sony was able to obtain the China Compulsory Certification (3C) which would allow for sales of the unit. Seeing this headline, many sites ran with the story that PS3 sales were not permitted in China but a more comprehensive reports shows anything but that.

According to Forbes, things are much more complicated then that and just having a 3C certification has not allowed Sony to sell the PS3.

A 3C is required if a product is to be manufactured, sold, imported and used in China. Suffice it to say that the Certification and Accreditation Administration does not fall under the MOC, but the MOC has regulatory authority over the ban on consoles. Niko Partners and Pilar Legal interviewed a key official at the MOC, GAPP, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) for our report and we are certain that the ban is still in place.

Gran Turismo Creators Think GT6 Needs to be ‘Sexier’

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 13, 2012 | 0 comments

The mantra, sex sales has long been applied to products, movies, and video games. Get an attractive model to pitch the product or offer a steamy scene to pull in the young viewers. Video games have heavily utilized sex to sell all kinds of genres, from beach volleyball to killing zombies with a chainsaw. Of course, we can expand from the pure definition of sex and instead create sexier products. Sleeker, more refined, and smoother are all words that tend to correlate with the word. According to Gran Turismo creator and car/racing fanatic, Kazunori Yamauchi, its time for Gran Turismo to get sexier when speaking to GTPlanet. After the jump, his statement.

Listening To – Assassin’s Creed III Soundtrack

by A Glitch | Nov 11, 2012 | 3 comments

Music is the unsung hero of the gaming industry today. Without a great soundtrack to a game, said game can be extremely lackluster and silly no matter how good the story line, gameplay, and presentation are. Technology has allowed for the integration of music in video games in such a big way, that we have gone from the monophonic sounds of a game like Space Invaders (with 2 alternating tones going the speed of the alien’s movements, kind of like Jaws) to something like the Assassin’s Creed III soundtrack with a full orchestra and more creating some really amazing music that would be very hard to hear otherwise.

Lorne Balfe, the award-winning composer and mastermind behind the Assassin’s Creed III soundtrack, decided to make some very interesting sounds by integrating what sounds like and may very well be Native American instruments, which really is an incredible choice given the setting in the game. While listening to the soundtrack, you can sometimes hear what sounds like an Anasazi Flute, joining the orchestra in a very organic way, creating some very interesting sound textures and chords that really add so much more to the already amazing sound of a full orchestra. The heavily percussive writing also makes the experience of listening to the soundtrack more interesting and really puts a vision of a Native American tribe in your head with an instrument that sounds like a Charango (which is a native american string instrument that resembles a very small guitar) and even sometimes there are, what I think, hints of the Apache fiddle which add an interesting color to the string section any time they have a pronounced part in the score. Another out-of-the-ordinary instrument that Mr. Balfe has decided to use is the integration of electronic sounds and samples. Unlike the samples we think of today (bits and pieces of other tunes used as a background theme for other tunes).

The electronic samples in the score are just synthesized articulations and timbres that are otherwise impossible to include, since no other real instrument can recreate these sounds. As a musician, as soon as I heard the electronics being used, I , due to preconceived notions, began to dislike the entire soundtrack. “Why not get a real musician to make these sounds instead of using electronics?” I thought. However, I immediately felt ashamed of myself for thinking these negative thoughts, because the electronic sounds are used in such a way that is really organic. The electronic sounds are a part of the ensemble, not just someone hitting a single button to add sounds while editing in post. The addition of electronics in this soundtrack are not only extremely beneficial to the soundtrack in order to portray an image of our new assassin running around in 1776, but it also portrays an image of the other side of the story as well, the story that takes in present time. Symbolically as well, the addition of electronics really shows the integration of Native American instruments and modern instruments, past meets present, just like how the game’s storyline seamlessly delves back and forth from 1776 to the present day.

LightBox Interactive to Downsize, Develop iOS Games

by Sohrab Osati | Oct 18, 2012 | 0 comments

It’s another sad day in the video game industry. LightBox Interactive, the studio behind the PS3 exclusive Starhawk, led by the talented Dylan Jobe (Warhawk) has announced that the studio will be going through a drastic downsizing. 24 team members of the Texas based studio will be losing their job as of this Friday. One silver ling is that,

“all 24 of them are getting a severance package.”

Jobe went on to say that the studio will not be shutting down like some reports have indicated and that they will instead be focusing on iOS (iPhone, iPad) games. Despite building off of the popular Warhawk, Sony was never able to get much traction with Starhawk, having sold only 170,000 copies to date. Dylan commented,

“Lay-offs always suck but they are an unfortunate reality of business sometimes. The best we can do is try and treat our people with respect during the shocking transition of a lay-off,”

While many readers might point to their likes/dislike of particular games in the comment section, there are the few who take things to the extreme and in fact wish for the studios closing, due to their dismay for that title. While I can sympethise with the passion behind those comments (sorry, you can’t convince me to pick up a CoD game), it needs to be pointed out how short sighted such views are and that there are real ramifications beyond your inner satisfaction that a particular may no longer continue, though one needs to simply just ignore the title as no one is actually forcing you to play them. Instead, we need to remember that those 24 staff members in this case are husband and fathers, mothers and mortgage owners who no longer have a source of income. Its with that view that no matter how much we may dismay a particular product, we must never forget about those who are behind them and the real lifes that are forever altered when a product fails or a studio comes close to shutting their doors.

With that, I wish the surviving team at LightBox Interactive all the luck in the world on their future endeavors and hope that the 24 laid off members are able to find new opportunities in the near future. Friend of the site and creator of God of War and Twisted Metal David Jaffe had this to say to the soon-to-be laid off employees,

Sad to hear about the layoffs as well. On the possible positive side, I’m looking for a CTO & lead network engineer for down here in sunny San Diego! 🙂

He can be contacted via Twitter.

