A survey emailed to current and past Planetside subscribes has indicated that Sony is planning “to expand the Planetside universe with another game”. It has also been discovered that SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) registered Planetside2.com on September 21st.

“We plan to expand the PlanetSide® universe with another game and we need your help with the design. After all, who knows the game better than you, our customers, the people who actually play it! Don’t worry about the original PlanetSide, it isn’t going anywhere.

We want to hear your opinion and to do so we have put together a short survey. The information you provide will play a critical role into helping guide the development and direction of the next hit Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter.” - Source

Planetside Universe, a Planetside fan site, contacted John Smedley, the CEO of SOE, who had this to say;

“PlanetSide fans will be happy We have big things planned in the next 12 months. We’re working on something new that’s really cool.” - Source

Planetside was never the most popular MMO (at its peak it was estimated to have around 75,000 players) but it had some great ideas, which led to some truly epic moments (some of the player stories that came out of the game are amazing). Now only a few thousand hardcrore fans remain and you’d be lucky to see the massive battles that the game experienced during its prime. If a new game can successfully fix its predecessors problems then I’m all for it, just like the guys over at Rock, Paper Shotgun.

As I somewhat speculated yesterday Sony have confirmed that PSP owners will officially be unable to transfer their UMD games to the digital-only PSPgo system upon its release next week. This means, obviously, that you will be unable to play any of the PSP games you currently own on the new iteration of the PSP, if you decide to upgrade of course.

Sony officially ended any hope for such a program by releasing a statement to Kotaku;

“We were evaluating a UMD conversion program, but due to legal and technical reasons we will not be offering the program at this time,” - Source

Sony originally said that they would try to find a way for people who own UMD games to transfer their purchases to digital form so they could be played o the PSPgo. The statement released yesterday does leave a small window open for the future, but it’s pretty unlikely that we will ever see such a program. There was a rumour that Sony would install kiosks in various shops, which would allow people to turn their existing UMD games into digital form. Sony probably figured that would be too expensive, so we’re left with no options at all (well, no legal ones anyway).

Like I said before, you’re probably better off sticking with your old PSP than splashing out for a new one. Sony is still trying to tempt you in with the reward program, but it’s not worth the asking price of a PSPgo purchase (which, in my opinion, is overpriced anyway). For everyone else the PSPgo is a good purchase if you’re willing to pay the high price (which, in Denmark, is ridiculously priced as high as a PS3). I wouldn’t have said that any PSP was worth it a few years back, but the library of games, downloadable PSOne classics and the upcoming PSP Minis it’s not a bad purchase. To be totally honest though it doesn’t really matter what model you get (although you do get more choice with an older PSP), unless you’re the kind of person who needs to have the latest version of a gadget, even if it seems like a step backwards.

We weren’t really sure what Sony meant when they said they would come up with some way to compensate those who own PSP UMD games but want to upgrade to the download only PSP Go. We now have a slightly better idea of what Sony is going to do, and it may not be exactly what you were hoping for.

Sony is offering Europeans the chance to take part in a rewards program, which involves placing a UMD in your existing PSP then downloading a special PSPgo theme from PSN. After doing this you should be sent an email containing a voucher code which you can exchange in return for three free downloads out of a choice of 17 full games. Some of the games include Killzone: Liberation (I own this, and it’s actually pretty good), SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3, Everybody’s Golf, WipEout Pure, Echochrome, LocoRoco, Patapon and Buzz!: Master Quiz. The offer is open to anybody who owns an existing PSP model, plus at least one game, who buys and registers a PSPgo from its release on 1st October until 31st March next year.

So, while you may not be able to turn your existing purchases into a free download it’s certainly better than nothing if you’re set on buying a PSPgo. People with a large library of UMD games are going to be disappointed, there’s little doubt about that, but I’m finding it hard to figure out how Sony would be able to turn your existing purchases into downloads anyway. How can you prove that you own a game, especially if it was bought a few years back? There must be some way of doing it, and I doubt Sony will be losing many sales by coming up with a solution as the majority of people are unlikely to buy another copy of something they already own.

