---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

EDI is not just a place for game developers to regurgitate old titles with slightly retooled graphics, nor just a dumping ground for casual games. It is a honest attempt at creating a space for indie games in the console world. EDI has been quietly working with a number of teams to come out with smaller scale games which would benefit from such an approach (“about 40” exclusive titles). One has to only look as far as David Jaffe’s latest offering to contemplate the possibilities of such a system. Yes, Sony still has a long way to go to fulfill the potential of EDI, but what we’ve seen so far is very promising.

---

---

The reality is that the friend’s list support that Sony have provided in their libraries is terrible. From within a game, you are notified when your friends sign on and sign off (with a nice translucent overlay)…and that’s about it. Developers have no way of interfacing with this list in any useful manner. You can’t find out if your friends are watching a movie, surfing the net or playing another game. If you send them an invite, you have to hope they sign on to the same game you’re playing before they’ll even see it. Furthermore, there is currently no functionality to even “accept” the invite. It’s just a message to come join a game; it won’t actually take you to the game. Developers have to deal with that problem themselves.

---

---

Currently, there is also no default headset support, no voice support on the PS3. This feature has been a TRC requirement for every online game for the Xbox. Let me rephrase that: since the launch of Xbox Live (over 4 years ago), every online game released had to support voice chat. And of course, Microsoft provided libraries. If developers want to support voice chat on the PS3 right now, they have to implement it themselves.

---

---

As a relevant example, SCEA had apparently developed a complete online solution for the PS3 (to put it on par with Xbox Live for multiplayer support, ranking, achievements, etc). Sony Japan reportedly came in and cancelled the whole thing, simply saying, “no, you have to use the libraries we’ve put together”.

---

---

The lack of a consistent system to offer multiplayer support will lead to vastly different levels of quality across different games. In comparison, Microsoft has only ever allowed one publisher to handle their own multiplayer service on Xbox Live: EA. And judging by how poorly consumers are responding to EA’s online support, EA is paying a steep price for its arrogant belief that they can always do better.

---

---

Sony sold 88,400 PS3s in Japan in 2 days: publisher
Mon Nov 13, 5:39 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). sold 88,400 units of its PlayStation 3 game console in the first two days after the launch in Japan, leaving most stores without any stock, video game magazine publisher Enterbrain said on Monday.

Sony started selling the latest version of its blockbuster game console in Japan on Saturday, and all indications point to a strong start. Sony plans to have the PS3 on shelves in North America on November 17, followed by a European launch in March.

According to Enterbrain, Sony sold 88,400 units combined on Saturday and Sunday, depleting stocks at most electronics retailers that were able to get their hands on a limited supply of the console.

Sony was able to ship only 100,000 units for the launch after a glitch in blue laser diode production disrupted its output plans.

An official at Enterbrain said the sales figure could be interpreted as a promising start for the PS3, with thousands of game fans queuing for hours at electronics stores in Tokyo over the weekend to be among the first to play PS3 games.

The PS3 is up against Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, which has been on sale for the past year, and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s upcoming Wii game console, which is scheduled to go on sale on November 19 in the United States and December 2 in Japan.

Enterbrain said that Ridge Racer 7 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight, both from Namco Bandai Holdings, were the top two selling games at about 30,000 units each.

The basic model of the PS3, equipped with a 20-gigabyte hard disk drive, sells for 49,980 yen ($425), while a more advanced 60-gigabyte version is retailing for about 60,000 yen.

Of the total sold so far in Japan, Enterbrain said 54,600, or about 62 percent, were of the more advanced model.

---

---

November 10, 2006

Merrill Lynch Predicts Massive PS3 Losses, Downgrades Sony
The Japanese arm of analyst and financial firm Merrill Lynch has revised down Sony's forecast and cut its target share price, in anticipation of the launch of the company's PlayStation 3 next-gen console.

Japanese news service FISCO has reported that the company's target share prices of Sony has fallen from ¥4,700 to ¥4,000 (from $40.05 down to $34.09). In addition, Merrill Lynch is estimating a multi-billion dollar operating loss for Sony based on its PlayStation 3 launch.

The group has said it expects Sony to lose a total of ¥738.9 billion ($6.3 billion) over the next 5 years based on manufacturing and sales costs of the PlayStation 3, which includes complex elements in both its CPU and optical drive arenas.

It was Merrill Lynch estimates that earlier this year described the console as an “expensive and difficult-to-manufacture product” based on the “problem points” of the the Cell processor and Blu-ray disc drive, and put manufacturing costs of the console at around $800 at launch, falling to $320 over the following three years.

That followed more estimates from the company that suggested the PlayStation 3 would not be launched until late 2006 in Japan and early 2007 in North America. Sony refuted the comments at the time, as it was still aiming for a spring 2006 launch. Though both of these regions will be seeing the launch of the console over the coming week, the European PS3 launch has been delayed into early 2007.

