Posted by Alan on April 1, 2010 – 04:50
Filed under PS3
Tagged as 3.21, firmware, PS3, update
It’s not common for a manufacturer to push a firmware update that removes a system capability; but that’s exactly what will happen with today’s v3.21 update for the PS3. No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. Update v3.21 will remove the option to install another operating system (aka Linux) on the fatty PS3’s; an option that was already removed on the Slim versions. SCEA’s Patrick Seybold explains on PS Blog that the removal of the option is necessary "due to security concerns … [and] will help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system."
This update push may be in response to recent claims of “hackery” that you may remember and seems like a preventative measure on Sony’s part. Although this update will not affect most of us PS3 users, I’m sure there some that are cringing as they read this. Either way, it’s a small price to pay to access PSN from now on.
Posted by Alan on February 13, 2010 – 23:13
Even though Modern Warfare 2 was the #1 selling game in 2009, making more than $1billion, Activision-Blizzard is seeking ways of making up for a $286million 4th quarter loss, mainly caused by the dying Guitar Hero franchise. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick spoke with Yahoo Games during their quarterly conference call hinting that the Call of Duty franchise will be heading the way of World of Warcraft and become subscription-based.
Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has been reeling in the dough for Activision, bringing in $15 a month fees from their 11.5million subscribers. Kotick described the future of CoD this way: “If you think about the success that we’ve had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise.”
It makes sense, Activision is seeing the amount of money they could make from turning it into a subscription, but would you pay a monthly fee for online play? Or do you think that this is just one more way for Activision-Blizzard to make money off of gamers? This also begs the question, would DLC still cost extra on top of the monthly fee? These are all speculations as of now, but we will update you when we hear more on the topic.
Posted by Alan on February 12, 2010 – 07:09
This week’s new releases are highlighted by the Heavy Rain demo, The Tester Preview show, and Echoshift PSP demo. Hit the jump for the full list of new releases from the Playstation Store.
Read More »
Posted by Alan on February 10, 2010 – 13:46
In typical EA fashion, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will receive Downloadable Content (DLC) on launch day. BC2’s Senior Producer, Patrick Bach, spoke with Worthplaying.com and said, “We have an in-game store where you get free content or you can buy new content to the game, so it’s a very integral part of the game that we will have a long post-launch campaign. I think people will be thrilled to see what’s in that already. On day one, you will get some really cool stuff.”
No word on if there will be a price to this “really cool stuff” or if EA will make it free for new buyers and sold separately for used copies of the game. Hopefully EA and DICE have learned from their mistakes from the previous Bad Company when they were threatened with a boycott for its (soon abandoned) marketing strategy which would have created an in-game gap between those who spent the extra money and those who didn’t. We will just have to see what happens on March 2nd, do you have your copy reserved yet???
Posted by Alan on February 1, 2010 – 08:58
The United States Air Force (USAF) recently purchased 1,700 new Playstation 3 consoles to add to their current 336 consoles they already have networked to each other. What do they plan to do? No, not have the biggest Modern Warfare 2 LAN party ever. The consoles will not be used to play games at all. They plan to use them to make a very powerful supercomputer, and one of the projects they want to use them for is to mimic the human brain. The human brain is capable of processing things that computers struggle to accomplish. The USAF research laboratory in Rome, NY is trying to use this PS3 super cluster to perform these difficult tasks like a human brain, in essence, they want to make it autonomous.
Jump past the break to find out more on the USAF PS3 project.
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Posted by Alan on January 30, 2010 – 13:25
A new patch for Modern Warfare 2 is now available for online play. This patch fixes several exploits:
- Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized
- Fix for "infinite care package" glitch
- Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry
- Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s [
please leave the 1887s alone!]
- Improved player collision removing cases of getting into geometry and "elevators"
- Fixes to prevent various XP hacks
A few known glitches that still need to be addressed is the inconsistent Pave Low glitch (kills don’t count towards kill streak total, even though you didn’t get the Pave Low from a Care Package), the usage of your main weapon while in Last/Final Stand, and a few others I can’t think of off the top of my head at the moment. Glad they are fixing these actively, but come on IW, hurry up!
