Gamernode: Latest PlayStation 3 News

Tretton tells Bobby Kotick to design a console

Jack Tretton runs Sony Computer Entertainment America. Jack Tretton wants Activision CEO Bobby Kotick to know this fact, and has made it clear in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News.

Recently, Kotick said of the Playstation 3 and the XBox 360, "In the next 24 months they all will need to be at that $199 price point..." in order to be competitive in the hardware market.

Tretton has responded to that comment directly; here's a snippet from the interview in question:

Q: And what did you think of Bobby Kotick’s comments at this conference, where he said that Microsoft and Sony really ought to get on board with the lower price and maybe by next year go down to $199 if they really want to compete with the Wii.

A: Well, I think from an unrealistic standpoint, I’m never surprise...

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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune fails to top the charts...

Even with all the excellent reviews that Uncharted was getting, it seems as though the public either doesn't agree or isn't interested in that sort of game. According to NPD group, Drake's Fortune only pulled in 117,000 sales in the month of November and failed to rank in the top ten software sales list. 

In comparison, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare cashed in 444,000 copies. Why U: DF failed to catch the imagination of the public is hard to tell. Some are pinning it on the subject matter of the game itself-sort of a Tomb Raider type adventure setting. Others are thinking that the advertising campaign fell on deaf ears because it was aimed at a narrow target audience.

Recently, Sony dumped their 10-year relationship with advertising firm TBWA to get some new blood into their ad campaigns for...

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Metal Gear Online to be bundled with MGS4

While we've already reported on a rumor that Metal Gear Online (MGO) will be bundled with Metal Gear Solid 4, it's been a few months since we've heard anything else about it so has the rumor lived up to its credence?

But according to the January issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine, the news is true and the two games will be bundled together upon its release.

In addition to the news, a few more details about MGO were revealed. The game will support up to 16 players online in various multiplayer modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Team Sneak.

Also it looks like the game will ship with "five Starter Pack maps." But it's unknown what will be included within these packs.

Finally, it looks like MGO will take a few hints from Call of Duty 4 since players can cu...

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LittleBigPlanet trailer

Most graphical improvements in the modern gaming era come via floods of polygons, more detailed textures and mapping, better dynamic lighting and shadows, filtering, anti-aliasing, blah, blah, etc. That being so, I have nearly reached the point at which only truly stylish and visually innovative games can instantly capture my attention. LittleBigPlanet is one of those games.

Due to be released next year on the Playstation 3, this game has a look all its own. It is part storybook, part papercraft, part cartoon, and part claymation, but it is all pretty. Check it out:

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Guerilla admits Killzone 2 screenshots were altere...

Killzone 2, the upcoming PS3 shooter that Sony hopes will fare well against Gears of War and Halo 3 has run into some problems--not with the development of the game, but it was revealed that screenshots for the game were doctored and altered to make the screenies look better.

Kotaku spotted the "irregularities" and caught Guerilla Games red handed.

Guerilla's Seb Downie, admitted to this on the official PS3 forums and said:

"They are only the tiniest bit touched up. Short answer is yes. Long answer is that there was a little bit of color-correction done and some minor polish, but nothing major. Still very close to reality and it looks better in motion in my opinion."

Is that like saying to your police officer that, "Well gee, I forged that phony ID with the "tiniest" of changes to cash that c...

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Jaffe '...would love to work on God of War 3'

David Jaffe (creator of the first God of War) recently told GameDaily BIZ that he would love to be involved in the making of the third installment of the God of War series. But since Jaffe is not an employee of SCEA anymore, that dream has been hard to fulfill.

Because of his involvement with his new studio Eat, Sleep, Play (pretty much what I do everyday) his priority at the moment is not on God of War III.

But if he could get together with Sony and fulfill his "master plan" story, trust me he would.

"I can tell you that I have, what I consider, a phenomenal story for God of War III. When I was a Sony employee, we were exploring going down that road, and it probably was so big that it would have had to have been broken up into three parts and the actual franchise wouldn't come to an end u...

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Guncon 3 won't be sold separately for Time Crisis ...

There's a problem Time Crisis 4 fans, Namco Bandai is NOT selling the light gun accessory separately for the game. In other words, when you buy TC4 for the PS3, you will get the included light gun whether you like it or not.

Sure, it sounds fine for single-player, but what about the more awesome two-player mode? That means if you want to play with a friend, both of you will have to buy a copy of the game so each of you will have a light gun, even though you only need one copy of the game.

The other downside is that the bundle costs around $90 USD; that means two friends have to spend $180 just to experience a decent Time Crisis game. Brendon gave the game a 6.0 out of 10, but states that Time Crisis fans will surely enjoy it although non-fans will have a hard-time grasping the game's simple ...

