Its all very well that PS3 gamers have been left to fend for themselves since the PSN was orignally downed 6 days ago. Granted, Sony have to be losing out too as gamers are unable to download new content including movies and the hugely popular PSX classic titles. But what about the humble, independent games developers?

Indie games are certainly a niche market but that said, they’re still very popular amongst many different PS3 gamers, from the casual to the hardcore. Developers including Q-games have spoken out of the impact that the continued and seemingly unending PSN downtime has had on them.

With regards to Q-games in particular, Dylan Cuthbert stated that…

“PSN being out definitely affects our bottom line, but as long as the people who were going to be playing Shooter 2 and other PixelJunk titles will get right back in there playing them when it comes back up we’ll be happy and hopefully income won’t be dented too much… Sony has contacted us to let us know they are working as hard as they can 24 hours a day to fully correct and secure the breach… Apart from that we don’t know any other information. Fingers crossed they’ll get it up and running very soon.”

Unfortunately it seems Sony have been just as frugal with eagerly anticipated updates for Q-games as well as with the 70 million PSN members affected.

We certainly hope that the PlayStation Network gets back to full service soon, not just for us gamers but also for those that create the games we love to play. Spare a thought or two for the developers.

Tell us your thoughts and leave your comments below.

(Via: IndustryGamers)

It’s been almost a week now and there still seems to be no sign as yet as to when we can expect to see PSN back to it’s best.

Just having a quick peek on the Sony PlayStation Facebook page, there were at the time of writing, over 24,000 comments on Sony’s previous PSN update. It’s safe to say that Sony have so far received a pretty mixed and varied reception as well as many threatening to switch over to Xbox LIVE (I wonder if they’ll come back though once the network’s up and running again??? We’ll see).

Thankfully though, a little comfort (depending how you take the news) can be found in an update published earlier today over at uk.playstation.com…

“We have found out that there has been a possibility of unauthorized access to personal information on the PlayStation®Store through PCs, a content download service of the PlayStation®Network. Although unlikely, it is possible that the passwords of a small percentage of PlayStation®Network users may have been changed through unauthorized access, making it possible to view users’ personal information and/or use the Wallet for the PlayStation®Store. PlayStation Network accounts do not display entire credit card numbers, so any unauthorized access to your PlayStation Network account is very unlikely to compromise your credit card number.

We have taken immediate measures to rectify this issue and system security is restored.

We have investigated the extent of unauthorized access and possible alteration of passwords that could have occurred before corrective measures were taken, and are directly contacting customers who may have been affected by this incident. In order to verify that your account is intact, we strongly suggest that PlayStation®Network users sign in to the service. If you can successfully sign in with your pre-set password, your account is not affected by this incident.

For more information, please contact Customer Service.

Remember; do not disclose your log-in or password details on any email communications”

So it looks as though as long as PSN users don’t out-right publish their credit card details in their entirety then damage should be minimal at worst. Though many will probably see the need to change their password to be on the safe side.

Hopefully this will help many of those who’ve become un-nerved at the thought of their account details becoming vulnerable.

But as far as any news on specific dates and times go until the PlayStation Network is back up and running, we only have the last couple of updates from the official US Playstation blog as consolation…

As of April 25th:

“I know you are waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online. Unfortunately, I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time.

As we previously noted, this is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly. We’ll keep you updated with information as it becomes available. We once again thank you for your patience.”

And as of April 23rd we read that…

“We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.

We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.”

Can you spot the difference in the updates above? Unfortunately not an awful lot is there?

Let us know what you think and perhaps vent some of your thoughts.

To brush yourselves up on the PSN news so far, check out the links below:

PSN still down – just maintenance or something else?

Latest update on PSN service: Bad news

We published a post yesterday concerning the diminishing service that is PSN. Go to any PS3/Xbox forum and you’ll find ample numbers of fans biting their finger nails and almost tearing out the buttons on their controllers.

Now, rather than Error 80710A06 dominating our television screens, we’re welcomed by a short message simply stating that the network is undergoing maintenance. With Sony having already given a 24-48 hours penciled deadline for normal service returning, we have since received further news that may see the Playstation Network being down even longer than originally specified.

