Sony's game division finally turns a profit -- sells 4.9M PS3s in Q3
After bleeding red for months, Sony's games division finally turned a profit last quarter. Sony sold 4.9 million PS3s last quarter after slashing console prices, boosting game titles, and cutting production costs internally. Of course, we're sure Wii shortages aren't hurting Sony's bottom line either. Sony did lower its annual sales goal of PS3s from 11 million to 9.5 million (citing a slow start) while increasing PSP projections to 13 million from 10 million as originally expected. Sony's fiscal year ends in March. Overall, Sony's profits rose 25% for the quarter.
After making such a fuss, Sony Japan just delayed Skype on PSP services in Japan. A move with a definite knock-on effect for the rest of world. The cause of which seems to be Sony's two microphone products -- the single pack PSPJ-15010 and twin pack PSPJ-15011 -- which "did not meet the Skype specifications" and thus failed the certification process. Something you think Sony would have known well before the eve of the scheduled January 24th launch.
Even before the PC version released, rumours of a PS3 conversion of the stunning Crysis (developed by Far Cry creators Crytek) were rife, and not far off the mark if insiders at the studio are to be believed. The game looks to be a port of the PC original plus some extra modes and features, a kind of Crysis 1.5. Like the PC game you can expect a visual powerhouse; an open-world shooter that begins on a beautiful tropical island before things take a turn for the worse and aliens from a parallel world stake a claim on Earth. Only the mighty Killzone 2 could possibly hold a candle to this shooter. For technical reasons we hear an Xbox 360 version of Crysis isn’t in development. Bet you’re glad you bought a PS3 now, eh?
After previewing a working demo version of Skype on the PSP at Sony's booth, the audio quality was found to be decent -- certainly comparable to what we experience when using Skype either on a PC or on the receiving end of one. The only caveat is a bit of lag time in the audio transmission, less than a second but enough to be noticeable. The interface is super simple -- just select the Skype icon and you can see your buddy list of who's online; select someone to ring them up. At the demo station the headset in use was just a regular PSP headset jury-rigged up to the video out jack via the remote control cable -- not something we'll see in production. Since third-party manufacturers will be free to make their own PSP Skype headsets, there should sooner or later be some range of options available for headsets to use according to taste.
Details are fairly light on this one, but it looks like Mac users wanting to bring some Connect360-style media sharing to their PlayStation 3 and computer of choice will soon be able to get their fix, and from the same folks behind that well-worn app, no less. According to Nullriver, it'll be releasing its MediaLink application later this week, which it says has been "designed from the ground up for the PS3" and provides "true integration with the Mac." No word on a price, though we wouldn't expect it to be too out of line with the $20 the company currently charges for Connect360 (a free trial of which is also available).
The Logitech's DiNovo Mini has a hidden switch inside that allows you to select between PC and PS3 modes. We're not 100 percent on what it switches around -- it's Bluetooth either way, after all -- but we're assuming some of the function keys get remapped.
The ESRB has apparently given a rating of “T” for Street Fighter Alpha on the PS3. I was unaware that SFA was headed to the PS3, but considering it has already been rated, expect to see it soon. I imagine that this will be something headed to the PlayStation store in the near future. Street Fighter Alpha was an interesting PS1 game that was a little different than previous games from the series. The characters were created in more of an “anime appearance” than in previous installments of the series.
