PlayStation 4 won’t play PS3 games

PlayStation 4 won’t play PS3 games, will stream classics through Gaikai
Anthony John Agnello
November 16, 2012
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/report-playstation-4-wont-play-ps3-games-will-stream-classics-through-gaikai

New details about the PlayStation 3's successor: First, Orbis isn't the final name, but PlayStation 4 is out. Second, games will look like Lucasarts' Star Wars: 1313. Finally, no backwards compatibility in the new console but classics will be in the cloud.

While the PlayStation 3 celebrates a major milestone even as its sun starts to fade, rumors about the heir to the PlayStation throne continue to leak out of the game development world. The latest details about the fourth generation machine come from Europe, shedding new light on how the PlayStation 4 or Orbis will support 4K resolution output, how used games will be handled by the console, and just how Sony will leverage the recently purchased Gaikai cloud-gaming service in its machine.

British magazine PSM3 (the details of which were reprinted by German website The G Net) provides a wealth of new information to supplement a recent story about the console that confirmed Sony will not call its console PlayStation 4. The reason: The Japanese word for 4 is “shi,” which also happens to mean death. While it might seem silly to break from nearly two decades of successful branding because a two words sound alike, it’s important to remember how branding has negatively affected the Xbox and Xbox 360 in Japan. Where “X” marks the spot in the US, it’s a negative sign in Japanese culture. (Hence why the circle button on PlayStation controllers is used to confirm most actions in Japanese games, not the X button like in the US.)

PSM3’s source claims that the device, which Sony refers to by the codename Orbis, will play games that look similar to recent tech demos for games like Star Wars 1313 and Square-Enix’s Agni’s Philosophy demo. These games, however, will not run in 4K resolution as has been hinted at in the past. If 4K playback support does make it into the final version of the fourth generation PlayStation, it will be for video.

Sony will be taking more severe measures against piracy. Previous rumors about the Orbis suggested that Sony might try to block used, disc-based games from working on the console. This new report claims that it will do so by linking each individual game to a specific PlayStation Network account.

Unlike past Sony consoles, Orbis will not have backwards compatibility with PlayStation 3, at least not with Blu-ray disc games. Sony will instead offer classic games through a cloud-based streaming service run through Gaikai’s infrastructure.

Of all the rumors surrounding the next PlayStation, its lack of backwards compatibility is the most disappointing. PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi was insistent that every PlayStation made be able to play the previous consoles’ discs at a hardware level. Obviously Sony started moving away from this philosophy swiftly with the very first hardware revisions of the PlayStation 3, but it’s still sad.

The PlayStation 4, Orbis, or whatever Sony decides to name it, is expected to debut at E3 2013.

Doh! The top 10 tech 'fails' of 2011

Doug Gross, CNN Thu December 29, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/29/tech/web/2011-tech-fails/index.html
Netflix's short-lived plan to split itself into two services didn't go over so well this year. Qwikster?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The highs were high but the lows were lower in the tech world in 2011
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner makes our top 10 list for using Twitter to send lewd photos
PlayStation outage, "Duke Nukem Forever" and failed tablets also made the cut
It was a rough year for RIM and its BlackBerry, with a handful of "fails"

(CNN) -- Can't win 'em all, can you?

The highs were pretty high in the tech world in 2011, as new gadgets, updates and advances delighted the masses. I mean, Facebook made a change that most people (so far) seemed to actually like. What are the odds?

But the lows were lower. For every moment of digital bliss, it seemed, there was a clunker of equal or greater magnitude.

So, who are we to not rub salt in the wounds of those who got it oh-so-wrong this year?

In fairness, some of these "Doh!" moments came from folks who had otherwise good years. And nobody, not even perennial tech darling Apple, is perfect. (One hard-working journalist even had to write this very story twice after he accidentally deleted it and was forced to start over. Sweet, sweet irony.).

Sure, tech successes are nice. But these social-media miscues, foot-in-mouth e-moves and other digital duds gave us more to talk about in 2011.

Here are our 2011 "Tech Fails of the Year." Feel free to jump in the comments and let us know what we missed.

Weiner on Twitter

In a crowded and competitive field, former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner grabs our "What Were You Thinking?" award for this one.

The congressman (we're staying away from name jokes because ... well ... too easy) was being talked up as possibly the next mayor of New York City when his Twitter account was apparently hacked by someone who sent lewd photos to some of his female followers. That's the story Weiner gave, anyway.

Except, as it turned out, that someone was him.

Many of us gave Weiner the benefit of the doubt in the scandal's opening hours. I mean, what public official would be dumb enough to get raunchy on a platform like Twitter, where anyone who wants to can follow your every tweet?

Turns out ...

He wasn't alone. Comedian Gilbert Gottfried tweeted jokes about the Japan tsunami and earthquake that killed more than 15,000 people. Actor and Twitter pioneer Ashton Kutcher posted a hasty tweet defending Penn State coach Joe Paterno -- before, he says, learning the full extent of the school's child-sex scandal. The resulting backlash even led him to quit Twitter, at least temporarily.

But for so badly misunderstanding the public nature of Twitter, for the whirlwind of lies that followed before he fessed up and resigned and ... yes ... for thinking women like it when you send them closeup pictures of your crotch on the Internet, Weiner earns this bulging "Fail."

Go Daddy's SOPA misstep

When the vast majority of the Web's most active players are against something, and when your livelihood depends on the Web's most active players, it's probably best to either go along or keep quiet about it, right?

Not so for Go Daddy, the Web registrar and hosting company known for its titillating TV ads. In December, the company made the ill-fated decision to come out in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Google, Yahoo and Facebook are just some of the Internet heavyweights that have lined up to stop the proposed federal law, which would penalize websites that host pirated content. The bill has come under fire from Web-freedom advocates, who say it could dampen online expression.

Go Daddy, which had submitted testimony to Congress in support of the bill, issued a public statement supporting it -- even doubling down with a stronger statement when the Web backlash began.

Fast forward 24 hours and the company -- which had already earned ire in some quarters for its racy (some might say sexist) TV commercials and its founder's penchant for elephant hunting -- changed its mind amid a rash of defections.

Tens of thousands of domains, including more than 50 owned by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, were moved from Go Daddy, and that's before a Reddit-organized boycott planned for Friday. Oops.

'Duke Nukem Forever'

When video gamers wait 14 years for a follow-up to one of their favorite titles, they sort of expect it not to suck. In the minds of many, "Duke Nukem Forever" failed that important test.