Posted by Alan on January 30, 2010 – 13:00
The announcement was made on Playstation Blog that God of War 3 will be in stores on our side of the pond March 16th. Along with a date, they also released the final cover art! Which is pretty menacing looking if I do say so myself. SCEA also stated that a new trailer will be released as well February 11th on SPIKE’s Game Trailers TV.
And if the regular version of any game isn’t good enough for you, the final box art for the “Ultimate Edition” version of the game was also debuted. Jump past the break to check it out for yourself.
Read More »
Posted by Alan on January 27, 2010 – 05:05
A few days ago we reported that the notorious iPhone hacker, George Hotz, aka “GeoHot”, has claimed to have properly hacked the PS3. Today he has released that exploit for all the interwebs to see and fellow hackers to feed off of. What does that mean for the entire PSN community? Unknown as of yet, but Hotz claims to have full control over the entire system, so it be anything ranging from piracy of video games to full blown hacking of games like what has been seen on XB360 and PC of a particularly very popular first person shooter from Infinity Ward, just as an example. We will just have to wait and see.
Sony systems are no stranger to hacking like this. Many of you know the exploits over on the PSP side of the house that Sony has endlessly tried to patch with security updates. According to a story on Euro Gamer, Hotz was able to get “full read/write capability to the system memory and HV-level access to the processor.” HV, known as Hypervisor, is the low-level security code that only those at Sony and IBM should know about and is the key security component to both the Playstation 3 and the XBox 360. During run-time, HV is able to detect hacker attacks on the system, similar to the TIFF exploits that brought down the PSP firmware. Basically, they overran the memory buffer, allowing hackers to insert their own codes into the system memory to be executed. Hypervisor is designed to make those type of attacks fail. Hotz says he is able to control the HV security, allowing him to stop it from blocking any hacker attack. It is also rumored that he has also discovered the “root-key”, which is basically the master key to the processor itself, which is said he has released onto the internet.
We will be keeping on eye on this developing story, and will let you know as soon as we know more info.
Posted by Alan on January 26, 2010 – 06:44
Just another cool app for the PSP that will likely never make its way over to this side of the pond. x-Radar Portable was very covertly released in the Japanese Playstation Store yesterday for the lovely price of free. The app is able to detect the user’s location and nearby points of interest and display them on the screen you see above. Users who also own the PSP GPS accessory can take advantage of more accurate results, however the app also works on wifi as well. PlaceEngine can determine your location via wifi, or the user can manually type in their location to see what is nearby.
Now we all know most cell phones also have similar features, but x-Radar Portable also has some game-like features that set it apart and make it distinctively Playstation. For instance, users can build up their collection of spots throughout the country and share them with friends. Similar to FourSquare, the app will reward you for finding more and more places, even allowing you to level up your avatar or “ghost” in the game. Additional services within the app can be purchased as DLC, like more detailed maps, location information and app skins. Feel free to check it out the next time you trotting along in Japan.
Posted by Alan on January 26, 2010 – 06:22
MCV reports that the PS3 has now passed the 3m sales barrier in the UK, SCEE has officially confirmed.
“We are delighted to have passed the 3m milestone with PS3,” an SCE UK spokesperson told MCV.
“With the incredibly strong line up that we have going forward – Heavy Rain, White Knight Chronicles and God of War III in the first quarter alone, then Gran Turismo 5, Modnation Racers, Motion control, and a few surprises for the new fiscal year, this is a great way to start the New Year.” Sony recently reported that it sold 3.8m PS3 consoles around the world in the closing weeks of 2009. Industry figureheads around the world have been keen to praise the PS3’s global performance in recent times, with NPD describing its North American performance as “a turning point” and ELSPA boss Mike Rawlinson calling it 2009’s “star console”.
With PS3 Exclusives like MAG, GT5, ModNation Racers and others coming out this year (GT5, we can only hope anyways), this will definitely be a great year for Sony and their loyal customers. But can it topple the all mighty Wii? Only time will tell.
