Four Things Sony Can Do to Turn the Tide for the PS3 in 2009

Arstechnica feels they have the solution for Sony in order to make their PS3 more successful this year.

Their suggestions are broken down into four main areas as follows:

1) Drop the freaking price: The hard truth is, in the current economy people aren't willing to pay $400 for what is primarily a toy.

2) Let's get serious about online: What do we want? Cross-game invites. We want voice chat in all games. We want... well, we want Xbox Live on the PS3. Don't tell me that's impossible to do for free—Valve created what amounts to a PC version of Xbox Live with Steam's social features, and that doesn't cost anything.

3) Stop making us wait for Thursday: Nintendo has Monday, Microsoft releases Arcade games on Wednesday, and Sony forces everyone to wait until Thursday. PS3 owners get Rock Band songs, demos, and even games later than everyone else.

4) Remember that games are for fun: Sony wants you to know that the PS3 is a high-end, high-class piece of technology. This is a recession. People are pinching pennies, and they want to have fun.

The Wii looks fun for kids and adults, the 360 is inexpensive and features an easy to use online system for playing with your buddies, and the PS3 always comes off as a luxury item. It needs to look fun!

Read the whole article @ PS3 News

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They say it got smart: a 2008 review of the PS3

The revolution will not be televised, it will be downloaded an update at a time

Back in the crazy days before the current generation of gaming consoles, the console you bought at retail was the console you had for the life of the hardware. My SNES acts exactly the same now as it did when it was first released, and outside of the addition of Xbox Live, the first Xbox system remained largely unchanged throughout the hardware's life cycle. Those days are long over, and now which version of Sony's PlayStation 3 that you bought is only one part of the equation: welcome to the firmware wars.

The PS3's Protean design

No console system has changed so dramatically in the time since its launch as the PlayStation 3. We rather notoriously gave the 60GB model a six when it was first released, and we stand by that rating—the system just felt undercooked. What player of high-definition media can't display content in 720p? Also, the lack of background downloading felt like a drag when we tried to use the online store. And the games were mostly terrible; there wasn't anything that looked as good as the titles on the then-mature Xbox 360, much less any evidence that the PS3 was as powerful as Sony had promised. Remember, this was the system that had been hyped from here to eternity, so it was easy to feel let down by Sony's anemic launch offerings. The PS3 never became hard to find, the price cuts began sooner than expected, and the system has been trailing both the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii almost every month since it has been released.

It may sound a bit dire when you sum it up like that, but something has been happening with the PlayStation 3 since launch. The firmware has received update after update. The Blu-ray capability has become much stronger, and it may in fact be the most affordable and fully-featured high definition disc player on the market. The price has come down to a much more palatable $400 for the 40GB model, and the game selection continues to improve, with strong multiplatform support and a wide selection of exclusive games. Finally, the Sixaxis has been discontinued, and in its place now sits the Dual Shock 3: a controller with both motion-sensing capabilities and rumble.

Sony has done an amazing job of rallying behind its flagship system, and where there used to be arrogance there is a now a more realistic sense of what needs to be done, as well as a more open approach to dealing with the press and bloggers alike. Sony launched its own blog to speak directly to the consumers, for instance, and both the PlayStation blog in the US and ThreeSpeech in the UK do a great job of providing news; both sites also have many developers and publishers interacting directly with the comments. Even the commercials for the system have gotten better. This approach seems to be saying one thing to console gamers like us, who were unimpressed with the system at launch: "We're different now. We understand what went wrong. Come home to the PlayStation you know."

So today, in light of all that has changed since the system's launch, we're going to re-review the PlayStation 3 by taking a look at the system you'll get if you buy one today, not the system that launched in November of 2006. Trust us, it's no longer a six.

Read the whole article @ ARS Technica

Get a Free Playstation 3! Yes, that is correct! Stay away from the hassles of waiting in long lineups for you can get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Free! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free PS3!

PlayStation Store Update: musical geography edition

Though it's another relatively quiet week for the PlayStation Store, there's music in the air. A boatload of tracks for Rock Band and some rare music album offerings make for a strangely musically-inclined update this week. Here's what we've got:

Games

• PSP: The Con ($19.99): Previously released on UMD, The Con is a rough-and-tough fighting game that allows you to place bets and throw fights as you pursue financial glory.