Posted via Sony’s official Playstation blog, Patrick Seybold – Senior Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media had this to say…

“We sincerely regret that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services have been suspended, and we are working around the clock to bring them both back online. Our efforts to resolve this matter involve re-building our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure. Though this task is time-consuming, we decided it was worth the time necessary to provide the system with additional security.

We thank you for your patience to date and ask for a little more while we move towards completion of this project. We will continue to give you updates as they become available.”

So looks like we’ll be waiting a little while longer before we get to play our favourite games online. That said, we’re sure Sony are doing all they can and with much of the system now being re-built, we expect an improvement when it’s finalized.

This news comes as a case between the corporation and the hacker (George Hotz) which has been recently settled, ignited a flame within the hearts of a group of individuals calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ who began an offensive against Sony in trying to bring PSN to it’s knees but drew back their efforts due to the affect their attacks had on PSN users.

How have you been affected by PSN’s outage? Let us know what you think with your comments below.

(Via: blog.us.playstation)

Since the widely publicized outage over at the PlayStation Network and the possibility of said outage lasting for at least another 24-48 hours, many gamers have taken to threatening Sony with a PS3 boycott and head over to the Xbox 360 as well as writing strongly worded complaints in the hopes that this will somehow speed up the process of bringing PSN back to life.

However, amongst the hundreds and thousands of comments, a thought suddenly occurred to me… What did we ever do before playing games online. Thinking back to my first mobile – the Nokia 3210 with lightning strike fascia, I couldn’t help but wonder what I ever did before mobile phones came around.

For starters, nobody knew where I was unless I specifically notified my parents beforehand (usually) and if someone were to try and get hold of me, they’d have to wait until I was in reach of a land line. Times were definitely simpler, whatever time you agreed to meet at a specific place was the time and place that you’d invariably meet and I was able to spend that little extra money I had on renting out games until such time I would have enough to purchase it.

Ok, so that’s not the particular path I’m wanting to go down but rather how we generally coped without our games console being attached to the internet.

It was always between me and the TV screen though occasionally a few of us like-minded individuals would get together (usually around 2-4 others as long as a multitap or two was available) and mash it out on games like Micro Machines. Though once the Xbox appeared on the scene we found ourselves with a new found ability to pretend we were playing against someone we couldn’t see when they were only in the next room by way of additional consoles, television sets and the humble link cable.

Times were merry and we enjoyed many an hour of merriment, merth, doritos and jaffa cakes.

But what about now? Do you get that same excitement today with your Xbox or PS3 constantly tethered to the world-wide-web? I can only assume that the reception would be a mixed one. It was with games in the same vein as Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX that my days were swallowed up hour by hour, then after that it was Halo: Combat Evolved and then Timesplitters.

With the advent of the online multiplayer experience, many guys and gals don’t need to go to someone else’s house to play a 2-on-2 in a Halo deathmatch and why bother if your comfy in the safety of your own bedroom with surround sound, favourite drink on tap and don’t have to worry about trying to find a spare place to sit on your mates springless sofa-bed with no food in the fridge.

So what did you do before online gaming? Any fond memories of pre-web gaming? Let us know what you think and leave your comments below.

Since a couple of days ago now, many PS3 gamers including myself have been met with the same error message when trying to sign into their PSN account. The error message with Error 80710A06 has graced to screen of many a PSN subscriber.

Originally, this was due to maintenance though conspiracy theorists have now been found correct in the assumption that someone on the outside has taken a liking to hacking the PlayStation Network.

What we already know is that we’re fairly certain the hacker group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ are not the individuals behind the misdeeds, especially since they issued a statement not so long ago that they would no longer be attacking the PSN primarily due to the undesirable affect it had on gamers worldwide.

Unfortunately we don’t have too much more information on this matter and Sony officials haven’t said how much longer gamers will be affected. Timing has been pretty bad seeing as top games such as Portal 2 and Socom 4 have only been recently released yet most features of these games have been made unplayable.

A statement was issued however by Sony’s Patrick Seybold…

“An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th… Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority. We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share.”

We’ll do our best to keep you updated on when we can expect to have the usual service back up and running. In the meantime, please let us know how you have been affected.

