Is the incredibly limited "World Tour" of Metal Gear Solid 4 not coming to your area? Well, don't worry. You can join dozens of like-minded fans at your local GameStop. Hundreds of locations throughout the country will stay open at midnight for the launch of Kojima's latest -- if you want to play the game as early as possible, waiting in line for the midnight release looks to be the way to go.
We're only a few short weeks away from the one year anniversary of the European PlayStation 3 launch. A whole year since European gamers finally got their hands on Sony's (then, very expensive) black behemoth. It also marks a year since firmware update 1.60, when PS3 owners finally received background downloading and started the benevolent PS3 computational network that is Folding@Home.
Were you there on day one, standing in the cold, itchy to get your hands on your new toy? We want to hear from you. We want your photos, videos and stories from launch day as well as your feelings on the past year. If you were at the London launch, how's that free TV working out for you? Be sure to let us know and you could appear on the site. If you're interested shoot us an email at
Thanks to all the Europeans who have visited us over the past year!
Posted Mar 22nd 2007 10:45PM by Andrew Yoon Filed under: News
One million PLAYSTATION 3 systems are hitting Europe right now. Of those million, the first hundred gamers at Sony's launch event in London, were treated to a huge surprise: a free 46" HDTV, and a free taxi ride home. (Having these blokes murdered at launch for the free swag would undeniably be a PR nightmare!) BBC reports that the televisions were worth an impressive total of £250,000. 17-year-old Ritatsu Thomas was at the front of the line, and he was unsurprisingly grateful: "I feel fantastic. I'm delighted that everyone here also gets a television."
While not every person to pick up a PS3 at launch will be as lucky as these few, it's clear that PlayStation fever is sweeping Europe. Stay tuned for more launch mayhem.
Posted Mar 15th 2007 5:30PM by Andrew Yoon Filed under: News
The PS3 is launching on Friday, March 23rd in Europe, and Virgin Megastore's flagship Oxford Street store will be home to a midnight launch--something that has the police worried. A spokesperson for Marylebone Police has told GamesIndustry.biz that there are "genuine concerns" about the safety of shoppers attending the launch.
The American launch of the PS3 was wrought with violence, including shootings, and various robberies. The Virgin Megastore launch will pose a few unique problems for police, as it is situated on a narrow stretch of pavement nearby busy tube and bus stops. Because crowd barricades will not be possible, the police are advising shoppers to take extra caution: "We don't want people walking around London with expensive pieces of equipment late at night. We want Oxford Street to be vibrant and successful, but we don't want victims of crime."
Eurogamer is offering a few (obvious) tidbits for those willing to camp out for the midnight launch: don't bring cash, have a cell phone, bring a friend, and take a cab back home. Good luck to all of you that are going to attempt a midnight launch.
According to certain reports, Asustek Computer has started shipping PlayStation 3's back to Sony in small numbers as the manufacturing process is clearly underway. Two hundred thousand component sets were shipped to Asus in June and over one million are planned for September and October.
This means the hardware has finally been ironed out and that they're ready to get things started. Higher volumes are expected in the coming months, so it looks like their projected 2 million unit launch availability will happen after all. However, those units are going to be stretched thin over many a region, and if demand spikes then we could see a shortage before the end. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The results may surprise you (or at least a certain audience). Visit the link to see the results up to this point and vote if you haven't already done so. We'll be closing the poll at the end of this week, so hop to it. Another reminder: it's not quite scientifically indicative yet... but we're working on it.
We've just about heard everyone's opinion regarding the exclusivity of Assassin's Creed and the PS3. Sony fans want this thing to be theirs alone, but popular guesses indicate something different.
Officially, the title "is coming to the PS3. No other announcements have been made." But Luke Smith from 1UP treats it like the elephant in the room: "Assassin's Creed is coming to the Xbox 360. It's one of those secrets no one is supposed to know about ... yet everyone does."