First announced in 1997, "Forever" was to be a follow-up to a game that got lots of love for good-heartedly pushing the boundaries of sex, violence and naughty language in the emerging field of shooter games.

It was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. What finally emerged in June hit with a thud.

"At best, it can look a few years out of date; at worst, it is a blurry, stuttering mess," wrote CNN's Ravi Hiranand, in what actually was one of the kinder reviews of the game "Playing the game feels like being thrown back into the mid-'90s, and not in a happy, nostalgic sense."

In a post-"Grand Theft Auto" world, maybe waiting "forever" would have been a better idea after all.

The other tablets

As 2011 dawned, it appeared that Apple had created a thriving new space in personal computing with its iPad.

Beginning in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, a host of competing companies stepped forward with their rival tablets. The Motorola Xoom. BlackBerry's PlayBook. Samsung Galaxy Tab. The HP TouchPad.

One problem: Nobody bought them.

Most of the new tablets, many running Google's Android operating system, came in at roughly $500 -- about the same price as Apple's new iPad 2. And the public showed that at that price, they were happy going with the industry leader.

Some tablets got pulled. Others never made it off the production line. HP had some luck selling TouchPads -- after throwing up its hands and slashing prices to fire-sale levels.

One exception. Amazon may have cracked the code late in the year with its Kindle Fire, a smaller, simpler tablet that, at $199, is $300 cheaper than the least-expensive iPad 2.

Game off at PlayStation Network

When roughly 70 million users lose access to your gaming and entertainment network, it's a "fail."

In April, a hacker accessed account information for users of Sony's PlayStation Network, ultimately knocking the network offline in late April. It wasn't completely restored until early June and some gamers lacked access for weeks.

While getting hacked was bad, some users were even madder after Sony took a week from the time of the attack to let them know what happened.

Another, much smaller, attack happened in October. In the end, it looks like most of the network's fans stuck around -- a fact no doubt aided by multiple blockbuster game releases this year.

iPhones and bars don't mix

Seriously, Apple employees?

No ... seriously?

In 2010, the tech world was aflutter after an Apple employee, reportedly celebrating his birthday, lost a prototype of the unreleased iPhone 4 in a California beer hall.

Tech blog Gizmodo bought the phone, showcased it on their site, and touched off a firestorm that included everything from police raids to legal threats.

Well, at least we know that after all of that, it could never possibly happen again.

No ... wait. It happened again.

Tech blog CNET reported that an Appler left a prototype of the iPhone 4S in a Mexican bar and restaurant in San Francisco.

As our John Sutter wrote: "Here's a theory: Maybe there's some sort of connection between drinking and losing things?"

Netflix-Qwikster

Netflix, the Web's most popular movie-rental service, first rattled some customers by raising prices in July.

Then, in September, the company announced it was, basically, splitting itself in half. Web-streaming video would still come from Netflix. DVD-by-mail rentals would come from a separate company.

Called ... "Qwikster."

Where to start here? Customers who wanted both services complained about having to set up and maintain two different accounts on two different websites. Then there was the new name, which felt dated (Napster and Friendster, anyone?) and like it was spat out by some zany-misspelled-startup name generator.

Oh yeah ... and there was the fact that the "Qwikster" Twitter handle was already owned by a guy whose avatar was a weed-smoking Elmo muppet.

Chris Taylor, of Mashable, questioned whether Qwikster was "the worst product launch since New Coke."

It didn't even last as long as that syrupy mistake. About three weeks later, Netflix announced that Qwikster was dead.

PayPal plays Scrooge

Shutting down a fund to give presents to children in need at Christmas? Sounds like something one-percenter Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life" would endorse.

But that's essentially what Web-payment titan PayPal was doing before getting popped in the nose by the Internet.

Snarky blog Regretsy, when not mocking regrettable craft projects, has long maintained various charity funds. With the holidays approaching, actress and blog runner April Winchell (who writes on the site as "Helen Killer") announced a fund drive to buy toys for 200 children submitted by community members.

It was hugely successful, meeting its fundraising goal in the first 24 hours. Then PayPal, which was processing the donations, stepped in and froze the fund because it said Winchell used a "Donate" button that's supposed to be for nonprofits only.

The Web wasn't pleased.

Winchell used her popular blog to blast PayPal in less-than-friendly terms. Twitter users and other sites amplified the outrage.

A day later, PayPal said it "recognized our error" and even offered to donate to the fund.

God bless us ... every one.

iPhone 4S battery life

OK ... this one never reached the fever pitch that the iPhone 4's antenna problems did last year.

And maybe it's a sign that, when millions of people buy your product in the first few hours it exists, there are bound to be problems.

Despite not being the mythical iPhone 5, the 4S flew out of Apple stores when it was released October 14. But within hours, users started flocking to Apple's support forum to complain their batteries were running out of juice faster than Herman Cain's presidential campaign.

Apple publicly ignored the complaints for a little over two weeks. Then the company issued a statement saying that "a small number of customers" had complained about the battery and that an update to the phone's operating system was on the way.

As with the iPhone 4 "death grip," we'll call this a modest "fail" wrapped inside an epic win. The battery gripes didn't stop Apple from selling an iLoad of the new phones.

Bad year for BlackBerry

Alas, poor BlackBerry.

Research in Motion's crack-like gadget was once synonymous with "smartphone," effectively ushering in the era of messaging, e-mail-checking and other Phone 2.0 behavior.

But, 2011 wasn't kind.

It's bad enough that the iPhone and the rise of the Androids continue to muscle BlackBerrys out of the limelight. Then the BlackBerry PlayBook, RIM's effort in the burgeoning tablet space, arrived with a thud in April.

The capper, however, was an October outage at a data center that caused users to lose messaging ability in parts of Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, Latin America and North America. (To their credit, RIM ultimately gave away a pile of free apps to the folks affected).

The outage lasted for several days and was the final straw for some users, who abandoned ship for other phones.

Videogame Next Gen: Coming 2012

Microsoft and Sony were hoping to wait until 2014, but Nintendo has forced them to change their plans. With the Wii U coming out next year, the Xbox 720 and the PlayStation 4 (at least what they're being referred to by Yahoo News) will be released in 2012 as well...
Wii U is pushing the Xbox 720 and PS4 to debut sooner, says Ubisoft CEO
Jeffrey Van Camp
Tue, Jul 19, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/wii-u-pushing-xbox-720-ps4-debut-sooner-154348071.html

RIP Norio Ohga

The name may not be familiar, but his influence can't be denied.

