SonyRumors

Gamer Log: PSPgo Saved My Night

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 27, 2010 | 21 comments

So here is a fun one. Last night, I had my girlfriend over. We had finished dinner with the family and we were going to eventually pop in a Blu-ray to watch. A few days prior to all of this, I had introduced my girlfriend to the Tester series on PSN. So while we waited for the rest of the family to get together, we decided to watch a episode or two. One down, no problem and we were into the next episode when the family was ready. We skimmed my now 197 Blu-ray titles (take that, Blockbuster) and we came on “The International” (from Columbia Pictures) and started to watch away. Half way through the movie, my girlfriend wasn’t feeling all that well so we decided to retire the night upstairs in my room. My room is geek heaven but there is no HDTV there so I haven’t even bothered buying another PS3 yet. But we were both also a little bored and wanted something entertaining to watch. Thats when it hit me. I grabbed my PSPgo off the Sony Dock, jumped on PSN and downloaded episode 5 of the Tester (135MB) in about 3 minutes and we finished that episode in bed. It’s times like this when that little guy really shines and I look at the Nintendo DS and cant help but wonder why Sony isn’t pushing more of these devices out.

Sony World Cup Rating Article Accidentally Released

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 24, 2010 | 1 comment

Hey everybody, I’m not sure how that post got published as it wasnt done yet. I’ll be working on it and should have it up by tomorrow, so sorry about that half-written post as it should’t have been released.

We Sent Our Resident Gamer Girl To E3

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 24, 2010 | 6 comments

One of the things I really believe in is the culture of gaming. Some write it off as “oh you’re going to play Nintendo” and others think of gaming as what is causing violence in schools. I see gaming as a beautiful culture where friends compete with each other, and artists get together to design every sound that comes from your speaker and compose Hollywood blockbuster-like stories. To me, gaming is beyond an art that is ever-expanding. Part of this expansion is indeed from the female population. Again, many either write them off or just simply assume they are playing “Guitar Hero” (nothing wrong with that). But there is so much more to them. Again, many think of girl gamers and booth babes come to mind, but there is more to girl gamers than just sexy outfits (but I won’t complain about that either). This site alone can really show you the diversity of these girls. Just the other day, I was sitting down with our very own editor Allegra Wilson and we were playing “LittleBigPlanet” and then did some racing in “Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.” Our own writer Jenni “Domino” Petot will school you in “Modern Warfare 2” and you wouldn’t think there is a girl on the other end.

With this, I was excited that Domino got a chance to head to E3 this year. Look for her reports soon as she covers E3 from her own perspective.

New Staff Member! Allegra Wilson!

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 14, 2010 | 3 comments

So has anybody else noticed something wonderfully amazing lately? This sites posts read and sound a lot more professional and thats mostly due to our newest member, Allegra Wilson. Although this site has been around for about 2 years, Allegra has been working in the background, going through and making sure every post, review and discussion is proper and formal! (As you can tell, this paragraph has not been edited by her) But the following paragraph is from her and will tell you about her. We’re just thrilled to have her work with us!

Allegra Wilson is an undergraduate at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa pursuing her BA in English and Certificate in Linguistics. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA but will be in Honolulu, HI for the better part of the months leading up until her college graduation in May 2011. She enjoys playing video games on occasion, but her real passions are for technology and grammar. Allegra has been a Mac user since 1996, which has continuously fueled her love for technology, and her exposure to the web has helped her learn more about language every day.

Gamers Log: inFamous Beat. Final Fantasy XIII Time!

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 12, 2010 | 3 comments

As I’ve written in the past, I recently started inFamous and what a ride it has been. I cannot stress how much fun this game is and the quality of it is wonderful. To start off, I’m a big story guy. I like playing games for their story and boy does inFamous deliver. Especially the ending; that’s all I’ll say on that matter. Now let it be said that I’m not really a fan of the GTA series or the open world concept yet here I was with inFamous, completely pulled in and it made sense. The city was alive and the story and its missions beautifully revolved around it. Plus, the city really had a grand size while not getting too annoying in that respect. Also, I have to mention that the enemies were great and fun to beat up on. However, and I’m not sure if this is a positive or not, but I never once felt too powerful. I’m not sure if the enemies got stronger over time as well to keep the balance or what, but I can confirm that I attained all of Cole’s powers a while before the ending and I still died plenty of times at enemies’ hands. Another blessing from the developers was the fact that the trophies were fun to get and not ludicrous. If anybody has played Brutal Legend or Killzone 2, you will feel my pain.

