Playstation Update

According to a recent article in Business Week, Microsoft may or may not actually be doing anything resembling working on a portable media and/or gaming device.

The official line from the company: “We’re not either confirming or denying or whatever we generally say.”

Some earlier rumors had stated that the external hard drive of the XBox 360 would double as a self-powered media player device. That obviously didn’t come to pass. I think it’s safe to say that sometime in the not too distant future, Microsoft is almost going to have to create their own portable device. The market is just too big for them to ignore.

Then again maybe they’ll just buy Sony and call it a day.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, sony, xbox, xboy, portable media, mp3, ipod, apple

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has just confirmed that Nintendo’s next generation console, the Revolution, will sell for less than $300 when it’s released here in the US. Rumors had been flying for quite some time that the new system would undercut both the XBox 360 and PS3 in price. Seemed to make sense, given that the specs on the console are slightly less impressive than those of the competition. But hey, it’s definitely cute. And small. Kind of cuddly looking actually.

Technorati Tags: nintendo, revolution, nintendo revolution, xbox 360, playstation

According to PS3Portal.com, the Playstatition 3 is still on track to launch in 2006. Or at least Sony says it’s working hard to make it so. As far as we know, Spring 2006 is still the target. Whether this is a Japan-only or a combined Japan and US launch is still unknown. My guess is they don’t have enough time to get it ready for the US as well. Guess we’ll see.

It’s expected that Sony will give us a more official update on their progress at the upcoming Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January.

Technorati Tags: sony, playstation, playstation 3, ps3, CES

If you’ve had trouble finding an XBox 360 for Christmas, I have someone for you to blame: eBay scalpers. Games Digest reports that over 40,000 XBox 360 consoles have already been sold on eBay. This amounts to about a tenth of all systems sold in the US. Most of these have gone for $800 or more.

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, microsoft, ebay, gaming

Sony announced recently that as of November 29th of this year, they had shipped 100 million Playstation 2 consoles worldwide. The breakdown looks like this:

• North America: 40.65 million
• Europe: 37.14 million
• Asia: 22.22 million

The PS2 accomplished this feat in a mere 5 years and 9 months. For comparison, the previous record was held by the original Playstation, which did it in 9 years and 6 months. No recent official figures are available from Microsoft or Nintendo, but estimates are that the XBox has sold 23 million units, while only about 19 million GameCube’s have been sold.

On the software side, about 6200 titles have been released for PS2, and around 7800 for PSOne. Total shipments of games is at nearly 1.9 billion. That’s a lot of games.

From Gamasutra.

Technorati Tags: playstation, ps2, psone, playstation 2, sony

Square Enix has unveiled their first official Final Fantasy food tie-in: the “Potion”. It apparently has some nice relaxing herbs mixed in, to recover any HP you might lose during the course of an average day. It also reportedly tastes “mystical”.

It should be on sale March 2006 in Japan to coincide with the release of Final Fantasy XII.

Technorati Tags: playstation, final fantasy

PS3Forumz.com has annouced that they will be giving away at least one free Playstation 3 console to a lucky user on the day it is released. They’re busily trying to recruit sponsors to secure a second or third PS3 prize as well. All you have to do is register on the forum, if you haven’t already, and post at least 100 times between now and 24 hours before the console is released.

Pretty impressive prize for just posting to forums. They’re even going to try to set up a live video feed of the actual drawing later this year.

Details on the contest

Technorati Tags: ps3, playstation, playstation 3, free ps3, contest

Sony has been trying desperately since its launch to sell the PSP as more than a portable game system. You can of course play music and video on it. With the 2.0 firmware upgrade they introduced a web browser. The latest and greatest use for the PSP is Talkman, an “interactive phrasebook”.

Using Talkman, which is available in Japan, you chat with Max, a blue bird that speaks English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. You select your native language the first time you fire up the UMD, and then you can have Max teach you how to say “how much does this cost?”, and “where is the bathroom”, in whichever language you like.

I seriously doubt this will make it to the US. There’s just not that much use here for learning to say things in Asian tongues. Maybe if it’s extended to include Spanish and French. Still, I think it’s an interesting demonstration of what Sony thinks is possible with the PSP.

From Gamespot.

Technorati Tags: psp, playstation, talkman

Contrary to what I just said yesterday, apparently Howard Stringer now did not hint about the price of the PS3 after all. He apparently has also not said anything about when the PS3 may or may not be released in the US. He in fact may not have said anything at all in recent interviews. As reported at hiptechblog.com, CNN Money just posted this correction:

An earlier version of this story appeared with statements erroneously attributed to Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corporation, regarding pricing and availability of the PS3. Stringer has not commented publicly on how much the PS3 is expected to cost, or how soon it will appear in the US after the Japanese launch in spring 2006.

I’m guessing he may have mentioned a few things “off the record” (and/or while intoxicated), as the correction only states that he has “not commented publicly.” Guess we’ll see.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer commented in an interview with FORTUNE magazine that the PS3 could be had for between $300 and $400 when it arrives in mid-2006. He confirmed that Sony would indeed be selling this at a heavily subsidized rate in order to build a strong user base.

But, uh, mid-2006? Didn’t he just say a week or two ago that it wouldn’t be arriving in the US until the end of 2006? Maybe he meant it would sell for the equivalent of $300-$400 when it goes on sale mid-2006 in Japan. Or something. I’ll keep you posted as new conflicting rumors develop.

From Games Galore

Technorati Tags: Playstation, Playstation 3, PS3, Sony