From 1982-95, he was CEO of Sony, and during his tenure, he oversaw the $3.4 billion purchase of Hollywood giant Columbia pictures and the development of the Sony Playstation, both of which transformed the electronics firm into a multimedia giant. But perhaps his most important contribution was the development of the Compact Disc. It is Ohga who chose the 75 minute length to the medium, as it was the size to contain Beethoven's Ninth Symphony...

Norio Ohga, former Sony president, dies
23 April 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13178548

Wii 2: The Nintendo Revolution

From PCWorld.com:
Almost five years after the Nintendo Wii launched, broke sales records, and revolutionized gaming with the introduction of motion-sensitive controllers, the console is slated to get a successor by E3 in June 2011.

Game Informer has "confirmed with multiple sources" that the Wii 2 (I'm hoping it'll be called the Nintendo Revolution; the Wii's pre-release code name) will be capable of HD gaming. Game Informer wasn't certain whether or not the Wii 2 will be powerful enough to compete with rival powerhouses the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but IGN's sources say it'll be capable of 1080p resolutions, be "significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360," and is Nintendo's attempt to "recapture the hardcore market." By that I presume they mean 1996, with the Nintendo 64.

Either way, a more graphics-capable Wii 2 will improve Nintendo's relationships with developers who are understandably tired of creating games that might as well be on the GameCube...

Wii 2 on the Way: Nintendo is Growing Up
Brennon Slattery
Apr 14, 2011
http://www.pcworld.com/article/225300/wii_2_is_on_the_way_nintendo_is_growing_up.html

Book Review of the Week

“Sorry ladies. In the age of PlayStation 3s, 24-hours-a-day sports channels, and free Internet porn, you are now obsolete. All that nagging, whining, and stealing our hard earned cash have finally caught up to you."

One man's rightful dismissal of Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys, the shrill new book by Kay Hymowitz

Activision: 'Black Ops' grossed $650M in 5 days

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9JINPQG4.htm
November 18, 2010
Activision: 'Black Ops' grossed $650M in 5 days

Activision Blizzard Inc. said Thursday its blockbuster shooter "Call of Duty: Black Ops" made $650 million in revenue in its first five days on sale, breaking the $550 million record set by its predecessor this time last year.

The video game publisher also said, citing figures from Microsoft Corp., that more than 2.6 million gamers played "Black Ops" on Nov. 9, the day it went on sale, on the Xbox 360.

Sony, meanwhile, said the game is driving "unprecedented traffic" to the PlayStation's online networks as well. "Call of Duty" is also available on PCs, and Activision said last week the game sold about 5.6 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale in North America and the U.K.

Shares of Activision climbed 20 cents to $11.82 in early afternoon trading.

Pinch me — the PlayStation Portable phone is real after all

http://dvice.com/archives/2010/10/pinch-me-the-pl.php

Raymond Wong
Oct 27, 2010
Pinch me — the PlayStation Portable phone is real after all

After years of speculation and drool-worthy fan renderings, the mythical PlayStation Portable phone finally shows its face in what are believed to be real photos of a prototype. This is not the PSP2, but a completely different beast. Sony Ericsson is going to be so pissed when it sees these shots plastered all over the Internet.

Sony Ericsson's PSP phone will reportedly run Android 3.0 and have its own marketplace for downloading apps and games. The most interesting feature about the PSP phone is that it does not have any analog nubs — instead it has a touchpad that is said to have multitouch. Sony's proprietary Memory Stick slot is gone and in its place will be a microSD slot.

The PSP phone is rumored to have a 1Ghz CPU, 512MB of RAM and 1GB of ROM. Screen size is said to be 3.7-inch to 4.1-inch. There also appears to be a camera with an LED flash on the back of the unit. If these specs turn out to be correct, then it looks like the PSP Phone will have the muscle to compete with the best smartphones on the market such as the iPhone 4, Droid X and Samsung Galaxy S. All of those phones sport the same processor speed and amount of RAM. Engadget predicts that the PlayStation phone will be released in 2011.

Sony Ericsson's been trying hard to pull itself out of the gutter as of late with its Xperia smartphones running Android. A handheld game console phone that rivals the iPhone would make great competition, but I don't know if Sony has any steam left anymore. It's download only PSPgo was a complete failure and this thing looks just like it — only with a phone inside. Maybe using Android will help, maybe not. What do you think? Can Sony come up with a winner to fend off the upcoming Nintendo 3DS, iOS devices and those Windows Phone 7 devices with Xbox-quality games or is it about four years too late?

A Nation of Gamers Feels Your Pain, Andy Murray

Robalini's Note: While it's tragic that Andy Murray lost his girlfriend over his videogame addiction, you at least have to admire a guy with his priorities. After all, even Jessica Alba would get boring after a couple hours. But Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 never gets dull...

http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/firstcuts/entry/view/45900/a_nation_of_gamers_feels_your_pain,_andy_murray

A Nation of Gamers Feels Your Pain, Andy Murray
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Chris Littmann

Speaking as a man about town who spent probably six-to-eight hours on Sunday playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's campaign mode, the following story comes as no surprise. Tennis star Andy Murray has split with girlfriend Kim Sears. No, there is no traffic accident, golf club or mistress involved here. He was spending too much time on his PlayStation 3 playing Modern Warfare 2.

Brad Gilbert, Murray’s former coach, has said in the past that Murray spends “seven hours a day” playing video games.

The source told The Sun: “He would spend all his time glued to them. In the end she just got fed up with it. She wanted more out of the relationship.”

However, the player’s agent told the paper that Murray “doesn’t play computer games any more than any other 22 year-old”.

Don't be so judgmental, Kim Sears. COD: MW2 is an immersive game and it's easy to lose track of time. Plus, if you don't stay sharp, that 14-year-old across the street will just keep picking you off with his sniper rifle AND I WILL NOT LOSE TO HIM AGAIN!

'Uncharted 2' top the Oct. sales chart

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/11/uncharted-2-top-the-oct-sales-chart/1

Nov 12, 2009
'Uncharted 2' top the Oct. sales chart
Mike Snider

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the top-selling video game of October, according to market tracking firm The NPD Group.

Other top performers: NBA 2K10, which sold 575,000 across all platforms, and Borderlands, with 530,000 total on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Overall video game sales ($1.07 billion) were down 19% compared to last year ($1.3 billion), however, the month resulted in the third best October in sales on record, behind October 2007 and October 2008, NPD's Anita Frazier said. She forecasts that the industry is on track to sell $20 billion to $21 billion by year-end, which would put it just below last year's total of $21.3 billion.

