Kaz Hirai Named Sony CEO

No! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale! Kaz Hirai is... the CEO!!

ECA Responds to ACTA

The ECA (Electronic Consumers Association) sent around a letter last week to inform it's members about it's ongoing fight against the 'anti-piracy' efforts SOPA, PIPA, and (new acronym!) ACTA.

Get Discovered with Best Buy

Were you aware that Best Buy is having a contest for aspiring Android game developers? Well... neither did I, but if you'll kindly click on through the break you can read all about it (and maybe take part yourself)

Shock! Poll Finds That The Dark Knight Rises is Most Awaited Sequel

One of the web's top opinion polling sites sodahead.com today announced info on a bunch of public opinion topics for the big news stories for 2012. Most of the results will not surprise...

IDW SHakes Things up With New Company Pres

IDW is one of the largest comic book publishers outside of the big two that you're going to find- and the company is only getting bigger.

Razer Posts It's PC Gaming Manifesto

For some reason, Razer (maker of high-end PC gaming peripherals) has posted a letter on the virtual door of the internet. This Lutherian declaration of computer games is targeted straight at the console manufacturers of the world, says so right in the title.


More than likely, this is for a new product. The letter mentions that "will seek to end 

the silence and bring a new age of openness and innovation to all gaming" on August 26th- but it's interesting to note that, while Razer rails in defense of of the PC side of the industry, it does so while it just began production on a series of console (specifically Xbox 360) control pads and headsets. Interesting indeed... click through to read the letter-

IBM Hits the Century Mark

100 years old today is computer giant International Business Machines.

Strange to think it but IBM was making early computers during the second world war. Crazy stuff- read all about the company and their storied history right here.

2K PR Rep Puts Foot Firmly in Mouth

Duke Nukem Forever has gotten some bad scores from critics. Okay they've gotten some really bad scores from critics. And while that hasn't seemed to stop the long awaited game from claiming the top sales spot on the charts, it has brought one unnamed PR rep from 2K to the brink of madness when he said on his Twitter feed:

"Too many went too far with their reviews." "We are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom."

The comment is now gone off of Twitter so the quote isn't exact- and while we definitely see the point as it does seem that a lot of the more 'venomous' reviews seem to forget what actually goes into the Duke games as far as outlandish content- this is going way too far.

Reviews must by definition be honest. If the reviewer feels a particular way about a product, movie, or game- they've got to come out with it in the written piece. That's the bottom line.

Bungie Publishing on iOS?

Okay, it's not actually a game per say- it's an App the lets you keep track of your Halo: Reach stats on the go. That's right... it's kinda useless, but it does have some redeeming features.

The Bungie.net Mobile App allows you to view your friends stats as well, plus the ability to pick up free account bonuses, gift things to your buddies, and watch the company's news feed.

So not too bad overall if you're a big fan of the developer. But it's the old foot in the door that's the bottom line isn't it? With one overarching App that establishes the company on the App Store- more will be on the way- Bungie is promising as much in a statement made this morning.

Keep watching the store-

Best Buy Gets Serious About Pre-Owned Sales

Very interesting little piece on Gamasutra about Best Buy. It's an interview from e3 that covers their fledgling used game program, they talk about the full rollout, an initiative to have gaming specialists, and more-

Check it out here.

First NGP Hands On Report Surfaces

It's really strange in it's wording, but I'm going to attribute that to English as a second language errors. Check it out here.

iCloud, iOS5, and More Revealed Tuesday

No word on whether or not there'll be any new hardware showing up, but Apple's WWDC keynote will show off some new software. iOS5, the new digital streaming service iCloud and the new upgrade for OSX- Lion -will all be present and accounted for.

One little interesting tidbit, the Apple presentation will end just thirty minutes before Microsoft's e3 keynote begins. A little one-upsmanship from the iDevice king towards their longtime competitor?

How long do you think it'll be before there's an Apple presence at e3?

Edit: Wow, sorry guys and gals- the headline should have read 'Tuesday' and not 'Tomorrow' If we got your hopes up, many apologies. 

PSN Store is Still Down

Although Sony's online PS store was to be once again operational today following the devastating hacker attacks from last month, it apparently wasn't to be. A brand new round of security breaches and virtual assaults have caused the grand re-opening to be further delayed- to when we don't know.

More as it comes in-

Valve Will Not be at e3

Confirming that the world as it stands today will more than likely get old and gray before we see another entry in the Half Life series of games, Valve Software has officially confirmed that they will not be putting in an official appearance at this year's e3.