Like some Dutch retailers I don’t really care for the PSPgo. A smaller screen and more cramped controls doesn’t really do much for me, especially as memory sticks are getting cheaper all the time. I don’t use my PSP much, but if I do buy a game I can now choose to between a UMD or a download, which is far better than only having one option.

If you live in the Netherlands then you’ve just lost a possible place to buy a PSPgo when it’s released in October. Eurogamer reports that the Dutch retailer Nedgame – the country’s largest specialist games retailer – are refusing to stock and sell Sony’s new product.

There are a number of reasons why this is happening, one of them being that Nedgame believes that the PSPgo is too expensive priced at €249.99, and they certainly have a point as it’s €80 more than the PSP-3000 that is currently on the market. Apparently the cost isn’t justified, with the smaller screen being one example of why it isn’t worth the asking price. However, this is not the main reason for the ‘boycott’.

The lack of a UMD drive on the PSPgo is putting retailers like Nedgame off selling the product. Retailers make the most profit off software, and not hardware, when it comes to games; so this means that they’re about to lose out on the majority of the profit from a section of the video game market (plus the pre-owned market, which is a huge slice of income for retailers such as the American Gamestop), and with Nedgame being a specialist retailer they’ll be even more worried as the video game market moves ever closer to full digital distribution.

Of course, retailers have tried to gain from digital distribution by selling downloadable games through their website, or selling, for example, Xbox Live points cards in-store. However, the PSPgo is different in that Sony is effectively creating a monopoly on the software for the console by making them only available on the Playstation Store; which, in my mind, is pretty bad from a consumer viewpoint. No competition means that Sony can price however they want, but I suppose you do get the added bonus of all your games being easily accessible from one PSN account.

Eurogamer Holland says that other Dutch retailers are starting to grumble too, and it probably won’t be long before retailers in other countries start to have their say (apparently Spanish retailers are considering following suit). At least you can be sure that your local supermarket will be selling them come launch day, but have we really go to the point where specialist game retailers don’t really matter anymore? I know I haven’t bought a game in one for ages, unless it was off their website, largely because the prices are more expensive than the Internet.

Personally I’m just going to keep my old PSP and use SD cards to store downloadable games, just like I did with Final Fantasy VII a few months back.

Just when we thought two Star Wars MMO’s were enough for any fan rumours rise out of the murky depths of Dagobah that Sony Online Entertainment is working on a new one. SOE have already tried this once with Star Wars Galaxies - which had a brief spurt of popularity but lost many fans when it was decided to introduce a ‘combat upgrade’ - and Bioware are currently working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, which looks very tasty indeed. An “insider source” is now saying that a third game may be on the drawing board, which is apparently going to be casual-centric and will most likely be based on the animated Clone Wars series.

Ten Ton Hammer says their anonymous source confirmed the rumour at PAX, where it was said that SOE will probably use the same engine as their immensely popular browser-based MMO Free Realms. So, if we’re talking that casual – combined with its roots in the animated series – then it’s probably not going to be something to get overly excited about unless you’re pretty young or a casual player who happens to like Star Wars. Going for the casual crowd means that SOE isn’t trying to be a direct competitor to Bioware’s attempt, and by doing this SOE may pick up the players who don’t want to sink a lot of time into a fully fledged MMO but still want to play a Star Wars game.

Given the source material the game will most likely take on the look of the animated series, which may or may not be a good thing depending on whether or not you liked the look of Clone Wars (I didn’t). Even so, if this rumour is true and SOE can successfully replicate the appeal of Free Realms to the casual crowd then they may have a winner on their hands to make up for the disappointment that was Star Wars Galaxies. Either that or they’ll fail miserably again.

(Image source)

Related Posts:

• Bioware Announces New Star Wars MMO

Sony has finally confirmed that the previously rumoured ‘slim’ version of the Playstation 3 is real and will be in shops during the first week of September (yes, that’s next month people!). It’s apparently 33% smaller and 36% lighter that the current PS3 (you can see a comparison shot below), has a 120GB hard drive, and will cost 299 Euro’s or £249.99, which means that we’re unfortunately still getting the short straw when it comes to comparing prices here and prices in the US.