"The continued economic turmoil, and in particular the troubling unemployment rate, is undoubtedly impacting industry sales," she says. "Our latest Economy Tracker indicated that although consumers' general opinion about the economy is improving, their outlook on their own personal situation is worsening. If consumers' personal outlook continues to erode, they could very well be much more conservative with their holiday shopping this year."

She predicted a strong November with "the excitement already being generated by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the incredible buzz around upcoming titles, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Assassin's Creed II, November is poised to be a strong month for the industry."

The Nintendo Wii regained the top spot as the highest-selling console of the month. Consumers bought 506,900 Wiis, compared to 320,600 PS3s and 249,700 Xbox 360s. Sales of game systems have dropped 10% (in units), compared to the same time period last year, Frazier said. "Recent price cuts helped spur a one to two-month increase in unit sales, and this month's Wii sales reflect that boost, but the other platforms have not sustained the sales momentum post price reduction," she said. "It will be difficult to discern the impact of the price cut into November and December just because those are always the two best months for the industry anyway, and we'd expect to see a sizeable lift in hardware unit sales as a result of seasonality."

Software sales decreased 18% for the month, but only 11% on a units basis, she said." The average retail price of software decreased 8%, which led to the greater dollar sales decline."

Roughly half the sales of No. 2 game Wii Fit Plus came in sales of the edition with a balance board, "which points to a lot of newcomers to the franchise," Frazier said.

For NBA 2K10, October's top game across all platforms, "it was a great launch for the game, outselling last year's NBA 2K9 by 60% in its launch month," Frazier said. "Sales on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms improved substantially over last year."

Even though sales of music games continued to drop -- amounting to $53 million, compared to $137 million in October 2008, Frazier said that "both Rock Band: Beatles and Guitar Hero 5 have the potential to be good gifting items for the holidays, so we should expect to see an uptick in sales over the next two months."

Guitar Hero games sold a total of $12 million in October. "That's really down a lot year-over-year," said Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter. Culprit of the lower than expected hardware sales: "that damn recession."

Just missing the top 10: Brütal Legend. The game, says analyst Jesse Divnich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research. "going to be a slow burner. It reminds me a lot of Jack Black movies. I never seen one in theaters, but for some reason I own all his DVDs. Brütal Legend is a very entertaining game. It's just not a first choice game. It's one you are going to eventually pick up."

NPD's Top 10 Games for October

1) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Oct., PlayStation 3) 537,000
2) Wii Fit Plus (Oct., Wii) 441,000
3) Borderlands (Oct., Xbox 360) 418,000
4) Wii Sports Resort (July, Wii) 314,000
5) NBA 2K10 (Oct., Xbox 360) 311,000
6) Halo 3: ODST (Sept., Xbox 360) 271,000
7) NBA 2K10 (Oct., PS3) 213,000
8) Forza Motorsport 3 (Oct., Xbox 360) 175,000
9) Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (Sept, NDS) 169,000
10) FIFA Soccer 10 (Oct., Xbox 360) 156,000

Nintendo drops Wii price to $199

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10360550-1.html

September 23, 2009
Nintendo drops Wii price to $199
by John P. Falcone

Nintendo has officially announced that the price of the Wii will drop to $199.99, effective on Sunday. The long-rumored $50 price cut comes in the wake of recent price drops for the PlayStation 3 ($299, with built-in Blu-ray player) and Xbox 360 ($299 for the 120GB version with built-in DVD player and Netflix support), which have boosted sales of the Sony and Microsoft consoles. (To date, the Wii remains the best-selling home game console of the three.)

Other than the price cut, there are no other changes to the current Wii bundle--you're still getting the console, along with the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers and the bundled Wii Sports game. By contrast, there's at least one rumor that the U.K. will get a Wii package that adds the MotionPlus peripheral and Wii Sports Resort to the mix. Meanwhile, white remains the only color choice in North America (Japanese consumers can choose black as well).

Nintendo also took the opportunity to officially announce the release date for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which had previously been slated for a vague "fall 2009" window. The multiplayer Super Mario game will hit store shelves on November 15.

Sony slashes price of PlayStation 3 by $100

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-playstation19-2009aug19,0,2690520.story

Sony slashes price of PlayStation 3 by $100 to $299
The Japanese electronics giant, which is seeking to boost sales ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season, also unveils a sleeker, thinner model of the game console.
By Alex Pham and Ben Fritz
August 19, 2009

Sony Corp. slashed $100 off the price of its entry-level PlayStation 3 game console to $299 on Tuesday in an effort to goose sales ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.

The Japanese electronics giant also unveiled a thinner model of the PS3 that packs a 120-gigabyte hard disk drive. The newer model, 36% smaller and 32% lighter than the 80-gigabyte version, is expected to hit store shelves by Sept. 1. The 160-gigabytye PS3 also took a price cut, and is now $399.

"This is a game-changing moment for us," Peter Dille, Sony's senior vice president of marketing, said in an interview. "There's a lot of pent-up demand for the PS3. It's been a tough economy, and a lot of people have been sitting on the fence waiting for the price cut."

The move was widely anticipated by a number of analysts, who said a price cut could help Sony regain momentum.

"A price cut is long overdue on the PS3," Colin Sebastian at Lazard Capital Markets said. "We expect an uplift in unit sales. But the question longer term for Sony is whether they can sustain market share gains, especially when competing platforms, such as the Xbox 360, lower their prices as well."

Although the PlayStation 2 was the dominant console of the last generation of devices, the PS3 so far has lagged behind Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, which has sold more than 30 million units worldwide, and Nintendo Co.'s Wii, which has sold more than 50 million consoles. Sony, meanwhile, has sold roughly 24 million PS3s as of June 30.

One of the main reasons has been the PS3's price: Sony launched the PS3 at $599 in November 2006. It lowered the price two years ago to $399, but that was still more than the Xbox 360, whose entry-level model cost $199, and the Wii, priced at $249.

Sony has maintained that the PS3's built-in Blu-ray disc player justifies the expense.

"Even in the tough economy, families have been reluctant to give up their at-home entertainment," Dille said. "For $299, you're getting a game machine, a Blu-ray player and a 120-gig hard drive you can use to download movies. It's a tremendous value."

Many in Hollywood have been eagerly awaiting a PS3 price cut in hopes it would boost sales of high definition Blu-ray discs at a time when the overall DVD market is contracting.