So no new Left 4 Dead, no new Portal news, no Team Fortress stuff, and most importantly to about a billion fans of the game- no Half Life Episode 3, Half Life 3, or any combination of the words 'Half', 'Life', or the number '3' will be making any kind of showing at the e3 show.

Thanks for the update guys.

Modern Warfare 3 Details Leaked

In what has to be one of the biggest coups of all time, at least as far as gaming is concerned, gaming blog Kotaku has published what appears to be a complete content description for the as yet unannounced third entry in the Modern Warfare brand of Call of Duty games.

It's pretty in depth too- single player storyline, characters, locations, multiplayer info- even artwork! It's everything you could possibly want to know about one of the biggest releases of the year.

Click through for the full tale of the tape- Kotaku.

Xbox LIVE Service Alert

Not quite on the level of what's happened to Sony, but hot on the heels of that mess comes news that's disturbing nonetheless.

From Xbox.com:

Users may experience difficulties with the following services:

• Users may receive potential phishing attempts via title specific messaging while playing Modern Warfare 2.

We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience

 Here's to hoping that it's just a coincidence...

Sony Responds to PSN Outage and Just What Was Stolen

Not a whole lot of good news from Sony today about the continuing outage of the Playstation Network.

At this point, it looks like whoever was behind the assault did a lot more than steal a few downloadable games as was previously reported. Sony is now reporting that personal data of all types (basically anything that you 'told' the PSN) has been stolen. There's no apparent evidence that credit card info was compromised but as Sony themselves state, "we cannot rule out the possibility".

Bottom line? Be careful:

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking.

The Playstation company is finally taking some steps to keep it's users informed, and that's nice to see, but this should have come right at the beginning of the hack and not over a week after. Calming fears and controlling the level of backlash is one thing, keeping important info from your subscribers is quite another.

Sloppy business Sony.

PSN is Down, Unclear When it will Return

Is the hacker group 'Anonymous' responsible for the now two day old shutdown of the Playstation Network? What was, at first, publicly skirted by electronics giant and PSPappa Sony has now all but been officially confirmed- a statement has been issued that the PSN is down due to an "external Intrusion".

So it's an attack then? If you're out of the loop, a group of hackers calling themselves Anonymous took offense to Sony's treatment of George 'GeoHot' Hotz (He's the guy that was in a bit of legal trouble with the company for modding consoles- long story short, they settled) and swore a bloody oath of vengeance. Maybe this is it then?

Nothing's been heard about it, but it does look likely. And while Sony patches things up (and tries to keep things as quiet as possible)- we're all without online multiplayer. There's even word that some downloaded titles won't work, even if they have no networked components.

Strange stuff, more as we get it-

Wii 2 to be Shown at e3?

More than a few sites are reporting what originally began on CVG- that Nintendo has a big announcement lined up for this year's e3 conference in June. Namely, that the Wii 2 (or Super Wii, or Ultra NES, or whatever...) is coming in 2012.

According to the above (and now a second CVG piece) the alleged console will have "full HD visuals and graphical capabilities beyond Sony and Microsoft's current hardware". And that's not the half of it, the controller supposedly houses an HD screen (no word on whether it's touchy yet), can actually become a Wii sensor bar for backwards compatibility purposes, and has a front facing camera. 


It might seem like a belated April fools joke at first, but remember that just a short time ago Microsoft began hiring for hardware development- and Nintendo's own Reggie Fils-Aime was commenting on future consoles (in respect to 3D support, or lack there of) just a few weeks ago.


Pretty safe to assume that Nintendo's e3 conference just became a hot ticket?

Sony NGP Reconfirmed for 2011 Launch?

According to industry website MCV, Lazard Capital Markets (an investment firm), is reporting that they attended a Sony sponsored 'analyst day' where SCEA confirmed that it's upcoming portable will make US release this year.

This is in contrast to what has recently been widely guessed to be a delay for the console because of the devastating earthquakes in Japan. Even Sony's own Jack Tretton hinted to as much just last week.

If the NGP is to make it's 2011 debut as originally intended though, it's great news for Sony. With Nintendo's new 3DS already out and selling at an incredible rate, the Playstation company can't afford to get too far behind here in the early going.

One thing that was also noted from the conference was that the European and UK releases could not be assured for this year. If that's the case then that means the console would likely have a pair of launches. One for the US/Japan and then another (likely in spring of 2012) for Europe.

On a separate note, although there was no word on the progress- a few triple A games were shown off too: namely Uncharted, Socom 4, Twisted Metal, Resistance 3 and Infamous 2. Those numbers at the end of the titles are pretty conspicuous aren't they?

Some serious ports coming for the PSP's successor? Looks like it.