Sony Beefs Up PSP Themes

Sony plays host Destination Playstation this week where it seems it is relying on the PSP to further grow its burgeoning Playstation Network The firm has taken to packaging PSPs around games and has announced Assassin's Creed and Hannah Montana versions of the game console at a knees-up in Arizona, The Hannah Montana PSP is lilac. Sony said it has already regsistered more that 20 million accounts on its Playstation Network and said it had sold 21.3 million PS3s and 50 million PSPs as of January 2009. ( www.theinquirer.net )

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Sony To Post Huge $1.1Billion Loss

Sony is set to post an operating loss of a whopping $1.1billion for 2007-2008, according to respected business media outlet Nikkei. The loss is the company's first in the past 14 years, and the second since Sony went public in 1958, reports Edge this week. The original forecast was for a profit of around $2.2billion for the same period. "The reasons behind this anticipated loss are typical of many markets in Japan," adds Edge. "A global recession continues to curb foreign demand for Sony's luxury items, while the strong yen continues to interrupt the company's trade." Shares in Sony plummeted down 8 per cent after the news broke. Sony is scheduled to announce its quarterly earnings results on 29 January. In other news, respected US games industry analysts Michael Pachter is predicting a PS3 price drop in the US this Easter, claiming that the PS3 will drop to an RRP of $299 to maximise sales over the busy Easter hols.

( www.techradar.com )

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Sony PSP-4000 Releasing In 2009

Hot on the heals of the recent PSP 3000 launch, Sony plans to refresh the PlayStation Portable yet again in 2009 with the planned release of (yep, you guessed it) the PSP-4000 model. The news comes courtesy of unnamed games publishing sources talking to Eurogamer.net, who suggest that Sony will follow the PSP-3000 next year with another 'iterative approach'. If so, this means that the recently rumoured PSP mark 2 might not be seen by gamers until 2010 at the very earliest.

( www.techradar.com )

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Sony Quashes Recent Rumours About PSP2

Sony has decided that the rumours concerning the possible release of a next-generation PSP console have gone too far, and has issued a flat out denial. Speaking to MCV, Sony Computers Entertainment Europe President David Reeves has confirmed that the company has no plans for such a device. The rumours emerged after the firm was said to have signed a deal with a memory chip manufacturer to use the hardware in the PSP2. "No, there are currently no plans for a PSP2. I go to Tokyo quite a lot and no one has referred to it – I think they have their hands full at the moment," he confirmed. "We just launched the PSP-3000 so we are still focused on this generation of the platform." ( www.techradar.com )

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Sony: PS Home Launch Has Technical Problems

Posting over on the PlayStation Home forum, a Home community manager by the name TedTheDog has announced that the roll out of the Open Beta has run into technical problems.
( www.videogamer.com )

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Uncharted 2 Details Revealed

The game will follow adventurer Nathan Drake as he re-traces the footsteps of 13th-century voyager Marco Polo. It will add free-climbing and stealth mode elements to the gameplay. A teaser trailer for the game, developed by Naughty Dog, shows a weary, battered Drake walking across a snowy wilderness to grab a jewelled dagger from the ice. Among Thieves is also reported to feature all-new locations and characters, and a strong narrative thread and story arc. The first game in the franchise was a surprise hit when it was released shortly before Christmas last year. More than two million copies of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune were sold worldwide according to VG Chartz, and the game's protagonist, Nathan Drake, was hailed as the new Lara Croft. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

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Gran Turismo 5 Dated For Christmas...09

A Spanish Sony exec has gone on record to state that Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5 – arguably the PlayStation 3's most-wanted game – will be releasing at Christmas In 2009. Sony's chief executive in southern Europe, James Armstrong, told Spanish newspaper Il Finaciero: "For next year, the chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment for southern Europe said that they are developing a new game thriller, in which the player may be designing their own history, and the new version of Gran Turismo, which will arrive at Christmas." Will Freeman, over on Trade Mag MCV, thinks that, if true, the news suggests "a summer 2009 release in Japan, with the US and Europe seeing the game hit retail in the weeks leading up to the festive season in the same year." ( www.techradar.com )

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Vicious Engine Signed To SCEE

Vicious Cycle Software announced today that the company is partnering with SONY Computer Entertainment Europe to provide Vicious Engine, the leading middleware solution, to game developers in India. Part of SONY Computer Entertainment Europe’s ongoing strategy to accelerate the adoption rate of the PlayStation2 and PlayStation Portable in the region, Vicious Engine will be available for both platforms to further promote game development in South Asia.
( www.electronictheatre.co.uk )

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No Further Content Approval For The PS2

It was once mandatory that game developers check with Sony on there games content in Europe. Now, when speaking at the Casual Connect conference in Kiev, SCEE’s George Bain confirmed that PS2 would now be “effectively an open platform” in Europe. This is thought to be an attempt to encourage regional developers in countries such as India and Russia to make “low-development cost titles and release them in their market”. ( www.gamercenteronline.net )

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PlayStation Gone to Heaven

One of the UK’s leading electronic recycling companies has announced it is to carry out the first stage of recycling one of the world’s most pioneering and popular videogames consoles, the SONY PlayStation. The Electronic Waste Company, based in Redruth, Cornwall, has signed contracts with SONY Computer Entertainment Europe to shred and dispose of the plastic cases of the consoles for SONY operations in the whole of Europe. The deal covers the processing of an estimated 250 tonnes, or 300,000 cases in the first year alone. Routes for the recycled plastic have already been already identified including pens and chairs. The PlayStation cases disposed of by the Electronic Waste Company come from consoles which have been returned for upgrades or refurbishment. ( www.electronictheatre.co.uk/ )

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