Blu-ray disc sales rose 91% in the first half of the year to $407 million in the U.S., according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry trade organization. However, that's still a tiny percentage of overall consumer spending of $9.73 billion on home entertainment in the same time period. The Blu-ray disc sales also did little to alleviate an overall drop of 13.5% in disc purchases.

alex.pham@latimes.com
ben.fritz@latimes.com

From 'Wrestler' to 'Warrior'

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/04/66064167/1

Apr 27, 2009
From 'Wrestler' to 'Warrior': Bethesda lands Mickey Rourke for 'Rogue Warrior'

Oscar-nominated actor Mickey Rourke will lend his vocal talents to Bethesda Softworks as the lead character in upcoming first-person shooter Rogue Warrior, says the publisher in a statement.

The game -- based on a series of books by former Navy SEAL Richard "Demo Dick" Marcinko -- is slated for release this fall.

Rourke will voice the role of Marcinko, the leader of an elite Navy SEAL unit who must disrupt a suspected ballistic missile program in North Korea.

On the game's official Web page, Bethesda says Rogue Warrior will differentiate itself in the crowded FPS arena by introducing a freeform battlefield, where players can freely complete missions any way they choose, " rather than heavily scripted events and tightly contained spaces traditionally used in this genre." Bethesda also says the game will include a Brutal Kill system with 25 fatal attacks.

The game will be available on PC, PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

Wii will, Wii will rock you

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/11/MNP714MI95.DTL

Wii will, Wii will rock you
Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Nintendo Wii is poised to dominate the holiday season for the third year in a row, an unprecedented trifecta for a gaming console that is proving impervious to the economic recession.

While the gaming industry historically has been able to resist the drag of economic slowdowns, the Wii has managed to soar, thanks to its innovative motion-sensing control scheme and broad appeal among non-gamers. The wonder device continued to fly off shelves even as Nintendo announced it was increasing production for the holiday selling season by 50 percent over last year.

The NPD Group, a consumer research firm, reported Thursday that Nintendo sold 2 million Wiis in November, twice as many as last year. It was a record number for a non-December month and a staggering feat considering that the machine was released in November 2006. The company also sold 1.57 million Nintendo DS portable gaming devices, also impressive for a handheld that has been on the market for four years.

"Everything about the Wii is unprecedented," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing. "The strategy of making it fun for anyone to play video games, the innovation with the Wii remote and the broad category of titles and the sales levels, it's all unprecedented."

Low price, broad appeal

The tough economic times might actually be lifting Nintendo's sales. The relatively cheap price of the $250 Wii console along with its appeal across an entire family makes it an even more appealing choice for households, said Dunaway.

"Families are looking for inexpensive and fun activities that they can enjoy at home together, and the Wii solves that need," she said.

Overall, the video game industry, aided by the Wii and DS, looks golden heading into the home stretch of holiday sales. According to NPD, the industry last month raked in $2.9 billion in the United States, a 10 percent increase over last November despite having seven fewer post-Thanksgiving shopping days. The industry is still on pace to hit a record $22 billion in sales this year, NPD analyst Anita Frazier predicted.

Thanks to increased production, the Wii frenzy appears to have eased a bit for customers, who in previous holidays were left to camp out at stores or pay a hefty premium online for the device.

Frenetic chase

But the Wii is still a huge seller and dominates gift conversations. And in many cases, the chase for a Wii feels just as frenetic as it did last year.

"Demand for the Wii System is actually the same or higher than at the same time last year," said Marc Owens, the customer experience manager at the Best Buy store in Pleasant Hill. "Positive word of mouth about the benefits of the system has continued to drive demand at sell-out levels for the console."

Online auction site eBay said the most searched product on Black Friday was the Nintendo Wii, of which 3,171 were sold that day. Even on Cyber Monday, Nintendo Wiis were selling for an average of nearly $350, a $100 premium over its list price. In the past 90 days, eBay has sold 125,211 Wiis for about $45 million collectively.

Even non-gamers like it

Ted Pollak, market analyst for Jon Peddie Research and portfolio manager for the Electronic Entertainment Fund, said the Wii has the chance to be the most successful entertainment product ever. He credits Nintendo with expanding the market to include not just hard-core gamers but more women, girls and older players.

"Nintendo came up with a platform that's unique in that it appeals to core gamers and totally untapped gamers," Pollak said.

Two years ago, when the latest generation of hardware fully got under way, analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities projected the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii would walk away with about equal shares of the market. Now, he believes the Wii could sell as much as its other two rivals combined and ultimately eclipse the lifetime sales of the PlayStation 2, which he once thought was untouchable.

The PS2 sold 43.2 million in the United States over its lifetime and peaked at 8.2 million in 2002. The Wii, which has moved 15.4 million units so far, has sold about 8 million through 11 months of this year and is poised to shatter the PS2's annual record with a strong December showing.

"If Nintendo sells 400,000 more units in December, they will have sold more consoles this year than in any other year," Pachter said. "That's mind boggling that the Wii is on pace to be the most successful console of all time."

E-mail Ryan Kim at rkim@sfchronicle.com.

Sony Set To Launch Online Virtual World

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/virtualworlds/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212400212


Sony Set To Launch Online Virtual World
Home, PlayStation 3's long-delayed online 3-D social networking service, will debut Thursday.
By Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek
Dec. 10, 2008

Sony on Wednesday said it would launch its online 3-D social networking service, Home, Dec. 11, ending months of delay in the long-awaited service for users of the company's PlayStation 3 video-game console.

Home is similar to Linden Lab's Second Life in that it lets people create virtual characters, or avatars, to interact in cyberspace. PlayStation 3 users will be able to join the virtual world through a free software download.

Home is the latest online service for the PS3. Sony recently added video downloads to the PlayStation Network, which, according to the company, has 15 million subscribers worldwide. Nevertheless, Sony is seen as behind rival Microsoft, which makes the Xbox 360, in launching online gaming and video-download services.

In addition, Nintendo, which launched its Wii video-game console the same month as Sony launched PS 3, November 2006, has outsold Sony more than 2-to-1. Nintendo has sold 34.5 million units worldwide, compared with Sony's 16.8 million units.

Sony is hoping Home will help take its struggling video games unit to profitability. The unit has lost about $3.8 billion over the last two years, according to BusinessWeek magazine.

While PS3 users will enter Home for free, Sony hopes to make money by charging companies to interact with participants. The first companies to join Home include clothing designer Diesel, furniture designer Ligne Roset, energy drink maker Red Bull, film studio Paramount Pictures, and video content providers Hexus TV and Eurogamer.

Besides offering mini-games, videos, and special events, Home will make it possible for users to create their own social networks and set up meetings in their own virtual apartments or in public gatherings. Home will offer instant messaging, voice, and video communications.

