Almost immediately after the death of the HD-DVD format, rumors began to swirl that Microsoft would introduce a Blu-ray add-on drive for the Xbox 360. Microsoft itself had even hinted they might do as much if HD-DVD were ever to fail. Now, it seems something is actually coming of all those rumors. Microsoft and Sony are in talks to develop such a drive.

The confirmation comes from Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics US president. Yes, this is the equivalent of cats and dogs lying together. The two bitter rivals are playing nice for a bit as they both hope to gain something. Sony sells more Blu-ray drives and Microsoft hopefully avoids the cries of “obsolete” by Sony’s marketing team. They end up helping one another out because they both need one another. (more…)

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Women may be gaining ground in a male dominated society in the real world (see Hillary Clinton), but what about in the virtual world? Well, they’re getting there. Sony’s new spy themed console MMO is even concerned with “technical” details such as the difference between A-line and pencil skirts. It’s a brace new world for traditionally sexist game design, indeed.

Tale of Sony’s attention to detail comes from MTV’s Multiplayer blog and their interview with Sherry Floyd of SOE Seattle. Floyd works on the art content for The Agency. It’s all part of a bigger piece on Sony’s initiative to get more women into game design through the G.I.R.L. (Gamers In Real Life) scholarship program for women wanting to study game design in college. Floyd noted about the game she is working on (more…)

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In a recent interview with Gamasutra, John Hight gave insight into a planned revamp of the current PlayStation Store. Hight, who runs the digital game publishing of Sony products, had this to say: “We give Sony’s interface team a lot of feedback based on how our customers are reacting to things, and I think you will see a pretty big change in the PlayStation Network in the early part of April, where we roll out some new interface stuff largely based on customer feedback.”

While the PlayStation Network is far from perfect, it’s definitely functional. Adding new features and categories to make it easier to navigate is always welcome. How Sony plans to incorporate this change is the key question. Will they deliver on their statement to make big changes in April? Or will they continue down their path of building anticipation for these “big” updates by releasing smaller, constant updates until the final product is in place? (more…)

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Phil Harrison is no Peter Moore. He’s the quiet type who prefers to stay behind the scenes rather than show off his GTA 4 tattoo to thousands of attendees at gaming expos. Although, lately he’s been at the top of gaming news as the man who left Sony for the sinking ship known as Atari and left behind the platform he helped to succeed.

Though no specific reasons behind his departure have been indicated Harrison was very vocal at GDC recently publicly criticizing Sony Japan for not taking advantage of the booming casual games market. “It’s a very interesting and frustrating thing for me to experience because I have been banging the drum about social gaming for a long time, with SingStar, EyeToy and Buzz,” stated Harrison. “And our Japanese colleagues said that there is no such thing as social gaming in Japan — people do not play games on the same sofa together in each other’s homes. It will never happen. And then out comes the Wii.” (more…)

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Rob Enderle over at TG Faily has a fairly interesting piece up about the potential future of Google in gaming. What, Google? Did you think Apple was the only computer company considering a move into gaming? According to Enderle, Google may very hold the future to gaming.

Cloud computing, centralized computing or whatever buzz term you’d like to use is being touted as the future of computer software. Essentially, the desktop will be the browser and all software will run remotely on computer servers. This is the same idea that was kicked around in the late 90s with the idea of workstation PCs in every home instead of desktops. Technology hadn’t quite caught up then, but with services such as Meebo and Google Documents it finally is. (more…)

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Of all the things GDC is known for, it is considered the premiere opportunity for companies to show off the latest technology to revolutionize video games. Sony got an opportunity to show off its latest advance known as head tracking, which uses the Playstation Eye to track the player’s head movements and simulates a virtual reality display.

While the explanation leaves something to be desired, the possibilities when it comes to gameplay are endless. Imagine playing a shooting game and being able to move your body to peek around the wall you’re hiding behind.

Although no announcements have been made yet on how Sony plans on using this technology, it seems Sony may have come up with something to challenge Nintendo’s golden Wii. (more…)

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Al De Leon, PR Manager of SCEA, posted on the official Playstation blog that a special PS3 bundle would be released to coincide with the release of MGS4 in North America. It will include one 80GB PS3, a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and the Dualshock 3 controller. You can get this bundle for the very reasonable price of $499.99. This could be a big move for Sony to move even more consoles with the release date upcoming, but it’s not clear why they announced it so early. Now, instead of consumers buying PS3’s up to MGS4’s release, they can just opt to wait for the bundle.

De Leon also posted that a new special edition PSP would be released in June. The fire truck red PSP will be released in June. It will feature the face of Kratos on the back of it to signify that it is, indeed, a God of War PSP. For $199.99, you will receive: The limited edition red PSP, God of War: Chains of Olympus PSP game, a voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free from the PS Store, and Superbad on UMD video. Bet you didn’t see that one coming. Now you can get your God of War and McLovin fix all at once.

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Finally, U.S. PlayStation 3 owners can take a deep breath and scream in joy. Come April 15, U.S. citizens will see the Dual shock 3 with rumble hit stores. Coincidentally, this is also the same release date for the much awaited game, GT5 Prologue. So, gamers everywhere will be able to feel the rumble through their car engines, swords, or giant guns. Most of the current games will be able to add rumble support through downloadable patches.

The Japanese have already been using the Dual Shock 3 since November 2007. Some gamers unable to wait for the controller have imported it for the price of about $100 or so. Let’s hope the battery doesn’t drain faster with this added feature.

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Sony has announced that Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, is leaving the company at the end of February. While an executive departure isn’t usually that big of news, it is when it’s such a high level executive. Such departures can cause quite a shakeup within a company, especially one like Sony which has seen itself rattled a bit over the past few years. The weirdest part of this story? That Harrison might be leaving Sony to take over at Atari.

First, the weird news. If Harrison is to head to Atari after leaving Sony it would surely have to involve a truckload of money and some true power in running the company. At this point Atari as both a company and a brand are pretty bruised. Many assumed the company would not make it through another year unless someone else purchased it. But a big name hire like Harrison might show some confidence in the company’s survival. Certainly a story to watch. (more…)

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With recent rumors of Sony releasing a 120 gigabyte and 160 gigabyte PS3 with much anticipated Dual Shock controllers, it was no surprise to see that the 80 gig model was visibly absent from their website. The 40 gigabyte system looked depressingly lonely as it sat waiting for an announcement of who else would be joining it. However, if you really do some digging, you can find the 80 gig version which still comes with a copy of Motorstorm.

The question is, though, what is the benefit of the increased amount of memory? With recent titles like Devil May Cry 4 requiring a lengthy install onto the PS3’s hard drive just to play the game we may see the 120 gig become the standard for the PS3.

While there are pros and cons to everything, the pros in this case being the addition of Dual Shock controllers, this may alienate a large majority of gamers who couldn’t afford the PS3 in its current state. The 360, on the other hand, can play titles like DMC4 without the 20 minute install and with the minor annoyance of brief loading times.

Sony is expected to announce if there will indeed be a new SKU for the PS3 at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

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