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LOS ANGELES - In a bid to regain lost ground in the fiercely competitive gaming business, Sony announced Tuesday that it will cut the price of its high-end PlayStation 3 console by $100. It also will introduce downloads of movies and TV shows to the game machine's online store and, with some software partners, roll out a number of exclusive games. The moves suggested that Sony still views Microsoft as its chief rival rather than market leader Nintendo, which seems focused on extending its lead. But, of course, that's not how Sony brass portrayed its announcements at a press event...

Think you paid too much for your Playstation 3? Don't expect any sympathy from Sony. In the company's fiscal 2008 annual report, Sony revealed that they've now lost roughly $3.3 billion (that's billion with a B) on the Playstation 3 since its launch. That breaks down to $2.16 billion in 2007, followed by a notably smaller but equally daunting $1.16 billion loss in 2008.

A thief made the mistake of a lifetime recently. He broke into professional female boxer Derdre Rodriguez's house and tried to steal her PS3, PSP and videogames as she lay sleeping. She woke up, saw the robber climbing out of her window, chased him down, smashed his head in with an ice chipper, then, in the most awesome coupe-de-grace ever, the former pugilist forced the thief to pick up the stolen electronics he'd dropped during the chase (A PlayStation 3, a PSP, cell phones and videogames). She then made him wait in the house for the cops to show up...

When most of us arrived home with our newly purchased PS3, we couldn't wait to start annihilating aliens in Resistance: Fall of Man or kicking butt kung fu-style in Virtua Fighter 5. Not astrophysicist Gaurav Khanna - he used his to build a supercomputer. Khanna now owns a total of 16 PS3 consoles, all linked together to provide the same computing power as a 400-node supercomputer. His set up, which he calls a 'gravity grid', is used to simulate the activity of very large black holes for the Physics Department at the University of Massachusetts. Stacked Sonies: the 'gravity grid'...

Only a day after Toshiba pulled HD DVD from the high-definition DVD business, conceding defeat in a long-running format war with Sony's Blu-ray, the company has officially finalized a previously announced $835M joint venture with its rival that will help lower PS3 production costs. The joint venture, to be named at a later date, will manufacture Cell chips and RSX graphic chips, both used in the PS3, as well as other microchips that go into Toshiba products. With this, Sony is trying to streamline its operations by getting rid of assets which it simply does not need or are not...

Dr Gaurav Khanna is a professor at the University of Massachusetts. He has been renting supercomputers at NASA and the US National Science Foundation for US$20,000-$30,000 a year to run complicated calculations on just how much radiation is emitted in the process of a black hole swallowing a star... "For US$4,000 or so, I can get eight PS3s that can do the same task that I'd do on a supercomputer. For a one-time cost, I have this resource I can use privately. I can use it indefinitely over and over again. That's hugely attractive. That's why I considered the project....

Plenty of gamers would give their left arm to be included in Grand Theft Auto IV. Miami attorney Jack Thompson, however, claims that he's depicted in the game and wants out. And he threatens to block the release of GTA IV if Rockstar doesn't comply....

July is supposed to be when things start to cool down for the games industry, as students and holiday makers take time off from games over the summer and spend their breaks doing other things. But not this year. The latest figures from the US from NPD Group, reported by GameDaily, have the games industry racking up nearly 40 per cent more sales in July compared with last year. And Nintendo is the one to thank. The Wii and the DS are proving nearly unstoppable, as the pair topped the chart yet again. This time the Wii even managed to...

Police: Pa. Boy Stabs Brother Over Game Jul 17 01:16 PM US/Eastern LANSDOWNE, Pa. (AP) - A 13-year-old boy fatally stabbed his brother with a steak knife after the 16-year-old refused to turn over a video game controller, authorities said. Jahmir Ricks was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Antwan Ricks at their home outside Philadelphia. The older boy died of a single stab wound to the chest, police said, and a bent and bloody knife was recovered from the home. Lansdowne police said the younger boy told them, "I just stabbed my brother," when they arrived at...

Reporting NPD sales figures for the next-gen race between Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 has gotten to be a tiresome affair. Off the top of my head, I don’t believe the rankings have changed ever since December, 2006. Not a lot of drama there. The NPD sales figures for May in the USA were as follows: Nintendo Wii was the big kahuna, selling 338,000 units for the month. Next on the totem pole was Microsoft’s Xbox 360 coming in with 155,000 consoles sold. Bringing up the rear was PS3, with 82,000 as their magic number for May. The handheld department...