Sony first announced Home in March 2007, saying it would launch the service later that year. The company announced the first delay in October 2007, and again in April 2008. Sony launched a trial of the service to a limited number of PS3 users in August.

Star Wars: Episode 3.5?

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1823817,00.html

Thursday, Jul. 17, 2008
Star Wars: Episode 3.5?
By AP/DERRIK J. LANG

Consider it Star Wars III and a Half — complete with a pivotal plot twist.

When LucasArts releases Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Sept. 16, the video game will serve as George Lucas' official median between 2005's Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith and 1977's Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. In the game, players become Darth Vader's secret apprentice and use The Force to hunt the remaining Jedi.

Force Unleashed allows gamers use supercharged Force powers to bust through objects, wield a lightsaber, blast lighting bolts and fling around foes. The game will also change the way fans view Episode IV through Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, LucasArts project lead Haden Blackman told The Associated Press at the E3 Business and Media Summit.

"There's a couple of big twists and turns in the story," said Blackman. "One revelation in particular really impacts the rest of the saga as a whole. It goes way beyond filling in gaps. We try to make a bridge on every level. The story has a real implications on Episode IV. In some ways, without the apprentice, Episode IV couldn't happen."

Versions of The Force Unleashed will be available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2. Blackman and his team worked with Lucas to craft the original saga, which mixes both pre-established elements from the Star Wars universe as well as new characters, locales and details from game developers.

"We pitched a number of different story ideas and concepts to him," said Blackman. "With him, we picked and chose the strongest elements. As we worked on The Force Unleashed, he encouraged us to create new characters as well use existing characters. He told us, 'If you're going to use Vader, that's fine, but here's how you can use him.'"

In the first level, players will plow through the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk as Darth Vader. Subsequent levels find players serving as Vader's apprentice and traveling to such locales as a TIE Fighter construction facility, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the overgrown planet of Felucia and back to an Empire ravaged Kashyyyk.

"Story-wise, we left some openings for a sequel," said Blackman. "The concept of 'The Force Unleashed' could be taken in any direction. We could potentially do a Force Unleashed game set in a different Star Wars time period with a new storyline. We were definitely cognizant to leave some doors open at the end."

Lucas will premiere the new computer-animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which takes place between Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and Episode III, on Aug. 10. The film will be pegged to a new weekly animated TV series as well as new Clone Wars video games for both the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

Nintendo seizes lead in US console war

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=205421

Nintendo seizes lead in US console war
by Tracy Erickson 07/17/2008

Our new leader.

Speaking to GamePro today Nintendo proclaimed, "After just 20 months, Wii is the new console leader in the US with nearly 10.9 million units."

NPD sales data backs up the claim. Wii moved 666,700 units in the month of June, which is enough to push it over Xbox 360 as the dominant platform in North America.

Despite a year head start for Xbox 360 and two generations of PlayStation consoles leading the market, Nintendo has rocketed back to the top with Wii.

Even with the help of blockbuster exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots which sold nearly a million copies last month, PlayStation 3 still took a second seat to Wii with a respectable 405,500 consoles sold.

That figure is nearly double the number of Xbox 360s sold in June - 219,800. Adding salt to Microsoft's wounds is the fact that it almost was beaten by PlayStation 2 with an impressive showing of 188,800 units.

Nintendo's new position in the video game market comes hot off the heels of E3 in Los Angeles this week. The annual trade show saw a slew of new game announcements from the company, as well as competitors Sony and Microsoft.

A Strange City Called Home

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/nyregion/thecity/04gran.html

May 4, 2008
A Strange City Called Home
By DAVE ITZKOFF

IN the opening moments of Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest chapter of the cinematically styled video game franchise, two men are standing at the side of a boat, watching a familiar sight drift into view. Through their eyes, we see a digitized, 21st-century retelling of a scene that greeted numerous generations of new arrivals to an unknown country: the eastern end of a long, narrow island, with a towering metal spire emerging from its belly, and a diminutive green statue beckoning from a tiny point off the island’s southern tip.

We think we know what we are seeing, until one of the game’s characters identifies the land mass for us.

“Liberty City,” he says to his shipmate in a vaguely East European accent. “You ever been?”

And before I even sat down to play the game, I could honestly say that I had.

Liberty City, the pixilated playground where the action of Grand Theft Auto IV occurs, is New York City, and it is not. Like previous installments of the game, which has sold more than 70 million copies in the last decade — abbreviated G.T.A., in the same sanitized way that Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC — this newest edition (released on Tuesday for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 systems) sets players loose in an environment closely modeled on a real American metropolis, usually at some notorious time in its history.

The environs of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, released in 2002, were inspired by 1980s-era Miami, the pastel-hued setting for crime dramas like “Scarface” and “Miami Vice.” For a 2004 sequel, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the game relocated to three interconnected cities based on Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, against a 1990s backdrop of gangsta rap and gang violence.

While moving its story forward to the present day, G.T.A. IV largely restricts itself to a single city — one at the height of its prosperity and during an ebb in crime. The game makes no attempt to disguise the fact that it is designed to look, sound and feel like the city I have lived in for nearly all 32 years of my life.

As many others have already noted, Liberty City is a dead ringer for New York: It’s divided into boroughs with distinct populations and architectural styles; it has most of the same suspension bridges and historic landmarks in the places you’d expect to find them; and its streets are always teeming with traffic and unruly pedestrians.

This game is hardly the first to try to replicate some portion of the New York experience — programmers have been trying to do this for decades. But Grand Theft Auto IV is the most contemporary attempt at this experiment, and may be the most realistic made available to a mass audience.

It’s also a game that has an extra layer of resonance for indigenous New Yorkers. With all the knowledge, confidence, predispositions and prejudices we possess, we’re not only better equipped to detect the many references and insider jokes, we may even come out of the game thinking differently about the real-life New York we’ve always known.

For a native New Yorker, the game is both comfortingly routine and eerily disorienting; you find yourself playing because it is a limitless escape and a consequence-free confinement. Liberty City is like nowhere I’ve ever visited, even as it tries with all its heart and soul to remind me of a place with which I’m already intimately acquainted.

MY initiation into Liberty City came a few days before G.T.A. IV went on sale, in the downtown loft offices of the game’s publisher, Rockstar Games. As I tooled around the electronic streets for a few hours under the supervision of two Rockstar employees, I was sometimes playing the game myself, and sometimes watching as someone else played it for me. I generally played by the rules, but for the purposes of this story, I occasionally made use of a special cheat feature to travel through the game in ways that a typical player cannot.