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PS3 still too expensive? Get another $100 off

There are a bunch of new adopters of the PS3 since the recent price drops of Sony's game machine. But maybe you're still holding back, standing on the sidelines hoping for another price reduction before you will buy one.

This may not happen in the near future, but what you can do is lower the price of any PS3 you want by $100.

What's the catch? All you have to do is to sign up for an official Sony credit card. Once you fill in the blanks, you'll be offered a $100 credit towards the purchase of the PlayStation 3 of your choice. Sweet.

Here's the link for the offer. Imagine, getting a PS3 for a paltry $299. Now why didn't these guys think of this sooner?

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New add-ons coming for Folklore

It's always great to see developers supporting the games they've worked so hard on. If it isn't Bungie releasing new multiplayer maps, it's Bioshock getting the widescreen fix it finally deserves.

While the additions to games is more prevalent on the Xbox 360 more so than the PlayStation 3, that doesn't mean the add-ons to the PLayStation 3 games are any less stellar. Case in point--the just announced add-on packs for Sony's surprise hit, Folklore.Two add-on packs are going to be released coming in at $3.99 per pack or $5.99 for both. These additions are going to expand previous story plots which were either cut short, or not fully explored in the original Folklore. The first one is called "The Kidnapped Folk," and ties very much into the Folklore setting."Set during the timeframe of the o...

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Rock Band PS3 patch adds GH3 guitar controller sup...

If waiting for your replacement PS3 Rock Band guitar is a bore but you own the PS3 version of Guitar Hero III, then you might be in luck.

This post on the Rock Band Forums mentions a new routine update to the game, which addresses issues related to the guitar controller.

"Available today is a routine update for the PLAYSTATION 3 version of Rock Band that addresses a number of items related to guitar controller compatibility. Should Rock Band owners choose to obtain the update, they will need broadband internet access connected to their PLAYSTATION 3. The update will be downloaded once the game is started."

But Shacknews confirmed with sources within EA that the patch also allows compatibility with the Gibson Les Paul PS3 wireless controller for Guitar Hero III.

The Xbox 360 Gibson Les Paul co...

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Sony CEO says PS3 failed to meet expectations

With the Playstation 3 being out for a little more than a year, Sony evaluated it's sales and in the end were displeased.

Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton has admitted that the PlayStation 3 has failed to meet the firm's high hopes during its first year on sale.Speaking to MSNBC, Tretton said:

"I think the PS3's first year fell short of what we'd ideally like. But if you put it into perspective, we're not taking the safe route. We didn't take the PS2 and add a few bells and whistles to it. What we're trying to do here is refocus the game industry towards high-definition gaming, a real state-of-the-art, future-proof machine for the next decade."The beauty of this business is that it isn't all about one day, it isn't all about one title, or one month. I think there's a tr...

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Mixed reports on Assassin's Creed patch working

The patch that was released to fix various issues with the PS3 version of Assassin's Creed seems to not have worked in solving problems regarding screen tearing and outright game freezes according to recent reports from users who downloaded the update from Unisoft. 

Forum members on the Assassin's Creed forum at Ubisoft.com, such as Coyote, responded to the patch by saying, "LOL - dont expect too much guys. I was skeptic - and rightfully so. I downloaded the 25 MB update. Game launched and I tried to continue my game. Altair froze on the blue loading screen - AS USUAL.THIS UPDATE DID NOTHING FOR ME..."

But the reports seem to be mixed. While many are saying the patch doesn't fix anything, some are saying that the frame rates have improved. Blaque-Dragun probably said it best:

"Can someone fro...

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Assassin's Creed update is ready to roll

In a rather low-key announcement over at the Ubisoft forums, the news was released that the Assassin's Creed update/patch has been released due to the "consumer feedback" (read: loud complaining) that was voiced over bugs within the PS3 version of the game.

The following is from the ubi.com site:

"Following consumer feedback regarding some issues while playing Assassin's Creed for PlayStation 3, a corrective update has been developed and will be released worldwide on the PLAYSTATION® Network over the next few days. You can proceed to installation simply by launching your Assassin's Creed game. Please note that release times of this update may vary depending on your location. Thank you again for your patience."

Forum activity at ubi.com over this announcement has the members wondering just w...

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PS3 outsells Wii in Japan during November

According to Reuters, Sony has something to celebrate since its PlayStation 3 outsold Nintendo's Wii in November for the first time ever in Japan.

