The $599.00 80GB Sony PlayStation 3 is now available for sale online in North America. Sony didn’t previously give us a date or anything, but it looks like GameStop / EB Games is stocking the $599 80GB console (bundled with MotorStorm), and claims shipment in 24 hours. Here it is on the EB Games website.

Nine Million Now Live in World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft has hit yet another milestone – this time clocking up a massive nine million subscribed players worldwide.

Blizzard Entertainment said yesterday that the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is currently working towards releasing its first expansion pack in China which is expected to further swell player numbers.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade is being prepared for release in mainland China with Blizzard’s market partner The9.

“We’re thrilled that gamers around the world have continued to embrace World of Warcraft so enthusiastically,” said Blizzard president Mike Morhaime.

“We’ve worked hard to provide a compelling experience for our players, and we plan to continue updating the game with exciting new content for them to enjoy for many years to come.”

World of Warcraft debuted in America in November 2004, and was the best-selling PC game for the next two years.

Available in seven languages, the ground-breaking game still sits at, or near, the top of PC games lists worldwide.

Source: NZ Herald

So you win a PS2 on eBay, make the payment to the seller, and a few days later a box arrives at your house. But to this kid’s amazement, instead of a PS2 it was a box full of cash…lots of cash! $$$ If this happened to you, what would you do? Stay quiet and keep the cash, living with the fear that someone may show up looking for their 90 grand at your doorstep, or keep the 90k and move out of town!

A British teenager who bought a Sony PlayStation 2 on eBay for £95 ($194) got more than he bargained for when he opened the package. Instead of a shiny, happy gaming console, there was a whole heap of euros – €65,400 ($90,000) to be precise—stacked neatly inside. A spokesman for eBay said that the parcel’s contents were “somewhat unusual,” but that they would help the police in any way they could. When the parcel arrived, on March 20, the boy’s parents contacted the Norfolk Constabulary, who are now holding the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act. If the owner does not come forward by September 22, then the family can apply to have the cash returned to them—unless the police apply to hold onto the money for a longer period.

A couple of weeks after Microsofts announcement to spend $1 Billion to fix defective XBox 360s, the sales of new 360 units have drastically declined.

Microsoft said it shipped 700,000 Xbox 360 units in its latest fiscal quarter, compared to 1.8 million in the same quarter in 2006.
Microsoft’s growing troubles with the Xbox 360 video game console appear to be catching up to the company. Sales of the gaming machine plunged 60% in the fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft disclosed Thursday.

In its earnings statement for the quarter, Microsoft said it shipped 700,000 Xbox 360 units during the period, compared to 1.8 million in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2006 — a fall off of 61%.

Microsoft’s Xbox operations are housed within the company’s Entertainment and Devices Division. The group saw fourth quarter revenue drop 10% year-over-year to $1.16 billion on an operating loss of $1.20 billion. The group lost $423 million the previous year.

Microsoft blamed the 183% increase in the EDD operating loss on a $1.06 billion charge against earnings that the company incurred to cover the cost of extending the warranty period for the Xbox 360 to three years. The move came following Microsoft’s recent admission that the gaming system was suffering from an “unacceptable” number of general hardware failures. Microsoft has also been hit with two class action lawsuits in the past two weeks claiming that a design flaw in the Xbox 360 causes the system to irreparably scratch game discs. Microsoft has denied the claim.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that Xbox chief Peter Moore was leaving the company “for personal reasons.” It was later disclosed that he had jumped ship to video game publisher Electronic Arts.

In the meantime, rivals Sony and Nintendo have been stepping up competitive efforts. Sony recently announced a $100 price cut on certain PlayStation 3 units while Nintendo continues to enjoy robust sales of its new Wii system.

Microsoft introduced the Xbox 360 in November 2005. It has since shipped 11.6 million of the consoles. The company is doubtless looking forward to the holiday 2007 season and hoping that new game releases like Halo 3 revive the Xbox 360’s flagging fortunes. Microsoft on Thursday said overall profits in the fourth quarter increased 7% to $3 billion, while revenue increased 13% to $13.4 billion.

So as most of us PS3 owners know, game releases for the PS3 have been a bit slow with only a few good games available currently to play. I myself own only 4 PS3 games so far: MotorStorm, Splinter Cell – Double Agent, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest.

A lot of new titles have been announced to be released by the end of this year (Q4) near the holiday season. With that said, here are my picks of the games I am anxiously waiting for and will pick up on release day.