When that boat from the game’s opening scene finally docked at Liberty City, my character, a rugged-looking immigrant named Niko, found himself on the docks of a Dumbo-like neighborhood, in a borough the game calls Broker.

Indeed, much of Liberty City’s map is made up of direct analogues of real New York neighborhoods and locations, often renamed with winking, sophomoric monikers that could have come from Mad magazine: Manhattan is Algonquin and Queens is Dukes; the giant neon Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City advertises a beverage called Sprunk; and the MetLife skyscraper on Park Avenue has been replaced with the Getalife Building.

Even if I didn’t recognize this computer-generated tribute to Dumbo from its hilly terrain and its array of converted red-brick factories and dilapidated loft spaces, I might have known it from the disoriented feelings gathering in my gut. In real life, I have hardly spent enough time in Dumbo to know my way around it; if I were abandoned there as part of some urban Outward Bound adventure, I probably couldn’t find the nearest subway station without the help of a G.P.S.

On my television screen, I could see the silhouette of Manhattan on the horizon, but I had no idea how to get there. My digital discomfort was just as palpable as it would be if I were experiencing this world in three dimensions.

Following the game’s directions, I drove my character to the neighborhood that is Liberty City’s equivalent of Brighton Beach, where, true to its inspiration, all the shop signs were in Cyrillic lettering, and the few passers-by could be heard, in snatches, speaking Russian and Ukrainian. Niko, my alter ego, did not yet have his own apartment — for starters, he would have to sleep on someone else’s foldout couch in a ratty tenement with walls covered in graffiti inspired (so I am told) by tags that the game’s designers had seen and photographed in Brooklyn.

There was something amusingly authentic about Niko’s predicament. The game’s British creators seemed to know that given the choice, most players would probably run or drive straight into Manhattan — the version of the city they know from their own travels, or any number of films and television shows — and ignore the other boroughs. Here, as in the real world, entry into the heart of the city would have to be won through patience and hard work.

A few steps outside Niko’s temporary lodging, I found myself in Firefly Island, the game’s answer to Coney Island, complete with a giant Ferris wheel and a rickety wooden roller coaster; both attractions were closed and the area was devoid of pedestrians.

The scene was familiar in more ways than one: it reminded me of The Warriors, a video game that Rockstar created just three years ago, based largely on the 1979 Walter Hill movie of the same name. (You know, the one with the crazy-costumed New York gangs fighting their way from the Bronx to Brooklyn — “Can you dig it?” “Come out and plaa-aaay!”)

THAT game was also nominally set in New York, though I never genuinely felt transported there for one moment. That city seemed a grimy parody of someone else’s grimy parody of the city, one that looked as if our town had been struck by a giant mirror ball full of plutonium.

But I wanted to see more than the few chubby, backpack-toting tourists who were ambling around the Boardwalk. So I had my flesh-and-blood chaperons turn on a hidden feature within their version of the game that allowed me to fly anywhere on the G.T.A. map. And I mean, literally, fly: my virtual self disappeared, and the camera began to hover off the ground, swooping and soaring from the Brooklyn Bridge (er, I mean the Broker Bridge) to the Statue of Happiness, which resembles a wide-eyed Hillary Rodham Clinton hoisting a cup of coffee aloft.

Eventually I touched down in a Times Square that was appropriately cluttered with hypnotic neon advertisements for things I could not really buy, and populated, sparsely, with pedestrians who carried on cellphone conversations, sketched portraits of passers-by and played the saxophone in return for loose change. When I walked into a greasy all-night burger joint, a cashier greeted me with an appropriately indifferent “What?” But when I crossed the street against the light upon exiting, cars actually stopped for me (though they honked their horns).

Having been lulled into believing that I really was in New York, I made the mistake of trying to find my own Alphabet City apartment within the game. I walked down to Chinatown — that took only a few seconds — found what I thought was Houston Street, and made my way to where Avenue A (and my apartment) should have been. But after traversing only a block or two of bodegas and backward-hatted hipsters bobbing their heads to the beats of miniature iPods, I somehow found myself at the southern entrance to Grand Central Terminal.

It was as if some unknown natural disaster had recently touched down and attacked only the portions of New York that I cared for most deeply. My city — at least, the parts of it that I thought of as my city — no longer existed.

So I regrouped and tried to find the high-rise apartment building on East 40th Street where I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s. I started at the United Nations, made my way west through a perfect simulacrum of Tudor City (with another saxophone player performing in the park) and within a few short steps had gone all the way to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Foiled again!

It seemed a perfectly logical and human impulse, to prove to myself that I was somewhere recognizable by finding the one place in it that was most recognizable to me. Yet there was no way that the game could satisfy this impulse: like a comic-book superhero drawn by the legendary artist Jack Kirby, whose characters’ fists grew larger and feet grew smaller as they flew up out of their panels, the proportions of this version of Manhattan were an optical illusion. The parts that everybody would notice were blown up larger than life; the parts that virtually no one would care about were shrunk to nothingness.

Faced with this catastrophic revelation, I turned to a life of crime. I hijacked cars and crashed them into traffic poles; I raced a motorcycle through Central Park and dismounted just before the bike plunged into the lake (my way of letting the boathouse know I won’t be holding my wedding reception there). I jumped off the observation deck of the Empire State Building, just because I could, though I took no pleasure from the sickening scream my character let out, nor the sound of his jacket flapping in the wind, 86 stories to the ground.

At the urging of my human confederates, I even attempted one of Grand Theft Auto’s missions — tasks I was supposed to be completing to progress through the game properly — that required me to shoot my way through a gang of drug smugglers and steal their truckload of contraband. I did as I was instructed, but my heart just wasn’t in it. If I truly believed in Liberty City as a functioning community, how could I open fire on my fellow simulated citizens (even if they shot at me first)? How could I tread all over the social contract in a ripped-off truck full of bootleg prescription medication?

THE answer, of course, is that I couldn’t, and here is where the paradoxical nature of Grand Theft Auto once again rears its head. Unlike the missions, objectives and narrative elements of a traditional video game, which constitute the game itself — the things you’re supposed to be participating in and following along with in order to actually play — these same aspects of G.T.A. are more like sophisticated distractions to keep you from immersing yourself too deeply in its fictional city environment.

Except that the problem with G.T.A. — one that will in no way dissuade me from playing the game until my digits are raw and aching — is that the more fully you are pulled into Liberty City and the more closely you inspect it, the more you are reminded that it isn’t a city at all.

