Tag: Industry - Page 53
Report PlayStation 3 Sales Up 65% Post-Price Cut
The effects of last week's PlayStation 3 price-cut have already had an impact on UK retail according to a report by MCV
The website notes that sales of Sony's premier home system jumped by as much as 65 percent week-on-week following the decision to reposition the system's base model at an RRP of £199.99. It's promising news, especially seeing as...
News PS Vita's Development Kit Is Very Affordable
Alert to all independent developers
Gamescom 2011 has been crucial for Vita, with new game announcements and info on some of the games we already knew about. While most of this news has been aimed at the consumers, a segment of news we’ve come across is just as great for independent developers as it is for consumers. SCEE’s George Bain spoke...
News Sony Prices PlayStation Vita Development Kits Surprisingly Low
If you didn't think Sony was serious about making development on the PlayStation Vita as straight-forward as possible, then perhaps this will change your mind
The platform holder's announced that Vita development kits will be available for as low as 1,900 — a staggeringly low price considering PlayStation Portable kits cost 15,000. The PS...
News Updated PlayStation Vita Specifications Discredit RAM Rumours
Earlier in the year the Internet went mad with stories that Sony had cut the PlayStation Vita's on-board RAM in order to meet a more approachable price-point
But according to new system specifications released this evening, those rumours were wrong. The updated specification sheet [posted on NeoGAF], denotes that the PlayStation Vita includes 512MB...
GamesCom 2011 Sony Confirms Dedicated Facebook, Twitter & FourSquare Apps For PlayStation Vita
In addition to the PlayStation Vita's own catalogue of unique social functions, the device will also ship with dedicated applications for Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and Skype
GamesCom 2011 Sony Cuts PlayStation 3 Hardware To $249
Sony closed out its GamesCom press conference earlier this evening with a price-drop, revealing that the 160GB PlayStation 3 will now be available globally for $249
99 / 249.99 / ¥24,980. The price-drop is effective immediately. As in right now. Sony last cut the price of the PlayStation 3 at GamesCom in 2009, dropping the price of the then...
News PushSquare Service Announcement: Sony & EA GamesCom 2011 Press Conferences Today
Despite the anticipation being nowhere near E3, we always enjoy the muted build-up to the GamesCom press conferences
You're never going to see a megaton announcement at GamesCom, but because the anticipation is lower, those muted surprises are all the more impactful. The PlayStation 3 Slim announcement in 2009 was huge, and we'll never forget the...
News Sony Starts Selling Digital Content In GAME & GameStation
As of today you'll be able to purchase digital download versions of first-party PlayStation content from British stores GAME and GameStation
The brick-and-mortar video games retail institution recently started selling digital PC content in store, and will now stock downloadable versions of PlayStation content such as the God Of War Collection and...
News UK Sales Charts: Yup. Zumba Fitness.
We're starting to wonder if any game will ever dethrone Zumba Fitness
Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Maybe. Resistance 3? Possibly. Dead Island? We hope so. It has to happen at some point, right? This is Zumba Fitness' ninth week at the top of the UK sales charts. It's outrageous. Catch the full top-ten after the hop. There's nothing to talk about,...
News Analysts Predict PlayStation Vita To Shift 2.5 Million Units By March 2012
Nikko Securities analyst Kazuharu Miura has predicted that the PlayStation Vita will sell about 2
5 million units by the end of March 2012, adding that software sales are likely to hit around 7 million units. The PlayStation Vita is due to release in Japan later this year, with a Western release due before the end of the fiscal year. In a report...
News Sony And LG Are No Longer At Loggerheads Over Patents
Cast your minds back to March and you might remember that Sony and LG were not getting along
In fact, LG even halted a shipment of PlayStation 3 consoles, claiming a patent dispute in Sony's Blu-ray technology. According to a report on Reuters, the two companies have now kissed and made up, signing a cross-licensing deal. Hopefully this puts a stop...
News THQ Dumps MX vs ATV Franchise
Clearly not content with ditching the Red Faction franchise, THQ has also announced that its dropped the MX vs ATV franchise
The studio had lofty expectations for budget release MX vs ATV Alive, but the title failed to set the sales charts alight leading the publisher to drop the series. The publisher's shut down three internal development teams as...
We always knew it was a likely scenario, but we chose to believe otherwise
Sony never officially said the PlayStation Vita would get a worldwide launch this year, only ever really committing to a Japanese launch. "Phased global rollout" was the textbook buzzword Sony used. But we believed because it made sense. How could Sony not put the...