In no particular order, here are my Top 5 Picks:

Assassins Creed – Release Date: Nov 2007

This game is being developed and published by Ubisoft Montreal. The same team that most recently brought us Rainbow Six – Vegas. The game takes place during the Third Crusade, in the year 1191. The player assumes the role of Altaïr, a member of the Hashshashin sect (the original “assassins”), whose objective is to slay the nine historical figures who are propagating the Crusades. As the player finds and kills these targets, their conspiracy is unveiled. The player will be able to travel through three cities: Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus.

The environment is completely interactive, from the people to the historically accurate cities. These cities are populated by many people, and the way the player controls Altaïr affects how the bystanders around him react to his presence. For example, when going through a crowd, if the player lightly moves someone out of the way, it will not have a significant effect. However, if the player throws someone to the ground and kills them, the crowd may unite against him and he will then have to find a way out. Similarly, if the player shoves a person aside, they may shove him back. If he climbs walls, civilians will gather around, attracting unwanted attention from guards.

Guitar Hero III – Legends of Rock – Release Date: Fall 2007

Well I have been a big fan of Guitar Hero I and II on my PS2. I already have money down on the pre-order of Guitar Hero Encore – Rock the 80s. So I guess its only natural for me to have GH3 on my top 5 list!

Here are some details on GH3…Slash (guitarist of Guns N’ Roses fame) has been confirmed as a boss character, and a raft of new Gibson Les Paul/Kramer guitar controllers have been unveiled. Guitar Hero III will include 70 anthem rock songs. Guitar Hero III will also feature a “Battle Mode” that will let competing shredders store power-ups like “broken string” (temporarily disable a fret button on your opponent’s guitar) and “double notes” (your opponent has to play twice as many notes in the same time span).

Rock Band – Release Date: Nov 2007

Along the lines of Guitar Hero, Rock Band will allow up to four players to join the band to sing, play the drums, play lead guitar or bass/rhythm guitar. To sing and play the drums, I’m assuming will require the purchase of a PS3 mic of some sort as well as a drum controller contraption! The new guitars are styled after a Fender Stratocaster, and word is that you’ll be able to use some Guitar Hero II controllers, too. Announcements at E3 included the ability to download entire albums of big name artists to play within the game.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – Release Date: Oct 2007

I’m a huge fan of war/strategy FPS games. Like me, if you’re tired of World War II settings, Call of Duty 4 looks intriguing simply because it’s the first in the series not to be set between 1939-1945. Think modern combat but with well-trained enemies (as opposed to terrorists using asymmetric weapons like IEDs) and a “realism mode” where a single shot to the leg makes you fall and a single shot to the chest means instant death.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures – Release Date: Oct 2007

Not another MMORPG!!! Ahhhhh!!! Actually, this one seems fun and has a new style combat system. Age of Conan is set in a low fantasy, pseudo-historical ancient world called the Hyborian Age created by Robert E. Howard. In this world filled with cruel gods, mythical creatures, lost civilizations and a struggling human race, the mighty warlord Conan has finally seized the throne as king of Aquilonia. Yet King Conan’s grip on the Aquilonian throne has become tenuous, with ancient evils threatening to throw the realm into chaos. In this twisted fantasy world, dark magic and brutal combat lurks around every corner, and each man and woman must carve their own unique destiny under Conan’s reign. In the true vision of Robert E. Howard’s dark universe, the time is ripe for those with the strength and will to carve out their own destinies.[26]

The primitive brutality and decadent bacchanalia of the Hyborian Age is one of the unique attractions of Age of Conan due to its stark contrast to the high fantasy settings that typify the majority of contemporary MMOs such as EverQuest II, The Lord of the Rings Online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. In Age of Conan, there are few of the elements that are common in high fantasy, such as elves, halflings, orcs, fire-breathing dragons or Arthurian courtliness. Though one can have a fantasy setting with elves and the like and still be “Low Fantasy” as the defining factor is lack of moral dichotomy of altruistic good, and pure unredeemable evil, this is rarely, if ever, the case.

Instead, Hyboria is a land of neither good nor evil, but “moral shades of gray” in which Conan, himself, is a barbaric anti-hero and his enemies are, upon occasion, rightful princes or altruistic minstrels revolting against his militaristic autocracy. As such, this moral ambiguity and bloodthirsty atavism of R.E. Howard’s Hyborian Age sometimes disconcerts newcomers to the lore who are accustomed to the classicist fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis.
More than any other feature, combat is the prime attraction of Age of Conan. Funcom is determined to make the traditional Dungeons & Dragons-inspired “round-based” system of combat that is the current standard in MMOs obsolete. Instead Age of Conan will feature what Funcom has termed the “Real Combat” system. This system is a first-person melee approach in which every enemy is divided into five different areas that players can swing at. Players choose where they wish to swing along with which weapons, spells, or techniques they wish to use, and then watch as their avatar completes the action. As players become better at using the system, they will find combinations of abilities, swing styles and target points that string together to make more devastating attack combos. While player stats and items bonuses will play a role in this system, the idea of “Real Combat” is to bring more player skill into MMO fighting.