He proposes the possibility of Sony just paying for it to be announced for the new console, allowing them to deliberate later on its exclusivity. That would mean they still have the option to keep it for themselves. Will Sony cough up the cash to keep it out of the Microsoft camp? We'll have to wait and see, because it looks like they may lose a key "exclusive" title if they don't. However, they haven't exactly been willing to pay for the betterment of things lately.
It's been a month since the ubergeek gathering at E3, but people are still interested in collecting the opinions of Sony's showing. One such interview tries to pry into the mind of Phil Harrison in an attempt to find out his thoughts on the public's reaction to the show and the controller.
When asked why he thought people came out of the press conference less enthused than last year, he said "I guess, um, when something is new and exciting and heard for the first time, that elicits a certain reaction emotionally." Yeah, $600 tends to evoke that kind of emotional reaction. Mr. Harrison spoke about how people are reacting to the console and how the "PlayStation 3 is kind of laid out for everybody to see."
From Blu-ray to the controller, there are a lot of people who see these parts laid out and call them controversial. On the heels of the latter, he says "... what I think we've done quite cleverly is combine this industry-standard controller with the motion-sensing technology." No one is going to argue with that. What everyone really wants to know is how they're going to implement it. Check out the interview for more answers.
If there's one game that will excite you in the right places for the PS3, you can count on it being John Woo Presents Stranglehold. Inspector Tequila (starring Chow Yun-Fat) will jump, spin, kick and shoot your socks off in this "loose followup" to the Hard Boiled series.
So here's some good news: PlayStation 3 fans can expect this title on launch day. Come November 17th, it will invade shelves along with the new console. Still no official word on the Xbox 360 or PC release dates, but we're sure you can come up with a reasonable guess.
If you're a basketball aficionado you may be interested to know that NBA Live 07 is slated to be one of EA's lineups for the PS3 launch. By "one of" I'm of course alluding to their tendency to include an army of sports games for November and the Sony console as well. You may also be interested in the fact that they've predicted who will take the cake in the NBA Finals coming up via their NBA Live 07 simulation (though we don't know for which console). Hope this doesn't ruin anything for you, but it's Dallas Mavericks over the Heat.
It's not hard to connect the dots or figure out how all this started, but Sony's flagship console (the newest version at least) has started to become the system everyone loves to rail on.
Take this latest article for example. According to the author's source, Sony is having some major problems with their hardware before manufacturing has even started. We're not talking malfunctions or anything either. Apparently the specs are not very pretty.
For starters, the Cell processor has some major disparity in the memory performance. Speaking in terms of local memory, which is very crucial, the Cell can only Read 16MB/s while its Write speed is 4GB/s! The picture from the slide speaks for itself ("no this isn't a typo..."). So what does all this mean? Here's what the author had to say: "Someone screwed up so badly it looks like it will relegate the console to second place behind the 360." Keep in mind where this is coming from, and make up your own decision after reading it with a critical eye.
Here's another great article outlining the perspective of the PlayStation 3 being Sony's saving grace or big stink.
Ever since E3, critics and fans alike have been a little edgy about the company's strategy for the next-gen console. But we've said it before and it's worth mentioning again: the PS3 is poised to become Sony's cornerstone for their consumer electronics market. It's a do-or-die scenario for them.
The write-up mentions that certain analysts are placing the total cost of the system at $715 or more. This means that by the end of year, Sony could lose $1 billion, just on the hardware. But they want gamers to want this system. If they can heckle the console into people's homes, Blu-ray is in. But these are still gamers we're talking about, and some of them may not be too keen on all the bells and whistles; just the games.
With the looming launch of the PS3, it's always fun to get a reaction from the front-liners on the other side. Peter Moore sat down with Eurogamer the other day and spilled his thoughts on Sony and their new controller.
"At Microsoft we did the same controller six years ago ... The gamers' response was muted at best," he said. He went on to speak about how the applications for such a controller were fairly narrow. And with the sacrifice of the force feedback, there's a strong argument that the PS3 controller will have lost much of its allure. Regardless, the gamers will be the ones who decide what works and what doesn't come November.