The neighborhoods do not blend into one another so much as sit next to one another. The traffic varies just enough from one area to the next to convince you that a place is inhabited, but eavesdrop on a pedestrian long enough, and you’ll find that he doesn’t eventually go home to his wife and kids — he just keeps walking and talking in a continuous loop.

It’s not the game’s fault that it can’t perfectly replicate the infinite variety of New York. But it sometimes comes so close to pulling off the illusion that it invites you to look for the imperfections.

When my two hours of game time were over, I left the Rockstar Games offices and stepped out into SoHo at midafternoon on one of warmest spring days of the year. The sun worshipers were out in full force, each of them as distinct as snowflakes: guys wearing oversized earphones and baseball caps tilted at every angle, women wearing minimalist skirts and shorts that gave them only the illusion of being clothed. An amorous couple making their way north hardly noticed me as they nearly crosschecked me into a streetside table of $6 sunglasses.

There was so much uniqueness and so much variety that there was no room to move, and I knew I was home.

'Grand Theft Auto IV' is exhilarating adventure

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/marcsaltzman/2008-04-28-grand-theft-auto-iv_N.htm

'Grand Theft Auto IV' is exhilarating adventure

Let's cut right to the chase: Grand Theft Auto IV is not a video game for kids, tweens or even young teenagers. As with its controversial predecessors, the latest in the 70 million unit-selling series is a Mature-rated adventure, created for players 17 years of age and older as it gives you a virtual taste of the criminal underworld. Think of it as an interactive episode of The Sopranos, if you will.

Because of its tremendous following and the fact it's available on both high-definition consoles, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3, Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV will likely be the best-selling game of 2008. It also helps that it's the first game in the series to offer online multiplayer modes. Having spent the better part of 10 days living this dangerous alternate life, rest assured this GTA sequel more than lives up to the hype.

In Grand Theft Auto IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a tough-looking character who arrives in the U.S. from somewhere in Eastern Europe, expecting the streets to be paved with gold. It seems Niko's American cousin, Roman, lied about his extravagant lifestyle: Instead of being wealthy and living in a mansion, Roman is indebted to loan sharks and lives in a cockroach-infested apartment the size of a walk-in closet.

Nevertheless, Niko decides to help Roman with his rundown cabstand and keep thugs off his back until he can figure out how to make money and connections in Liberty City, the same city as 2001's Grand Theft Auto III, modeled after New York City and New Jersey. If you're questioning how Niko could forgive his scheming cousin, you'll discover a few hours into the game that there are other reasons why Niko left his homeland.

Grand Theft Auto games offer "sandbox" play, meaning you can virtually go anywhere and do anything in this fully realized 3-D city with pedestrians, traffic and storefronts. This play from a third-person perspective includes carjacking any vehicle, listening to more than a hundred songs on car radios and playing minigames such as billiards, darts, bowling or arcade games. Niko can go on dates, swim, surf the Internet and buy clothing and weapons.

But it's the seedy missions that unravel the lengthy single-player story. In person or via his cellphone, Niko will be asked to perform missions that include escorting someone, taking out drug dealers, evading police cruisers, racing to one end of the city before someone else, flying a helicopter, retrieving stolen money or looking up an informant's address. In many cases you'll have three offers at once and will be forced to make decisions, which will affect the storyline and your friendships.

Grand Theft Auto IV offers high-definition graphics that trump 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including impressive lip-synching, non-interactive story sequences that were motion-captured for added realism, varying weather and a new physics engine that models everything authentically. This sequel also adds more hand-to-hand combat and optional in-car GPS to help you better navigate the city.

Without question, though, the biggest new feature is something gamers have been asking about for years: multiplayer modes. In Grand Theft Auto IV, up to 16 gamers can play online in a host of cooperative and competitive games including "Deathmatch" (every person for himself), "Team Deathmatch" and "Cops & Crooks" (a racing game). Because we reviewed the game before launch, however, this online component was disabled.

Xbox 360 gamers will also be able to download bonus missions and other content later this year, via the Xbox Live service.

Controversy is unavoidable with this game. As with past GTA titles you can shoot at cops, drive into pedestrians and request "services" from a prostitute. This sequel is also laced with foul language, plus you can drink and drive and watch pole dancers at a strip club. Again, take heed to the "M" rating.

Aside from a slightly choppy frame rate at times, when the action stutters a bit, and hard-to-read green GPS directions on your map, there is little to complain about with Grand Theft Auto IV. Adult gamers will find a single-player story that can easily last a month, not to mention the ability to hop online and play with friends anywhere, anytime. Expect a lot of bang for your buck in this highly polished sequel.

Console Race: Another Lap For Sony

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/gamesinc/archives/2008/03/console_race_an.html

Console Race: Another Lap For Sony
Matt Vella on March 13

For the second month in a row, sales of Sony’s (SNE) Playstation 3 console system outpaced Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360 in the U.S., according to figures released late Mar. 13 by analysts at the NPD Group. Though both companies promptly issued press releases slicing the monthly results in their own favor, the results underscore the tightening race between the two tech giants.

After a 2007 of fits and starts, Sony’s game system seems to finally be on firm footing. The company crowed about the nearly 281,000 PS3 systems it sold, representing 120% sales growth from the year before and a volume 10% higher than Microsoft’s next-generation console for the month. “We believe that Blu-ray becoming the high-def format of choice was the tipping point for many consumers,” said Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, referring to the demise earlier this year of the rival HD-DVD format formerly backed by Microsoft.

For its part, Microsoft issued a release saying supply constraints had held up sales. In Feb., Microsoft sold 254,600 Xbox 360s, up from 230,000 consoles the month before. The company says the so-called Xbox ecosystem – combined sales of game systems, software, and accessories – was worth $332 million, or 39% of the market for next generation systems. Microsoft was also able to sell more games with each of its systems than Sony.

Still, Sony seems to have the wind at its back. In addition to its advanced PS3 console, the company last month sold 243,100 Playstation Portables and an eye-opening 351,800 Playstation 2 units, its previous generation game system. A raft of highly anticipated exclusive titles including sequels to the Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo series are due in the next couple of months, which the company hopes will further boost sales. Some analysts have predicted that Sony could pull ahead of Microsoft this year, despite Redmond’s year advance on the Japanese games titan.

As a whole, the games industry continues booming. Year-to-date sales of both hardware and software were up 34% to $1.3 billion from $992 million. “Even following a red-hot 2007, the video games industry shows no signs of letting up,” said Anita Frazier, an NPD analyst. She added that a slate of blockbuster titles yet to be released could push “the industry to achieve another year of record-breaking sales despite difficult economic conditions.”