Gunslinger Gaming

By now and thanks to 2010’s E3, many gamers have heard of Sony’s intention of releasing their answer to Nintendo’s WiiMote with the Playstation Move. It promises to move the Playstation 3 towards the direction of providing motion-controlled gameplay experience.

Of course, that is going to need game developers producing titles that are compatible with the Playstation Move. Here is a list of the first twelve titles announced by Sony that will support the new control scheme:

Sorcery

Kung-Fu Rider

The Fight: Lights Out

Heroes On The Move

SingStar Dance

Sports Champions

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11

Killzone 3

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals

LittleBigPlanet 2

EyePet

Time Crisis Razing Storm

You discuss this topic and join other Playstation 3 topics in the Gunslinger Gaming Forums.

The Sony Playstation 3 had a lot of loss ground to make up. After finally edging out its own system, the PS2, in annual sales, the PS3 still came in a distant third after the Xbox360 and the Nintendo Wii. The last 12 month annual sales period ended on March 31st, 2010, so where now does Sony stand in the console war?

Sony lost $435.6 million last year. As daunting of a figure as that may be, that is an improvement from the year prior that cost Sony a whopping $1.05 billion. PSP sales dropped from 14.1 million units sold to 9.9 million.

According to Sony,

“Game sales decreased due to unfavorable foreign currency exchange rates and decreases in unit sales of PSP hardware and of PS2 software, although unit sales of PS3 software increased……Despite PS3 hardware cost reductions and increased unit sales of PS3 software, profitability deteriorated primarily due to lower unit sales of PS2 software and of PSP hardware.”

There are promising signs for the PS3, however. Sony did meet their (what was once considered unlikely) goal of selling 13 million PS3 systems. Much of those sales came in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, which very well may point towards 2010 being a good year for the PS3.

[Source: Gamespot.com]

Discuss this topic and other Playstation 3 related topics in the Gunslinger Gaming forums.

The fact that Hollywood is eager to make a movie adaption of the highly successful Uncharted franchise by Naughty Dog and Sony should come as no surprise. The game played like a movie and drew heavy influence from the action film genre, perhaps more so than it did from previous platform games.

Sony Pictures are starting to narrow down the possibilities as to who will be filling the director’s seat. David O’ Russell, who directed Three Kings, but may be better known for his dead-pan comedy efforts, Spanking the Monkey and I [Heart] Huckabees is at top of the list.

If the director choice is raising any red flags, the choice of screenwriters won’t help. According to the LA Times, the script has been penned by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer. The pair of screenwriters didn’t gain a whole lot of attention with their previous efforts: Sahara and Sound of Thunder.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]

Discuss this topic, other Playstation 3 topics, and even swap PSNs for Uncharted 2 in the Gunslinger Gaming forum.

Scheduled for the summer of 2010, Sony plans to release firmware for the Playstation 3 system that will enable the system to play games (Blue-Ray support will be a separate release) with 3D effects. In the near future, gamers could enjoy 3D effects in their favorite games much like they enjoyed the enhancement in blockbuster movies such as The Avatar.

There are a few catches, however. Just because firmware is being released, doesn’t mean that players will immediately be able to put in Modern Warfare 2, for example, and become engrossed in 3D warfare. Game makers will need to re-release these titles with 3D production. Also, the 3D enhancement comes at a price. According to David Coombes, Sony’s Platform Research Manager, playing games in 3D could cut their console’s processing power in half.

[Source: IGN.com]

Discuss this and other topics about the Playstation 3 at the Gunslinger Gaming forum.

The official numbers for May have been released by the NPD Group, and for the third straight month, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter’s forecasts have missed the mark.

But that’s very good news for Sony in their battle with Microsoft for second place in the next-gen race.

Pachter had predicted XBox to outsell PlayStation 3 for the month of May in North America, but Sony wound up selling 208,700 units while 186,600 XBox 360 consoles were sold during the same period of time.

Nintendo won for May altogether with 671,000 units sold.

While Playstation 3 was number two this month, it was expected that GTA IV would translate into big hardware sales. It didn’t.

“The continued success of GTA IV is not translating into big hardware sales for either the PS3 or the 360 but there may yet to be a lift in June due to gift-giving for Father’s Day and graduations,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Sure, Microsoft has slashed the price of Xbox 360 in order to try to get an edge against PS3. And yes, Nintendo’s DS still outsells Sony’s PSP.

But that doesn’t mean that Sony isn’t having an incredible fiscal year nonetheless.

Head honcho Jack Tretton recently revealed how the company is ahead of the game with PlayStation 3 and PSP.

“We are tracking at 100 percent up over last year,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “…About 30 percent ahead of where we should be. So sales could slow down and we will still hit our number.”

In fact, if the trend continues, there may be some heartbreak when the holidays roll around.

“I’d say we are able to meet somewhere between 80-90 percent demand, based on how things are trending,” said Tretton. But even if supply does get limited, he said that the shorages would not be “drastic”.

Don’t count the Playstation 2 out just yet.  That seems to be Sony’s introductory message for this year’s E3 convention held in Los Angeles, California.  Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony, wasted no time to announce that the Playstation 2 will be hosting at least a hundred new titles by the end of the year.  While that may not speak well of the Playstation 3’s ability to finally emerge from behind the Xbox360 and Wii sale figures, it is a good sign that Sony itself is finally listening to their consumers.  The Playstation 2, which easily won the last generation’s console war and, until the last quarter of 2008, was still outselling the Playstation 3, is still a solid investment for Sony despite the fact that both Nintendo and Xbox have had much success with their newest console offerings.  “We’re committed to the PS2 for as long as users see value in it,” said Tretton, and that is the most realistic and financially sound commitment a company can make whom has been struggling against the competition.

According to wikipedia.org, the Playstation 2 is the best selling console in history, totalling over 136 millions units sold by the end of December 2008.