PlayStation 3 gives Blu-ray disc sales a boost Impact of new console in market "significant" by Amy-Mae Elliott Print | Email | Save | PDF Tags ps3 261 news, 20 reviews Blu-ray 64 news, 3 reviews sony 257 news, 84 reviews >> More tags 23 May 2007 - News from the Blu-ray Disc Association suggests that the impact of PlayStation 3 on sales of Blu-ray Disc movies in North America and Japan after the launch of the console last November has been "significant". Early market data sourced by the association indicates that a similar trend is developing in Western Europe....

Sony really knows how to party. It wasn't enough to have topless ladies at the God of War II European unveiling, they had to go and decapitate a goat and put it on display. Not only that, they invited visitors to stick their hands down the neck, grab out some intestines (not the goat's own, they were procured elsewhere and shoved inside), and eat them. Fantastic. Best yet, the entire thing was documented in their official PlayStation magazine, whose 80,000 print run has been recalled thanks to the stunt. Nice work Sony. Next time, just call it a day after...

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that great progress has been made in the one month since PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) computer entertainment systems became part of Stanford University’s Folding@home program, a distributed computing project aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding and related diseases. Since the program launched in March, participation by the PS3 user community has been phenomenal, providing Folding@home with immense computing power that is helping to fast forward its research. Furthermore, thanks to PS3’s powerful Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.), the Folding@home program has become one of the most powerful distributed computing networks in the world and is...

HUNTINGTON'S DISEASE (HD) is caused by the aggregation of a different type of proteins. Some proteins have a repeat of a single amino acid (glutamine, often abbreviated as "Q"). These poly-Q repeats, if long enough, form aggregates which cause HD. We are studying the structure of poly-Q aggregates as well as predicting the pathway by which they form. Similar to Alzheimer's Disease, these HD studies, if successful, would be useful for rational drug design approaches as well as further insight into how HD aggregates form kinetically (hopefully paving the way for a method to stop the HD aggregate formation).

In an interview with Martin Matt, from the popular GameIndustry.biz site, Sony UK managing director Ray Maguire calls America "a land of cheap people", while the UK is “a little island where rent and rates are at an absolute premium”. When asked about the high price of the PS3 in PAL areas, especially in the UK (where Sony’s console is currently being sold for GBP 425- US $840- more expensive than anywhere in Europe) this is what Ray Maguire had to say: “If you take what's considered to be the most expensive and the least expensive – consider the US...

_INTO THE FOLD: Despite all the criticism the PlayStation 3 has received, everyone acknowledges it's a powerful piece of hardware. Scientists at Stanford University want to harness that power while you're not using it to play "Virtual Fighter." The researchers are studying the folding and misfolding of proteins, processes that may lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and many kinds of cancer. It requires a lot of computing power to simulate the processes, so the Folding@home program has set up a global network of computers to handle the calculations. By the end of this month, Internet-connected PS3 owners will...

Sony's new PlayStation 3 video game has gone from top dog to underdog in record time. Despite the buildup and hype around its arrival in November, the PS3 has been outsold so far — at a rate of almost 2-to-1 — by the Nintendo Wii. In February, the Wii was the top-selling console video game system with an estimated 335,000 sold, outpacing the Microsoft Xbox 360 (228,000) and the PS3 (127,000), according to The NPD Group.

PS3: difficult stories emerge in run up to Euro launch http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/02/13/ps3_difficult_stories_emerge_in_run_up_to_euro_launch.html [...] More juicy perhaps, is the comment made on a blog named FreeRepublic.com, by EA employee Dr. Andrew Garrett: "My opinion - get the 360 and/or the Wii. Skip the PS3 unless there's a big change in the near future." You can read his full post here. Naturally, anti-Sony zealots are spinning this as 'EA says skip PS3', which means Dr Garrett is probably in a whole heap of trouble. That's the problem with the modern videogame industry and the web - the two are utterly incompatible... Blog culture...

Sure, the PlayStation 3 got off to a rocky start and is now only number 3 in next-gen console sales, but Sony Computer Entertainment claims that things couldn’t be better. Well, it could definitely be better, but in any case, Sony is happy with its current status in the market. NPD sales data reported Thursday that the sale of 243,443 units in North America during the month of January contributed to a record $550 million in revenues. Strong sales of the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation Portable, which earned sales of 299,352 and 210,719 units respectively, was also a major...

Nintendo Wii Tops PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 in January (Update1) By Michael White Feb. 20 -- Nintendo Co.'s Wii outsold Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 during January as consumers bought 436,000 of the video-game consoles. Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 was the second-most purchased machine with sales of 294,000, followed by PlayStation 3 with 244,000, Credit Suisse analyst Heath Terry said today in a report, citing NPD Group Inc. data. Wii is outselling PlayStation 3 by almost 2-to-1, the report said. Consumers have been attracted to Wii's price, at half the cost of the least-expensive PlayStation 3,...

