Sony Brands

Sony have announced that the company plan to release 3D TVs in Japan starting from June 10th with the rest of the world, also to receive the 3D TV sets around the same time. Initially, Sony will release two TVs, a 40 inch model and a 46 inch model, which will retail for 290,000 Yen ($3215) and 350,000 Yen ($3898) respectively. Each TV will include two pairs of 3D glasses.

From July, 6 more models will be released. One will be a 40 inch set and another a 46 inch model. The other four, will not include the 3D glasses or 3D emitter and must be purchased separately. The cheapest of these models, will be a 40 inch display set, which will retail for 220,000 and glasses will cost 12,000 Yen, while the 3D infrared emitter is priced at 5,000 Yen.

A firmware update for the PS3 will also come out around the same time, adding 3D support.

Sony have put in a patent for ‘degradable’ video game demos. With the new system, demos will lose features the more you play it. It could range from the weapon becoming weaker, or less race tracks to play within the demo. With the example shown above, it shows that after 6 hours, or 6 plays of the demo, the size and strength of the weapon will decrease.

Characters could also be removed from the demo, along with subtle changes, such as the color depth and brightness changing, or sound effects softened. It appears however, this will apply more to new types of demos, which offer almost the full game up. With the demo degrading, it should help more sales of the game, so consumers can continue from where they left off. Once bought, the weapon, character, tracks etc, will be put back in the gameplay.

Source

David Jaffe has posted on his blog that Sony should “send a sternly worded legal letter” to Microsoft over the vehicle combat game Scrap Metal, as it is just a bit too close to Twisted Metal.

“Sony should [sue] or if I owned the rights to TWISTED METAL and GOD OF WAR, I sure as hell would at the least send a sternly worded legal letter,” he wrote. “Heck, I’d send two legal letters if it were me.

“I mean, first Microsoft puts out a car combat game and calls it SCRAP METAL? Hey, looks like a great game! Right up my alley! Day one purchase for me. But come on guys, isn’t that just a little too close to Sony’s own car combat game TWISTED METAL?

“And then Sony has GOD OF WAR, a game and potential movie about mortals fighting ancient Greek Gods. And then this movie gets announced called WAR OF THE GODS about- yep!- mortals fighting ancient Greek Gods.

“And look: Sony doesn’t- and should not- own the concept of the Greek Myths. Nor should they own the idea of mortal fighting ancient Gods, Greek or any other kind. That’s all public domain stuff. But the TITLE? Sony DOES own that. And GOD OF WAR/WAR OF THE GODS seem a little too close to comfort ya’ll

He then went on and added a few expletives but ended the post that it was all in good fun and that people should not get “sue happy”.

It’s seems to be that time again when the PlayStation Portable phone rumours are hitting the interwebs. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sony is currently working on a smartphone that can “download and play Playstation games.”

I might be tempted to buy a PSP Smart phone. Might, being the key word. But let’s see where these rumours lead.

The Wall Street Journal is an English-language international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, in New York City, with Asian and European editions.

The Journal has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the United States. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 2.1 million copies (including 400,000 online paid subscriptions) as of October 2009[2] compared to USA Today’s 1.9 million. Its main rival in the business newspaper sector is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions. Taken from Wikipedia

Here is a list of the God of War 3 trophies. There are also 18 secret trophies, one of which must be the Platinum. God of War 3 will be launching on March 16th.

Bronze

* Mr. Hand
Discover the secret ‘Hades Arm’ room
* Hit Man
Perform a 1000-hit combo
* Rip One!
Rip apart 1 Olympus Sentry
* Nice Tan
Blind 100 enemies with the Head of Helios
* Obedience School
Deliver 50 kicks to Hounds
* It’s getting hot in here…
Burn 100 enemies with the Bow of Apollo
* Souled Out
Summon every Soul with the Claws of Hades
* Bloody Hell
Cover Kratos in 500 buckets of blood by killing the enemies
* No Guts, No Glory
Gut 3 Centaur Generals
* Hitting Your Stride
Upgrade any weapon to the next level

Silver

* Eye Candy
Collect all of the Gorgon Eyes
* Feather Plucker
Collect all of the Phoenix Feathers
* Are You Horny to Win?
Collect all of the Minotaur Horns
* Maxed Out!
Completely upgrade all weapons

Gold

* Vengeance Complete
Beat the game
* Up to the Challenge
Beat the Challenge of Olympus
* Unhuman
Beat Titan Mode
* Priceless
Collect all of the ‘Godly Possessions’

Ubisoft’s Max Beland has said Splinter Cell will probably end up coming to PS3 and other platforms after the release of Conviction in April.

But Conviction is a fully-fledged exclusive on Xbox 360 and PC, with no release planned for other consoles.

He went on to further say:

“I joined Splinter Cell after the exclusivity deal with Microsoft had already been signed, but there’s no reason why Splinter Cell couldn’t be on the PS3,”.

“Conviction? No, because of the exclusivity deal. I know people keep talking about maybe, maybe not, [but] at Ubisoft Montreal I haven’t seen anyone working on PS3 for Conviction.

“If Microsoft wants an exclusivity deal, they don’t call me, it’s Yves [Guillemot, Ubisoft CEO] dealing with the business people. But yeah, I guess we could even be a PS3 exclusive if there’s a deal that makes people happy there.”

I really can’t believe that this series is still alive and kicking? Good for them though if they keep making good games.

Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain has come in at number one in the latest UK charts. It’s Sony’s first number one since Killzone 2 released just over a year ago.

Top ten is below.

* 1 – Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream, SCEE)
* 2 – Alien vs Predator (Rebellion, Sega)
* 3 – Just Dance (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)
* 4 – Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo, Nintendo)
* 5 – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward, Activision Blizzard)
* 6 – Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo, Nintendo)
* 7 – New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo, Nintendo)
* 8 – Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (Sumo Digital, Sega)
* 9 – BioShock 2 (2K Marin, 2K Games)
* 10 – FIFA (EA Sports, EA)

SCEA SVP of PR Rob Dyer has said the PSP will expect a pretty “robust” third-party line-up for 2010.

He stated that, despite admitting to problems with piracy on the handheld, there will be a great range of games in first and third-party line-ups.

And went on to say:

“I think we had a great lineup last year,” said Dyer. “The biggest problem that plagued PSP was piracy; we have not been able to slow that down. We think we have some answers going forward, but we’re not ready to talk about that publicly at this point.

“So we’re working on fixing that, because that’s been a big problem.”

“That said, we still have a very robust lineup this year from third parties on the PSP, starting with Metal Gear Peace Walker,” he further added.

Well I would like to see continued success for the PSP I remember when I bought my first one I was so excited to get it home and unbox it as I am sure many of you were. I am looking forward to the titles they will be releasing this year.

The filings – put in under the alias of Sand Dollar Enterprise, the same one used when the company filed for the 250Gb PS3 Slim just after the announcement of Slim at GamesCom last August – are for hardware codenamed CECH-2101A and CECH-2101B.

There is no new HDD added, as well as nothing new added to the wireless specs of the console, which is currently 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth.

I wonder why they had to report to the FCC if they aren’t bringing anything new to the table? Well time will tell if we see something new or not.

Valve apparantly wants to take it’s time with the PS3 in an attempt to do development “the right way.”

“Before we do anything on the PS3 we need to be able to support it in the right way,” said Valve’s Chet Faliszek

I don’t know that statement leaves it open ended if you ask me. I don’t sense a state of emergency from Chet, do you?