I must say that during my time with inFamous, I had an amazing amount of fun and would love the guys at Sucker Punch to make a Spider-man game because that’s all I could think about during many of the building climbing that I did within the game. With inFamous knocked out, I’m now moving on to Final Fantasy XIII. I’m both excited and scared for this because I’m a huge RPG nerd and own every Final Fantasy game, including FF1 for Nintendo. But I’ll be the first to admit that Square has dropped the ball this generation. Before, I picked up Xenogears because it said Square on the box. I had never heard of the game and its now currently my favorite game of all time. But this generation, Square seems so focused with trying to appeal to Western gamers that I think it’s losing itself. Plus, this is their first true next gen game and we are in the 4th year! But onwards I march with FF13. After that, I believe it will be God of War collection and God of War 3 time. And yes, I somehow did miss GoW 1&2 on the PS2.

I Don't Use My PSPgo Because I'm Cheap

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 10, 2010 | 5 comments

On October 1st, 2009, I was a giddy person. It was the PSPgo launch date and I had my unit already paid for and only needed the UPS man to bring it to my door. It was a little opposite of the PSP-1000 launch as I waited in line that day at a GameStop store. The original PSP was one of my favorite gadgets. Before I had an iPod, that little guy would hold my music, I had a load of UMD movies and had downloaded Anime on my memory stick and a load of games. Fast forward the PSPgo launch: I received my unit, fired it up and was in love. I immediately downloaded Grand Turismo and a few other games and took my PSPgo with me everywhere. But I noticed I kept going back to my PSP-1000 and it was for the simple reason that I still needed to beat Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7. Because of lack of option of playing Crisis Core on my PSPgo, my PSP-1000 had me in. But now I owned this beautiful unit and I couldn’t even give it the attention it needed. Soon I noticed that Amazon had a fantastic deal on Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Of course, this was on the UMD version, but for $20, how could I say no?

It’s with this that I noticed that the reason I don’t use my PSPgo is because I’m cheap! Seriously, one of the reasons I have been playing my original PSP more than my PSPgo is because I can go on Amazon and get cheaper prices or sales on games. Plus, at the end of the day, it will be the same game because yes the PSPgo is sexier and has a better screen, but the game itself is and will be the same. So while I do love my PSPgo, I don’t want to pay extra for games when I don’t have to. Also, the whole point of digital distribution is that there is no shipping, no packaging, no producing and booklets and boxes, so does it not make sense for the digital version to be cheaper? Plus, the big worry with game publishers right now is secondhand selling and how they don’t get a cut of that market. Well have the UMD version for $40 which can go be sold again and the PSN version for $30 because I cannot share those and sell that copy.

That is ultimately not the only solution. Sony needs to give a retailer like Amazon the capability go also put the PSN versions on sale as well as the UMD and give the buyers a choice (remember, there is a PSN store on Amazon as well for those who want to gift games or just buy them some other way). So to wrap this up, I’m not against digital downloads. I own 2 iPhones (soon 3) and my iPad, and I have nearly 30 PSN games on the PS3, but when I can get the same game for cheaper on the PSP as opposed to the PSPgo version and they are of the same quality, capitalism and supply and end demand indicate that the PSPgo will flop and so far, its been true, sadly.

Here’s a funny thing: in order to take the picture I did for the profile, I had to plug my PSPgo back in and charge it up and during its initial setup, I felt very guilty about this post and the lack of attention I have given that unit and the lack of marketing and attention Sony has given it as well because it feels so damn nice in the hand. Dammit Sony!

Domino's Blu Tuesday!

by Jenni Petot | Jun 8, 2010 | 14 comments

Back again for another look at this week’s blu-ray releases. This week I’m very, very excited for Shutter Island. I’ll be the first to admit Leonardo DiCaprio is my favorite actor. This is not in any way an “Oh he’s so cute” reason, (although he’s not bad on the eyes) I believe he is a brilliant actor and continues to blow me away in all of his performances. Shutter Island is one of the best movies I’ve seen so far this year, and I can’t even get into how excited I am for Inception, it’s a slight obsession. Ok enough of Leo and back to blu-ray releases.

Two other movie releases that appeal to my taste are From Paris with Love and The Illusionist. I haven’t seen From Paris yet, but this is definitely a renter for me and I wanted to catch it in theaters. The Illusionist came out around the same time as The Prestige, both films about magic and illusion with a romance sub-plot and both were great. I will admit I loved The Prestige more, but the Illusionist was a very enjoyable film that will be on my blu-ray ‘to buy’ list.

