PlayStation 3

PSN Videos Now Playable On Your PC

by Sohrab Osati | Apr 29, 2010 | 8 comments

Here is a little interesting tidbit. Today, I jumped on Media Go, which is Sony’s version of iTunes so to speak for the PSP. The service allows for you to add Music, Photos and Videos to your PSP. The Media Go Software will also talk with iTunes and grab files from it (Even over a network; my iTunes library is on my Mac and it was able to grab music from it no problem). To my surprise, when I logged into the Media Go software today, where you also have access to the PSN store to download content for your PC, I found a new feature.

Sony has now given you the ability to watch your downloaded videos, which were originally meant for your PSP and PSPgo exclusively, on your PC as well. This of course is a very welcome feature. If we have the files on our computer, why not be able to play them on there as well? In iTunes, the video content you download is not just meant for your iPhone or iPod. Those who ran the update will note that the Media Go software also asked for a new update which, besides the random enhancement and bug fixes, also adds compatibility for some Sony Ericsson phones as well. The reason this interests me is that like I’ve always said, PSN needs to be at the core of Sony’s business model. Its laptops, cellphones and other mobile devices all need to have access to the content on there. This not only makes PSN more valuable when you know your content is good for 10 platforms versus 2 (PSP and PS3), but also makes your products more valuable as it gives them an ever-growing content service.

While all these features and ideas are great, I do have one small caveat with the Media Go platform. Why is there not a Mac version? I mean, seriously. Do Mac users not buy PSP and PS3’s and other Sony products? The majority of my media is on my Mac it would be nice to be able to just dock my PSPgo and PSP-1000 with my Mac. Come on, Sony.

My Current PSP Setup:

Hidden PS3 3.30 Firmware Features

by Sohrab Osati | Apr 26, 2010 | 17 comments

Sony released their PS3 firmware 3.30 mid last week that added new trophy features and began to get the console ready for its 3D premiere. However, as I had mentioned, it seemed too large of an update (size-wise) and that there had to be more to it. Well, it seems like we weren’t too far off with our analysis. First come unconfirmed reports that there is a Flash enhancement for the web browser, and if true, this should be welcomed by those who are big into flash games or media content. Now your PS3 can better accommodate you. Also unconfirmed is enhanced region-free Blu-ray playback.

Now for the confirmed features. For you audiophiles out there, there is a toggle for Bitstream Direct (output audio with the original digital signal prioritized) or Mix (mixed with sound effects such as button sounds and then converted to bitstream format) on Blu-ray movies. For those who like to play PS3 games remotely, currently, only the PSP and PSPgo exist as your option. However, with this update, future Vaio owners can also get in on the remote play action as well. We’re not clearly sure what this means. Will this be something future Vaio’s can do? Or will current Vaio’s get access to the PS3 and its content via software update? Nobody is currently sure about this since Sony hasn’t announced any particular detail about it.

This presents an interesting concept and something that I’ve been a staunch supporter for. Sony as a company has a lot of leverage. They produce movies, music and games. They have cameras, camcorders, computers and TVs. The PS3 really needs to be the hub of all of these units with PSN at its core to deliver the content. From there, they need to leverage their other units to feed off of this base. If you have a PS3 with your movies, games and music, and a PSN account that gives you access to all forms of content, and you’re ready for your next computer purchase, are you more likely to purchase a Vaio or an HP if you know that your Vaio or Sony Ericsson has access to the PS3 and PSN? This of course can be one further step to justify a premium price that Sony rightly charges for its products. For a lot of people sometimes hardware quality is not enough to see the difference. Media and software are king and the PS3 and PSN can help to deliver this.

[Via PlayStation UK]

Gamer Log: Brutal Legend and inFAMOUS

by Sohrab Osati | Apr 24, 2010 | 792 comments

Well I finally beat Brutal Legend. I have to say I enjoyed the game a lot but for some reason, I couldn’t play the game for long periods of time. It gave me motion sickness pretty quick. Also, I think the Trophies that you need to get in this game were pretty difficult to achieve. I’ve taken my time and I’m only 30% complete. I mean going back and finding all the serpent statues or landmarks is kinda hard and time staking. I wish you could have atleast teleported or flew around, once you had beaten the game.

