Sony, while reassuring that hacking will not be tolerated had no further comments on the matter.

“Since this is an overall security related issue, we will not be providing further commentary to this case. But as we always have, we will continue to take necessary actions to both hardware and software to protect the intellectual content provided on the PlayStation 3.”

[via]

Price drops, generous bundles, functional motion controls… who are you and what have you done with Sony?!

At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production. We have lots of great games coming out and innovations with Move and 3DTV, so we don’t believe this is the time for us to think about a price drop.

Hell yeah, I don’t blame you. The Slims (which they’re finally making money on) are flying off the shelves and Sony is about to start printing money with the move, if what we saw at E3 is any indication.

Did you know that, at one point, Sony considered constructing the PS3 Slim around the concept of network storage? That is, instead of there being local storage (hard drive, memory cards, etc.) you’d store all of your data on Sony’s servers then retrieve said data over the Internet. Now that would have been radically different.

Of course, Sony decided against the idea, primarily because it would have cost too much money to set up and maintain the required servers. It’s a shame, because as slim as the PS3 Slim turned out, it could have been so much slimmer!

Well, all of this according to a recent interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia.

Sony also said that it could have made the PS3 Slim even slimmer by moving the power supply (see: the Xbox 360′s power brick) outside the system. That was ixnayed, too, because it would have made it “harder to use freely.”

I don’t know about you, but when I place a video game console in its spot, it doesn’t leave that spot until the next generation rolls around. So I officially don’t understand why Sony didn’t go with the power brick idea—it did with the PS2 Slim!

Now, the network storage thing, yeah, that I can understand. Money aside, it’s a pretty foreign concept for console owners. “So I have zero control over my saved games? That’s not cool.” What happens if Sony’s servers explode and an earthquake knocks over the backup storage facility and a tornado destroys the backup’s backup facility?

Then what?

Flickr

That is all. We out!

Finally, actual PS3 Slim sales numbers. Before all we had were percentages—sales up 300 percent over last week, that type of thing. Anyhow, Sony sold one million PS3 Slims since its launch back on September 1. That’s worldwide, mind you.

What does that mean? Well, for one, and this is the most obvious, is that the PS3 Slim is something of a hit. It also does away with the notion that people had “tuned their back” on Sony’s little system that could; it probably just means that, yeah, the PS3 was just too damn expensive for many people in the PS2 userbase. That five hundred and ninety-nine dollars slight really did Sony no favors, now did it?

It also means that, um, THE CONSOLE WAR isn’t really over, the fact that nearly everyone on Planet Earth owns a Nintendo Wii notwithstanding. Never mind that so many games are multi-platform these days.

I, for one, am reasonably pleased to see Sony finally get things together, after three long years in the wilderness. If the PSP Go sells well, expect to see article after article saying “Sony Is Back.” They’d be right, but it’s sorta predictable.

Flickr

Well look at that: not only is the PS3 Slim a big success over in Japan, but it’s also doing pretty damn well here in the U.S. Sales were up some 300 percent in at Sony’s “top retailers,” comparing the the week it launched to the previous week.

And while a video game console is usually only as good as its latest hit (not necessarily true with the PS3, since it has a Blu-ray player), Sony also noted that the big titles people are looking forward to are: Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Assassin’s Creed II, Gran Turismo 5, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. All sequels, you may have noticed.

For the thousandth time: how different things would be today had Sony launched the PS3 Slim back in 2006!

Oh, if only Sony had somehow released the PS3 Slim back in November, 2006, how different things would be! The sales reports are staring to trickle in from Japan, and Sony sold some 150,000 during the first three days of availability. That represents the system’s best showing ever.

Sales were great in the UK, too. How great, exactly? Sales there shot up some 1,000 (!) percent. Yes, I know a percentage is not a fixed number, but that’s the best we’ve got. Besides, it’s a holiday today, and we have no bosses. Matt, Doug, and I are running amok!

First you have to sign up for a Sony Visa Card but this will get you a $100 credit you can use towards future purchases. So then you simply select the PS3 Slim and check out. Within the next 12 weeks, you will get the $100 credit taken which will bring the price of the PS3 Slim down to $199. Clever.

The PS3 Slim literally took the world by storm last week, shaking the Heavens themselves in the process. But this new development warrants our attention: is the PS3 Slim slower than the PS3 Fat (or is that Phat? Help me, Internet.)? A bunch of videos posted to YouTube certainly seem to indicate as such.

This one is the most egregious, showing how long it takes a Slim and Fat to boot a DVD:

And yet at the same time, here’s a video of Batman: Arkham Asylum, booting a hair faster in the Slim than in the Fat:

Why is this? Well, no one knows for sure, but reasons being bandied about include: new, slower motherboard used in the Slim; firmware wonkiness; and plain ol’ witchcraft.

Conclusion: this is not, as they say, a “deal breaker.” Enjoy your Slim like there’s no tomorrow!

What would it be like to have a real testing lab instead of working in the makeshift “lab” that is John’s attic? A blogger can dream. Or we can take a look at an outfit like Cnet.

The boys over at CBS tested the new PS3 Slim against the PS3 Fat using an array of power consumption tests. The verdict? The Slim uses less than half the power of the old 60GB PS3, which we all know is about as power hungry as a plasma TV.

