The folks over at Gizmodo have an interesting read about what to do now that that Sony’s blu-ray is now the crowned HD media format. Generally speaking I find most of Gizmodo’s articles to be heavily one sided and not really worth paying much attention to, but this one I tend to agree with.

Here are the finer points, you can read the full article here

1. Get the Spec In Order
   Now that Blu-ray is fully in the spotlight, it’s got to get its act together spec-wise. You may recall that we lambasted many Blu-ray supporters for only building 1.0 spec players, including the $1000+ home-theater flagships from Sony and Pioneer. Except for Panasonic’s DMP-BD30 and the PlayStation 3 with up-to-date firmware, no current Blu-ray player can even handle the 1.1 spec with picture-in-picture, already appearing in certain Blu-ray discs (and quite the handful of HD DVD titles-but we’ll get to that).
2. Finalize the Video Library
   We only need dual-format players as long as the library is split down HD DVD and Blu-ray lines. We are waiting for Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks to jump to Blu, and even once they do, it’s not a certainty that they can simply re-release everything currently out on HD DVD. Universal claims 150 titles-surely the Bournes will go Blu as soon as Uni does, but how long do I have to wait for a Blu-ray of The Big Lebowski? Hell, it’s almost worth scooping up an ultracheap HD DVD player now just to enjoy that one movie alone, 47 or 48 times in a row. At any rate, some speculation suggests that the remaining HD DVD studios may not even come around until summer or fall, depending on weird smoke-filled-backroom negotiations with Toshiba.
3. Bring On the Old-Fashioned Electronics Store Competition
   Sony’s more affordable new Blu-ray player will hit the market this summer for $400. Nothing built by Sony or anyone else should be considered before then, the one exception being the PS3. But even the Sony standalone at $400 is expensive, especially for a player whose capabilities are more or less the same as Toshiba’s HD-A30 HD DVD player, now (in a price nose dive) selling for around $130. Only when Panasonic, Samsung and LG announce their own Blu-ray 2.0 players, will true competition finally exist. (Pioneer will launch a 2.0 player too, but it probably won’t get involved in a price war.) It surely wouldn’t be long after that that we see a full-spec Blu-ray player for $200 or maybe even less. Our bet is Christmas, since Sony doesn’t seem like it will have anything on the market until “summer” and no one else is talking about their next Blu play.

Again, you can read the full article here, defiantly worth a look for those in the market for a blu-ray player.

Johnny Lee’s head tracking demo using a Wiimote is a fantastic idea and defiantly proves the concept, but it looks like Sony’s trying to take it mainstream in a much less nerdy way. Sony was demonstrating a PS3-based head tracking system at the Game Developers Conference that doesn’t require any special IR glasses to function – it just uses a the Playstation Eye camera to track your head. Can you imagine FPS games with this feature! 4D anyone?

Sony has announced plans that it is releasing a PlayStation 3 bundle for the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. It will include an 80GB system, the game and one Dual Shock 3 controller for $499.

It is assumed that this bundle will hit on or around June 12th coinciding with the release of Metal Gear Solid 4.

Doing the math it seems it’s a great bundle, purchasing the bundle is set to save your around $115 USD

$499 – PS3
$55 – Dual Shock 3
$60 – Metal Gear Solid 4
Total $615

Sony’s has also annoucned a new God of War PSP Entertainment Pack, which includes a red PSP, the God of War: Chains of Olympus game, Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for (free) for $200 USD

Comments welcome :)

Most of the 1Y0-259 professionals go for EX0-101 or PMI-001 because as compared to 642-825 or 640-816, these professionals have a high demand with sony.

The Format war is over – Blu-Ray is the winner

The press release from Toshiba

Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses

19 February, 2008

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO–Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”

Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.

Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.

Sony’s been relatively mum on its Slingbox-like PlayTV add-on for the PlayStation 3 since it announced it last fall, but it’s now finally starting to show it off for all to see and, thanks to the BBC’s dot.life blog, we now have a pretty good idea of what European PS3 users can expect.

