The company sold a total of 2.3 million of the consoles in the first three months of this year to take the full-year total to just shy of Sony’s target of 9.5 million units. Sony had originally forecast sales in the year of 11 million units but three months ago revised to the more conservative target when it realized it wouldn’t make its original estimate.
Some consolation for Sony will be that its PlayStation Portable business now appears to be on the right track following a lackluster debut. Shipments of the handheld gaming device came in ahead of target at 13.89 million units. Sony had been anticipating shipments of only 13 million consoles in the year.
PlayStation 2 shipments showed weakness, which had been expected as consumers focused on the higher profile and higher power PlayStation 2. A total of 13.73 million PlayStation 2 consoles were shipped in the year.
“The PlayStation 3 platform expanded worldwide with an enhanced software line-up and a new model,” Sony’s chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda said at a Tokyo news conference on Wednesday. “Due to a reduction in the manufacturing cost of the PlayStation 3 and reduction in software prices, operating losses shrunk significantly and the business was in the black in the second half of the year.”
Overall Sony’s games business saw sales jump 26.3 percent during the year to ¥1.3 trillion (US$12.3 billion) and losses retreated from ¥232.3 billion a year earlier to ¥124.5 billion.
For the current year Sony expects its games business to record a profit.
Shipments of the PlayStation 3 are expected to be 10 million units, those of the PlayStation Portable 15 million units and those of the PlayStation 2 9 million units, Sony said.
Shipments of Sony’s PlayStation 3 games console came in under target at 9.24 million units in the financial year to the end of March, and Sony’s gaming business remained in the red, Sony said Wednesday.
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For those of you who have been trying to guess the full lineup of games that Microsoft Game Studios will release this year you can now stop guessing, as we now have the full year lineup. As you would expect the biggest title on the list is Gears of War 2, but there are still some other great titles for all tastes. This new lineup was unveiled at a showcase event in San Francisco, it even had Epic’s Gears of War 2 chief giving us a little demonstration of the fantastic gameplay that his title has to offer. It seemed as if he just wanted to show off the games great gameplay as well as the superb visual effects while playing a campaign sequence.
The list of titles include Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness which comes out on May 21, then we has Ninja Gaiden II which comes out on June 6, Too Human is released on August 19. Other tiltes include Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise that’s out in September with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts coming in November. Then we have the much anticipated Gears of War 2 at Christmas along with Fable 2.
It seems that Microsoft have some superb titles on the way this year, maybe they are trying extra hard so gamers do not jump ship over to another games console like so many others have.
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Yesterday we reported that HP was to buy EDS where we said “HP to Buy EDS: Would this mean the ability to compete against rivals IBM Corp?, well today we have the latest information that HP and EDS have announced that they have finally signed a definitive agreement where HP will purchase EDS at a price of $25.00 per share which actually means an enterprise of around $13.9 billion; this has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of HP and EDS.
This new transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar year 2008 which will more than double HP’s services revenue at $16.6 billion in fiscal 2007, as of the end of each company’s 2007 fiscal year where annual revenues of over $38 billion and 210,000 employees doing business in over 80 countries. HP are intending to establish a new business group to be branded EDS and HP company which will have their head quarters at EDS’s existing executive offices in Plano, Texas. HP do plan on EDS to continue to be led after the deal closes by EDS Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Ronald A. Rittenmeyer who will indeed join HP’s executive council and report to Mark Hurd, HP’s chairman and chief executive officer.
HP to Acquire EDS for $13.9 Billion, Transaction expected to more than double HP’s revenue from services, furthering its standing as world’s largest technology company and EDS shareholders to receive $25.00 per share in cash for each EDS share, this is all good news where the company will definitely be able to compete even more so now with rivals. The combination of the two companies HP and EDS will bring a force of leading global IT services which means a stronger business partner, most competitive portfolio of products and services in the industry and delivering customers the broadest services.
Looks like technology will only get stronger; Rittenmeyer said “First and foremost, this is a great transaction for our stockholders, providing tremendous value in the form of a significant premium to our stock price. It’s also beneficial to our customers, as the combination of our two global companies and the collective skills of our employees will drive innovation and enhance value for them in a wide range of industries. In addition, our Agility Alliance will be significantly strengthened.”