In the month of November, Sony sold 183,217 PS3s while Nintendo sold 159,193 Wiis, according to figures from Enterbrain. While Sony has been on the upswing in terms of sales lately, Hiroshi Kamide, KBC Securities analyst doesn't think it'll persist through the holidays.

"Overseas, I don't really see the PS3 doing that much at Christmas time primarily because it's still more expensive than the other machines and has less software. It's nice to see the system selling much better than six months ago. But is it a sustainable trend? Is it going to really escalate from here? I'm not so sure."

With the impending Japanese release on December 1st, Nintendo ...

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New DLC for MortorStorm--new vehicles and skins

Calling all MotorStorm fans, Evolution Studios has announced that they've got a new DLC that will include two new vehicles--The Lunar-Tec Buffalo BigRig and the Mohawk Roadhog Bike.

Added to this are two new skins-Crazy Samurai and QuickFoot. The skins can be used on any of the seven different vehicle classes.

The price for all this goodness? How about a measly $1.99 at the PlayStation Store? Good enough for me.

The download is available now at PSN. For a look at one of the new skins and vehicles, take a look below.

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MGS4 needs to sell 1M copies in first day to break...

As we all know, Metal Gear Solid 4 will be the last Metal Gear Solid game developed by Hideo Kojima and the last game to star Solid Snake. So you can guess that the game is a pretty big deal for MGS fans.

Even though MGS4 will be the final one in the series, the game also represents another dying gaming aspect -- PS3 exclusive games. Reuters gathered some comments from various gaming experts about the subject.

One reason for the lack of PS3 exclusive games is the production costs. Since your release is limited to just one console, it's tougher to turn a profit. But to Ryan Payton, assistant producer on MGS4, you can only experience MGS4 on one platform -- PS3.

"We're telling our fans that if you want to play Metal Gear Solid 4, you have to buy a PS3. The PlayStation brand has always been good...

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Killzone 2 public beta not ready til '08

Killzone 2, Sony's candidate to rival the likes of Halo 3, was revealed to the E3 '07 crowds and showed some pretty cool graphics and game play.

Rumors were floating around the game community that a public beta of K2 would be ready for the holidays. Now that would have been a nice present, but we'll all have to wait until next year instead.

Alex Armour at SCEA said, "We are hoping to do a beta but I don't think we'll have anything ready before this year is over... it is something we are working on for next year. "[We'll] keep in touch [as] we'll have more soon."

The original Killzone game, released in 2004 for the PS2, received mixed reviews and didn’t challenge the popularity of the Halo franchise as much as Sony hoped. In Killzone 2, with the power of the PS3 behind the game, they&rs...

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PlayStation 3 sales up 300%

As each day goes by Sony gains the ground they lost with the initial launch of its PlayStation 3.

While Sony's machine has been lagging behind in sales, and their introduction of new SKUs with reduced pricing may have caused some heat with early adopters of the older models, that doesn't seem to be affecting the PS3 sales for the month of November.

According to Sony, sales for the PlayStation 3, when compared to the sales figures from last year, have increased a full three hundred percent since November 2nd when the new 40GB SKU went on sale and the 80GB model received a price drop to $499. Not too shabby.

Some may see this as a massive turn around with Sony gaining the dominance they once had with the PlayStation 2. Remember though that at this time last year the PlayStation 3 was a heck of...

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Upgrade your PS3 HDD all by yourself

It seems as though there are more gigabyte hard drive versions of the PS3 than there are stars in the sky.

Ok, I exaggerate just a little bit, but for those of you out there wishing for more HDD space, but don't want to buy a whole new 80GB PS3 to expand your storage capacity, there is another way to do it. Try swapping out your HDD yourself.

The information to do this has been around for quite a while, but it's one of the best kept secrets of the PS3...swapping out the old hard drive with an off the shelf replacement unit.

While this sounds like a warranty breaking scheme, it isn't. Sony has published the actual directions on how to do this in their manual and phone calls by various PS3 users to Sony confirms that your warranty will be ok even if you upgrade.

So how do you do it? Here are ...

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Resistance Fall of Man releases Map Pack 2

The second map pack for Resistance Fall of Man is now available for download. Multiplayer maps include "Bracknell" and "Axbridge" in which to provide great new places to slaughter each other.

The Bracknell map takes place at an abandoned cavernous railway system the Chimeran have converted into a node. The map is mostly close quarters action and dimly lit. You'll fight your way through three stories of abandoned train carriages and various spawning rooms.

The Axbridge map contains two resistance bases within a rocky valley and Chimeran structures. There's also a hidden path along the cliffs for safer passage, and a good sniper perch down on the action in the valley.

Now, just where did I leave my LAARK rocket launcher?

[via on-pause]

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