Items tagged with PlayStation
The next-generation console bar has been set... at least as it pertains to opening day sales, anyway. With just 24 hours under its belt, the new PlayStation 4 console has surpassed one million units sold in North America. The console became available to the masses on November 15, and while that tally obviously was bolstered by the many folks who pre-ordered, it's still impressive. Overall, reviews of the console have been positive, noting that the Dualshock 4 controller is the company's best yet, and that the launch lineup is fairly impressive as well. Plus, pricing the base PS4 at a point where it wasn't tremendously more expensive than the competition (as was the case when the PS3 arrived)...
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Sony's PlayStation 4 is so close that most gamers can almost taste it, but if the PS2's lifecycle is any indication of how the PS3 will be treated even after it's not the top dog, we're guessing it'll be around for a very long while. The PlayStation 3 is no slouch, even today, and it's one incredible media machine. Besides gaming, the PS3 has always marketed itself as a "do everything" set-top box, and a couple of new applications are being ported over to further prove that it's not kidding about that stance. TuneIn Radio has quickly become a go-to radio app for mobile users, and now it's coming to the PS3 and PS Vita. You'll get access to over 70,000 radio stations, live music, sports, talk...
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Crime might not pay -- but video games about crime certainly do, particularly when they're the follow-up to one of the biggest franchises in gaming. Grand Theft Auto V -- easily one of the biggest titles left for the Xbox 360 and PS3 -- went on sale today and cleared $800M in revenue in just 24 hours. That's not just a record for Grand Theft Auto, it's a record for Take Two, and possibly for the entire gaming industry. Last year, Activision touted Call of Duty Black Ops II as raking in a record $500M in revenue, but this has blown way past that. Reviews of the game are excellent, with an average Metacritic score of 98 and praise lavished on the degree of detail and visual effects squeezed out...
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Sony's PlayStation 4 is scheduled to land in the United States on 11/15 for $399. But, believe it or not, there's still a big market out there for the PlayStation 3, and Sony realizes it still has a few months to milk its existing console before the new one comes to town. That's the only logical reason we can muster for the emergence of this Azurite Blue PS3 console, which will land on October 8, 2013 as a GameStop exclusive. It'll ship only in a 250GB (HDD) model, and will only be available for sale at U.S. and Canada GameStop / EB Games locations. The bundle includes a blue console, a blue DualShock 3 wireless controller, a 250GB HDD, Blu-ray player and... well, not much else. No games, nada....
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Sony's handheld sales haven't exactly been mind-blowing, but then again, the handheld game in general has been massively disrupted by the advent of iOS and Android gaming. With all of that said, Sony's hoping to toss in a surge to its bottom line by slicing the price (again!) of its PlayStation Vita. The Vita is now available in the U.S. for $199.99, and because it's still the latest, a ton of new titles are expected in the coming months. Plus, Sony has announced Remote Play, which will more closely link PS Vita gameplay with PS4 gameplay. The brand new price applies to all PS Vita systems available at retail, including the limited edition PS Vita Walking Dead bundle that launches this week....
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Long before Microsoft announced its Xbox One and Sony, its PlayStation 4, many speculated as to whether or not this upcoming generation of consoles would be the last. That proposed fate had a lot to do with the fact that it's not as profitable a business as console vendors would like it to be, especially when the risks are enormous. But according to Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot, the upcoming generation is most certainly not the last. In an interview with Computer & Video Games, Mr. Guillemot reiterates the fact that this current console generation has lasted far too long - something I'm sure a lot of us can agree with. He does believe, however, that the next-gen consoles will deliver unparalleled...
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It doesn't make the issue any easier to swallow if you hastily updated your PlayStation 3 console to the latest software a few days back, but Sony has just issued a notice informing its customers that a fix is en route. Here's the quote: "We have identified the issue related to the PlayStation 3 software update (version 4.45) that impacted a small number of PS3 systems earlier this week. A new PS3 system software update is planned to be released on June 27 that resolves the issue. Thank you for your patience and understanding and we apologize for the inconvenience." For now, the update is offline, so gamers who didn't download the latest edition are fine. But for those who did, it looks like...