The news was revealed during Sony’s press conference by Sony Computer Entertainment America head Kaz Hirai at GamesCom. The press conference also revealed that all current models will finally be getting a much requested price drop from tomorrow. The price will be the same as the PS3 Slim, so you can either buy one now or wait less than a month for a newer and slimmer version for the same price (it’s really a no brainer, just wait). Before you complain that the price of the PS3 Slim should be cheaper than the original PS3 (like the PS2 Slim was for a while), due to cheaper components or whatever, it’s obvious that this move is intended to replace the original once stocks of its predecessor have all left the warehouse (ASDA certainly believes the old one will be phased out anyway).

Personally I’m not sure I dig the new look, but I suppose the loss of shininess will lead the less finger prints all over your console. It doesn’t really matter about the look though, as it finally means that the PS3 can now compete with the other consoles at a more reasonable price point. It’s no longer that expensive when comparing it to the Xbox 360, and with a great stable of games lined up for release (and a number of good ones already out) it’s now easily worth owning one.

Good one Sony, even though it took you long enough.

The ongoing rumours that Sony may currently be working on a ’slim’ version of their Playstation 3 have seemingly gained further strength. Taiwan’s DigiTimes say that Sony has recently “placed significant orders for key Sony PS3 components” from local manufacturing companies. What’s interesting about this news is that the quantities are far greater than the orders that Sony normally place.

Apparently Sony have ordered enough parts to produce one million PS3 consoles in the third quarter of this year, which is double the average of the last quarter.

Of course, Sony may only be ramping up production because of expectation for a higher demand for PS3’s in the next quarter (demand is pretty low at the moment), especially as Christmas is included in the financial quarter and there are a number of big games hitting in the months leading up to it. Another reason for the increase is that Sony are about to discontinue the 80GB model in Japan, leaving Japan open for the 160GB model that the country has yet to receive (the model is already available in PAL and NTSC territories).

So, when you consider the two reasons above does the PS3 ‘Slim’ rumour actually have any legs? Well, there were the so-called ‘leaked’ photos of a prototype from Taiwan. Ars Technica speculated that we would see the new model during either August or September, citing their ‘trusty inside source’. Finally the Amazon.de retailer posted a listing for a PS3 ‘Slim’, although this was later removed from the site.

All we really know is that based on the smaller versions of both the Playstation and Playstation 2 – and now the PSP in the form of the PSP Go - it would be a bit strange for Sony not to take the same route with their current generation console. Anything else is just pure speculation at best. In any case, a price drop is what most people want at the moment and not a revamped console. Obviously if Sony follow the price cutting trend of the ‘slim’ versions of their older consoles then a price drop would be inevitable anyway; just don’t expect it to fall below £200 anytime soon.

Sony PS3 components demand growing significantly - DigiTimes

(Image source)

Is there any better way to kick off the weekend than presenting you with a statistics report? Most definitely, but you will just have to make do with this for now.

Sony used Brighton’s Develop 2009 to unleash a bunch of statistics on the gathered audience, some of which pertained to the usage of the Playstation 3’s ‘virtual world’ service Playstation Home. Home director Peter Edwards let us know that “only 80 percent of users fall into the 18-35-year-old male demographic”, which means a 10 percent drop in traditional console usage. He also said that between 25 and 35 percent of PS3 users have used the Home service “at least once”.

“Home has a significantly broader spectrum of users than your typical console audience,” he said, “We are slowly broadening the appeal of the console demographic.” - Gamasutra

He declined to mention what percentage of those who have logged on to Home are currently active users, which is probably Sony’s way of saying “a lot less than we hoped”. We also don’t know who makes up the remaining 20 percent of users. For instance, how many of those users are female? Are most of them just males under the age of 18? The quote below is just one reporters experience of using Home:

A more recent dip into Home had fewer people saying lewd things to my avatar, though the surrounding conversations still seemed reminiscent of an adolescent-filled AOL chatroom (”a/s/l?”). Some users claimed to be as young as 11 years old, and proceeded to call surrounding users “gay dudes.” - Game|Life

The bottom line is that if you see female avatars in Home it’s more than likely that the person sitting in front of their TV is actually male. Given that some males seem to barrage those that are using female avatars it makes you wonder if some females are actually using male avatars to avoid being harassed.