Leave your comments below.

(Via: IGN)

It must be said that so far there is somewhat of a love-hate relationship between gamers and the PlayStation Home (a bit like mustard, marmite or rootbeer). Many have touted it as nothing more than teenagers pretending to perform certain types of acts not conducive to the Home environment, where others see is it as a great place to ‘virtually’ hang out with your buds and enjoy a few games while you’re at it.

Hopefully, Sony’s Home update – v1.5 should better the relationship and provide a greater reason why Home is so… Great.

The update comes with a host of new additional features as well as tweaks to those features already present. Some of those tweaks include new facial features to add to your avatar as well as an additional 24 avatar save slots (is 24 really that necessary?) More chat options gave also been introduced as well as faster loading times and furniture management.

What’s new though is real-time, peer-to-peer multiplayer options. This allows friends or strangers instantly join a game from the more traditional racing game to the first-person-shooter games that will soon be coming available via further updates.

That’s not all but further information can be found over at PlayStation Home’s official forum pages. Other than that, the new update is now live and ready for you.

Let us know what you think.

When I was a kid and didn’t get my own way, I would usually slam a door with all the strength I could muster or walk slowly but very heavy-footed up the stairs to make as much noise as I could in retaliation to the authority of my parents.

Now in the 21st century however, it seems Mr George Hotz has been walking away from the Hotz – Sony court case with a final 2 fingers up at the PS3 developers in giving away the left over legal funds he garnered (in raising support for his case) to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) in the amount of $10,000.

Why, you ask? Well the EFF…

“is a donor-funded nonprofit and depends on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights.”

Thus, as a like-minded group of people akin to that of Mr Hotz, gave their support to the hacker’s so called crusade. Though at least Sony don’t have to worry about any further actions against them as the hacker has claimed that he has no further intention to purchase or hack any of Sony’s products.

(Via: CNET)

I have a few alerts set up with my email client so that whenever words or phrases, such as ‘Playstation 4′, ‘Xbox 720′ or ‘Wii 2′, are mentioned anywhere on the world wide web, I get pinged with the web address of the articles or other news posts that contain them.

It seems that someone has opened up another can of worms now that I have been inundated with alerts from all over the internet concerning possible release dates for both the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4.

We’ve written previously concerning the new consoles and have already covered the fact that it still wouldn’t be for a good few years yet before we get something more tangible to talk about. It seems that old news is getting churned out again and again but the difference here is that this time the latest news tidbit comes with a little more authority (perhaps??).

News is that reports have leaked out that states there will be no PlayStation 4 or Xbox 720 until at least 2014. We predicted before that we didn’t think we would be seeing either next-gen console until around 2015 and it seems our predictions could still perhaps ring true. Though we will soon be getting an announcement from Nintentdo at this year’s E3 in Los Angeles concerning their new console offering, as far as both Sony and Microsoft are concerned, there’s still plenty of life left in their current-gen powerhouses. That’s not surprising when you look at games such as Heavy Rain (PS3) and the rapidly approaching Gears of Wars 3 (Xbox 360). Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots which was released as a PS3 exclusive back in June of 2008 still quite amply shows off what the PS3 is capable of and that was almost 3 years ago!

Now if Nintendo were to up their game and bring to the market, a new breed of motion-sensing gameplay to the fore, we may just have ourselves a repeat scenario from when Ninty launched the Nintendo Wii way back in November of 2006. At that time, motion-controlled gaming was shiny new and fresh. Today, thanks to the Wii, Kinect and Move, has the battleground become somewhat overpopulated or stagnant?? It’s been said probably hundreds of times before, that the rise or fall of a console is predicated by the games played on it. If the games suck, why bother with the console??

Surely it’s only when developers can physically do no more to push the outermost boundaries of a console’s inner workings when it comes to the game’s looks or how well it plays until the need arises for a new, more powerful console to enter to market? That said, if Nintendo are planning a 2012 release for the Wii 2 or Wii HD and Microsoft and Sony stick to there guns then the Wii developer would have 2 clear years in the market before gaining any competition. Would the Wii 2′s release spur on the advancement of M&S’s plans? We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

You bursting to get yourself a PS4 or Xbox 720 or are you content with what you have? Leave your ponderings below.