Players will also have more fighting options than they may be used to in older MMOs. While the “Real Combat” system is the basis for one-on-one weapon battle, players will also use the system for spell-casting, ranged combat and even battling on horseback (mounted combat). In some situations, however, players will choose to band together and unite their skills to face other bands of players or AI controlled armies or uber-mobs; in essence, “formations.” Player bands using formations can temporarily choose to surrender some control over their character’s movement to a commander who will direct their unit in battle. In return, the members of the formation will gain special attack and defensive bonuses as well as tactics that they can use against other formations.

Players will also take part in massive siege operations. Adventurers can cooperate with one another to build massive cities with walls, towers and catapults that can protect player-owned taverns and merchant facilities. The world will respond appropriately to the rise of player cities, though, even AI controlled enemies will build their own cities, ensuring a constant stream of brutal city-vs.-city combat as players try to knock down enemy walls or defend their homes.

So if you’ve been holding off or waiting to get in on the $100 price cut for the 60GB Sony Play Station 3, you need to act fast. Reports are coming in that it’s going to be a case of once they’re gone they’re gone. Meaning, whatever the retailiers have in stock right now of the 60GBs PS3’s is all that they will get.

That’s according to SCEE President David Reeves, who told GamesIndustry.biz that Sony would no longer be offering the 60GB PS3 in the US once the existing stock runs out — something he expects to happen “by the end of July.” What’s more, Sony also revealed that the 60GB PS3 would not be getting a price cut in Europe, but would be getting a new bundle with two games and two controllers for no added cost — still no word on an 80GB PS3 for Europe though.

So with E3 kicked off the rumormill has been going frantic over the coming of the PSP2 in a few months. Rather than a “proper” PSP2, Sony is apparently going to follow in Apple’s footsteps and gradually upgrade the PSP’s features and capabilities while keeping the price more or less the same.

The rumors suggest that Sony will upgrade the built-in memory from 32MB to 8GB of NAND storage based on memory chip industry movement; Others say, the 8GB storage is not gonna happen and the PSP2 will only be the 4GB of NAND variety instead.

It is also said that the PSP2 will feature a new video chat service via a tiny integrated camera which will allow users to stream live video to the PlayStation 3 via WiFi before linking up with that HUB PlayStation service. Sony will add a built-in Eye-Toy-like camera to the PSP2. The off-the-shelf video camera is said to be located directly below the PSP’s screen (where the logo is currently) and presumably of the Motion Eye variety already available in some Sony Ericsson phones and Vaio laptops.
Sony will also retool the UMD drive into a slot-loading drive. Naturally, the upgraded PSP will be slimmer than its predecessor.

The larger memory is expected to be used for Sony’s as-yet-to-materialize scheme for downloadable games and other content (Possibly similar to the Sony Store available currently for the PS3).

What a great July we’ve been having in the video game console world! Microsoft commits $1 billion to fix its ailing Xbox 360 (see my article on this here) and now: confirmed reports this morning that the Playstation 3 is finally getting a $100.00 USD price cut this Thursday, July 12 2007. That date also coincides (I’m guessing not coincidentally) with the E3 Media & Business Summit, which runs July 11-13 in Santa Monica.

This price drop will put the price at $499 rather than the $599 the 60GB version sells for currently. Hoping to mitigate its losses, Sony will introduce another unit for the less price-conscious. That PS3, which will start selling for $599 in August, increases the hard-drive size from 60GB to 80GB and includes the game MotorStorm released earlier this year.

Meantime, the company is showing it is willing to stomach further losses in its gaming business and, in particular, the PS3, which includes a high-end Blu-ray DVD player, wireless Internet access, and a powerful custom processor, to keep wavering developers from jumping to those rival systems. “This is good for everybody — but, potentially, our competitors,” Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, says of the cut.

While widely expected to happen sometime before the important holiday shopping season, the announcement was nonetheless surprising after a top company official in Japan on July 6 denied a price cut was in the offing. Sony has been reluctant to reduce the price too quickly in part to avoid appearing desperate this early after the introduction of a console.

I purchased my PS3 on June 14th for full price from Walmart. I wonder if they will do a price adjustment for me as I come in under the 30 days?! Lets keep the fingers crossed…$100 is a $100!