Breaking PlayStation Vita Not Launching In US Or Europe Until 2012
Sony Computer Entertainment gaffer Kaz Hirai has just confirmed that PlayStation Vita will not launch until 2012 in the US or Europe
Japan will get the device before the year is out. The news comes via an Associated Press report on MSN Money, which states that the anticipated device "won't be going on sale in the US or Europe in time for...
News PlayStation Vita Clears FCC Testing
Well, at least you guys in the US have something to be pleased about
After this morning's rumours that PlayStation Vita might be delayed in Europe, Engadget's reporting that the device has passed FCC clearance in North America. Engadget explains that this "is widely regarded as the final step before a consumer electronics device is shipped to...
Rumour PlayStation Vita Not Releasing Before 2012 In Europe
It's the news we've all been dreading, especially after we've had so many indications pointing towards a 2011 release, but NowGamer's citing retail sources that state the PlayStation Vita will not launch in Europe before 2011 is out
Only last week we got a retail flier indicating that Vita could launch on October 28th, but we stated at the time that...
News Sucker Punch: Sony Purchase Won't Change Daily Operations
Sony may have bought inFamous developer Sucker Punch, but it's unlikely to have much of a change on the daily operations at the studio
Having worked closely with the PlayStation platform holder for over ten years, it's back to business as usual for Sucker Punch now that the deal has been made public. I dont think it will have much of an effect...
News Sony: PlayStation Vita Can Be Used As A PlayStation 3 Controller
Sony's revealed that the PlayStation Vita can work as a controller for the PlayStation 3, potentially matching the capabilities showcased in Nintendo's new Wii-U system
Sony explained the potential to Eurogamer at last month's Develop conference. "What could you do with all of this?" Sony R&D boffin Phil Rogers questioned a room...
News Sucker Punch Goes First-Party: Sony Acquires inFamous & Sly Cooper Developer
Wow
What a story to wake up to on a dreary (but strangely humid) Tuesday morning. Sony has announced that it's acquired Sly Cooper and inFamous developer Sucker Punch, adding them to the platform holder's enormous roster of first-party developers. Sucker Punch are actually the 16th development house to join Sony's Worldwide Studios, and will develop...
News Take PlayStation Vita RAM Cut Rumours With A Pinch Of Salt
Despite what we reported yesterday, a Sony Japan representative has told Develop that there has been no cut to the PlayStation Vita's RAM
Previous rumours had suggested Sony had sliced the RAM in half in order to hit a competitive price-point for its new handheld, but that seems nothing more than baseless speculation at this point. A development...
News Analysts: Nintendo 'Really Feel The Heat' From PlayStation Vita
We spent way too much time participating in NeoGAF's PlayStation Vita thread last night
The forum was debating Vita's chances now that Nintendo's hit the panic button and knocked nearly $100 of its 3DS device. The take-away from most posters was that the Vita was all of a sudden doomed. At E3, forum-goers revelled in the device's price. We were all...
News Samsung Signed Up To Manufacture PlayStation Vita's CPU
Sony and Samsung may be arch rivals in the TV business, but the consumer electronics giants have joined forces to bring the PlayStation Vita to market
According to Andriasang's translation of a Semiconductor Industry news report [a riveting read, we're sure - Ed], the Korean company will supply the chip for the Vita going forward. The site states...
News PlayStation Vita's Reduced RAM Not A Problem For Developers
Invizimal's developer Novarama has said that the PlayStation Vita's alleged reduction in RAM will not harm development
Rumours swirled before E3 suggesting that Sony had lowered the Vita's on-board RAM in order to find a more competitive price-point. But while Novarama's Dani Sánchez-Crespo seemed to corroborate the rumour, he didn't think it would...
News Sony: PSN Outage Not As Expensive As First Thought
The bill for the recent PlayStation Network outage is "shrinking" according to Sony
The company revealed during its financial call overnight that the costs will "not be as great as originally estimated". In May, Sony predicted that the cost of the outage would be around 14 billion yen (or £105 million). But, "that was the May...
News Analysts Put Their Money Behind PlayStation 3 For Console War Crown
A number of analysts believe the PlayStation 3 will emerge victorious over the XBOX 360 once this generation has breathed its last -- but that victory will be marginal
EEDAR's Jesse Divinch was first to the plate, telling IndustryGamers that the PlayStation 3 has sold ten percent more than the XBOX 360 in the first half of 2011. To clarify, Divinch...
