gHacks technology news » playstation-3

PS3 Slim Announced

Martin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:24:21 +0000

The PS3 Slim was yesterday confirmed at Sony’s press conference at the Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The new gaming system will be sold at $299 (€299, £249) and will be available in the first week of September. The biggest differences when compared to the old Playstation 3 system are the bigger 120 Gigabyte hard drive and 34% reduced power consumption on the positive side and no option to install another operating system on the negative side.

The new PS3 Slim is said to run more quietly than existing PS3 systems, will support Sony BRAVIA TVs by offering BRAVIA Sync which makes it possible to control the PS3 slim with the BRAVIA TV remote. It will also ship with the latest 3.0 firmware.

All other specs and features are identical to previous Playstation 3 models that have been sold by Sony. The old PS3 systems with 80 Gigabyte hard drive will be sold for the same price effective immediately.

The main question here is if the PS3 Slim will be able to curb Playstation 3 sales. A $100 (€100) price reduction is certainly a good start and it is very likely that first game and PS3 Slim bundles will appear around Christmas to further increase sales.

Now that the price of the Playstation 3 has reached the level of the other gaming systems: Will you buy one? Do you already have one and want to share your opinion? Let us know in the comments.

Update:

Engadget published a first noise comparison test

While our tests were far from thorough, the initial results from our quick-and-dirty decibel ratings show some promise. With a baseline of 49 decibels, the Slim averaged 53 to 56 db when in use / playing a game / installing data (in this case, Metal Gear Solid 4), compared to the 55 to 58 db of the original. Blu-ray movie playback is where it becomes noticeable, as the slim peaked for us at 60 db when the original was doing 70 db running the same disc.

Update 2:

Rumors of a Sony PS3 Slim 250 Gigabyte model appeared:

This means that some time in the future (for probably a premium, maybe $349 or so), a new PS3 Slim may come out featuring a 250GB HDD. There is not much of a difference, but expect it to be bundled with a game or so, right in time for Christmas!

Tags: playstation 3 slim, playstation-3, ps3, ps3 price cut, ps3 slim, sony ps3 slim, sony-ps3

Three Things That Are Holding Back The Sony PS3

Orrett Morgan — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:51:30 +0000

It has been 2 ½ years since the PS3 has launched and since that time it has been trailing both the Wii and Xbox 360 in sales. Granted it has been doing better then it has a year ago, but you’d expect that Sony would be able to convince hardcore gamers that the PS3’s superior chip is better adjusted for their gaming hunger. Yet that’s not the case.

In recent months Sony has been experiencing declining sales in their PS3 systems and this brings into question what exactly is Sony doing that is killing their system? Now let me make something clear, I’m not saying that the PS3 is not selling, but compared to the Xbox 360 and even its older brother the PS2 it isn’t doing so well.

It is a known fact that a game franchise can make or break a gaming console; just ask Microsoft and their original Xbox and the Halo franchise. While the first generation Xbox had superior graphics to the PS2, one of the main reasons why it succeeded was both Halo and Halo 2. One of the PS2’s major successes was the GTA (Grand Theft Auto) franchise. Sadly (for Sony that is), GTA 4 ported to the Xbox 360 last year and thanks to Xbox Live carried a more powerful punch then the PS3 version. I could also use Final Fantasy as another example. For years Square Enix has made its bread and butter from the PlayStation and Nintendo systems (as well as PC). It sent shockwaves through the game world when they announced that the next installment of the game, Final Fantasy XIII, would not only be available on the PS3 but, for the first time in history, ported to the Xbox 360.

Even more shocking was the news by Hideo Kojima that the next installment of Metal Gear Solid would also be ported to the Xbox 360. By now you’re probably catching my drift; Sony is bleeding franchises. Who would have thought that the day would come when Snake (well he’s retired now but his franchise lives on), as well as the gang from Final Fantasy would live on Xbox. I’m not saying Sony doesn’t have some good franchises left in its hands, but if this continues they soon will be sitting on Resistance, Kill Zone and Socom as their main exclusives.

