Games Cheats and Reviews

Sony’s PlayStation Portable disc-based titles aren’t going away anytime soon. During a session at the Game Developers Conference this past week, the company said it has no plans in abandoning the UMD format.

The session was meant to inform independent developers about the marketplace advantages that exist on the PlayStation platform. When discussing the PSP, the company said its UMD format is "alive and well" and that all retail games will continue to be available on both a UMD disc and digitally on the PlayStation Network store.

Sony also provided its latest life-to-date sales for the PSP platform. Since its North American release in 2005, sales have reached 17 million total units. Total worldwide sales have now topped 60 million total units.

The Mind of Game writes – "Before I get into this editorial/rant, let me set the record straight. I absolutely, positively do not hate Sony itself or the PlayStation brand. I do not blame Sony for the actions of the people who have chosen to stand behind them. I have nothing against the PlayStation brand and I honestly believe that Sony is doing great things with their stable of consoles and handhelds.

Their fanboys on the other hand? They are among the most illogical, irrational, arrogant and all around idiotic group of people I have ever come across. In the past five years of going to various forums and just being in tune with the internet in general as it relates to gaming, I’ve come across just about every type of fanboy you can think of. Microsoft fanboys, Nintendo fanboys, Apple fanboys, even Sega fanboys and none of them, without exception, can compare to Sony fanboys in terms of sheer annoyance."

Destructoid: A pre-alpha title called Motion Fighter used Sony’s PlayStation Move motion-sensing controllers to facilitate one-on-one street fighting at their GDC press conference this afternoon.

t seems Final Fantasy XIII has been forever under development, 4 years will make anything feel like forever. But it’s all over now, the game’s out in the west and Square-Enix felt the need to celebrate; who wouldn’t?

The Lost Gamer writes "Whilst the start of a new month would usually bring fresh excitement, especially considering the impending arrival of some of this years biggest titles – Final Fantasy XIII and God of War III – March has been initially hampered by an inherent bug within Sony’s PlayStation 3 consoles."

The new revamped Sony Playstation went online recently. The interesting bit of info comes under the Playstation 3 features page. According to the official website you can talk to friends and other players in the middle of the game using voice or text. The features page also lists in-game chat for online games as a separate feature. It gives less reasons to confuse both features.

The full description as the official website puts it:

"Talking with friends or other players in the middle of a game is easy. Chat by text or use your headset to voice chat. You can also add new friends or check other player’s profiles (including their Trophy collections) to know who you’re up against while you’re playing."

This could be a good sign that the long awaited feature might finally be on it’s way.

SCEA writes on Twitter:

"We’re aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we’re looking into it. Stay tuned for updates."

If you remember, Sand Dollar Enterprise is a pseudonym used by Sony for FCC filings. Sand Dollar was used to pass the original PS3 Slim through the FCC, for example.

Sand Dollar’s filing today is for the CECH-2101A ‘Computer Entertainment System.’ Label pics for the device confirm that this is indeed the Sony PS3, while label placement pics show a device that is the same size and shape as the PS3 Slim.

Another device, called the CECH-2101B is also identified in Sand Dollar’s filing. The only difference between these two devices is the hard drive size.

Irish Gaming Site TheGamingLiberty.com write;

"It appears that the domain Motorstorm3.com is registered to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Curiously www.motorstorm3.com takes you directly to Sony’s Official Playstation Website. So with that I ran a quick Who Is search and sure enough, www.motorstorm3.com was created by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe on the 19th of January 2010 with an expiry date listed for the 19th of January 2010. It looks like Motorstorm 3 could therefore be on the way to Playstation 3."

Bnet: I’ve often scratched my head over Sony’s (SNE) Playstation 3 business strategy – the expectation that it could wait an extended period of time while selling the system at a loss. Some information from December that had missed my attention until now suggests that even after nearly five years, the company is still losing money on every unit out the door. Given the fiscal realities of the division and the company, I wonder if it could – and should – be put on the chopping block.

The research firm iSuppli did a teardown of the 120GB hard drive PS3 last month and calculated a materials and manufacturing/test cost of $336.27. Mind you, this is the unit that the company has been selling for $299. That apparently, though, is an improvement because the previous version sold for almost $50 less than the cost.