Mr. Moore's comment about the price point summed it up: "I can only imagine what's going on back home for 599 Euros for what looks to me like a platform that's on a par at best with some of the software we're showing."
Here's a very interesting analysis of why Sony has to take the PS3 to the bank, or go down in flames trying. With Sony having been king of the games industry for so long, they are having to pay heavy to keep that position. Yes, they are behind a year. And yes, the price of the console is causing some unrest.
Even so, the success of the console will dictate a huge direction for the company for several reasons.
The most basic economical concept they're dealing with is loss and profit. Sony will be spending millions of dollars trying to market and sell this system at a price that will hurt them in the beginning, but hopefully pull them through later. Should the PS3 take off with consumers, it will enable Sony to produce Blu-ray components and the Cell chip with greater efficiency. This is a huge step because the PlayStation 3 is also their entry into the next-gen DVD war. And with the Cell processor poised to be the cornerstone for other Sony consumer electronics, the success of this upcoming console is a do-or-die scenario.
There's not a whole lot you can say about Sony and the PS3 prices that hasn't already been said since E3. Gamers know it's expensive, and we also know why.
But ABI Research has come out saying that they believe this pricing scheme could ultimately hurt them, and possibly even knock the company from its cozy throne in the video game market. "Sony's console pricing strategy is fraught with risk, and may ultimately jeopardize its market leadership position," they concluded.
They beg to differ, though. With Blu-ray being the coup de grâce, gamers are going to need to ask themselves if they're willing to pay so much for the next-gen media player. The PlayStation 3 isn't just a gaming console, and the price reflects that. Whether this move is good or bad for Sony has yet to be seen. We'll know soon enough.
Is the incredibly limited "World Tour" of Metal Gear Solid 4 not coming to your area? Well, don't worry. You can join dozens of like-minded fans at your local GameStop. Hundreds of locations throughout the country will stay open at midnight for the launch of Kojima's latest -- if you want to play the game as early as possible, waiting in line for the midnight release looks to be the way to go.
One million PLAYSTATION 3 systems are hitting Europe right now. Of those million, the first hundred gamers at Sony's launch event in London, were treated to a huge surprise: a free 46" HDTV, and a free taxi ride home. (Having these blokes murdered at launch for the free swag would undeniably be a PR nightmare!) BBC reports that the televisions were worth an impressive total of £250,000. 17-year-old Ritatsu Thomas was at the front of the line, and he was unsurprisingly grateful: "I feel fantastic. I'm delighted that everyone here also gets a television."
The PS3 is launching on Friday, March 23rd in Europe, and Virgin Megastore's flagship Oxford Street store will be home to a midnight launch--something that has the police worried. A spokesperson for Marylebone Police has told GamesIndustry.biz that there are "genuine concerns" about the safety of shoppers attending the launch.
According to certain reports, Asustek Computer has started shipping PlayStation 3's back to Sony in small numbers as the manufacturing process is clearly underway. Two hundred thousand component sets were shipped to Asus in June and over one million are planned for September and October.
Here's a friendly reminder to check out the poll asking "What do you think about the PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray?" We have had over a thousand people cast their thoughts. Can you guess what the popular choice is?
It's been a month since the ubergeek gathering at E3, but people are still interested in collecting the opinions of Sony's showing. One such interview tries to pry into the mind of Phil Harrison in an attempt to find out his thoughts on the public's reaction to the show and the controller.
Here's another great article outlining the perspective of the PlayStation 3 being Sony's saving grace or big stink.
With the looming launch of the PS3, it's always fun to get a reaction from the front-liners on the other side. Peter Moore sat down with Eurogamer the other day and spilled his thoughts on Sony and their new controller.
Here's a very interesting analysis of why Sony has to take the PS3 to the bank, or go down in flames trying. With Sony having been king of the games industry for so long, they are having to pay heavy to keep that position. Yes, they are behind a year. And yes, the price of the console is causing some unrest.
There's not a whole lot you can say about Sony and the PS3 prices that hasn't already been said since E3. Gamers know it's expensive, and we also know why.
_thumbnail.jpg "Savage Moon")
