Although the chatter around the games industry indicates that E3 will bring a new console from Nintendo — and its rumored features are getting a little ridiculous. But what of the Xbox 360 and PS3? Is it time for them to get a refresh? Not quite, says one insider. → Read More
Things are going great for Sony. It settled that icky business with GeoHot, and now it’s flying high on the sales of its PS3 and accessories. The Move, which came out last September, has now sold 8 million units as of April 3. Compare this to Microsoft’s Kinect, which sold a cool 10 million units as of early March. → Read More
Attention! Valve has announced exactly how Portal 2‘s Steam features will work on the PS3. PS3 gamers can look forward to cross-platform (with the PC) matchmaking and gameplay, real-time chat, Steam achievements, and access to the Steam Cloud for game saves. → Read More
Sony and GeoHot have officially settled their differences. A notice on the PlayStation Blog notes that Sony Computer Entertainment America and George Hotz have reached a settlement in the case. No monetary terms were mentioned. → Read More
A congratulations are in order for Sony. Thanks to the company’s dogged pursuit of the likes of GeoHot and Graf_Chokolo (and, apparently, anyone who has seen jailbreak-related information), Anonymous has said that it will “experience [its] wrath.” Probably not a good time to be Sony, no. → Read More
Supercomputers are expensive to make no matter how you look at it. But if you use a whole bunch of PS3s, you can save over 10x the cost compared to this guy. The Condor project is a supercomputer made up of 1,716 PS3s for the Air Force’s image processing tasks and is considered one of the top forty fastest computers in the world. Its big task involves monitoring 15 square miles 24/7, but not in… → Read More
It’s only a matter of time till Sony shuts these guys down, so better write about this quick. It’s called the Cobra USB, and presumably it has nothing to do with Santino Morella’s finishing move. Actually, no, I know it has nothing to do with Sanitno, for it’s a USB dongle that unlocks a few handy features, including region free Blu-ray playback and the ability to play DVD ISOs right from the… → Read More
Is George “GeoHot” Hotz in South America right now? Yes. Is he a fugitive running from the law? No, despite the convenience of such a story. The man is merely on vacation. Is that a crime? → Read More
This is really more of a “just ‘cuz” Kinect hack than one of those practical ones we see occasionally. Yes, hacker Shantanu Goel has rigged up his Kinect to work with its greatest enemy, the PS3. Where is your Move now?! → Read More
In the US, Playstation Home is rather mundane. Other than additions like voice chat and in-network game launching, it has been the same since its 2008 launch. That’s about to change according to statements made at this year’s GDC by Masami Kando, head of the Home project at Sony. → Read More
Gamasutra had a good interview with Sony’s head of R&D, Dr. Richard Marks — it’s well worth the read. They talk about how he got his start in high school at a game shop his pop owned playing loads of old school games. He then moved on to study aerospace engineering in college where he found his love for robotics. Something he says is very similar to video gaming. → Read More
The “epic fail” of PS3 security discovered by hackers in January and pried open further by Geohot (who is now being sued) may be fixed with the latest patch to the PS3. This is the natural way of things, of course. → Read More
Sony has won their case against LG. The more than 300,000 PS3′s that were seized will be returned to Sony. Also, all future shipments into Europe will continue without any issues. → Read More
Today, Sony announced cloud computing on the PS3 exclusively for PlayStation Plus subscribers. The cloud will allow gamers to upload all their game save data to the network, with up to 150 MB of storage. The online storage will be available March 10 and more PS3 titles will release with the capability to take advantage of the feature. → Read More
This is a rather disturbing turn of events. Federal Magistrate Joseph Spero has approved a request by Sony to subpoena the hacker GeoHot’s web host, as well as YouTube, Google, and Twitter, for identifying information on anyone who has accessed, commented, or viewed information relating to the hack. At best this is lazy on Sony’s part and irresponsible on Magistrate Spero’s, and at worst it is a… → Read More
The feud between Korea’s LG and Japan’s Sony has just hotted up. LG has won a preliminary injunction against Sony in Europe, the result of which is the temporary banning of the importation of PS3s into the continent. LG says Sony infringed on a number of its patents, specifically with regard to Blu-ray playback. Hence, the preliminary injunction. → Read More