Another strike against Sony is online gaming. Microsoft and Sony have taken two very different approaches to online gaming. Sony has long stated that they believe a free option is the best way to satisfy their customers. Microsoft, from day one, has gone with the paid option. Although there is some debate as to the reason why PlayStation Network lags behind Xbox Live, one thing has been undisputed; Microsoft has proven that people will pay once the quality is there. One of the major reasons why developers flock Xbox Live is they are able to extract a few extra dollars from gamers after they have spent a few Jefferson’s on the disc. There is no real incentive for game developers to develop for PSN, and that is one of the major reasons why Xbox Live manages to offer superior content and user experience.

I’m sure many of you were expecting me to mention price as an issue why the PS3 is not living up to Sony’s expectations, but I will go as far to say that its not mainly price but marketing and timing. When the PS3 first came out, the average price of a Blu-ray player was 10 Franklins. The PS3 retailed between $500 and $600. Many consumers could have been swayed to buy the system based on the fact that it would be cheaper to buy a PS3 then to buy an Xbox 360 and a Blu-ray player. Unfortunately that has all changed, as it is now cheaper now to buy and Xbox 360 and a separate Blu-ray player then to buy a PS3.

The other issue involves maturity. When the Xbox 360 was released in 2005, it had a full year to gain its footing in the market. Microsoft has hinted more then once that it could have kept its second generation system in the works for a 2006 release and match the power of the PS3, but figured that it would be a better idea to release it early. They were right. By the time the PS3 came to the market, a year later, the 360 had all but took the wind out of its sales and due to the craze of the Wii things didn’t turn out as well as Sony planned.

Plainly speaking, Sony expected its loyal subjects to buy a $500 system because it was more powerful. That might be true if you’re a Mac, but in a world where a video game can make or break a console, that isn’t always true.

I’m not saying the PS3 has failed. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem that 2009 will be the year of the PS3 as we’re already half way through and Sony is reporting declining sales of said system. We’ll just have to wait and see if Sony’s new motion sensing controllers will do anything to help the troubled platform. In the meantime you’ll find me in the corner playing GTA 4 and cleaning out a space beside my HD screen for Project Natal.

Tags: microsoft, nintendo-wii, playstation-3, ps3, sony-ps3, xbox-360

So, who is winning the HD war ?

Martin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:06:49 +0000

I’m not that interested in the HD format war because I do not have a television that is HD Ready and do not plan to buy one in the near future. Maybe that is one of the reasons why I feel a little bit lost about the success or failure of HD-DVD and Blue-Ray players and movies. It is however not only a choice of choosing or owning the right tv, it is also important to know the differences of the formats as well.

I thought that I’m going to discuss it with you. What are your thoughts about both formats ? Do you think that Blue-Ray is in the lead, maybe because of the boost after the release of the Playstation 3 by Sony ? Or is it the HD-DVD format that you think will win this war.

A possible third scenario would be that both formats will get their share of the market or that hybrid players will take over once their availability rises and prices drop. I personally can’t see that one or the other format is currently leading by a large margin and this is probably one of the reasons why many consumers refrain from buying such a player at the moment.

I feel confused that some movie studios for instance only support one of the players which should be a major point of consideration for everyone who buys such a player these days. So, who is winning the HD war ?

Tags: blue ray, hd dvd, hd movies, hd war, playstation-3, xbox-360

European Playstation 3 compatibility list

Martin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:48:36 +0000

Europeans get a weaker software emulation of Playstation 2 and Playstation 1 titles compared to the hardware emulation that Japanese and American Playstation 3 owners enjoyed. It was not known – until now – how good, or shall I say bad, the software emulation worked and how many games could be played at all. Sony wants to cut down on manufacturing costs and Europeans are the first to witness the ill effects. The Playstation 3 costs more and plays less, would not call that a bargain but the crazy Brits will surely buy the PS3 nevertheless.

Back to the compatibility issues. As I said Sony published a Playstation 3 compatibility list rating games with 1 to 3 squares with 3 squares meaning that the game will most likely play fine and 1 square meaning it has noticable issues. I did a quick check on the first four letters in the alphabet and came up with 284 working games, 46 games with minor issues and 93 games with noticable issues.