Lastly, I must mention a blu-ray set that I forgot to include last week that will be added to my collection, Life. For fans of the incredibly beautiful, Planet Earth, Discovery channel did a similar 10 episode series on wild life around the world. The few episodes I’ve seen, I watch with my jaw open. It’s really amazing seeing what these animals do to survive and the beautiful shots that were captured. I should note that there are two versions of Life, one has narration by David Attenborough, and the other is narration by Oprah Winfrey. Numerous reviews say go with David’s version, it’s slightly more expensive but worth it from the more interesting commentary.

Domino's Blu Tuesday!

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 1, 2010 | 14 comments

For those of you that read this weekly, I must apologize for not having a Domino’s Blu Tuesday the past 2 weeks. I’m going to be straight up and say that there wasn’t any Blu-rays I was excited for or purchased in that time. But now I’m back! With three great releases this first of June, it’s a great day.

The first movie is one that has been advertised like crazy and I’m sure you all are aware: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. I’m still surprised at how fast this film came to us at home as it was released in theaters in mid March. I saw this movie in theaters in 3D but would of been happier in 2D, that’s why I’m excited for this blu-ray release. I think it’ll look far better at home on Blu-ray than the pop-up book effect it had at times in the theater. Although it’s not a favorite movie of mine, I really enjoyed it and have always been a fan of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.

The next two movies are great action films that I feel are a must for a collection: Bad Boys and War of the Worlds. I don’t know why it took so long for Bad Boys to come out. This movie has been advertised for Blu-ray for about 3 years now with clips being shown in the ‘previews’ before you watch a blu movie at home. These are great comedy/action film from Michael Bay and I hope more Will Smith movies come out, especially Independence Day and Bad Boys 2.

Christopher Nolan is my favorite director and I will buy all of his films on Blu-ray. From my spending habits it seems I also feel this way about Steven Spielberg. He has created such amazing films, most of which are sci-fi action or epic World War II movies. I picked up War of the Worlds and can’t wait to watch it this week.

Slightly New Twitter Page

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 1, 2010 | 1 comment

Hey, just a quick little thing. I’ve slightly tweaked our Twitter page so it dosent look so generic. Other than that, there’s nothing else so, enjoy!

Insomniac Games: Betrayal And Good Business

by Sohrab Osati | Jun 1, 2010 | 19 comments

As you may or may not have heard, long-time Playstation exclusive 2nd party developer Insomniac Games has announced that they are going multi-platform. Now, because they are 2nd party means that they had formed an alliance with Sony but were never owned by Sony and could pull away from the Playstation brand whenever they wished. Insomniac has been exclusive to the Playstation brand since the PS1. They continued this on the PS2 where they had huge success with their Ratchet & Clank series. Once on the PS3 though, the story was different. The first Resistance game they released was a launch title for the PS3 and had huge sales and is still in the top 10 most sold games for the PS3. Still, their followup games never caught on. They have since released 3 Ratchet & Clank games that have had sliding sales. While Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction sold 1.94 Million, Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time only pushed 1 million copies. Again, the first Resistance game had sold 3.69 Million while the far superior Resistance 2 (and I think one of the most underrated PS3 games) only managed 1.88 million.

This of course brings me to Insomniac’s decision to move to a 3rd party, multi-platform release. As the numbers have shown, the guys over at Insomniac have been hurting. This doesn’t make any of their games a flop in any form, but from such a AAA developer, it’s not the numbers I’m sure they had hoped for. So if we look at this as a pure business deal, it makes perfect sense. Cater to 35 million PS3 users or cater to PS3 and Xbox 360 (39 million) users? The decision is a simple one and my business side couldn’t agree more with their decision and wish this fantastic developer the best. But then the fan inside of me is the person who feels betrayed. This is the same company who has made their life on the Playstation. Insomniac wouldn’t be who they are if Sony didn’t give their space and say, just make fantastic games and here are all the resources you need. So it’s with that side of me that I don’t see them in the same eye and I’ll be the first to admit it: that’s my fanboy side.