Editorial: Should Sony Cancel the PlayStation Move?

by Sohrab Osati | Oct 17, 2012 | 1 comment

Before we dive deep into the topic of cancelation, which I don’t take lightly due to the fact that many miss the ramifications behind canceled projects like the jobs of the team members, it should be noted that I’ve owned the PlayStation Move from launch. In fact, I have two PS Move controllers, two Navigators, a Shooting Attachment, and the Sharp Shooter. To say that I’m invested into the product as both a journalist and as a PlayStation fan would be putting it mildly as the entire collection has been paid for by yours truly and not provided to us. When the PlayStation Move launched, it promised to give adults a chance to experience what Wii users had been for years and by adults, I mean more adult-oriented games like Resistance 3, Heavy Rain, and Killzone 3. Games that we’d always envisioned in our minds to play with movement while replicating the gun in our hands. To be able to have an accurate arcade style experience in one’s house with the gorgeous Killzone 3 has been at the pinnacle of a gamer’s wet dreams since the original Nintendo gun.

Fast-forward two years and the PlayStation Move is doing nothing other than collecting dust on retail shelves with the occasional developer support like Sorcery, a game that was designed to recapture the audience’s imagination and, once again, push the new tech. While there are plenty of details to dive into, the eventuality of it is that Nintendo was able to sell their take on motion gaming with low prices while Microsoft was able to sell their take with a higher-priced Kinect (though a set of Move equipment will cost more than the Kinect. Also, the price has dropped considerably in the last year) and Sony was not. Readers should also note that I personally have no interest in the Nintendo Wii (though I’m not blind to the demograph that it has served) and believe that the Xbox Kinect is nothing beyond a gimmick. Still, interest or no interest, gimmick or not, both of these companies were able to convey their vision of the product to developers which have support them and more importantly to the public who have bought them in droves, in which turn, developers have decided to further support.

To further complicate things for Sony, the PlayStation 3 has, throughout its life, enjoyed a poor imagination, despite being a superior machine and has always been behind in many key sales charts. This, mixed with Sony Corp.’s troubled financials, would seem like a poor time for Sony to want to expand the PlayStation brand. This is in direct contrast to Microsoft, who ran a $500 million campaign for the Kinect in its first year, more than what Sony has probably spent on the PS3’s lifetime for advertisement. Beyond that, Microsoft has always seen the Kinect as a bridging device which has seen the company bring its compatibility to Windows where many claim the PS Move was more of a reactionary move (no pun intended) by Sony.

Its not hard to see why the PS Move has struggled in sales, with a much lower PS3 installment in 2010, higher prices (both equipment and console), and little developer support. Mix that with Sony’s already notorious little-to-no advertising capabilities (mostly due to Sony’s financial troubles but also, thanks to their horrible advertising agency), and it’s easy to see why it might be better for Sony to cancel the Move and take the money to invest it in the PlayStation 3 or the around-the-corner PlayStation 4. It just seems like common sense to have one strong platform (PS3) and build from there rather than to have a scattered range of products with marginal success. Sadly in the end, one can replace the word PlayStation Move with the PlayStation Vita or WonderBook and most of this article would still hold true, although all in their own rights are great products.

Here We Go: PSN Hacked Again? (updated)

by Sohrab Osati | Aug 15, 2012 | 0 comments

Here we go again folks. A recent tweet (seen below) from super fantastical hacker group Anonymous has the internet and gamers in uproar again, by claiming to have hacked the PlayStation Network (PSN) again. Those who are familiar with the matter will note that the group nearly 16 months ago hacked Sony which resulted in the company shutting down PSN for over a month and killing off the Qriocity brand.

Anonymous claims to have 50 gigabyte database of email accounts and passwords though this time around, all of that data appears to be encrypted. Sony has yet to confirm or deny the attack. Wether the attack is true or not, I highly recommend signing into your PSN account from a computer and changing your password, just to be on the safe side of things. We’ll have more on this as it develops. After the jump, a direct link to change your account.

Update:

Good news as the entire thing appears to be fake (thank god). Seems like the group was trying to get some attention while scaring off gamers. Still, its a good time to look at your account and make sure that your password is solid.

Outland And BloodRayne Betrayal Now Free To PSN Plus Subscribers

by Jan Hutchings | Aug 15, 2012 | 0 comments

This week’s PlayStation Plus update adds two of the best action-platformers on the PlayStation Network to the free game collection exclusive to the subscription service. Outland and Bloodrayne: Betrayal are now free to all PSN Plus subscribers along with the fan-favorite Walking Dead (Episode 1 & 2).

Find out more about Outland and BloodRayne Betrayal after the break.

Confirmed: Slant Six Games Not Developing New SOCOM Title

by Sohrab Osati | Aug 14, 2012 | 1 comment

After Sony announced the shut down of Zipper Interactive Studios, the long time developers of the beloved SOCOM franchise which ushered in the PlayStation 2’s multiplayer capabilities, many began to look towards Slant Six Games as the torch carrier of the franchise. The Vancouver based team is no stranger to the franchise themselves, having helmed 3 separate titles; SOCOM: Tactical Strike which was named the best PSP multiplayer experience at E3 2007, and SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, and SOCOM: Confrontation for the PS3.

Since Confrontation, Slant Six Games has been busy with Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City which was released back in March 2012 which brought a new take to the long time horror franchise. With no new titles announced from them, many wondered if the team was working with Sony once again to bring SOCOM back to life.