That means about 30% of the games in question have issues and will not play correctly in a European Playstation 3. To make things worse some of the most important PS2 titles are not working currently. This includes Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII. Gran Tourismo 3 and 4 Prologue have minor problems and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas major ones.

I could go on and post more games that are not working correctly but I guess you figured it out by yourself by now. Software emulation is not a perfect solution. It might become one in the long run, Sony promised to update the emulator to increase compatibility.

Tags: european-ps3, playstation-3, playstation-3-backwards-compatibility, ps3, ps3-compatibility-list, ps3-software-emulation, sony-ps3

Europe gets delayed and crippled PS3 for more money

Martin — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 08:54:44 +0000

Now that is what I call a bargain. Europeans do not only have to wait longer for the Playstation 3 to hit the shelves they also get a crippled PS3 that has reduced backwards compatibility. And the best of all ? They pay even more for the package. I was not sure what to make of the story that Everton posted today on his connected internet blog, he missed to cite a source for his story entitled: “Playstation 3 To Have Less Backwards Compatibility in Europe” and I immediately performed a search to find out what was going on.

Yahoo reports that Sonys Playstation 3 will play fewer old games citing a Sony spokesman. The apparent reason is that they removed some “parts” of the Playstation 3 that were used to increase backwards compatibility. With the parts removed, to reduce production costs, the Playstation 3 will not reach the compatibility grade of US and Japanese systems. Software emulation will be used instead to provide that functionality.

If that is not enough the pricing for European systems is ridiculous. While the 60GB Playstation 3 can be bought in Japan for $497 and in the United States for $599 Europeans in the Eurozone have to pay an average of $787 for the premium version. Gamers in Great Britain pay $830 and Denmark tops it all with $969 for a Playstation 3.

A difference of almost $200 for a delayed, crippled Playstation 3 ? Now who is still going to buy this system ? If you ask me, I’m happy with my Nintendo Wii and probably purchase a Xbox 360 soon. That is all I do need. My main gaming station is my computer anyways.

Tags: playstation-3, playstation-backwards-compatibility, playstation-europe, ps3, sony-playstation

How to easily dump PS3 movies and games

Martin — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 06:53:43 +0000

I don’t know why Sony is so obsessed with Linux, it just does not feel right but I really can’t find a good motive for the support – yet. Some guy apparently installed Linux Fedora Core on his Playstation 3 and dumped everything that he could get his hands on. He was able to dump a complete game disc to his external usb hard drive that he connected to the PS3.

Some days later he managed to do the same with a Blue-Ray movie which means that everything is set to get the warez scene going. I think it is kinda strange that it was always easy to copy games for the Playstation systems and many people think that the success of the Playstation systems could be connected to this.

This got me thinking. Why did not Sony try and dump their discs if they knew everyone would be able to install and use Linux on the Playstation 3 ? Did they all miss it or was it probably something they did not care about or even wanted ? What do you think about this ?

Tags: blue ray, copy, dump, dvd, image, iso, Linux, movie, playstation-3, ps3, sony

Replace the Playstation 3 Hd with a bigger one

Martin — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:02:53 +0000

That did not take long. Gamersreports published an article that explains how to replace the existing Playstation 3 hard drive which is either 20 Gb or 60 Gb with a bigger one. All you need is a bigger 2,5mm SATA drive which replaces the orginal hard drive. You can even use faster hard drives that run with 7200 rpm instead of 5400 rpm.

You also need some screwdrivers to open the Playstation 3, please note that opening the PS3 will void the warranty.

The first step is to find the HDD Bay on your Playstation 3. It is located on the left side of the console, and it is marked with HDD. Easy enough. Use your flat head screwdriver to pop off the plastic cover. You now have access to the actual HDD caddy.