Everyone is talking about HDMI with the release of the PS3, and it's worth talking about; many people don't know that much about the cables or the connections. Heck, I've talked to people who don't realize that their PS3 will look better if they upgrade their composite cables that come with the system. I'm not going to try to break down the entire issue of cabling because it's a broad one, but if you're looking to buy an HDMI cable, just pay attention to the fact that there are stores that will rob you and others that won't. When I...

Since the dust has settled after the Sony PS3 launch last November I started to feel that the Sony PS3 did not deliver on Sony's promises. For me the only good points right now are the Blu-ray drive and that the games look neat in HD, but game play is not that much different from playing PS2 games. The pressure on Sony is mounting to deliver games that are leveraging the magic powers of the CELL CPU. Several negative Sony PS3 reports appeared over the last couple of days that put their finger in different PS3 wounds. See examples of...

SCEA spokesman tells New York Times that Nintendo's new console doesn't belong in the same category as the PlayStation 3. In the past, Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Dave Karraker has been fairly critical of his gaming rivals at Microsoft. In September, Karraker called Microsoft's decision to release an HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 that only plays movies "unfortunate," adding that the company's 1080p update for the system wasn't "full HD." Two months later, he slammed Microsoft's decision to offer high-definition movies and TV shows for download over Xbox Live as "a disservice to their consumer base" because...

TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Sony Corp. (6758.TO) will reach only 75% of its global target for PlayStation 3 sales this fiscal year through March, according to a Nomura report released Monday. Nomura cut its target for PS3 game units shipped during the period to 4.5 million from 6 million, citing poor sales over the holiday season in North America.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- We all know the new Nintendo Wii is the number one present to give this holiday season. You've heard the stories of those who camp out in front of stores the night before shipments come in, or those who pay double the cost on eBay. It's obvious that people will do almost anything to get their hands on this hot new item. I found myself waiting for a Nintendo Wii one late afternoon. A massive shipment had just come in that morning and the line didn't look too unbearable, so I decided to wait and try...

Wii Bit of MuscleWith all the graphical might Sony's PS3 can flex, what makes David Light think the Wii has the competition cornered? And why should Sony be afraid now more than ever?

There was a showdown between the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PlayStation 3 at The Post's game testing lab last weekend. Here's how it went down: I invited a bunch of my friends, five guys and three gals, over to check out the new systems. Few of them play or care about video games, but they were all curious to see the PlayStation 3, the cutting-edge game console that sparked real-world mayhem on its release Friday. By comparison, most of my friends arrived having heard little about Nintendo's new system. But, as it turned out, that device was the hit...

A furious Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to bill Sony Corp. for the chaos that swirled around the release of its PlayStation 3 machine after Boston police had to quell crowds grown frenzied and unruly by the hype surrounding the coveted consoles. “We had to rush in 12 police cars with officers there and take them off the streets of our city where they’re doing their patrols, to squelch the crowd that we had there,” Menino said, referring to a throng of 500 at Copley Place. “It’s something that should not be tolerated,” he said. “It’s wrong to take...

Ok, so there are 50 stories out right now about the PS3, and I'm not going to ping all of them. I decided to just create a single thread and list them all: Edwards acknowledges staff asked Wal-Mart for Playstation 3Sony Playstation (PS3) sells for $3600.00 on eBay John Edwards and Wal-Mart: Playstation Before PrincipleLemmings over a cliff(Playstation 3 Stampede)We have lost our minds, $33,000 for a playstation 3Armed Thugs Shoot 1 Person Waiting in Wal-Mart PlayStation Line

As my grandmother used to say: "It's not the whole world gone mad... just the people in it." When bidding ended it sold for $3,600. Not that it's really my business that someone is willing to pay thirty-six hundred dollars for a PlayStation 3. But this really does seem to be materialism at its worst to me. The Xbox 360 has been out for a year but it'll probably still be another year before we get one: by then it'll be a lot more inexpensive, many more games will have been published for it, and at that point most if...

JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT IN A LIE This is rich. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (who? Oh yeah..him,) the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee who ran with The Poodle two years ago, has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Believe it or not, it all revolves around Wal-Mart...and a game console. You see....Edwards is always bashing Wal-Mart. Not because of their promotion of eminent domain abuse, but because of their policy of promoting low prices and non-union labor. Edwards just isn't going to ever shop there. Or his he? It turns out the answer to that question is...it...

