PS3 Fanboy is reporting that PLAYSTATION Network Cards are coming to the US (and hopefully Canada) soon enough.

So for all you people all there who’re looking for a gift for my Birthday in February, that’s a good way to go!

PLAYSTATION Network cards coming to the US

As a reminder:

NPD = Sales data for USA + Canada
Media Create = Sales data for Japan. I used the four weeks of data spanning 11/05/07 through 12/2/2007.
It’s harder to get a cleaner data set for Europe numbers, so those are currently omitted.

Overall, not bad. If I could get Europe sales data in there, that would probably look much better. What does everyone think?

BTW, check out the nice Google Chart API that I used to make this chart through a simple URL string:

Playable Demo

Game Videos

Downloadable Content

Movie Trailers

Here’s a post over at YourRhythmics that I thought I’d repost here:

First, we get Guitar Hero 1 and 2, which were great. Then we get the obvious cash-grab, Guitar Hero Rocks the 80’s. All on the PS2. And none of them worked on the PS3 with the guitar peripheral (except maybe GH1). Then Activision releases GH3, which also doesn’t work on the PS3. And remember Call of Duty 3? Activision released that game without headset support for the PS3, and the PS3 didn’t get the map pack either.

Next up, Activision’s GH3 guitar peripheral for the PS3 doesn’t work with Harmonix’ Rock Band. Fine, Harmonix says, we’ll issue a patch that allows the guitar to work with Rock Band. Activision says “No, we’re going to be total pricks and disallow this patch. In keeping with our King of Pricks philosophy, we’ll ignore the fact that 360 users can enjoy said compatibility. Because we like 360 gamers and hate PlayStation 3 gamers. Remember what we did did GH1-GH3 on the PS2, and CoD3? Yup, we’re big prick PS3 haters.” [My words, not theirs.]

Here’s the statement from Harmonix:

Hi Everyone,

As we have said in the past, Harmonix and MTV Games believe in an open standard philosophy of hardware and game compatibility. We think that there should be interoperability between music instrument controllers across all music games. This is clearly in the best interest of consumers, game developers and console manufacturers and will only help to grow the music game genre as well as inspire innovation and creativity.

Two weeks ago, Harmonix created a software patch for the Sony PLAYSTATION 3 version of Rock Band that allowed for guitar compatibility and support for third party peripherals, including enabling use of Activision’s Guitar Hero III controller with Rock Band. The compatibility patch was submitted, approved and had been scheduled for release by Sony on Tuesday, December 4. Unfortunately, Activision objected to the compatibility patch’s release. The patch remains with Sony, but we have been told that it will unfortunately not be released due to Activision’s continued objection.

As is the case with the Microsoft Xbox360, we believe that Sony PLAYSTATION 3 users should be able to use the peripheral of their choice with Rock Band. We sincerely hope that Activision will reverse its decision and allow release of the compatibility patch and further, that Activision will allow Guitar Hero III to support Rock Band guitar controllers as well. We welcome all third party developers who wish to support our controllers and will provide any required support in order for them to do so.

We believe that when consumers have choice, everyone wins. Harmonix and MTV Games hope that Activision and others will also adopt this philosophy.

Sincerely,
The Harmonix Team

One person in the comments at PS3Blog.net suggested boycotting Activision. I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not buying any more Guitar Hero games unless this issue is resolved. And it just so conveniently happens that I don’t plan on buying any other Activision games that I know of.

Edit: ways of contacting Activision to complain.

Howard Stringer has been talking lately. He mentioned the great sales the PS3 has been having lately, and he also mentioned … cellphone connectivity?

The world’s second-largest consumer electronics maker will hook up the PS3 with its PlayStation Portable console online before extending the links to products such as mobile phones, Stringer said in Tokyo today.

Now, I have a cellphone (the one pictured here), and I have to wonder what good it would be to connect my cellphone to my PS3. I guess I could swap pictures and music. But really, is there a real use for this?

Sony to Build PlayStation 3 Network to Increase Sales

MCV did a three part series where they feature partisan writers to represent the three major platforms in a light hearted showdown. They asked PS3Blog to represent the PS3! Thanks MCV!

Part 1: Xbox360
Part 2: Nintendo
Part 3: PS3 - By PS3Blog!!!

What do you think? Did we adequately represent?