The next step is to remove the blue screw that holds the HDD caddy in place using the Phillips head screwdriver. Once you have done so, flip up the metal handle that is on the front of the caddy, and slide the HDD towards the FRONT of the Playstation 3 to dislodge it. Once you have done so you can remove the HDD tray.
Once you have access to the tray outside the PS3, you can take out the 4 screws which hold the original Playstation 3 HDD in place, and swap in your new 2.5MM SATA Notebook HDD.
Once the new HDD is secured in the HDD caddy, you need to place the caddy back inside the PS3 unit, and slide it toward the REAR of the console to lock it in place. Once you have done so, the final step is to use your Phillips head screwdriver to replace the blue screw which anchors the HDD caddy to the Playstation 3. Pop on the plastic cover, and boot up the console.
As soon as you boot up the console, the PS3 will detect that the HDD is not formatted, and it will ask you if you would like to format. You must select yes twice, because they want you to be sure that you realize you will be destroying all the data. Of course, you pick yes.
Once the HDD is formatted, which takes less than 2 minutes, the unit will ask you to reboot. Once you have done so, you can do into the settings menu option in the PS3 OS. Then choose system settings, and then finally system information. There you will see a display of the HDD space on your console. If you have done everything correctly, you will see that the HDD space now reflects the amount of space on the replacement drive. Keep in mind, about 15 to 20 GB of space will be taken up by the PS3 for system use, so do not be alarmed when the HDD space measurement comes up short.
To answer your question before you ask, the only thing that gets erased is game saves. Your network ID info, your console settings, and even the 1.10 update all remain in place when you do this HDD swap. Neat eh?

Please note that this text has been directly taken from the GamersReports website, please note that they also added pictures to the article, so pay them a visit. (page 1, page 2)

Tags: hard-drive, playstation, playstation-3, playstation-hard-drive, ps3, ps3-hd, replace-ps3-hard-drive, sony, sony-ps3

Playstation 3 in the news

Martin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:12:36 +0000

The PS3 has arrived in North America. The crazy thing is, if you ask me, that you read and hear more about shootings, shortages and systems that are not working than from the number one thing that should leave everything behind: Games that are fun to play. Did anyone actually buy the Playstation 3 for himself or did they all want to make a fortune by selling the system on Ebay ? With fake biddings reaching a million and more dollars Ebay decided to pull the plug and allow only auctions where the seller was able to prove that he did own the system at that time.

This is by far the craziest launch I ever witnessed. How far do people go for a gaming machine ? I decided to collect the most interesting articles in the categories Crimes, Hardware and Games. Please add your links if you want to join the fun.

Crimes:

Man shoot waiting to buy Playstation 3
PS3 Fight shuts down Walmart
PS3 Riot
Texas Gamestop Robbed at Gun-Point

Hardware:

One Man’s HDMI Issues
PS3 dead on arrival
PS3’s disc loaders defective ?
PS3 does not do 1080i ?

Ratings:

Gundam – 2 of 10
NBA 07 – 4.9
Resistance 9.3

Tags: america, Entertainment, Games, north-america, playstation, playstation-3, playstation-launch, ps3, sony, sony-playstation, sony-ps3, usa

Playstation 3 Launch Titles

Martin — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 15:42:26 +0000

I thought it would be a nice idea to take a quick look at all of the Playstation 3 launch titles. As you all know the PS3 was released yesterday in Japan and will be released in the United States on November 17th. Europe, Australia and the rest of Asia will have to wait another 4+ months before the PS3 makes its official debut. Please note that everything that follows is my impression of the launch titles, it does not necessarily mean that the games I do not like are bad, it simply means that I would never buy those games.

To make it easier for everyone I decided to add similar games into the following categories: Sport and Racing, Shooter, Arcade and Misc. Sport games make up the biggest part of games for the Playstation 3. Eight of the seventeen launch titles are sports related, nine if you count Tony Hawk’s Project 8 as a sports title as well. In addition to this amazing number of sports games the launch games will consist of four arcade games, three shooters and one misc game.

Sport and Racing Games:

Fight Night Round 3, Full Auto 2 Battlelines (ign preview), Madden NFL 07 (ign preview), NBA 07 (ign review: 7.8), NHL 2k7 (ign preview: 8.6), Need for Speed Carbon (ign preview), Ridge Racer 7 (ign review: 8.2), Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 (ign preview) and Tony Hawk’s Project 8 (ign review: 7.0, gamespot review 7.4).