But the question that really needs to be begged here is: is this Sony’s fault? Insomniac was pushing out a new AAA title per year for Sony (something that is very hard to actually accomplish), but as we see, the sales weren’t there. There is of course two causes for that. A lot of those games were published during the high price time of the PS3. With launch prices of $599, we’re only reaching the one year milestone of the $299 PS3. So this alone meant that the install base of the PS3 was not huge during the prior years. But maybe more damming then the price was the marketing or lack there of marketing for the Playstation. As many Sony fans will tell you, Sony has had zero presence on television. While Microsoft would blast ads left and right for Gears and Halo, I saw maybe one Resistance ad on TV, and ads for the Playstation were nonexistent. Again, it’s only really been in the last year that Sony has done a great job with the Kevin Butler ads, (I still wished that they aired more of them but it’s far better than years prior). But even with all of this in mind, the Playstation now has a healthy number of users and yet, it doesn’t move games like the 360 does and part of this is due to the more mature crowd. When a big 360 title comes out, it’s sure to sell over 1 million the first week, but with the Playstation, if it does 500k, it’s doing big. Some might point to the extra 4 million 360 users out there but the numbers don’t add up to those extra 4 million consuming so much more. I believe this has more to do with the younger 360 gamers being hardcore gamers who need to have something on day 1 and have had a 2 month pre-order where the PS3 users are more casual and older. This means that although they will buy, they don’t need to own it on day one and have other things in their lives besides gaming.

So in the end, what is to blame for Insomniac’s departure as a PS3 exclusive developer? The lack of sales? The failure of Sony to promote or the Playstation fans? Maybe all 3, and maybe that’s just the tide as long time Microsoft exclusive partner Bungie (creator of the Halo series) is now a 3rd party developer and will have their next game on both consoles as well. Regardless of the reason, I wish the guys over at Insomniac the best.

Commenting Is Now Easier

by Sohrab Osati | May 23, 2010 | 89 comments

As I continue to work on the back end of the site and make sure everything is working fine and the UI is functional, I recently noticed that our comments section required you to be logged in, a.k.a. a WordPress member. I’ve gone ahead and changed that so that almost anybody can comment on our site. Now, we can hear from you much more robustly on our Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as in our comments section. We look forward to your interactions with us!

Editorial: My PS3 Facebook Dream

by Sohrab Osati | May 19, 2010 | 5 comments

I have to admit, I’m kind of a Facebook whore. I have it on all my devices. See our Sony Dash review. I have it on my iPhone and iPad and I enabled it on day one when Sony allowed for it on the PS3. However, I think the experience has left a lot to be desired for. The good news is not only that I have a game plan here, but it’s something that’s fairly easy to implement.

So first, lets start off with what I like about Facebook on these devices. I like how if you currently gain trophies, it posts them on your Facebook feed. It’s nice to show what you gained and it tells your friends what your playing. I also like it when you purchase something, it again posts it to your wall. How else would people know how many different adorable Sack Boys and Girls I have! But beyond that, there is not a whole lot more.

The idea of Facebook is to be in touch with people and let them know what you’re doing/thinking. If we pause for a minute, PSN sort of does this as well. You can see people’s statuses by going on your friends list, what game they are playing and a little blurb on top of their name. The problem is that currently there is no convenient way of changing that, so for most people, it stays the same. The first implementation that I would do is, when you change your “blurb” on PSN, it updates that to your Facebook. “So-and-so thinks MAG is awesome”. To really go the extra mile, let’s give users the capability to update your Facebook from your PSN, but also, if you update your Facebook status from your Mac/iPhone etc., it should also update your PSN. I think that single move will give PSN a sense of fluidity and “currentness”, for lack of a better word. It’s much more up to date on what you’re doing and is now much more socially integrated into your life. This seems like a very possible and easy setup on Sony’s part that will give PSN a very social pulse and put it out there more.

Other things I would like to see, though they are a little more out there, are to be able to upload pictures and videos to your Facebook. Currently, some games allow you to to take screen shots or record videos and put them on YouTube. Why not Facebook as well? The key for all of this is two-sided for Sony. It first gets people to interact with your content which is always good. “Oh hey, awesome kill in Uncharted, I should go back and play that and try that too”. Also, it’s free advertisement for them. So if you’re listening to this, Sony, and would like some more ideas, I’d love to give them to you. Contact Us?

