Yesterday, Sony held their E3 conference and it was a pretty interesting affair. It was boring at the start, pretty boring at the end. (save for the MAG announcement, which looks to be a pre-rendered Killzone 2-style affair all over again.) In the middle there was intruguing announcements coming one after the other. Resistance on PSP, emphasis on the PlayStation Network and the surprise announcement of the movie store being launched imminently.

For a PS3 owner Stateside, all of the news at E3 was pretty exciting, right? What about elsewhere in the world?

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I am not a huge fan of survival-horror games. However, not one to shy away from quality titles, I will occasionally purchase software from the genre if it piques my interest.

“Siren: Blood Curse,” a Playstation 3 exclusive, is one such game that immediately grabbed my attention. I recently downloaded the demo to see if the game was worth more than just a quick glance.

Hit the jump for my impressions. (more…)

Sony have just announced that there isn’t just one but two Resistance games on their way to the PlayStation platforms in the next year. Resistance 2 was given an in-game showing and hits the PS3 later this year, but Resistance: Retribution is also being developed and will be hitting the PSP in spring next year.

Hit the jump for more on this.

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Sony has just announced the PS3’s movie and TV download service is launching tonight with standard and high definition movies and TV programmes available for rental for prices ranging from $4 to $15. Out of nowhere much?

Jump! Jump! Hit the jump!

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The folks over at the PlayStation.Blog (still new to the concept of how to use full stops properly) have listed what US users can expect in the coming week as E3 takes place. Stateside PS3 owners can not only look forward to the usual weekly update of games and add-ons but can also expect daily presentation videos straight from E3 in slightly-unnecessary high definition.

Hit the jump for what to expect from the PS Store during E3.

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At this point it’s common knowledge that the SIXAXIS was a big failure for Sony due to its lack of rumble support. However they thought they’d solved the problem when they released the DualShock 3 which had both motion sensing and rumble. However today Sony announced the NoShockZEROAXIS a controller with no rumble and no motion sensing. Find out all the details after the jump

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A quick note to say that those PS3 owners who either intentionally avoided firmware 2.40 or missed their chance to download it can finally get their hands on the in-game-XMB-enabled Trophy-stacked update in the form of version 2.41. Unfortunately, you still get the rubbish music player.

A quick quote from the folks over at ThreeSpeech details what the initial issue apparently was with 2.40, and if you’re so inclined you can read it after the jump. Otherwise, go ahead and grab the new firmware.

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One way to overcome this issue is removing your hard drive and reformatting it using your PC, but this will also remove all saved data. Including games, profiles, and downloadable content.

While some people are reporting issues, others are running fine after the update. It has yet to be confirmed what PS3 types are affected, but seriously looks like it might be a case of Russian roulette.

So if you too are experiencing what the Sony Forums are calling is… “The Eternal Wave of Emptiness”, Sony is aware of the problem… and I am sure they will be working around the clock to fix this issue. At least from a PR point of view.

So for now I am giving Sony a “Platinum Trophy” for this royal F*** up.

Here’s the PSForums thread full of user complaints.

If any of you have ever been on any PlayStation-related blog at any point in time since the PS3’s release (and let’s be frank, that’ll be a fair few of you) you’ll have noticed that the demands for an in-game Xross Media Bar have been ever-ongoing. Every single post on the the PlayStation.blog (still not understanding the need for that dot) has received streams of comments from the rabid PS3 owners complaining about a lack of service and a lack of respect for the consumer base who’ve splashed out several hundred dollars/pounds/Euros/et cetera on their shiny black behemoth.

The thing is, I’m wondering why, as a collective, they don’t seem to have a single brain cell between them to share some sort of common sense when it comes to developing features such as the in-game-XMB, which we’ve just received after months and months of demand. Even after we’ve picked that up, we’re still baying for more. My ultimate slating of PlayStation fanboys continues after the hop, skip, leap, jump.

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The folks over at Next Generation have done some digging at Gamespot to discover that Sony filed a couple of rather interesting patents under Phil Harrison’s name with regard to handheld device technologies.

The chances are, you’ve seen these patents used in other devices before. iPhone type PSP?  More info after the jump.

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I recently had the pleasure of playing the Fatal Inertia demo the other night.

The demo sucks, but that is a whole other article.

Let me start with the fact that I have Verizon FIOS. Download speeds of up to 15mbs and upload up to 5mbs. With my FIOS and a muliticell processor… it shouldn’t take more then 5 min. Hell, the file is less then 600 Megabytes.

Right?

Or so I thought.

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The decision to include a Blu-ray drive in its current-generation console ensured that Sony would be able to compete with Toshiba and its HD DVD technology (and ultimately defeat it). Basically, the PS3 acted as Sony’s Blu-ray Trojan horse. For now, it seems it was a wise decision. (though that could change if it fails to overtake standard DVD’s.)

Sure, it made the console more expensive. However, the Blu-ray enabled system gave Sony a significant edge in hi-def disc sales. This was despite the fact that the sales of HD-DVD standalone players outpaced those of their Blu-ray counterparts.

Unlike some PS3 owners, I never really saw my shiny beast as a movie player. In fact, I swore that I would never use my PS3 to play anything but games.

Learn why after the jump. (more…)

Some days I struggle to find something to write about. Then some mornings I wake up and realize that a company has practically written my article for me. Today, Sony was nice enough to throw me an underhand pitch.

At Sony’s corporate strategy meeting, Kaz Harai laid out how the company, which has been sucking wind financially since it launched the PS3, was going to turn itself around and get all profitable and stuff, by the end of the year.

DAYUM. That’s a tall order. So how is he going to pull that off? Purely hysterical… at least to a sarcastic bastard like me. I get obnoxious after the jump. (more…)