Home is slowly getting more content, and some of it (such as the Red Bull air race) is worth logging on every now and again though. Unfortunately unless Sony comes up with something that makes you log in day in day out Home is not going to be the success they hoped it would be.

(Image courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk)

As I mentioned in my Wii press conference report Sony also had the job of trying to top Microsoft, especially as they are currently third in the market. Thankfully Sony did an excellent job, with some new exclusives and new hardware to boot. Read on for the full story.

Jack Tretton kicked off the press conference by announcing that an impressive 364 games will be coming to Playstation platforms this year. He also mentioned that Sony is dedicated to continued support of the Playstation 2 even after its ten year anniversary passes. It’s nice to see Sony still supporting the PS2, considering it’s still a console that’s in millions of homes worldwide.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune 2 was the first game to be shown, making sure that Sony started on a spectacular note. The visuals are looking stunning, with humongous draw details to boot. The action that made the first game so fun to play is also very intact; with Drake running along rooftops, sliding down zipwires, using everything as cover all while evading a persistent helicopter that likes to shoot machine gun rounds and missiles. The demo ends with the helicopter taking out the building Drake and his companion are in, with the two characters sliding through rooms as the building slowly topples, before finally leaping out into an adjacent building.

Next up was MAG, which was determined to show why it earned the title ‘Massive Action Game’. Sony pulled off a live demonstration of 256 players playing simultaneously while the audience looked on. The emphasis was on the tactical action, with players securing a forward base to allow their main command to move up and establish themselves further up the map.

Kaz Hirai then came on to show us the PSP Go, getting one out of his pocket and showing it to the audience. I’ve already covered the PSP Go’s features so I won’t get into too much detail, but it’s 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the PSP 3000. Sony will also be releasing software called ‘Media Go’ which will help users manage their PSP’s content on their PC. Another feature called ‘Sense Me’ also promises to analyse your music library to play music based on the mood of your choice. Finally, the price will be $249.99/€249.99 (there’s no word on whether it will be the same for pounds or not) and will be released on 1st October.

A surprising announcement was Gran Turismo for the PSP. It’s a fully fledged Gran Turismo game that will apparently run at 60 fps and boasts 800 cars and 35 tracks. You can also swap cars from your garages with other PSP users, and its release will coincide with the PSP Go’s release on 1st October.

Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker for the PSP was announced next, which takes place 10 years after Metal Gear Solid 3. The visuals are looking really nice for a PSP game, and stealth seems to play more of a part than ever before.

Also announced was a Resident Evil game for the PSP, although that’s all the information we’ve got right now.

Finally for the PSP announcements Final Fantasy VII (as I already posted about) will hit US PSN stores for the PS3 and PSP at midnight tonight. However, there’s no word on a European release as of yet.

Sony also briefly mentioned Rockstar North’s PS3 exclusive Agent, which takes place in the 1970’s. Um, that’s pretty much it.

Gameplay footage from Assassin’s Creed II showed why Ubisoft neglected to show any in their utterly boring press conference yesterday. We already know the setting, so we saw Ezio walking through dancing crowds at the Venice Carnival. Ezio used the famous flying machine invented by Da Vinci, swooping over the canals of Venice, and also pulled a jaw-dropping two-fisted assassination on two guards. It’s looking pretty good at the moment, but we still don’t know if there’s more variety to the missions than the first game.

New gameplay footage of Final Fantasy XIII was shown, with the English voice acting already done. Tretton then announced one of the most surprising things I’ve heard all week. A Final Fantasy XIV trailer was shown, something I didn’t expect to happen for at least another year. The game will be PS3 exclusive and the ‘online’ part of the announcement alludes to the game being an MMO like Final Fantasy XI.

Now it was time for Sony to show off their previously rumoured attempt at motion control. This now means that all three big players will offer some form of motion control.

Sony’s attempt is currently still in the prototype stage, so the two wireless wands are little more than a stick with a ball attached. It’s clear that Sony is attempting to better the Wii’s Motion Plus, with a tech demo showing that the technology has incredible precision. The wands can turn into a virtual representation of anything on screen, the demonstrator switching between tennis racquets, swords, guns, flashlights and even stop signs. The most impressive parts were writing with the wands and using it as a bow, pretending to pull a bow from an imaginary quiver on his back to rearm himself.