POSTED: 03.17PM PST, 11/10/06 - Brandon Boyer

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

US, November 12, 2006 - With the PlayStation 3, Sony has at last brought a unified online experience to the PlayStation platform, with a single login, friend list, and shopping point common to most games. While we already detailed the online gameplay experience through Ridge Racer 7 (be sure and check out our Ridge media page for some burning online gameplay videos), we're sure you're concerned about how smoothly the PlayStation Store experience is, especially since you'll likely be spending lots of cash on game and item downloads once (most likely far, far in the future) you've gotten hold of your own system.

You've seen all the attractive screens showing the gorgeous interface that looks like a clear step up from Microsoft's Xbox 360 marketplace interface. The PlayStation Store is indeed easy on the eyes, especially if you've got a high-def television. Sony picked an attractive color theme and font set, making the store look professional (warning: this could be a trick to make you spend more money on useless Genji items!).

In addition to just looking nice, the layout of the shop is easy to understand. The main shopping window is on the left side of the screen. In its current form, it's split into four sections: new games, containing downloads of game demos and full games; game archives, containing downloads of classic titles; add-on items, consisting of micro-transaction items for games; and video, consisting of game and movie trailers. To the right of the shopping window is a what's-new section, which lists recently added content, and a focus section, which highlights a single piece of content.

There isn't really much to access under these headings at this point. At the time of publication, the PlayStation Store had the following items:

New Games
Mainichi Issho (free)
Ridge Racer 7 Demo (free)
Blast Factor Demo (free)
Blast Factor (840 yen)

Game Archives
Nothing available yet

Bonus Items
Genji item (free)

Video
Gran Turismo HD TGS trailer (free)
Afrika TGS trailer (free)
Genji movie (free)
007 Casino Royal movie trailer (free)
Open Season movie trailer (free)
Blu-ray disc trailers (free)

The game archives will probably be empty until later this month, when Sony adds the first PlayStation downloads for the PSP. Also, the Blu-ray disc trailers item is actually a folder which houses six downloadable Blu-ray disc trailers.

Click on an item, and you're taken to a full screen view detailing the content and pricing information. This screen gives a detailed description of what exactly it is that you're downloading, along with compatible resolutions, space required for the download and for saving (if you're downloading a game) and any warning messages.

In the case of free content, this screen houses a download button. Click on this, and after selecting the location for your download, the download starts up immediately. Alas, our worst fears (second only to the threat of nuclear annihilation from North Korea) have been realized: the PS3, like the early Xbox 360, can't multitask downloads. You're stuck waiting for the download to finish before you can take control of your system. Thankfully, the network was pretty fast for the few downloads we made, with a 200 megabyte download taking less than a minute. For game content, the PS3 also goes through an automatic installation process which takes just a few seconds. Still, we hope a download list is on the cards for the next firmware update.

If you're dealing with paid content, the download button is replaced with a button for placing the content in your shopping cart. Click on it, and you're taken to your shopping cart screen, which lists all the items you have in your cart, the total bill, and the amount of money you'll have remaining in your wallet following purchase. You can continue shopping, or proceed to checkout from here.

We tested out the paid shopping experience with the single paid item currently in the PlayStation Store, Blast Factor. Following the shopping cart screen, we attempted to purchase the item, but the shop warned that the IGN wallet was empty and asked if we'd like to add charge. Currently, charging can be achieved exclusively through credit card, and it has to be a Japanese credit card at that. Other options, including gift certificate and pre-paid card code entry, will presumably be added when such products are available for purchase.

The overall flow of the shopping experience at the PlayStation Store is smooth. There's some concern that the interface won't be able to cope with the oceans of content that will become available throughout the system's life. However, a flexible folder structure for the main shopping screen should ensure that Sony will be able to organize its content in various ways.

One of the nice things about the PlayStation Store, at least for those worried about overspending, is that it sends e-mails to you whenever you download anything. Following your download, you get a receipt sent to the e-mail that you specified when registering your PlayStation Network account. The receipt lists the items that you purchased, the purchase amount, and the amount of money remaining in your wallet. Of course, you can also keep track of all this via an option on the cross media bar that keeps track of your purchase history.

Despite smooth process to checkout, the PlayStation Store interface does have some big problems at this point. Most prominent is its unresponsiveness. Every button press makes the interface pause for a brief moment as it loads up new header images. Moving between the few items currently available was annoying enough; we can't imagine what will happen when the content starts filling up.

The store, which runs as a webpage using the PS3's web browser, seems more optimized at this point for the mouse than for controller use, something that will cause a problem for most PS3 owners. It's true that the analogue stick can be used to move a pointer around like a mouse, but this works as poorly as it has in previous console-based browsers. Your best bet for navigation is to use the d-pad, but with the current shopping interface, this occasionally requires scrolling through text descriptions, and guessing at which button you should push due to icons not lining up correctly.

A few other issues seem like mere oversights rather than problematic design decisions. The shop currently doesn't mark which items you've already downloaded. We kept on downloading the same Blast Factor demo over and over again. At least the store was smart enough to overwrite the original demo rather than creating multiple copies.

We've posted a video of the PlayStation Store in action. Unfortunately, we had to reduce the output resolution of the PS3 to standard def in order to capture the video. The store's content is easier to access when viewed in at least 720p, so keep in mind that you're not getting a look at the optimized shopping experience that you'll have if you have a high def television.

---

---

---

---

---