Armed Thugs Shoot 1 Person Waiting in Wal-Mart PlayStation Line PUTNAM, Conn. — On the first day the much anticipated PlayStation 3 hit shelves in stores across the country, two armed thugs in Connecticut targeted game seekers with fat wallets, shooting one person waiting in a Wal-Mart line who refused to give up money, authorities said. Police were still searching for the suspects. The two tried to rob of line of people waiting to buy the new gaming console early Friday. They confronted a "bunch of people who were in line" outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and...

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards acknowledged Thursday that amid his criticism of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a volunteer member of his staff asked the world's largest retailer for help obtaining a hot new Sony Playstation 3 for Edwards' family. Edwards, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, told The Associated Press that the volunteer "feels terrible" about seeking the game unit at Wal-Mart while his boss claims the retailer doesn't treat its employees fairly. "My wife, Elizabeth, wanted to get a Playstation3 for my young children. She mentioned it in front of one of my staff people. That staff person mentioned it...

John Edwards buys Playstation 3 from Wal-Mart … after bashing it posted at 6:41 pm on November 16, 2006 by Ian Send to a Friend | regular view Former Senator and failed candidate for Vice-President John Edwards obtained the new video game system Playstation 3 from his local Wal-Mart today: Just like the millions of Americans who turn to their neighborhood Wal-Mart for their holiday shopping needs, Wal-Mart announced today that former Sen. John Edwards is seeking to be one of the first to get a Sony PlayStation 3, one of the most coveted holiday gift items this Christmas season....

TOKYO — Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, which went on sale in Japan over the weekend leading off a global launch, can't play some of the older games for the original PlayStation and the upgrade PlayStation 2, a company official said today. Sony Corp. had billed PlayStation 3 as compatible with the previous PlayStation machines. But Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman Satoshi Fukuoka said some of the 8,000 older games weren't working properly on PS3, making the wrong sounds or images, and some couldn't be played at all. He declined to give a number for the games that weren't functioning, but...

Sony's PlayStation 3 made its highly anticipated debut in Japan to long lines on Saturday, with local stores selling out their supplies of the video game console in a pattern that's expected to be repeated around the world. Throngs of people lined up for hours around Bic Camera, an electronics retailer in downtown Tokyo, to get their hands on one of the consoles. The enthusiasm was so great, clerks with megaphones asked the crowd to stop pushing, warning that all sales would end if there were any injuries. "Standing in line today is the only way to make sure I...

At the Sony Gamer's Day, the company officially announced the 21 launch titles for the Playstation 3 to be released before the end of 2006: Third-Party Publisher Titles: Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII / Ubisoft Call of Duty 3 / Activision EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 / Electronic Arts The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion / Bethesda Softworks F.E.A.R. / Vivendi Universal Games Full Auto 2: Battlelines / Sega Madden NFL 07 / Electronic Arts Marvel: Ultimate Alliance / Activision Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire / Namco Bandai Games NBA 2K7 / 2K Sports Need For Speed Carbon / Electronic Arts...

Mercury Computer Systems will help will design a system for soldiers in the battlefield utilizing gaming and artificial intelligence technologies, a Mercury executive said Thursday. The project is the latest to tout alternate uses for the Cell Broadband Engine processor, originally developed by Sony and IBM for use in the PlayStation3 console. Working with visualization experts Barco Federal Systems and the Ft. Huachuca Battle Lab in Arizona, Mercury, based in Chelmsford, Mass., will help create a computer system that will give fighters such as soldiers, pilots, and seamen better ways to sense and interpret data—and to act on it. The...

The PlayStation 3 launch is now just over six weeks away, and Sony Corp. stockholders are apparently getting nervous. Today, the Japanese electronic giant's share price slid 130 yen ($1.11) to 4,600 yen ($38.98) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a decline of 2.75 percent.... Another Tokyo-based analyst, Macquarie Equities' David Gibson, went one step further. He issued a report expressing concern that many of the 200-plus PS3s on the floor of the Tokyo Game Show "operated erratically and had to be repeatedly reset," according to the AP. "While the reason for this is unknown, we suspect it may be due...

It's official: The Elder Scrolls IV is coming to Sony's newest consoles. Though given long-circulating rumors, it may not be shocking to our regular readers, Bethesda Softworks today announced that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the acclaimed RPG which has already wowed Xbox 360 and PC gamers, will arrive for the launch of PlayStation 3. Further, the company is adapting the game for portable play in the form of The Elder Scrolls Travels: Oblivion for the PSP. The Elder Scrolls IV arrived for PC and Xbox 360 in March, and quickly nabbed numerous high scores and Game of the Year...