While the technology on display was impressive Nintendo has own thing going for it that Microsoft and Sony don’t – they had motion controls from launch. Wii was built on the idea of motion control, enabling developers to support it from launch because they knew that everyone who owned a Wii also had access to motion controls. Are developers really willing to risk releasing a game with only motion controls when most of the console base may not even own the perhipials that are needed to play such a game? It’s more likely that the motion controls will be an afterthought tacked onto games that are built with standard controllers in mind. It’s all about money in the end, and a company would be more likely to go for the safe bet of the Wii then risk losing sales because people didn’t own the controllers their game required.

A game called ModNation Racers came next, a kart racer that was inspired by the ‘play create share’ genre that was apparently created by LittleBigPlanet. You can design cars, racers and even tracks and then upload them for others in the PSN community. The track editor was demonstrated, which was looking both simple to use and incredibly detailed (sort of like the Far Cry 2 map editor). In only five minutes the demonstrator had created a small track running through hills and rocky terrain; with trees and villages placed around the track and even sheep milling around. The creation tools for the game are great, but will it actually be fun to play?

Next was The Last Guardian from Team ICO. The video for this had already been leaked in the form of Trico, but the trailer on show was an updated version of this. It looks beautiful, following the story of a boy and his, um, big pet cat thing? I’m not actually sure what it is, so you’ll have to check out the video yourself. Basically the game looks like a cross between Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.

Gran Turismo 5 then made a sudden appearance, but only in the form of another trailer. The graphics are looking spectacular, but the game really needs to be released sometime soon.

Finally a God of War III demo was shown, which was more than epic. We saw Kratos ripping through hordes of enemies; send them flying around the level. He also used harpies to reach higher locations, grabbing onto them and doing an uppercut with his sword to make them fly higher. The best part was when he gutted a centaur with a gigantic lava titan watching in the distance. It’s good to see that the gore will splatter more than ever, and a 20 minute demo at E3 will mean we’ll get some impressions as E3 continues. The game itself will be released in March 2010.

Overall Sony’s press conference was fairly entertaining, with some great exclusives and an intriguing motion control system. However, when it comes to summing up all three major press conferences I have to hand it to Microsoft. Project Natal is looking awesome and all the upgrades coming to Xbox Live and, of course, the exclusive games are making me wish everything would be released this week. I’m wrong of course, because then we would have nothing to look forward to.

This post concludes ButtonSmasher’s E309’s press conference coverage, but keep checking back throughout the week for more news and impressions coming out of the world’s biggest video games show.

We already knew that a new PSP was rumoured to be in development, and now we have some official looking shots and leaked interview footage that pretty much confirms the speculation. Coming just two days before E3 is due to kick off all these leaks may have just ruined Sony’s big surprise, but if that’s the only big thing Sony was planning for their E3 press conference then it would have been extremely boring to sit through.

The buttons in the image above are said to slide back in under the screen when not in use, leading to a much smaller and lighter design. The biggest change though, although it has really been a long time coming, is the absence of a UMD drive. Games will be provided through digital downloads, which can be saved to memory sticks or the handheld consoles 16GB of flash memory. While it is apparently not intended to replace the PSP-3000 (much like the DSi and the DS) it is pretty much the last nail in the coffin for the UMD format.

Other little tid-bits include the ability to rent videos through PSN - just like the PS3 - and has new games such as Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, Jak & Daxter and Metal Gear Solid lined up for it. It will also apparently arrive by Autumn, but we don’t know if that means a worldwide release or not.

The age of the Internet means it’s pretty much impossible to stop any secrets being released before they were intended. Even with all this information in hand it will still be interesting to see Sony demonstrating it at E3. Plus we will also get official confirmation on what’s true and what’s not; although due to it being so close to E3 I’d be greatly surprised if any of the information turns out to be false.

If you’re interested in seeing how the PSP Go’s size compares to the other big handheld players on the market then Kotaku has some interesting size comparisons.