We spoke of Black Ops’ latest piece of downloadable content that was mistakenly outed by a retailer in Australia towards the beginning of the month. However, we are now able to divulge a little more information as well as a preview trailer of Escalation.

Unfortunately for PS3 and PC gamers, the DLC will be heading, once again, straight for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. Though other computer and console owners will be receiving theirs a few weeks later.

The release date we have for the DLC is marked for May 3rd at a cost of $15, 15 bucks still seems a high price to pay, but going by the popularity of the Call of Duty series, we somehow don’t think it’ll make too much of a difference.

This latest additional content will include 5 new maps titled – The Zoo, Convoy, Hotel, Stockpile and a zombie map dubbed “Call of the Dead”

Check out the trailer below…

Let us know what you think.

Sonic 4 Episode 1 was good but just good. With a few too many physics problems and other little niggles took away from the experience of racing around the place with a little blue hog from hedge.

Sonic Generations however, seems to be coming together quite well from what we’ve seen so far especially more recently as Sega have a released another short video showing 2 differing but altogether great modes of gameplay featuring both old and new versions of Sonic.

The first thing we noticed while playing as the older-gen Sonic was his size compared to the rest of his game world, it was almost resembling the likes of Alice in Wonderland when she took a bite out of some food that was labeled with ’eat me’. Though the greenery seemed more giant than we were originally used to, nonetheless, it didn’t detract from the gameplay at all.

Physics were spot on, graphics are amazing, and is definitely a brilliant return to Sonic’s heyday.

What changes when you switch to modern Sonic though is how the same level is played out. Sonic Generations goes all 3D on you as you race through the same level but from slightly different, more dynamic perspectives. Think of Sonic Unleashed (yes, we know it’s not the greatest of games) and you’ll get the picture of how things play out with Sonic as he is today.

Check out the awesome video below…

Rather more obvious is the fact that we’re very excited for this new installment to the Sonic franchise and can’t wait to play the game in it’s entirety.

But what do you think? You looking forward to Sonic Generations? Leave us your comments below.

There’s has been the long-standing argument over digital media versus physical media and with Sony’s PlayStation Network becoming all the more prevalent, the PS3 manufacturer has opted to drop the disc found in current PlayStation Move starter packs in favour of freely downloadable content.

This will mean that very shortly, if you’re still not tethered to the rest of the world via the interweb, but still have your eyes set on the PS3′s latest peripheral, then you’ll have to be quick with cash.

Sony’s reasoning behind this has been outlined by the UK’s side of the corporation…

“As the content is changing and being updated so regularly, in order to offer the best consumer experience, we’ve made it available via PSN.”

So it seems that due to the huge mass of demos freely downloaded from PSN, the disc found in current starter packs will become obsolete.

(Via: Techradar)

The Nintendo Wii has for a while now, been seen as the odd one out in the console war leaving the competition largely between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. For many months, both analysts as well as gamers have been saying it’s high time for Nintendo to do something about it and even though the Wii broke new ground with it’s motion-sensing tech, it’s all old hat now with the top two consoles pretty much saying “whatever you can do, we can do better” and that they have –  The PS3 has Move and the Xbox has Kinect.

With sales steadily in decline and in a bid to strengthen themselves as firm market leaders, it has been reported by many websites that the Wii manufacturers are planning on slashing the price tag of their console down from $199 to just $150 as well as including a copy of the much loved Mario Kart Wii as of the 15th of next month.

What’s more interesting though is we’re now hearing rumours that Nintendo are likely to be announcing the release of their next gen console in a couple of months with the launch of the hardware to come towards the end of next year. It makes sense that the timing of the alleged announcement will coincide with E3 at the beginning of June.

Nothing is set in concrete for the time being as Nintendo aren’t letting slip any details as of yet but that hasn’t stopped rumors from spreading all the same. Such rumors purport to the Wii 2 coming with Blu-ray disc play-back, 1080p resolution and a touch screen to be built into the controller itself.

Whatever we read at the moment, it’s safe to say we’ll get something worth noting in a couple of months. Until then, let us know what you expect to happen.

(Via: IGN, GameSpot and CVG)