News Sony: 3D Can Enhance Experiences, But Only When Done Properly
With Sony so heavily invested in 3D content, you'd think they'd be pushing every visual media outlet to develop content in the extra dimension
But that's not the case. Speaking with Eurogamer at the Develop conference in Brighton, Sony's 3D gaffer, Mick Hocking, revealed that 3D needs to be done properly and appropriately to be truly successful...
News Ubisoft Gaffer The Latest Exec To Start Banging On About PlayStation 4
Next-Gen
Is anyone else getting tired of the constant "next generation" chatter? If analysts are correct and the next PlayStation is not coming out until 2013 at the earliest, does that mean we have to endure another two years minimum of this hypothesising? Urgh. Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot is the latest video games boss to drop the "next-gen is...
News Activision's Not Happy With Modern Warfare 3 URL Gaffe
Remember when we jokingly reported about ModernWarfare3
com</a>? The popular URL was snapped up by a Battlefield fan, and comically redirected to the official Battlefield website. Naturally Activision's not too happy about this. The publisher has filed a $2600 complaint against the domain to the Nation Arbitration Forum, demanding that the...
News Board Up The Windows: EA Purchases PopCap For A Whopping $750 Million
EA executives were clearly hard at work this afternoon
"Damn," one EA employed businessman suddenly declared, "It's such a slow news day, we need to do something about it." "Well we have always courted the idea of purchasing Plants Vs. Zombies developer, PopCap Games," came the response of a stern looking businesswoman,...
News Sony's 'Welcome Back' Plan Actually Boosted PlayStation 3 Sales
Remember all the doom and gloom during the PlayStation Network outage? Many wondered if the PlayStation business was finished for good
Sony desperately tried to claw back goodwill by announcing the PlayStation Network "Welcome Back" package, a plan involving a number of free games as way of apology for the inconvenience caused by the...
News Sony On PlayStation Vita: The Development World Has Changed, So Have We
PlayStation Vita will be the easiest PlayStation platform yet to develop for
That's according to a number of Sony executives quoted by Develop. Sony's thrown-out its old ambition for complicated architecture, and replaced the philosophy with a development environment that's easy for big and small studios to produce content for. In a sense,...
News Sony's Still A Hot Brand In Asia
Sony's still a force in Asia according to a survey published by the Wall Street Journal
The Japanese electronics giant was rated ahead of rival consumer electronics brands as the most valued brand in Asia. Over 3,000 people aged between 15 and 64 were surveyed. Interestingly the survey was conducted after the widely publicised PlayStation Network...
Report Rockstar Won't Publish Team Bondi's Next Title
It's funny what goes on behind closed doors
While the relationship between Rockstar and Team Bondi seemed water-tight during the public build-up for L.A. Noire, it's capitulated ever since. Talk of long hours, poor management and "disdain" between the developer and publisher have surfaced over the past few weeks — prompting a report from...
It's Monday morning: we're supposed to be writing about how Zumba Fitness has topped the UK sales charts for a billionth week running and not much else
Instead we've got a zinger of a rumour from DigiTimes, speculating that the PlayStation 4 will launch as soon as next year. The report mentions that Sony will begin production of its new system at...
News Kaz Hirai Promoted To Chairman Of SCEI, Andrew House Becomes CEO
What a difference a week makes -- or something
We've only been away six days or so, but the entire hierarchy of SCE has changed. Sort of, anyway. Kaz Hirai has been promoted to Chairman of SCEI, active as of September 1st. Presumably that means he will sit at the head of a big table wearing an expensive suit like in the Yakuza games. More surprising...
News XBOX Boss In 'Vita Won't Be Successful' Shocker
Is anyone else bored to tears of being told what they want to play?
Apparently it's not ok for us to be excited about a new entry in the Everybody's Golf series, because we should be playing GameLoft's Let's Golf rip-off or Flick Golf or something We shouldn't be excited for the likes of Wipeout 2048, Sound Shapes and Street Fighter X Tekken because...
Rumour PlayStation 3 To Get Price-Drop At GamesCom In August
It's not really a rumour is it
Everyone's expecting the PlayStation 3 to get a price-drop this year, and there's no better positioned event than August's GamesCom. Sony's known for bringing the heat to the European event, while its competitors flounder. Sounds like a no-brainer to us. MCV's got the report, citing a new price-point of between...