On that note, I’ve yet to play God of War or Final Fantasy 13 and I own every Final Fantasy game. However, I’ve told myself that I have a lot of games are just sitting on the shelf and that I have to beat those before I buy those games. For instance, I’ve had inFamous and Mirrors Edge since launch and I just unwrapped inFamous. Mirrors Edge is also still in the wrapper. So tonight is a night of inFamous, dinner and then the recently-released Avatar on Blu-ray on a 60″ Sony SXRD. Nice!

PS3 Gets Firmware 3.30 Upgrade

by Sohrab Osati | Apr 21, 2010 | 38 comments

Get ready to boot up your PS3 for a firmware update! It’s been one that many people have been wanting for a while. Cross Voice Chat, Better trophy options! This is a fantastic option for those who live more on the competitive side of the gaming world and want to compare:

Trophy enhancements –- Now you can more easily sort trophies in the [Trophy Collection] and [Comparing Trophy] sections. Sorting can be done with [Trophy Collection] in the [Game Category] and also when comparing trophies with your friends in the [Friend Category]
Trophy Folder (Title List) can be sorted by game name/ by title according to the date in which you earned your last trophy (ascending/descending)
Add-on list (Group list) can be sorted by original/the date in which you earned your last trophy (ascending/descending)
Trophy list can be sorted by original/trophy name/grade/date of obtaining the trophy (ascending/descending)

This update is also designed to slowly get the PS3 ready for its July 3D firmware update, so go ahead and update away! For those who want to download to a flash drive or hard drive, hit up the PS3 Official site.

Update:
Either a lot of people are downloading this and it’s clogging up the pipes at Sony, or this is a fairly large update that does more then we have been told. I have a feeling that it’s both, especially since it’s getting the PS3 ready for 3D. It could be that Sony has to add a lot of changes to the OS and instead of one huge/slow update, they are slowly piecing it together.

Two 3D Firmwares Needed For PS3?

by Sohrab Osati | Apr 20, 2010 | 7 comments

Take this one with a grain of salt; there is still no legitimate proof one way or another and things could change at any time. Regardless, Techradar is reporting that the upcoming June firmware update to the PS3 will be indeed be giving the PS3 3D capabilities, but only on the gaming side. A separate firmware upgrade will be needed to enable its Blu-ray 3D capabilities. This seems like an odd move as June is also when Sony is planning on launching its 3D televisions and we would assume the more units out there that can deliver 3D to their televisions (and we assume nearly 35 Million PS3’s is a good count) but we’re no engineers or executives at Sony. This also seems odd because Sony will give the S570 and the S470 Blu-ray player a 3D firmware update this July. Remember that this early news may not be entirely accurate, or else we would have had Cross Game Voice Chat by now and that’s been rumored or accidently leaked near every firmware update. Keep your eyes and ears open for more!

Heavy Rain Hits 1 Million in Sales

by Jenni Petot | Apr 13, 2010 | 2 comments

PlayStation 3 exclusive title: Heavy Rain has hit the one million mark in worldwide sales. PSN blog said, “Praised by media for its gripping storyline, thought-provoking themes, innovation and engaging example of non-linear storytelling, it’s no surprise that more than a million gamers agree.”

From playing the downloadable demo on the PSN store, I could instantly tell that this was such a unique game. I purchased the game last month but embarrassed to say I have yet to play it. I plan to start it this week! Reviews say the game starts out slow but if I stick with it (which I will) it’s like nothing I’ve experienced before in a game. The demo alone has different outcomes. Every decision you make, big or small in the game, effects what happens to the characters and story. You swap gameplay between four characters in the game and if one dies, no game over; you just don’t see their side of the story. Also, there’s over 20 different endings in the game! Each character has their own set of endings depending on your decisions and who died. That’s pretty mind-boggling to me.

Has anyone played Heavy Rain yet? I can’t wait to see what path and ending awaits me; hopefully I can keep all of my characters alive.

Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition adds another dimension

by Jenni Petot | Apr 11, 2010 | 1 comment

Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of my favorite games released in 2009. It took many by surprise with how amazing this caped crusader game was. To expand on the success of the game, Warner Bros. Interactive is releasing a game of the year edition May 11th for PS3 and Xbox 360.

What’s different about this game? For the most part it will be the same game as when it was first released in August 2009. The story revolves around Batman escorting the Joker back to Arkham Asylum. The Joker, of course, has a plan in motion and takes control over Arkham where the Dark Knight encounters thugs, Bane, Scarecrow and others.The graphics are incredible and gameplay is so fun using Batman’s abilities and gadgets like grappling between gargoyles and exploding gel. Having watched behind the scenes, I learned that the developers really did their homework on Batman and pleased fans like myself with characters, gameplay and story. It’s easy to say that I absolutely love this game.

Here’s a big change: you can now play the game entirely in 3D. The game will come with two pairs of Trioviz 3D glasses. Now, these are the old school red and blue lens glasses which may throw some color off but it’s still cool none the less. Early reviews say the game works on normal and HDTVs and the 3D looks impressive, especially when throwing batarangs.

In addition to 3D, the Game of the Year Edition includes challenge maps standard that were previously downloadable content. Four more challenge maps were also added with online leader boards, while the Joker challenge maps are still a PS3 exclusive.

I am very curious to try the 3D feature in this edition even if it doesn’t look as amazing as 3D games do on the new Sony Bravia 3D TVs. If you haven’t yet played this game, I highly recommend it! Then you can get excited as I am for Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 to come out. Release date is pending, but is expected in Q4 2010 or early 2011.

Modern Warfare 2's Stimulus Package Gets PS3 Release Date

by Jenni Petot | Apr 10, 2010 | 1 comment

Who Else Wants to Swim?

The temporary Microsoft exclusive of Modern Warfare 2‘s Stimulus Package got an official release date from Activation of May 4, 2010. The new map pack is priced at $14.99 and includes three new maps along without two favorites from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Crash and Overgrown. The new maps are: Bailout, a multilevel apartment complex; Storm, a cozy industrial setting loaded with machinery and Salvage, a snow-covered junkyard. Personally I’ll be getting the stimulus package day one. See you on the battlefield.

Playstation Move is the official name of PS3 Motion Controller

by Sohrab Osati | Mar 10, 2010 | 9 comments

There you have it. During today’s GDC 2010 we learned that the PlayStation 3 motion controller is now named the PlayStation Move. Even Socom 4 and LittleBigPlanet will play with it. Pretty cool.

Sony Still Losing 10% On Each Playstation 3

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 1, 2009 | 6 comments

Sony CFO Nobuyuki Oneda noted during Sony’s earning report that even though with huge surge of the PS3 over the last 2 years, Sony is still losing 10% on every PS3 sold, meaning roughly $40. So even with price cuts and cutting down of internal parts (like the PS2 emotion engine,two USB ports from four and no more card reader), Sony is indeed losing money and this makes us think, if the rumored PS3 price cut comes true during E3, will Sony continue to lose more? Or will the new PS3 model with a smaller Cell processor (the eventual 45mm) and blu-ray player with lower costs help Sony offset their losses on each unit and actually make money, if these cost cutting methods can be made.

Sony Working On PSP Music Store? More Like PSN

by Sohrab Osati | May 27, 2009 | 1 comment

Full Concept

A few websites are running with the news that Sony is looking to create a PSP music store. The theory goes that with the eventual death of the UMD drive on the PSP and the potential integration of build in flash drive and added Memory Stick expansion slot, Sony is looking to turn the PSP into an iPod Touch competitor, much like the touch is competing with the PSP/DSi.