Because HP have acquired EDS this actually advances the HP objectives which even more so makes the company so much stronger in the way of its services business and the new offerings delivered by the two companies mean including data center services, IT outsourcing, networking services and managed security, workplace services, CRM and HR outsourcing; applications, including development, business process outsourcing, modernization and management; consulting and integration; and technology services, solutions to customers in the areas of government, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, energy, transportation, communications, and consumer industries and retail and so much more.
Earlier today we talked about how the upcoming Blackberry Thunder may improve on the Blackberry Bold’s lack of touchscreen, but another sleek looking cell phone that features touchscreen is the HTC Touch Diamond and while it has only just been released, it’s not only come out a month before the expected 3G iPhone launch, but one week on from launch and the Touch Diamond has been hacked already. It makes you wonder if the phone makers do not mind their cell phones getting hacked, or are these hackers really that good and no security can stop them. Whatever way it is, this hack will bring features that many users will like and thanks to a XDA Devs user, the HTC Diamond’s ROM has been hacked and the soft keyboard extracted.
If you want to run this hacked feature, then you will need to visit the XDA Devs site but remember to change the default language from Italian to English on install (unless you speak Italian that is), and the install may be a bit slow but this is apparently normal. We have not tested this hack, so do it at your own risk but its said to ask you to reset your device and then it will give you 3 new KB layouts. With all these new sleek looking cell phones, the consumer has never had so much choice and the HTC Touch Diamond is one of the best current choices of phones, it sports a full HTML web browser just like many next-gen phones and like my iPhone. Other features include One-touch navigation and music playback, as the the HTC Touch Diamond is all about the way you touch your phone.
Get the cab files over at XDA. Found via Phones Review
Taipei, Taiwan, May 14 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA PX5000EG Pico-ITX board that features the extremely power efficient 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor, offering embedded developers an uncompromisingly compact, highly integrated board.
Building on the success of the VIA EPIA PX10000 Pico-ITX board, which took the embedded industry by storm last year as the world’s smallest mass production x86 board ever, the VIA EPIA PX5000EG adds the incredible heat and power efficiency of the 500MHz VIA Eden ULV processor with its maximum power draw of just one watt. System designers of embedded automation and industrial control devices can now take advantage of a full x86 system that fits neatly into the most extreme space constrained, heat sensitive environments.
“The introduction of the VIA EPIA PX5000EG elevates the VIA EPIA range of innovative embedded solutions to new heights of thermal and energy efficiency in an extremely miniaturized form factor,” said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. “The VIA EPIA Pico-ITX form-factor continues to evolve, addressing the embedded industry’s needs for greater efficiency and miniaturization.”
Developed exclusively by VIA, the Pico-ITX form factor squeezes a full feature set into a mere 10cm x 7.2cm. A complete system in the palm of your hand, the VIA EPIA PX5000EG includes both LVDS/DVI and VGA support, integrated 5.1 channel audio, fast 100/10 Ethernet, both IDE and S-ATA drive support and up to six USB ports and a COM port.
First we started hearing lots of news about the Blackberry Bold and now it’s the Blackberry Thunder that has stole the Bold’s “Thunder” (sorry, but had to be said)”. It was only two days ago that we reported about the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 smartphone being made official, its physical keyboard and how it compared to the and HTC Touch Diamond and rumored features of June’s Apple 3G iPhone. AT&T may have been the first to get the new Blackberry Bold, but its Verizon in the US and Vodafone in Europe who are said to get a lifetime exclusive to the Blackberry Thunder.
This is the first Blackberry smartphone to include a touchscreen display and currently there are no photos of the official phone, but we will post them as soon as they are made available. The BlackBerry Bold looks impressive, but you cannot help thinking that its physical keyboard is a feature of old school smartphones and what it should have had was a touchscreen. The Blackberry Thunder will fill this role, although this name and model of BlackBerry 9500 could change nearer towards its release (Q3 2008), thats about it on features, not much else is known other than it will include only 4 physical keys (back key, the BlackBerry menu key, send / end phone keys). The cell phone will run on 3G EV-DO Rev. C and for international use it will use GSM HSPA.