Editorial: Sony Wont Let Me Buy Another PS3

by Sohrab Osati | May 17, 2010 | 2 comments

The title might be a tad misleading, but follow me on this and you might agree as well. I’ve been in the Playstation family since launch. I remember getting my original Playstation, back when they came in large cases, similar to what you have now, not the CD case layout most Playstation users remember. I got my PS2 on launch date. I got myy PSP-1000 and PSPgo on launch date. For my PS3, I waited in line for a day and got screwed out of getting one, so the next day on eBay, I spent $1,500 for the 60GB. Yea, I was one of those people…Since then, my PS3 has seen a few upgrades: a 320GB drive and currently a 500GB drive. A big reason for this is that I have a lot of media and a lot of games as well when I look back. I look at my PS3 as my entertainment hub. So when guests come over, my Movies, Photos, and Games sections each have folders with categories. Under the Games section, there is a PS3 Demo (with around 50 games) and PS3 Games (with around 25 games), PSP Games, and PSP Demo section. There is a section for all the Qore episodes. Same idea in the Video section. Game Trailers, Movie Trailers, The Tester, Random etc etc. A tad OCD yes but it makes it nice for when people come over.

This brings me to why I cannot own a second PS3. I love the PS3 slim. Yes, I wish I could get the Memory Card, Extra USB and Backwards compatibility back but it is what it is. I’m ok with that. The reason I cannot get one is because of saved games. I would love to stick a PS3 slim in my bedroom and, when I don’t feel like being in the living room, be able to play my games. As I mentioned, I have nearly 25 downloadable games and another 20 Blu-ray based games. But if I want to play a game from where I left off, I would then have to remember which unit has the most current saved game, boot it up, copy paste the file on a flash drive and then erase and paste on the new machine and play. In short, it’s not going to happen. This is when I truly hope for the idea of a more premium PSN network coming. Keep what’s currently free, well, free, because frankly, for most, that’s more then enough. But for those of us who want a little more functionality like that, I’m willing to pay. Having said that, this is a very tricky territory. Either it has to cost less then Xbox Live and have the same features when you combine Free and Paid PSN or it needs to cost the same or more, but offer features not found on Live. This is a must because Sony has been saying as of late that they are in the same park as Live and for the most part, I agree. But if they come out, offer exactly the same features as Live for the same price, then it becomes sticky in terms of PR. So Sony, please let me buy another PS3, I want to give you my money, I really do. It’s just currently entirely inconvenient because, before, during the PS and PS2 era, everything went on a memory card and that was easy enough to grab between machines.

Editorial: PS3 Back Up Takes Forever

by Sohrab Osati | May 12, 2010 | 21 comments

Holy sweet mother. Ive backed up my PS3 before but not in a long time. I have the original 60GB unit which ive upgraded to a 120GB then, 320GB and currently, I have a 500GB hard drive in there. I have about 300GB worth of content on my PS3 but lately, my PS3 will bootup and tell me that the correct disc count not be found. So I believe the drive that I have in there is dying. I finally got around to grabbing a 750GB WD drive to back up to. (keep in mind, most new drives on shelves come with the NTSF format and the PS3 only talks to Fat32, so you will need to reformat your drive). But now that its backing up, its quoting me 48 hours….

If anybody has seen quotes on computers, you know that they can be off. Computer will say about a minute to transfer a file and 10 seconds later its done. Having said that, I started the back up last night around 7pm and its currently 4:35pm and I still have another 20 hours to go. I hope my PS3 dosent explode?

Domino's Blu Tuesday!

by Jenni Petot | May 4, 2010 | 47 comments

Blu Tuesday is when I write about what new Blu-ray releases I’m excited for every week. This week marks a big and exciting Blu-ray release: “Saving Private Ryan.” This is the 4th film to be released in Paramount’s Sapphire Series, which are their award-winning films. Included in this collection so far: “Gladiator,” “Braveheart” and “Forrest Gump.” “Saving Private Ryan” is one of the most realistic war movies I’ve seen. Although my closest experience with war is playing “Modern Warfare” and going to the shooting range, the movie is very moving and as close to war as I’ll get. Either way, how can these films in the series not be in everyones Blu-ray collection? I love what Paramount has done to set apart their award winning films being released on Blu-ray. I hope to see “Titanic” and “Almost Famous” included in this series soon and also more studios doing something similar.

Other releases this week on Domino’s radar are: “Nine” and “The Notebook.” There is quite a shift from the intense war films by Spielberg to girly romantic/musical films like these. I plan to purchase “The Notebook” (they were out at Best Buy) but will rent “Nine,” just to see it again.

When I went to purchase “Saving Private Ryan” during my lunch break today, I also picked up another recently released Spielberg film on Blu: “Minority Report.” The technology in that film is already coming to life with Sony’s atracTable. That thing is sexy. I would love for my entire house to be touch screen. One day…one day. That’s all the Blu releases I’m syked about for this week. What Paramount films would you like to see in their Sapphire Series?