Talk Playstation 3 News

Consoles 

Playstation 3 has passed the 11 million mark. PS3 still has a long way to go, but is gaining on the 360.

For the week ending 22/03/2008 the sale figures according to VGChartz.com looked like this:-

The overall console sale figures now look like this:-

Wii
5.66M Japan
10.03M America
7.38M Others

Xbox 360
0.59M Japan
11.30M America
5.83M Others

Playstation 3
2.03M Japan
4.38M America
4.64M Others

So the Playstation 3 has a long way to catch the Wii up, but is closing down on the 360. PS3 is ahead in Japan and catching up in Europe.

Handhelds

Nintendo DS
22.39M Japan
21.58M America
24.89M Others

Playstation Portable
8.69M Japan
12.11M America
11.35M Others

The PSP has a lot of acthing up to do, but shows some light of recent exclusive games such as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

(these sales figures are courtesy of VGchartz.com)

According to Sony’s senior marketing manager the US PSP sales are up 85% from last April. The new PSP’s streamline design and price cuts have helped the handheld push sales and indeed helped Sony reach their compant target to a whole new level. Many of the PSP users are buying the handheld for internet browsing, listening to music and watching videos on the move.

“We’re finding in a lot of our research that the consumer’s using the PSP because of its gaming but then also because it has these other elements as some of the other devices they own, but they don’t want to bring four or five devices with them in their pocket. The PSP solves all of those multifunctional demands in one product.

“It’s primarily centred as a gaming machine. That said, the multifunctional aspects differentiate it from any competitive platform — and that’s including the DS and the iPod, the Zune and the Zen and all the other handheld products that are available in the market, inclusive of mobile phones.”

Great news and future for Playstation Portable.

Exclusive PS3 first person shooter Haze is scheduled for release in Europe on the 23rd of May and 20th of May for America after many delays and waiting to whether the game was multi-platform or PS3 exclusive.

Haze was once a multi-platform title before going exclusive for the Playstation 3. It is developed by Free Radical Design and published by Ubisoft.

For more information on this shooter, click here.

Three massive Playstation 3 titles, Killzone 2, Resistance 2 and LittleBigPlanet are to be released this autumn according to the Sony Computer Entertainment UK release schedule.

This is looking good for Playstation owners as we will have plenty to play this fall. The one i’m most looking forwards to is LittleBigPlanet.

The big guns will most likely compete with Xbox 360’s Gears of War 2 and Fable 2.

This is the new video that’s coming out in the upcoming Famitsu issue. It’s currently looking very nice, although it does look a lot like Resident Evil 4. The way the enemies die and animate is very much similar to what was seen in RE4. The game is in early development so a lot of things could change.

There is an exclusive interview with the developers which answer some questions.

It looks pretty impressive so far. Here is the video.

UPDATE: See this post

The Playstation 3 is off to a good start, ahead of Xbox 360 outselling it by 6,000 units. I know it’s not much, but it’s gaining on the 360. The 360 is losing it’s percentage of the mark week by week and we’ll see what the sale numbers are like when the PS3’s big guns come out such as Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy.

The Playstation Portable isn’t doing too bad, slipping behind the 360 by 16,000 units but the full sale figures aren’t out yet. This is only for europe.

It’s Gran Turismo week in Europe so i thought i would show some stunning screenshots from in-game. The following screenshots are actual in-game shots and not just mock ups.

Click to enlarge them.

The game looks fantastic. It is already out in Japan, it’s coming out on the 28th March 2008 in Europe and 15th April in America. Want to see things moving? Check out the video i posted earlier.

Sony’s latest racing game is now sold out at Play.com. If you look at the product here you will see that they have a message in place stating:-

Our initial allocation of stock has now sold through. All orders placed on or after 25th March will be fulfilled week commencing 31st March.

This is fantastic news for Sony and Playstation 3 in general as it means there is high demand for Gran Turismo 5 and proves to be a system seller. I can’t wait to see the numbers next week.