Following last week's unveiling of a white PSP in Tokyo, we've collected new details and three new photos of the device. Here's what we know so far: The "ceramic white" PSP will be released in Japan on Thursday, September 15, 2005 for 26,040 yen (about $235) in a Value Pack identical to today's save for a white pouch. There's currently no plans to bring it to the U.S. or Europe. In addition to its white body, the device features a white control stick, white speaker grills, but will not have clear D-Pad and face buttons — it instead has opaque...

Sony's next gen console gets delayed six months The Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun has reported that Sony will delay the launch of PlayStation 3 until November of 2006. The North American launch date is still up in the air. According to the report, issues surrounding copy protection for Blu-ray discs is the reason for the delay. If the reports are true (given the source, they probably are), Sony could miss the key holiday rush in the United States. Official word from Sony is expected tomorrow. Rumors have been circulating about Asustek Computer securing orders for the Sony PlayStation 3...

MANUTE BOL SPENT HIS ENTIRE FORTUNE TRYING TO SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THE NORTHERN ARAB ISLAMIST INVASION . (HBO Realsport's Frank Deford proiled Manute Bol.) HIS FRIEND SAID HE TOLD THE U.S. THE GREATEST THREAT THEY WOULD FACE WOULD BE FROM ISLAMIST FUNDAMENTALISM, AT WHICH MOST LAUGHED.

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Sony Corp.'s launch of its next-generation PlayStation 3 video game console could be delayed if industry specifications for some of its technology are not finalized soon, although it is still aiming for a spring rollout, it said on Monday. The launch of PlayStation 3 (PS3) has been the subject of heavy speculation in the industry as expectations are high for the powerful machine, which will feature cutting-edge technology in its DVD player, processors and graphics. PS3 will be competing with Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, which went on sale last November, and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Revolution, which...

Ever since the PlayStation 3 was announced, industry watchers have been prognosticating its price point. Just over a month after E3 2005, Merrill Lynch predicted the game would sell for $399, even though it would cost an estimated $494 to make--before labor. However, when Microsoft announced the Xbox 360, which uses current-generation DVDs, would sell for $399, many thought the PS3's internal next-generation Blu-ray disc drive would push its cost higher. That assumption was reinforced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, when the first stand-alone Blu-ray disc player was unveiled--with a $1,800 price tag. (The Xbox 360 uses...

Seven months after a snippet was shown at E3, Midway and Epic's shooter is confirmed for Sony's next-gen console. As part of its pre-E3 PlayStation 3 conference in May, Sony brought Epic Games cofounder Tim Sweeney on stage. Besides saying that Epic had already received a PS3 software-development kit--which he said was "easy to program"--Sweeney also performed a tech demo of a shooter running on PS3 hardware. The game on display appeared to be Unreal Tournament 2007, the flashy-looking, Unreal Engine 3-based successor to the popular PC shooter Unreal Tournament 2004. However, neither Sony nor Epic would confirm when--or even...

Microsoft Corp. launched its Xbox 360 console in Japan on Saturday to a lukewarm reaction from local gamers. The company held a launch event at 7 a.m. at a store in the center of Tokyo’s Shibuya district that attracted about 200 fans, some of whom had been queuing for several hours for a chance to be one of the first to buy the console. While those in line snapped-up the consoles, the store and other electronics retailers nearby still had units available for walk-in customers at 10 a.m. At Bic Camera, opposite the Tsutaya shop where the launch took place,...

A Chicago man has filed a class action complaint against Microsoft that claims the company knowingly distributed defective Xbox game consoles in its hurry to beat rivals to market with a next-generation gaming product. A complaint filed in a U.S. District Court in Illinois by Robert E. Byers alleges that Microsoft designed a power supply and a CPU into the Xbox 360 that run too hot and overheat, causing the console to freeze or lock up when being operated. The design defect is “material” because “it renders the Xbox 360 game consoles completely inoperable,” according to court documents filed Friday,...

SONY Computer Entertainment is likely to abandon its practice of region coding games for its PlayStation 3 console, the head of its South Pacific operation said. Sony's current crop of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles contains technology that blocks the use of illegal copied games. It also prevents the use of game and DVD discs that have been region coded for other markets. However, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia managing director, Michael Ephraim, said the company was unlikely to continue the policy as international television standards emerge.

Microsoft Corp. is likely to win the next round of the game console fight against Sony Corp. based on a potentially huge cost difference that could see the Xbox 360 selling for half the price of a PlayStation 3 (PS3) by the end of next year, investment firm Merrill Lynch said in a Wednesday analysis. Based on a breakdown of the parts being used inside the two game machines, Merrill Lynch said the “PS3 will not only be significantly more costly than Xbox 360 at launch, but will continue to operate at a cost disadvantage for several years.” The investment...