Check out the video over at Engadget

Sony CEO Jack Tretton on these new figures:

Coming off a great holiday sales season we see strong momentum behind PS3 in 2008, and feel confident about the year ahead. We have an exceptionally diverse lineup of exclusive games, from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resistance 2 to more mainstream games such as LittleBigPlanet and SingStar. Beyond that, we have Blu-ray emerging as the de facto high def standard, the developer community is hitting their stride, consumers are recognizing the tremendous value and innovative services such as PlayStation Home are all in the works, so this is definitely shaping up to be a breakthrough year for us.

274k – Wii
269k – PlayStation 3
251k – Nintendo DS
230k – PlayStation Portable
230k – Xbox 360

read more | digg story

Reuters has reported that Toshiba Corp is planning to stop and production and research-and-development of HD-DVD technology according to Japan’s NHK.

Following the latest kick in the pants for the HD-DVD camp when on Friday (15^th Feb) Americas Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would abandon the HD DVD format, becoming the latest in a series of top retailers (Netflix, Best Buy) and movie studios to rally behind Blu-ray technology for high definition DVDs.

Toshiba currently selling HD DVD equipment at stores for the time being but will not put resources into developing new devices, NHK said.

Sources : Reuters, engadgethd

New footage from PS3 Home. Sony’s version of Microsoft xBox live, only it’s completely free. Just another reason the PS3 is the better console.

By Tom Ivan (original Article)

Sony’s PlayStation 3 has outsold Nintendo’s Wii in Japan over a four week period for the first time since the systems launched last year.

According to figures from publisher Enterbrain, Sony shifted 183,217 PS3s during the four weeks ended November 25, in comparison to 159,193 Wiis, reports Reuters. Having dominated the gaming hardware market during the previous generation, Sony has struggled to establish its next-gen console amidst fierce competition from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (in the US and Europe), which launched a year prior to the PS3, and Nintendo’s family-friendly Wii, both of which have built up far larger user bases.

A lack of AAA software and a high price point have often been cited as reasons for slower-than-expected consumer uptake of the PS3, although a growing software library and recent price cut, as well as the introduction of an entry-level 40GB unit, have clearly aided sales.

While the news that Sony trumped its rivals during November in Japan will be welcomed by the Japanese platform holder, KBC Securities analyst Hiroshi Kamide questioned whether the PS3 sales momentum could be sustained.

“It’s nice to see the system selling much better than six months ago. But is it a sustainable trend? Is it going to really escalate from here? I’m not so sure.”

Sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 have been given a boost in North America since it cut the price of the console and introduced a cheaper version at the beginning of November.

The company said Thursday that combined sales of the older 80GB model and the new 40GB model have increased by 192 percent at the top-10 major retailers in North America and “more than doubled” overall.

After seeing poor sales all year the company cut the price of the 80GB model from US$599 to US$499, and introduced a cheaper US$399 version on Nov. 2, with a lower capacity hard-disk drive. In addition to the smaller drive, the cheaper version lacks the ability to play PlayStation 2 titles.

The higher sales are good news for Sony, which has been running in third place in the console battle in the U.S. In October, 121,000 PlayStation 3 consoles were shipped, according to estimates from NPD Group. That ranks it lower than the seven-year-old PlayStation 2, which shipped 184,000 units in the month. The market-leading Nintendo Wii shipped 519,000 units and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 shipped 366,000 units, said NPD.

However, the higher sales will likely increase losses in Sony’s company’s gaming business. The unit reported a ¥96.7 billion (US$895 million) operating loss in the July to September quarter, largely because Sony is losing money on each PlayStation 3 console sold. It is looking to increase market share, and boost the number of game titles available to offset the losses with future software sales.

Going into the U.S. holiday season Sony is running its largest marketing effort to date in an attempt to kick-start sales of the PlayStation 3. The national advertising campaign will see commercials air on several TV networks including NBC, Fox and the ESPN cable sports channel.

To compete better at the low-end, where Nintendo’s Wii has stolen a lead with its innovative motion-sensing controller and low price, Sony is offering a bundle of the PlayStation 2 with the SingStar Pro software and two microphones for US$149.