News Sony's PlayStation Home E3 Booth Pulled In A Whopping 500,000 Visitors
The virtual E3 booth in PlayStation Home was a stroke of marketing genius
It directed you to watch eight of Sony's E3 trailers in order to receive virtual items and access the space's VIP area. Given the casual nature of PlayStation Home, we imagine there were people learning about Twisted Metal and Resistance 3 for the first time in the virtual...
News May NPD: L.A. Noire Tops The Class, Video Game Sales Drop
L
A. Noire</a> managed to top the sales charts in North America last month, despite video game spending being down 13% year-over-year. New entries Brink and LEGO Pirates Of The Caribbean rounded out the top-three. Unfortunately revenue for the industry as a whole dropped from $829.4 million to $718.8 million, though hardware was only down by...
News THQ Closes Homefront Developer, Confirms Plans For Homefront Sequel
No, that's not a mistake in the headline
THQ really has been busy this afternoon, both closing Homefront developer Kaos Studios and, errr, announcing the franchise's sequel. THQ also closed down its Digital Warrington studio, in a "strategic" move designed to "realign its internal studio structure". THQ confirmed today that it...
News Patrice Desilets Begins Work At THQ Today
Former Assassin's Creed gaffer, Patrice Desilets, begins work for THQ today the publisher has announced
Desilets revealed he was joining THQ to head up the publisher's new Montreal studio last summer, but was forced to take a year out from the industry per his contract with Ubisoft. Desilets was a pivotal figure in the success of the Assassin's...
Feature Why PlayStation Vita Changed Perceptions At E3 2011 -- 'Twiggy' The Push Square Opinionator
Nintendo might have announced a new platform at E3, but if you listen to the buzz bubbling beneath the Wii U, you'll notice the perception of Sony's PlayStation Vita has changed dramatically
The spiritual successor to the PlayStation Portable already convinced some when it was announced earlier in the year. With dual analogue sticks, a gorgeous...
E3 2011 So That Was E3... See You June 5th-7th 2012
E3 2011 is pretty much over, with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announcing that E3 2011 welcomed 46,800 attendees over the past couple of days
Of course, now's the time to start building hype for next year's event, which kicks off June 5th-7th 2012. According to Joystiq the event will stay in L.A. for the next couple of years, with...
Feature Opinion: Quit Dallying And Put The PlayStation Vita On Store Shelves Already
Like many others, we came away from Sony's press conference grinning from ear-to-ear
Not only had Sony demonstrated a substantially more capable handheld platform than its peers, it also seemed to show a reasonable understanding of the current market-place. Handheld platforms need to both accompany the home-console experience, and differentiate from...
News Woah, Sony Confirms It's Selling PlayStation Vita At A Loss
Look, let's get things straight: PlayStation Vita is an amazing platform at an outrageous price
There was always going to be a catch. It seems that catch lies with Sony's bottom-line, as the company has confirmed it will be selling the Vita at a loss. We suppose that would be stomachable if it was just six months or so, but no, Sony doesn't expect...
News Yoshida: Sony 'Comfortable' With Internal NGP Price-Point
If there's anything to dread at Sony's press conference this evening, it's going to be the NGP's price point
There's a definite sense that the company can't win no matter how they tackle the pricing situation. If Sony don't announce a price then people will assume the new handheld really expensive. But if the company announce a price now and don't...
E3 2011 SCEE Trademarks PSVita, PlayStation Vita In Europe
SCEE's registered two new trademarks for PSVita and PlayStation Vita in Europe, adding weight to the rumours suggesting the former codename will be the NGP's final name
The trademarks were spotted on GAF, and were registered on Friday to the Trademarks and Designs Registration Office of the European Union. There's really no point debating it...
News Sony: NGP Development Budgets To Be Closer To PSP Than PlayStation 3
One of the arguments lofted against the NGP by critics is that the system's bigger and better graphics will likely result in higher development costs for publishers
While this criticism ignores the NGP's ability to run smaller games (PlayStation Suite, Minis, etc), Sony's Worldwide Studios Europe president, Michael Denny, believes development costs...
News GRIN Founders Blame Square Enix For Studio's Close, Hilarity Inside
Remember GRIN? There was a period in 2009 where virtually every game coming out had their name on it: Bionic Commando, Wanted, Terminator Salvation
They seemed to come out of nowhere, and disappear just as quickly. Yet shortly after their closure we got details that the company was working on a Final Fantasy reboot for Square Enix. That reboot,...