Action Games:

Genji: Days of the Blade (ign review: 6.0, gamespot review: 6.4), Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (ign preview), Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (ign preview) and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (ign preview)
Shooter:

Call of Duty 3 (ign preview), Resistance: Fall of Man (ign review: 9.1 ) and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas (ign preview)
Misc:

flow (ign preview)

Five of the seventeen games are (at the moment) exclusive for the Playstation 3, all others are conversions of games that came out for other systems as well. Let me take a look at the games:

I do not like to play sport games or shooters on video game systems. This does not include racing games though. I enjoyed playing the Burnout series on my Xbox for instance. I only play shooters on my pc and two of the three games will come out for pc as well. Only Resistance Fall of Man is PS3 exclusive.

Genji got a bad score at IGN and Gamespot which makes me think that this is another game that features nice graphics and stupid repetitious gameplay. Those games can be fun on video game systems but most of the time they are not. Multiplayer could make those games shine but Genji does not feature one it seems.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance looks like Marvel Nemesis with better graphics. This game was not so bad after all, was fun playing the multiplayer part of the game. It was nevertheless repetitive and boring in single player.

Untold Legends, the only game that has some RPG elements could be a nice game – it could also be one of those games that suck. Can’t make up my mind on this one, have to see a video of ingame scenes before I can judge it. Does it feature multiplayer ?

So that’s it. No game for me worth playing at this moment. What about you ? Will you buy a PS3 ? Which games will you choose ? Let me know..

Tags: launch titles, playstation-3, ps3, sony

PS3 delayed for Europe

Martin — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 21:48:03 +0000

I suppose you already heard the news that Sony’s new Ubermachine Playstation 3 will not have a worldwide launch because of production problems. Sony once again decided to smack every European who wanted to buy the system right into the face without caring much that Europe is indeed one of the biggest markets for Sony with more than 38 million Playstation 2 systems sold compared to 42 million in the United States and 23 million in Japan.

Sony is still claiming that the launch in Japan and the United States will not be postponed but the current situation does not look very promising. They plan to launch in Japan with 100000 systems and in the United States with 400000 systems. Am I the only one that thinks that this figures are not really impressive ? I mean, 100000 systems for Japan ? This must be the worst premiere start of a console system ever in Japan, the 400000 systems for the USA aren’t impressive either.

Consider that many European die hearts will try to catch one of those rare systems by importing them to Europe using well known internet shops like lik sang or play Asia. Customers in the US and Japan will surely face at least the same severe shortages that the XBOX 360 had when it launched, and Microsoft managed to supply 1.5 million systems.

I do not think that it is that bad if the release date for Europe gets delayed. Sony has a history of producing bad console system which get improved over time. They will manage to sell all of the 500000 system that’s for sure, but they are also facing a big opposition with every passing day. They pissed of Europe; and customers in the United States and Japan who will not manage to buy a PS3 at launch date will surely be angry as well.

Microsoft has a comfortable position in Europe with the biggest contender out of the way for the Christmas season. Nintendo will also profit from Sony’s absence, both parties should be very happy about this decision.

The important question however is: what will the customers do ? Will they wait until the PS3 becomes available ? Will they buy a Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii or both instead ? Time will tell but most people on gaming forums seem to favor the second option and buy a Xbox 360 or Wii for Christmas and forget about Sony.. for now.

Tags: playstation-3, ps3, sony, sony-playstation, sony-ps3

New Rumors on PS3 delay

Martin — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 09:06:03 +0000

The BBC claimed yesterday that Sonys Playstation 3 console system would be delayed for another year which would mean the system would debut in 2007 and not in mid 2006 as expected. Unfortunatly they did not cite any sources and most readers had the feeling it was simply another rumor.

Today joystiq.com cites an unnamed ex-gamestop employee who seemingly shed some light into the rumor. He claims that the developer systems that Sony sent out to the PS3 developers had some serious cooling problems which made the systems overheat and meltdown rather quickly.

He furthermore claims that Sony fired its whole Development team which should have got some media feedback but somehow did not. It seems that Sony has to consider to change the cooling system for the developer systems and probably even for the retail systems.

This in fact could explain the massive delay.

Tags: playstation-3, ps3, sony, sony-playstation

gHacks technology news » playstation-3

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