I recently posted about Sonys latest update to it’s Playstation 3 firmware, which is currently 2.20. Yes thats right version 2.20 is now available to download, so when you sign into PSN and try and access any of the network, you will be promptly asked to upgrade to the latest version.

So what exactly is included in the update?

UPDATE 2.20 INCLUDES:-

Here are some of the other new features/enhancements that will be included in Firmware v2.20:-

The ability to copy PS3 Music and Photo playlists to a PSP system. We introduced the ability to create Music and Photo playlists on the PS3 in firmware update v2.0. Now you can easily export your playlists to your PSP.

You can now play DivX and WMV format files that are over 2 GB. In addition, you can now display subtitles when viewing DivX files.

Resume Play – begin playing a DVD or BD disc from the point where you previously stopped it, even if you eject the disc and insert a different movie or game.

Use your PSP as a remote control to play back your music files on your PS3 without turning on your TV

The Internet browser now displays some web pages faster. In addition [Save Target] has been added as an option under file. This option lets you save a file that is linked to a web page to your PS3 hard drive or storage media

There are a few other tweaks and upgrades included in v2.20 – we’ll provide more specifics as the update is about to go live.
Updates:
Most notably, the update enables the PS3 to support Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, also known as BD-Live. You can connect now to the Internet while playing discs that support BD-Live to obtain additional content and special features. These features vary from disc to disc, and will keep your BD discs fresh with new content and in some cases exclusive content only accessible to owners of BD-Live enabled discs. On April 8th Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release The 6th Day and Walk Hard on Blu-ray; these titles will be among the first to take advantage of BD-Live. With this update, the PLAYSTATION 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player on the market with BD-Live functionality.

Still no in game XMB, but like i said before, it will be included in a future update.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is not far away for Europe. Just to get you a little more excited here is a nice video of a track set on Eiger, a mountain in the Swiss Alps. I played all Gran Turismo’s in third person view, but this time around i love how the 1st person view looks and might start playing it in first person view. Might take some time getting used to, but it will be worth it.

Anyway, here is the video:

The final phase of the community based service by Sony for Playstation Network is expected to roll out on April 18th 2008. So if you missed previous chances to join the beta, now is the time to mark something down for April 18th in your diary.

In Playstation Home you create a character, make it look like yourself and you wonder around the massive 3D world, meeting, talking and playing games with other people. Think of it as if it’s a 3D facebook or myspace. You get the idea. If you want to know more about what Playstation Home is all about, read the Wikipedia article here.

Action adventure game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, developed by Naughty Dog is getting a sequel made and it’s currently in the works.

Christophe Balestra, vice-president of Naughty Dog has confirmed this fantastic news with LCI.

This is great news for Playstation fans as Uncharted truly deserves a sequal because it’s one of the most fun games i’ve played so far on the Playstation 3, not to mention the graphics are breath-taking!

Capcoms next Resident Evil instalment, Resident Evil 5 will be featured in Famitu’s next magazine which is due to be released March 28. Famitsu promise new details regarding Capcoms new horror title, including an exlcusive interview and footage.

‘Biohazard 5 Exclusive Footage + Interview’

I hope we see some gameplay footage and a release date because i cannot wait to get my hands on Resident Evil 5.

Sony have released a new TV commercial and this time it’s weird than anything you can imagine. Not exactly showcasing any games, but showing that PS3 technology is evolving – something that Xbox 360 can’t do.

Sony do like realeasing freaky commercials but do they work? Only time will tell.

Anyway, if you want to see the crazy advert here it is:-

The latest PSP Firmware update adds more to the net radio ability. Apparently 50 percent of PSP owners listen to music on their PSP.

More than 50 percent of PSP users listen to music on their system, so we think a lot of you will enjoy this free, new expansion of their music library.

If you haven’t tried out the internet radio feature for the PSP and want to get started, click here for a guide on how to do so.

Also the 3.93 update adds more support to Playstation Network games. Maybe something for the future because nothing has been announced yet.