Portal 2 may be coming to the PS3 and bringing cross-platform play and some Steam elements with it, but the Steam interface is really designed for mouse navigation, not analog sticks. Valve is looking to fix that with a special “big picture mode” designed for use with big TVs and console controllers. → Read More
Oh dear. Sony has now sued graf_chokolo for one million euros. What’s the point? What is this going to accomplish, outside of paying for a bunch of lawyers’ holidays? → Read More
Sony is said to be working on a “hack-proof” PS3. So saysa rumor attributed to an anonymous source—the best kind of rumor, of course. The new PS3 would replace all currently existing PS3 SKUs. Whether or not the new SKU sees the light of day depends on how Sony’s lawsuit against George “Geohot” Hotz fares. → Read More
This isn’t big news to anyone but PS3 hackers, but I wanted to include it just as a “ahhh yeah” shout-out to all the people fighting to use their hardware however they like. The PS3 is limited to FAT32 formatting, but with the release of this library, you can now hot-swap NTFS-formatted drives, making home development and backup easier — as well as perhaps allowing for… → Read More
It looks like the police, at the behest of Sony, have raided the house of graf_chokolo, one of the preeminent members of the PS3 hacking scene. How about that for a chilling turn of events? → Read More
George Hotz, the “hacker” known to the world at Geohot, had recently asked for donations for a legal defense fund. You’ll recall that Sony flipped out after Geohot made the tools available for everyday people to jailbreak their PS3, which in Sony’s mind is tantamount to piracy. Anyhow, Hotz has called off the donation request, saying that he’s collected enough money to hire “a few more… → Read More
It’s looking more and more like the PS3 version of Portal 2 will be the better of the two console versions. Valve told the German PlayStation Blog that Portal 2 PS3 will ship with “complete” Move support. Apparently they’re still working on working out all the kinks, but it’s part of Valve’s effort to make up for the so-so PS3 version of The Orange Box, which was developed by an external team. → Read More
Sony has just rolled out a new application for the PS3 called Filmy that “allows easy organization and viewing of AVCHD video recorded with Sony cameras on [the system].” Well, as long as it’s easy, I suppose. → Read More
What exciting times we live in, what with word that Sony has plans to subpoena a boatload of Web sites and individuals in an attempt to track down the members of fail0verflow and other PS3 hackers. Good luck with that. But wait, what’s this? Now LG wants to ban the sale of PS3s here in the US of A because of a patent dispute? In the words of Scott Hall, two sweet! → Read More
Sony is apparently going after more hackers than just George Hotz and fail0verflow. Sony is looking to get DMCA suits against all PS3 jailbreakers who share Sony’s source code on Github. Well-known PS3 hackers Waninkoko, KaKaRoTo, Hermes, Kmeaw and Graf_Chokolo have been named in documents to Github requesting all docs and posts from the users, as well as all contact information. → Read More
Lo! It would seem that “Other OS” will return to the PS3, albeit in an unofficial capacity. (Do you honestly think Sony will ever sanction the return of “Other OS”?) Well-known tinker graf_chokolo says he’s brought back the option to install other operating systems, and that it’s “coming soon.” → Read More
My kingdom for a mouse and keyboard! Sony’s Killzone 3, which I’ve secretly been playing (less multi-player) for the past few weeks, ranks right up there with Halo: Reach as the best example of a console shooter you’re likely to find. People with no time for “console shooters”—rails, scripted sequences, etc.—may as well click away now. And while it’s so very, very painful… → Read More
This is really too bad; I was looking forward to this game, despite the unpardonable offense of getting jumping in my Bionic Commando. It turns out that Rearmed 2 has DRM that, like a few other games we’ve seen, prevents you from playing when you’re offline. Like, for instance, if there was a blizzard and your internet was down. Or you have metered internet and turn it off. Or you just… → Read More
Although the latest firmware for the PS3 (with reports of a possible secret rootkit) is just hitting today, it looks like it’s only going to be a matter of days before an easy crack is made available for it, if early indications pan out. Not that we support piracy here at CrunchGear, but the constant battle between hacker and hacked is always interesting. Sony just tries so hard! Too hard, I… → Read More
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