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Ever since Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One in May, the user community has raised holy hell about the 24-hour mandatory online check in, the loss of used game sales, and the onerous online requirements that prohibited game or console imports into countries where the Xbox One service hasn't officially launched. Microsoft's entire E3 demo was buried thanks to a $499 price tag and a crushing video from Sony. Throwing military users under a bus by insisting they just buy an Xbox 360 was apparently the final straw. Today, Microsoft threw in the towel. The Xbox One will not require a 24-hour check in. It won't require an online check-in or verification system at all. Here's Don Mattrick with the details:...
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Still on the hunt for a PlayStation 4 pre-order that's not already "sold out?" Amazon has you covered. As these things typically go, the spoils go to those who pull the trigger early on, and it seems that many retailers and e-tailers have already had their initial allotments snapped up by early pre-orders. But now, here come the bundles. Most folks loathe these things, mostly because they strong-arm you into buying more than you really want, and oftentimes, they include games or accessories that you aren't exactly fired up about. That said, Amazon has now listed a number of "Launch Day bundles," which do cost $60-$100 more than the baseline $399 console... but at least they'll be available on...
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We got a taste of “Destiny”, a new MMO being developed by Activision and Bungie, back in February, and now the companies are teasing the game even more with a trailer called “Law of the Jungle”. Directed by Jon Favreau and featuring Giancarlo Esposito, the trailer teases what appear to be cut shots interspersed with a bit of gameplay action. There are three protagonists fighting side-by-side against an invading alien force, and each of the three has a different look and different weapons. For example, one has a hood and cape while another has a quasi Boba Fett-style helmet. In terms of weaponry, we see that there’s a Street Fighter II-esque ball of energy that the...
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Sony shared more details on the PS4 today, including CPU specs, controller design decisions, and advanced information on the platform's API. We've known that the PS4 used an AMD Jaguar-derived core for months, but the new information today points to a standard implementation of AMD's reference design. The PS4 has two four-core Jaguar blocks. Each block shares a 2MB L2 cache and each core has a 32K L1 data cache. That lines up with what AMD has said about Jaguar to-date and points to the chip's "semi-custom" status. What's more interesting is the API news. Sony claims that the PS4 will support a "DirectX 11.1+", with the plus standing for better debugger and more direct access to the shader pipeline....
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One of the interesting facts to come out of Sony's PS4 announcement is that the new console is, for all intents and purposes, a PC. This isn't the first time a major manufacturer has launched a console based on commodity PC hardware -- Microsoft's original Xbox was a Pentium 3 with an onboard GeForce 2 GPU -- but it's a definite first for Sony. Both the PS2 and PS3 eschewed commodity hardware, opting instead for expensive technology Sony had a direct hand in developing. PS4's Killzone Shadowfall title Thus far, the PS4 has one capability that outstrips anything a traditional PC can offer -- memory bandwidth. The PC version of AMD's Jaguar is, according to AMD's own technical documents, a single-channel...
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When you're as big as Sony, even acquisitions that cost around $380 million can sometimes get swept under the rug. But if you had any fears that Sony's purchase of Gaikai wouldn't yield near-instant results, think again. With the PlayStation 4 likely to be unveiled by Sony next week, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a major part of the PS4's functionality will deal with the underlying technology that Gaikai built. In specific terms, the PlayStation 4 will offer backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3 software. But not only in disc support -- it'll be able to stream games in, much like Wii U users can do when playing classic Nintendo titles. Beyond streaming PS3 titles, the PS4 may...
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The next PlayStation is coming. Soon. Out of nowhere, Sony has finally responded to the stockpile of rumors by announcing an event on Feb. 20th that'll tell the tale of the PlayStation's future. While little is detailed in the teaser video, it's clear that the public at large is being invited to learn more about the next steps in the brand's legacy. The typical Triangle + Circle + X + Square is seen numerous times in the video, hinting that the tried-and-true PS controller may not be dead after all. While motion gaming had its time, Move never took off for Sony the way Kinect did for Microsoft. It's quite possible that Sony sticks to its roots with the PlayStation 4 (codenamed Orbis), but all...