Is your Xbox 360 defective? Are you getting the 3 red lights – “ring of death”? Does your 360 freeze all the time? If so, and your console is still under warranty, you might be in luck! Microsoft has finally come out and has agreed to fix defective Xbox 360s.

Friday, July 06, 2007
Associated Press

SEATTLE — In another setback for Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) unprofitable entertainment and devices division, the company says it is planning to spend at least $1 billion to repair serious problems with its Xbox 360 video game console.

Microsoft declined to detail the problems that have caused an onslaught of “general hardware failures” in recent months but said Thursday it will extend the warranty on the consoles to three years.

The glitches, and the bad publicity, could weigh the company down as it claws for market share in the highly competitive console market.

In May, the Xbox 360 ranked No. 2 in unit sales behind Nintendo’s Wii, but still beat out Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3, according to data from NPD Group.

“We don’t think we’ve been getting the job done,” said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, which also makes the Zune digital music player, a distant competitor to Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) powerhouse iPod. “In the past few months, we have been having to make Xbox 360 console repairs at a rate too high for our liking.”

Bach said the company made some manufacturing and production changes that he expects will reduce Xbox 360 hardware lockups, but he declined to identify the problems or say which others might remain.

Microsoft said it will record a charge of up to $1.15 billion for its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended June 30, to cover the additional costs associated with the warranty extension.

The news comes just days before the video game industry descends on Santa Monica, Calif., for its annual E3 conference, and it could overshadow Microsoft’s plans to build buzz for holiday season video game releases and “Halo 3,” a much-anticipated shoot-’em-up for the Xbox 360 set to launch in September.

The software maker also said Thursday that sales of the game console fell short of expectations for the fiscal year that just ended.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, estimates that Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division has lost more than $6 billion since 2002.

Microsoft has written down larger amounts in the past — more than $10 billion in the late 1990s related to investments in telecommunications companies, and more than $5 billion related to antitrust issues — but a $1 billion write-down for one division in one quarter is significant.

“It suggests the problem is pretty widespread,” Rosoff said.

Microsoft will pay for shipping and repairs for three years, worldwide, for consoles that experience hardware failure, which is usually indicated by three flashing red lights on the front of the console, something gamers sometimes refer to as “the red ring of death.”

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has made changes to the Xbox 360 repair plan. Last December, the company extended the warranty from 90 days to one year for U.S. customers. In Europe, the warranty previously expired after two years.

Microsoft also will reimburse the “small number” of Xbox 360 owners who have paid for shipping and repairs on out-of-warranty consoles, Bach said.

In June, bloggers speculated that the Xbox 360 return problem was getting so severe that the company was running out of “coffins,” or special return-shipping boxes Microsoft provides to gamers with dead consoles.

“We’ll make sure we have plenty of boxes to go back and forth,” Bach said in an interview.

Chris Liddell, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call that the company sold 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles since the product’s November 2005 launch, missing a target for 12 million units by the end of the fiscal year.

Xbox 360 prices range from $299 to $479, depending on their configuration.

Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division reported an operating loss of $315 million on $929 million in sales for the three-month period that ended in March. Microsoft has said it expects the division to post a profit in fiscal 2008.

Microsoft announced the warranty extension after markets closed Thursday. Microsoft shares fell 11 cents to $29.88 in extended trading after falling 3 cents to $29.99 in the regular session.

So after much debate and research on what console to get…Xbox 360 vs. PS3, I wound up picking up a PS3 last week. My cousin has had one for a few months now, and was able to convince me to pick one up as well. The process began with me walking into my local EB store and asking the guy to grab me a PS3, an extra controller, and 2 games: Motorstorm and Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest. $816.00 later, I arrive home and anxiously start setting up my PS3. I had an extra HDMI cable, so saved some money there. But in order to hook the PS3 up to my surround sound system, I needed to purchase an optical audio cable ($30.00 more dollars). So with $850.00 being spent on this “next-gen” gaming machine, I finally turned the thing on, spent 15-20 mins going through the setup and finally got the 1st glimpse at Motorstorm. I was floored! The graphics looked amazing and the sound was crisp and clear. Yea it also has some flaws (lack of good games currently, no force feedback in the controller) but all in all, a good investment in my opinion. Did I tell you that Blu-ray looks amazing! I watched Blood Diamond and Black Hawk Down in Blu-ray and they looked kick ass!

So all in all, I’m very pleased with PS3 so far. I am able to wirelessly stream audio and video from PC onto my PS3, as well as view photos and slideshows. The online game play is fun as well. Now just looking forward to some good PS3 game releases to come out!