The numbers really speak for themselves. The Slim even runs more efficiently than the current gen Xbox 360s, says Cnet. The 360 uses around 187 watts while playing a game whereas the Slim only uses 96.24 watts. Not too shabby, Sony.

via CBS

Rapid repair is breaking down the PS3 Slim as we speak. Actually, they’ve only just finished taking the screws off it. Want to be the first to know that it’s fusion-powered, or actually just two PS2s taped together? Keep an eye on the post, they’ll be updating it as the pictures and hinkfo come through.

I’ll bump this post when they finish up (they expect it to be several hours at least) but if you want to ride the wave, don’t let me stop you.

Sony giveth, and Sony taketh away. About six people were upset that Sony decided to, once and for all, kill PS2 backwards compatibility with the PS3 Slim. But as the rubbish opening sentence implies, PS3 Slim owners will, indeed, have something over their PS3 Fat (is that the standard nomenclature now?) brethren: Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio support.

Yup, now people with high-end audio setups will be able to listen to the lossless audio tracks on their favorite Blu-ray movies. Despite the fact that I write for a tech site, I’m still “hobbling along” with a standard issue Dolby Digital/DTS audio setup; it works just fine, and was plenty cheap at $100.

Again, if this system debuted in 2006, things, I think, would be a little different today (knowing full well that Sony couldn’t have afforded a $300 PS3 back then).

Are you surprised that Sony is putting the kibosh on backwards compatibility once and for all?

Benefits of the new fangled chip based on IBM’s Power architecture promises improved performance with less power being drawn on the whole. And we all know how much of a power hog the last gen PS3 was/is. An improved Nvidia graphics processor is also on board, but neither Sony nor Nvidia have revealed any details on the new chip.

via Yahoo Tech

Sony loves them some bundle packs and the Gundam franchise will be the first to grace the box of a PS3 Slim. The Japanese only box will include Kidou Senshi Gundam Senki and will save gamers a few yen. But the pack also includes product codes for FA-78-3 Full Armor Gundam and RX-81AS Assault Armor DLC packs, and an original HD animated Gundam film.

The bundle will be available on September 3rd along with standard PS3 Slim. It’s priced at 38, 359 Yen, which is just 50 Yen less than the cost of the console and game separately. That’s only about 53 cents, btw. But hey, if you’re a Gundam fan, and you know who you are, the box is probably what you’re after anyway to be displayed along with your collectible action figures. Maybe you can make a nice doll house out of it. That would be cool. Just ask your mom if you can use the scissors first.

[andriasang via Destructoid]

Watching the news come in yesterday about the PS3 Slim, I said to myself, “Man, this is great for Sony, especially if we’re still in 2006.” Harsh, perhaps, but the sentiment is spot-on: had Sony released the PS3, Slim or otherwise, at $299 back in the autumn of 2006, we could well have seen an effortless transition between the PS2 and PS3. As it turned out, three years later, we’re left wondering this: Is the PS3 Slim enough to, say, re-ignite the Console Wars?

Let’s get one thing clear from the get-go: I patently don’t care one way or the other if Xbox rules and Sony drools, or vice-versa. How well a corporation does doesn’t affect me in the slightest. That said, it is somewhat fun to endless speculate “what if?” questions all day long.

With that out of the way, we can move on.

So what is the PS3 Slim? If you weren’t online yesterday you would have missed that Sony officially announced the system at a trade show in Europe. The PS3 Slim, as the name implies, is merely a smaller PS3, but one, crucially, that costs only $299. The PS3 launched, back in 2006, at $599—a ridiculous price even when we weren’t in a recession. The PS3 Slim has the same features as any other PS3 you’re able to find on store shelves: plays Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs; has a hard drive (here, 120GB) where you can store your digital photos and whatnot, then stream them around the house via built-in Wi-Fi; it also, funnily enough, plays PS3 games, as well as PS1 games. Backwards compatibility with PS2 games has totally been eliminated, so keep that PS2 Slim handy if you’re itching to play Final Fantasy XII or God of War again.

Considering that Sony’s own research indicated that very few people were buying the PS3 with the intention of playing PS2 games, I don’t see the lack of PS2 compatibility as anything more than a bullet point in a long, pointless message board thread. (SONY SUCKS AND HERES WHY! kind of thing.)

In summary, in just a few week’s time, you’ll be able to buy a PS3 Slim, and play Whatever 4 and watch Lost on Blu-ray for only $299. That’s not a bad deal, particularly if you’re a movie buff, or like buying TV boxsets on Blu-ray.

But how does that, a $299 PS3, compare to Microsoft’s offering? If we’re to believe the rumors, Redmond will kill the Xbox 360 Pro model, leaving only the Elite and Arcade models, priced, presumably, at $299 and $199, respectively. So now we can compare the two systems pretty equally, provided, of course, that the Elite does drop in price.

And what would you get for the $299 Xbox 360 Elite? No Blu-ray playback, but DVD playback; a built-in hard drive for storing your content, and sharing around the house; and compatibility with all those Xbox 360 games. (Outside of Halo, how many Xbox1 games are worth playing again?)

Save for Blu-ray playback, there’s very little between the two systems, hardware-wise. Can you replace the PS3 Slim’s hard drive, and add a huge one if you want? Sure, but the average person isn’t going to do that.

Then you’re forced to examine the game libraries, which is an argument for another day.

I guess I can ask y’all wether or not you think the $299 PS3 Slim is too little, too late, or just what the doctor ordered?