Do you prefer touchscreen controls on your phones or a physical QWERTY keyboard?
Source: Read
Today we have a video of the upcoming Sprint Samsung Instinct GPS features vs. Apple iPhone’s, this comparison of the GPS functionality between the Instinct and Apple iPhone does show one of them is much better. Now what’s funny is how they look at the iPhone and say, “somewhere on this enormous circle” and with the Samsung Instinct they say, “That’s more like it”. We have to agree you get a much better idea of your location on the upcoming Sprint Samsung Instinct, but we cannot comment on the other phone rumored to be coming in June, the 3G iPhone will have many more improved features like GPS, better camera, etc.
Now the question would be about the location finder, as both the Sprint Samsung Instinct and 3G iPhone could be out in the same month, that would be a comparison video we would want to see and not one of the last generation iPhone. Although, we do not know if the location finding feature on the next generation iPhone will be any better. Watch the video below, it shows that the Samsung Instinct currently has a better location finder.
Do you use the “pinpoint your exact location” feature on the Apple iPhone and would the Samsung Instinct doing this better sway your buying decision? If you we see a comparison of the 3G iPhone and Samsung Instinct when released, we will post an updated video.
The new Samsung Instinct phone features include cool flashy menus, Haptic feedback, 3G, touchscreen, you can search web pages with the tilt action in the full HTML web browser, it also has Visual Voicemail, TV, weighs 4.4 ounces and has a 3 inch display.
Source: M80
MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is ready to clear up some of the questions surrounding the MSI Wind (Wi-Fi Network Device). MSI Computer will offer both Linux and Windows (XP Home Edition) based configurations, for under $500 starting in early June on msimobile.com.
The Wind weighs a mere 2.6 lbs, but offers many of the amenities customers would expect from a much larger notebook. Business travelers and students on the go will enjoy the Wind’s comfortable keyboard, which is only 20% smaller than a full size layout, and the 5+ hours of battery life the Windows based units provide. The Wind also features a 1.3M webcam, up to a 1GB of RAM, a 4-in-1 card reader, 3 USB ports, and Bluetooth capabilities with the Windows version.
“With Wind we struck the optimal balance of price, performance, and convenience” said Daniel Wang, General Manager of MSI US. “We designed the Wind to offer mobile consumers all the features of bulkier more expensive notebooks, but with a sleeker lightweight footprint and an affordable sub $500 price point.”
The Linux Novell version will feature a 1.3mp webcam, 802.11b/g, 2.5 hrs battery life, 80G / 2.5” SATA hard drive, 512MB DDR2/ 667MHz memory, 10?W (1024×600) LED display, Intel 945GMS, ICH7-M chipset and weighs 2.3 lbs.
The Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition versions sports a hevier weight of 2.6lbs, the same 1.3m webcam, 80G / 2.5” SATA hard drive, 802.11b/g, Intel 945GMS, ICH7-M chipset, a better 5.5 hrs battery life, Bluetooth, 1GB DDR2/ 667MHz memory, and a 10?W (1024×600) LED display.
The Palit GeForce 9600 GSO Sonic 768MB has entered a crowded graphics card market and while NVIDIA are confusing many buyers with another model that’s so similar to other cards. The results do show this model offers excellent performance and value for money. Palit has taken it a step further by upping the clocks even more, which make for an excellent model and buy. Tweak Town have spent some time with the Palit GeForce 9600 GSO and while they are unhappy with the “stupid GSO naming”, they did agree that this card offers value for money. In their final thoughts they said, “This is where it becomes really messy. Performance wise, the 9600 GT Sonic is 0% – 10% faster than the 9600 GSO Sonic, which means a stock clocked 9600 GT is going to perform slightly worse than this card in some instances.
Then there is the price; the overclocked Sonic version comes in at a whopping $5 AUD more expensive than the stock 9600 GT. Now, when you put overclocking into consideration at the price point of a stock clocked 9600 GSO, it’s going to come in cheaper than the 9600 GT.
