We already knew this was coming, but I’m glad to hear it reaffirmed. Howard Stringer told the Financial Times:

“We are building a software infrastructure to distribute video and music, more particularly video, through the PlayStation Network,”

Also:

“We won’t know how effective [the effort] is until early next year.”

That sounds like the service is coming sooner rather than later. I can’t wait. Personally, I’m wishing for DRM free music. If so, I will definitely be a customer.

The Financial Times also added:

Sir Howard told the Financial Times that Sony still expected to hit its sales targets of 11m PS3 consoles this year.

Do you think 11 million sales by the end of 2007 is realistic? According to several stat tracking sites, the PS3 is currently at roughly 4.9 million sales globally. Obviously the last two months are the busiest time of the year for games, but that is still a big jump.

Another horror filled week for Blu-ray fans, and a couple invisible man movies. Man how cool would that be For the AC/DC fans there is Live at Donington.

* The Reaping (Warner Bros.)
* Hollow Man: Director’s Cut (Sony Pictures)
* The Invisible (Disney / Buena Vista)
* AC/DC: Live at Donington (Sony Music)
* Return to House on Haunted Hill (Warner Bros.)
* Masters of Horror: Season One, Volume I (Starz Home Entertainment)
* Masters of Horror: Season One, Volume II (Starz Home Entertainment)

Blu-ray.com

1. Sony still continues to sell PS2s. Actually, they sell far more PS2s than PS3s. These customers should have a better upgrade path to PS3.

2. Game Developers still make PS2 exclusive games. Even with the PS3 released for almost a full year, there are still some hotly anticipated games coming out for PS2 but not PS3 such as Manhunt. Even Sony has some of their most popular franchises on PS2 but not PS3: God of War, Singstar, and Buzz! These will all eventually be moved to PS3, but even recent and current iterations of these series are PS2 only.

3. JPRGs. While PS2 has the most and the best JRPGs of any platform, this entire genre is almost completely absent from the PS3. The popular RPG developer, Atlus, has even announced that they will maintain a PS2 focus in 2008.

4. Recent Games. Just a quick sampling of games that were released in the past two years on PS2 but don’t have ports or sequels on PS3 include: Shadow of the Colossus, DDR type games, Singstar, Buzz!, Dragon Quest, FFXII, Rogue Galaxy, Persona 3, Sly 3, Resident Evil 4, Bully, Okami, Yakuza.

Counter Reasons: Why PS2 BC is not so important

1. Mostly Important to Enthusiasts and Early Adopters These are the type of consumes who have already purchased a PS3 and already have the BC units.

2. Cost Many believe that cost is the biggest barrier to PS3 success. Sure, most current PS3 owners would rather pay a little extra for BC, but many of the people who are not buying and are not as vocal may prefer a lower cost.

3. Avoid Cannibalizing PS2 Consoles Sales Many analysts have suggested this, although I don’t buy it. Even though the PS3 hardware probably has a lower contribution margin than the PS2, I still believe Sony would rather sell PS3 units at this point.

Although, many PS3 Half-Life fans were disappointed when Valve’s Gabe Newell said that he nothing to gain by developing on the PS3 except a “hatred of the architecture they’ve created”, PS3 fans should be happy to hear that we will be getting a special edition of the new Half-Life game!

PS3 owners will also be delighted to hear about new downloadable content coming exclusively to the PS3! Here is a sneak preview:

UPDATE: Minor clarification. This is just a joke post, guys. No hard feelings and please no personal attacks on Mr. Newell.

Below are movies made by the EyeCreate software which will be a free download Oct 23rd. You can add all kinds of effects, even record your own. There is even time-lapse capturing and stop-motion. Then when your done just export it to the XMB. Looks like fun Wonder if it will be easy to share your videos to the online world.

Eye Graffiti

Jump

The Race

EyeCreate in Action

This is not a review, just my brief impressions from playing late last night:

It’s exactly what it sounds like: it’s a traditional dual-stick shooter title, with a lot of creative play mechanics and behaviors.

The whole thing has a strong “indie” feel to it. By “indie” feel, I mean that all of the graphics and interface are a little bit crude, but have a lot of charm to them. This is a high-end indie title, with more depth and polish than most other hobbyist developed titles out there.

Like all games, this isn’t for everyone. However, I’d definitely recommend this to gamers who have enjoyed twitch style shooters in the past, even those who have recently lost interest in the genre, as this does add quite a bit of novelty to the formula. I’d also recommend this to those who want to try one of the better hobbyist developed games, and may not have the time to wade through the volume of stuff you get on the PC.

This is exactly the kind of thing I want to get for a $10 download. I look forward to getting more cleaned up hobbyist titles in this fashion.

If you like this kind of thing, I’d also recommend checking out this blog, which features tons of mostly free and hobbyist developed games for PCs.

Valve’s Gabe Newell bashes the PS3:

Edge: A while ago you said that you thought Sony should do a ‘do-over’ with PS3. Do you still think that?

GN: Absolutely. I think [PS3 is] a waste of everybody’s time. Investing in the Cell, investing in the SPE gives you no long-term benefits. There’s nothing there that you’re going to apply to anything else. You’re not going to gain anything except a hatred of the architecture they’ve created. I don’t think they’re going to make money off their box. I don’t think it’s a good solution

There is a very valid, logical piece to his statement. He could have just said,

We prefer to keep our main development teams focused on more standardized technologies and use specialized contractors to handle porting to proprietary architectures such as the PS3.