Demos

• PSP: Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2

Add-ons

• PS3: Rock Band tracks ($1.99 per song): It's a European invasion this week with "Beetlebum" as performed by Blur, "Countdown to Insanity" by H-BlockX, "Hier Kommt Alex" by Die Toten Hosen, "Hysteria" by Muse, "Manu Chao" by Les Wampas, "Monsoon" by Tokio Hotel, "New Wave" by Pleymo, "Perfekte Welle" by Juli, and "Rock 'N' Roll Star" by Oasis joining the set list.
• PS3: Rock Band discount tracks ($0.99 per song): Epic's "We Care A Lot" and Blink 182's "All The Small Things" are on sale this week.
  

Music

• PS3: PixelJunk Monsters album ($2.99): 24 Japanese techno tracks from Otograph will have you dreaming of tower defense while you're on the move.
  
• PSP: The Con tracks (free): Four tracks from the game's fight-inducing soundtrack.
  

Videos

• PS3: Siren: Blood Curse debut trailer, GRiD trailer, First Sunday trailer, and more.
• PSP: Siren: Blood Curse debut trailer, The Con trailer

Wallpapers and themes

• PS3: Grafitti theme, High Velocity Bowling themes
• PSP: The Con wallpaper

What a weird week: that's a ton of free and for-pay music to listen to. Be sure to check out the Siren: Blood Curse trailer in between all that rocking out: it's a sharp-looking PlayStation Network title that may turn some heads when it lands this summer. Plus, you'll need something to do while you wait for Metal Gear Solid 4 and mourn Haze.

Read the article @ ARS Technica

Get a Free Playstation 3! Yes, that is correct! Stay away from the hassles of waiting in long lineups for you can get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Free! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free PS3!

The PS3 Processor Has Been Shrunk. Cheaper PS3s will follow

At an ISSCC session yesterday afternoon, IBM announced details of a smaller, lower-power version of the Cell BE processor that powers Sony's PlayStation 3. The Cell BE is currently fabricated on IBM's 65nm SOI process, but IBM will soon move the console chip onto the company's much-ballyhooed, next-generation 45nm high-k process.

The 45nm Cell will use about 40 percent less power than its 65nm predecessor, and its die area will be reduced by 34 percent. The greatly reduced power budget will cut down on the amount of active cooling required by the console, which in turn will make it cheaper to produce and more reliable (this means fewer warrantied returns). Also affecting Sony's per-unit cost is the reduction in overall die size. A smaller die means a smaller, cheaper package; it also means that yields will be better and that each chip will cost less overall.

All of these chip- and unit-level savings may or may not get passed on to gamers in the form of price cuts any time soon. It all depends on whether Sony wants to boost its margins and show a profit in its gaming unit, or attract new gamers to the console by lowering the price. Eventually, the cost savings will get passed on to users; it's just a question of when.

Read the whole article @ ARS Technica

Get a Free Playstation 3! Yes, that is correct! Stay away from the hassles of waiting in long lineups for you can get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Free! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free PS3!

Capcom: don't worry, the 5GB Devil May Cry install is worth

Devil May Cry 4 should be hitting retail shelves in the next day or so, and since the demo is available on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 you can test out both versions to see which one you prefer. We enjoyed the demo on the 360, simply because it was available first, but news has been circulating that the game requires a one-time 5GB install on the PlayStation 3. Oh the humanity! It can take upwards of twenty minutes before you get to play! Gamers, as they often do, sounded off on the message boards. Capcom, as it often does, responded in a somewhat amusing fashion.

"It's true: the first time you drop your DMC4 Blu-ray disc into your PS3 tray, you're going to be treated to an exciting 22-25 minute load process as the disc spins a few gigs of data onto your hard drive," writes Chris Kramer, senior director of Communications and Community. "While the game is loading, you get to watch a really nifty series of screens that completely catch you up on the DMC4 backstory. Think of it as compressing the last three 'seasons' into a single info blast, accompanied by some fantastic DMC artwork."

He then says if you don't need to catch up on the story, go make some food. You'll need to be able to concentrate on the game, and that's hard to do while hungry. "Low blood sugar will make you dizzy and you’ll need to be focused like an Alan Parsons Project to defeat the enemies in this game."

Read the whole article @ ARS Technica

Get a Free Playstation 3! Yes, that is correct! Stay away from the hassles of waiting in long lineups for you can get it the simple way .... straight to your doorstep! Free! Interested? Then find out how to get a Free PS3!