So what you have here is a card that is $5 more than a stock clocked 9600 GT, performing at the same speed or slightly faster (depending on the game). You then also get yourself some extra RAM as well.
What’s going to be real interesting is the 384MB which comes in $50 AUD cheaper than the 768MB, and significantly cheaper than the 9600 GT. Increase the clocks on the model and you could be onto a real winner of a card if we get performance similar to a 9600 GT 512MB.
Now, I’ve openly spoken about the issues I’ve had with NVIDIA’s naming schemes, but this has to be the absolute worst. This card has been released because they’re dumping the 8800 GS that never sold. The main reason it never sold? No one knew about it. What they’ve done in the whole process is kill sales on the 9600 GT. Palit are different; their Sonic version of the 9600 GT offers a wealth of connectivity with display port, HDMI and more. But if you’re a supplier holding a few hundred/thousand pieces of 9600 GT reference clocked cards, I wouldn’t be too happy at the moment.
What makes it even worse is that when speaking to a manufacturer today, they said that NVIDIA are talking about changing the 9600 GT to the GSO. If that happens we could end up with four models under the naming scheme with RAM options being 384MB, 512MB, 768MB and 1GB; and for further confusion there’ll also be two different memory widths present.
While this may quickly become one of the best valued cards on the market, it really is the absolute worst thing when it comes to helping people make their decision on which graphics card to buy.
All NVIDIA is doing is confusing everyone and slowing down graphics card professions. They’re being slack; the 9600 GSO, while a fantastic product thanks to its performance to price ratio, is just an 8800 GS. Ultimately though, does this really surprise anyone? The whole 9 series have been nothing more than some strategic name changing that does nothing but confuse people. The good news is that cards carrying the X600 GS naming scheme, which were generally horrific for games, are actually now really good. So if this is anything to go by, the 10400GS should perform at about the same speed as the 8800 Ultra.”
Read the 12 page review.
Building on the success of its Wii game console, Nintendo has launched WiiWare, a software service for games. Wii owners who have their machines hooked up to an Internet connection will be able to download games from both large developers and small shops. As a game service, WiiWare competes with services on other consoles, such as Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade and Sony’s PlayStation Store.
“By reducing the barriers that make console game development prohibitively expensive,” the company said, “WiiWare showcases original ideas in the most democratic environment in industry history.”
Like Independents to Hollywood
Nintendo Executive Vice President Cammie Dunaway told news media, “WiiWare is to the game industry what independent films are to Hollywood.”
To download WiiWare games, users go to the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop channel, pick the game, redeem Wii Points, and begin to download. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop channel or at stores. Parental controls are available. New games are added weekly, and users can see videos of WiiWare games on the Nintendo Channel.
The launch of WiiWare will be accompanied by an inaugural lineup of six games, including Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, LostWinds, Defend Your Castle, Pop, V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack, and TV Show King. Prices are $15 for Crystal Chronicles, $10 for Lost Winds and TV Show King, $7 for Pop and Casino, and $5 for Defend Your Castle.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles from Square Enix draws on an established franchise to create a simulation game in which players must rebuild a kingdom and lead a king on a path of discovery.
Frontier Development’s LostWinds gives the player the power of a weather god. The user can control winds ranging from tornadoes to breezes, all the while maneuvering through jumps, enemies, friends and puzzles.
More ‘Shovelware’?
Your castle is being attacked by invaders in Defend Your Castle, in which you throw your enemies far away and add spells to increase your power. In Pop, you get points for popping bubbles, with more advanced players needing speed, accuracy and dexterity.
In V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack, animated players and a realistic dealer help create the casino experience, with multiple players competing in a tournament. And, in TV Show King, family and friends compete in a TV quiz show, with more than 3,000 questions across six different categories.
According to news reports, Nintendo has as many as 100 games in development for WiiWare. But Mike Goodman, an analyst with industry research firm Yankee Group, noted that while smaller developers are empowered through WiiWare, it could potentially exacerbate Nintendo’s ongoing problem of too much “shovelware.”
He added that, even before WiiWare starts flowing game titles from many developers, a number of the games “look like they were thrown together.”
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