However, his statement was phrased in a highly emotional, negative, and political way.

On the bright side, I’ve noticed much less of this attitude towards the PS3 recently. Last year, this kind of attitude towards the PS3 was the norm, while today, it seems people are less tolerant of this type of blatantly negative and political attitudes.

So, does this affect anyone’s attitude towards the upcoming Half-Life title for the PS3?

I got a email from PlayStation Underground about policy changes that will be changing Oct 30th. Most interesting thing is this at the top of the page “Version 2.0 (October 30, 2007)” So I checked it out, and all the changes are in red and here are some of them. See below:

This Agreement applies to services, software and content provided through or in connection with PSN, including via the PLAYSTATION®Store and virtual communities, whether delivered onto the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, the PSP®(PlayStation®Portable) system, a personal computer or otherwise. Such services, software, and content include subscriptions, data, system software, fixes, updates or newer releases and peripheral materials.

Some content and services may not be appropriate for children under a certain age. Please check age ratings for content and services before access, download or purchase. Not all content and services are rated. Some content is designed to be downloaded to your PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system or PSP®(PlayStation®Portable) system and will be accessible by all users of that unit. Please monitor your child’s access to content, services, and communications that may be age inappropriate. PSN parental controls will not apply to certain materials, including downloaded content and unrated or streamed materials, services, and communications. Your child may not be able to access content, services or play games rated for users older than his or her registered age. In some countries, parents and legal guardians with Master Accounts will be permitted to set their parental controls to override content restrictions on certain materials for associated sub accounts. Please see the Regional Online Manual at http://www.us.playstation.com/SCEAROM for more information.

2. PSN COMMUNITY

Currently, no purchase is required to participate in general PSN community activities. If you have a PSN account, you can chat via voice and video with friends and enjoy single sign on benefits without purchase, as well as enjoy online entertainment for which there is no subscription or purchase requirement.

You may not take any action, or upload, post, stream, or otherwise transmit any content, language, images or sounds in any forum, communication, public profile, or other publicly viewable areas or in the creation of any Online ID that SCEA, in its sole discretion, finds offensive, hateful, or vulgar. This includes but is not limited to, any content or communication that SCEA in its sole discretion deems racially, ethnically, religiously, or sexually offensive, libelous, defaming, threatening, bullying or stalking.

You may not upload, post, stream, or otherwise transmit any content that contains any viruses, worms, spyware, time bombs, or other computer programs that may damage, interfere with, or disrupt PSN.

You may not take any upload, post, stream, access, or otherwise transmit any content that you know or should have known to be infringing or that violates any third party rights, any law or regulation, or contractual or fiduciary obligations.

So it seems like the update may include:

• Can choose your own online avatar (at last)
• Looks like they are preparing the policy for Home coming up soon
• Possible PSP PlayStation Store

Hopefully Firmware 2.0 will include XMB access in game too. One thing that has always bugged me about storing media on the PS3 is that I can’t make my own folders and organize my own media. Hopefully they add that.

I have a couple ideas for the friends list. I think it would be nice to have a option to add notes to your friends accounts, so you know who they are, which games they play with you, etc. I have too many buddies and most of them I don’t really play games with, or really know honestly. Second idea I had for the friend list is that you could click on there name and then scroll down and select “online profile” and it pulls up a website, and it’s there online PSN profile. They could edit this on the PS3 or from any web browser. Update which games they play, what time they plan on playing a game online, etc.

But again no official word, but signs point to a least a new firmware around the 30th of October.

EA acquired VG Holding Corp for $775 million which owns both BioWare (Mass Effect, KOTOR) and Pandemic (Mercenaries, Battlefront, Destroy All Humans).

VG Holding bought controlling interest in BioWare and Pandemic in November, 2005 for $300 million.

IGN: EA Acquires VG Holding
New York Times, 2005: VG Holding Acquires BioWare and Pandemic

Games

• Everyday Shooter ($9.99 US)

Demos

• Ratchet and Clank Future: ToD Demo
• NHL 2K8 Demo
• Conan Demo

Game Videos

• Uncharted Behind The Scenes II
• Folklore Launch Trailer
• Fallout 3 Teaser Trailer

Movie Trailers

• The Assassination of Jesse James
• Spiderwick Chronicles
• Walk Hard

Wallpaper

• Ratchet and Clank Future: ToD
• Everyday Shooter

Official Blog Post

Video Business magazine has an article talking about the HD DVD versus BD format war. There was a DisplaySearch conference yesterday at which the HD DVD and BD proponents each strutted their stuff and stats. Okay okay. We all know about the format war, so yadda yadda yadda. But the interesting part of the article comes right near the end:

PS3 is expected to soon offer a firmware upgrade to boost its Blu-ray interactivity functionality, noted Sony’s Eklund.

Hmmm. I wonder what kind of updates these are, and when they’re coming…

High-def adoption ‘will roll’, albeit slowly, say panelists

I really like the commercial, it explains a lot to new comers that don’t know much about the PLAYSTATION 3. But could use more focus on games. Sony really needs to get the word out about the PS3 and it’s GAMES before and during the holidays. Also I wonder if they’ll advertise the Dual Shock 3 in Japan or not. Be patient it’s loading pretty slow at the moment.