Although I dont doubt such intensions, there is one piece of this story that I reject and feel like everybody is missing. Why would Sony just create a PSP music store? Do we forget that the download service was truly born for Sony on the PS3? (we will forget Sony Connect and such). And that at last E3, the movie side of the PSN store was born. So why would Sony suddenly just limit their music to the PSP? I think that the PSP is part of the puzzle, sure but this should be a PSN Music service. We must not forget that and I know im beating a dead horse, but Sony is a music company as well. Plus, Sony makes many devices like their new X1000 Walkman that is designed to head to head with the iPod Touch. So why limit the reach of your audience. It’s not like there is a separate iTunes music store for the iPod Touch vs. other Apple Products. In fact, the potential success of iTunes is the story of, sell music at a loss, but make the hardware like AppleTV, iPod Touch more appealing.

Sony must do the same thing with their PSN store if they are going to survive the next shift in the electronic industry. Just like how the PSN store made its way to the PSP, the Music side must a PSN service that Sony equipment can will tap into. Not a hardware to hardware specific service. Plus, wouldn’t those who use such a service (consumer) but happier knowing such a service will work with 15 of their Sony devices verses 1? And more so, what better way to lure content provider by saying that we have a reach of 80 Million (PSP+PS3, but hopefully, much more Sony devices in the future) then just 50 million (PSP users).

PS3 Firmware 2.7 is Live

by Sohrab Osati | Apr 2, 2009 | 28 comments

I just turned on my PS3 and firmware 2.7 is indeed live. Some of the key features are:

Chat rooms with up to 16 people where you can have live chats while playing a game.
File sending has been bumped from 1mb to 3mb.
You can now backup your downloaded movies on an external hard drive and delete them from your main system and transfer them.

So update away!

PS3 Gains Steam In Japan

by Sohrab Osati | Mar 14, 2009 | 2 comments

It seems that in the last few weeks, the PS3 again has been gaining steam in Japan as this chart will show that for the first time in a long time, both the PSP and PS3 sit on top of the charts for the 2nd week in a row. With that in mind, I dont want to turn this site into a gaming site as there is more then a dozen sites with a lot more resources at their disposal to do that, but the PlayStation brand is indeed an important part of Sonys portfolio and I believe to the future of the company, especially with the implementation of the XMB (Cross Media Bar) and PSN (PlayStation Network). Part of the reasoning behind this is a few new major titles out for the system, something that the PS3 lacked in the first two years. I truly believe that Sony on every level shouldnt worry about Nintendo and indeed have its cross hairs on Microsoft, especially in Japan and Europe where Sony has always had a huge dominance or it can risk losing a generation of Gamers.

PSP – 59,568
PlayStation 3 – 39,835
Nintendo DSi – 32,102
Wii – 16,560
Xbox 360 – 14,994
Nintendo DS Lite – 11,240
PlayStation 2 – 4,954

[Via Kotaku]

Sony Announces PlayStation Visa Credit Card

by Sohrab Osati | Nov 25, 2008 | 11 comments

Lets say your in the market for a new PS3 but a price tag of $249 sounds alot better to you. Or maybe your just a PlayStation fan and want to show your dedication wherever that you shop. Thought you were out of luck and the only solution was to get a PlayStation tattoo in hopes of those around you noticing and maybe Sony giving you a discount?

Think again because Sony has your back with a new PlayStation Visa credit card. Using this credit card will also give you a $150 off the PS3 and if this is any indication of their old promotions, you can expect for future promotions to arrive with the usage of this card. Just hit the following site to apply. www.sony.com/getpscard

[Via PlayStation Blog]

Alpha Little Big Planet

by Sohrab Osati | Aug 21, 2008 | 32 comments

It seems like this is the year of Beta’s for the PS3 as Home is getting ready for public Beta, MGS4 is to also offer one and even this little game called KillZone 2 is rumored to be offering it. Having said that, lets not forget about Little Big Planet as it gets ready for its eventual launch. The best way to make sure you have your kinks worked out? Offering a Beta of course. Only obstacles left? Getting to the Alpha first as the Media Molecule team explains:

Basically this means all the cool stuff we said will be in there should be playable, even if it isn’t pretty enough to release. The game seems to change every day at the moment and it is very exciting to be able to sit down and play what feels more and more like a complete experience.

And here we were ready for the game or a Beta.

[Media Molecule]