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U.S. PlayStation owners have access to a new online content store today: the Sony Entertainment Network App Store. The Web-based store has been available in Europe since late last year, but just launched in the U.S., Brazil, Canada, and Mexico. The store has movies, TV shows, games, and other digital treats for their PlayStation 3/Vita/Portable and is related to the PlayStation Store for the PlayStation3. The online PlayStation App Store is launching with plenty of content, but more features are expected down the pike. Sony has plans for recommendation features, mobile device interfaces, and an automatic download feature for purchased content. At the moment, when you buy content on the online...
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It's not often that a console company sticks with a controller design for three straight generations, but sure enough, the PlayStation controller that ships with the PS3 is largely the same as the original that shipped with the first PlayStation so many years ago. There's a saying that folks shouldn't worry with fixing things that aren't broken, and we suspect that this is the mantra Sony has been following. The PlayStation's DualShock design is one that's largely beloved, but as the years have passed, controlling a console has become a new art form. Nintendo ushered in a sea change with the Wii Remote, and Microsoft's Kinect placed even less emphasis on the handheld controller. Of course, Sony...
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Another print publication bites the dust. This time it's PlayStation: The Official Magazine that's closing its doors, ending what had been a 15-year run with the upcoming Holiday issue. Though print media has struggled to find relevance in an increasingly digital world, the move is still a little surprising when you consider that "PlayStation" is an iconic console brand, and consoles have never been more popular than they are right now. There hasn't been an official announcement (that we're aware of), though Game Informer claims to have confirmed the magazine's cancellation with publisher Future US. Earlier this year, Future US announced that Nintendo Power would also cease publication in December,...
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Sony isn’t throwing in the towel on its mobile gaming endeavors. Quite to the contrary, in fact, the company announced a “full scale” launch of PlayStation Mobile (nee PlayStation Suite), which includes new content, the PlayStation Mobile SDK, and the addition of ASUS and Wikipad to its Playstation Certified license program. About 30 new titles from both Sony and third-party devs will be available this fall on certified devices through the PlayStation Store in nine countries including the U.S., UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, and a smattering of major European companies. Availability in more countries will soon follow. The availability of the official PlayStation Mobile SDK will...
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Although mobile and social gaming is all the rage, gaming on a living room console connected to your TV has always been a thoroughly enjoyable way to while away the hours alone or with friends. In recent years, the Xbox (alone and with the Kinect), Wii, and Playstation have dominated living rooms. Now there’s another contender, the Ouya, which costs $99, runs on an open platform, and is built so that hackers and devs can tweak it and create for it. Here’s the group’s Kickstarter video: The team behind Ouya believes that game development for consoles is spiraling away from independent developers due largely to rising costs associated with game development. By producing a hackable...
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A leaked presentation from circa 2010 has the tech world buzzing. The original document and mirrors have been pulled, but we saved a copy before that happened. While there's no confirmation from Microsoft on whether the document is accurate, it lines up extremely well with what we've seen Microsoft announce so far this year, as well as previous speculation on the company's next-gen Xbox 720, codenamed Durango. At 56 pages long, there's quite a bit of data -- we'll hit the most salient points. Future Platform Hardware - The slide below doesn't explicitly call out AMD's architecture, but other slides have a "Radeon" logo in the corner; a not-so-subtle hint at who's providing the GPU. Xbox 720 High...
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Sony has constantly hawked the PlayStation 3 as being not only a gaming system, but also an entertainment system. First, there was Blu-ray support and DLNA media streaming, and now there's yet another reason to just stay home this weekend and cuddle with your PS3: Amazon's Instant Video is now available on the PS3. his makes the PS3 system the first and only video game console system to offer Amazon Instant Video. Customers can access Amazon Instant Video on their PlayStation 3 system for free by installing the Amazon Instant Video app directly from the TV/Video Services category on the XMB (XrossMediaBar). The Amazon Instant Video app can also be found in the PlayStation Store, under the Media...
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There's been a lot of chatter the past few months about what Microsoft's next-generation Xbox might look like, as well as repeated speculation that the device could tip up at the upcoming E3 Exposition. According to the head of Microsoft Corporate Communications, Frank Shaw, the company is flattered by the rumors but has no plans to launch a new console generation this year. “While we appreciate all the interest in our long-range plans for the future, we can confirm that there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon,” Microsoft’s Corporate Communications boss Frank Shaw told AllThingsD. “For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360." Sales figures show that the...
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