Amazon in the US has warned of shortages of the new slim PlayStation 3 when the system launches next month.

As a result, the retailer is limiting sales of the USD 299 console to one per household.

"As you may know, the PlayStation 3 120 GB is in great demand, and there are shortages of this product across the US," wrote the company.

"In an effort to provide as many customers as possible with the opportunity to purchase PlayStation 3 120 GB, we are limiting the total number of PlayStation 3 120 GB units that can be purchased. As a result, each household may only purchase one PlayStation 3 120 GB unit."

The move follows Amazon in the UK, which yesterday said there may be shortages of stock in the region, and is limiting the number of units to five per person

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...slim-shortages ...

Dragon Quest IX has reclaimed the top of the Japanese all-formats software chart with sales exceeding 127,000.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort has gained three places in the chart to number three, with 105,000 sales - an increase of 44 per cent on the previous week.

The latest Media Create chart, for the week ending August 16, also puts Tomodachi Collection at number two - up from number five last week - with sales of 126,000.

Wii title Monster Hunter Tri dropped two places to number four following a sales drop of 32 per cent, and the top five was rounded off by last week's best selling game, SD Gundam G Generation Wars on PS2, which slipped to number five with sales of 57,000, a drop of 67 per cent on last week.

The top ten saw three new additions for the week, from Puyo Puyo 7, Monster Hunter Portable 2G, which re-entered the top ten, and Penguin no Mondai X.

Nintendo's Color Changing Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love remained at number nine for a second week, despite sales dropping to 18,000, and Namco Bandai PSP title Tales of Versus dropped two places to number six.

The full Media Create Japanese software chart for the week August 10-16 is as follows:

01 Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Starry Sky (DS)
02 Tomodachi Collection (Friend Collection) (DS)
03 Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
04 Monster Hunter 3 (Wii)
05 SD Gundam G Generation Wars (PS2)
06 Tales of Versus (PSP)
07 Puyo Puyo 7 (DS)
08 Monster Hunter Portable 2 G (PSP)
09 Color Changing Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (DS)
10 Penguin no Mondai X: Tenkuu no 7 Senshi (DS)

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...chart-top-spot ...

Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot and EA Games president Frank Gibeau have both praised Sony for cutting the price of the PlayStation 3, making the home console an attractive prospect for the mass market consumer.

"It's exceptional news, actually. I think the machine is a great machine, with the Blu-ray,” commented Guillemot, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz. "I'm happy that they were able to move to that [price point], particularly in the UK."

Sony has reduced the price of its console to EUR 299 in mainland Europe, and GBP 249 in the UK with immediate effect, ahead of the release of slimmer unit due in the first week of September.

"I think it's awesome," enthused Gibeau. "It's an old line, but it still rings true for us: 'We make the ammunition for the hardware wars'. So the lowest priced hardware possible is a good thing for us. We want to see as big and broad a base as possible, and the Sony hardware is a good piece of equipment."

The redesign will help the PlayStation 3 shift more units in Europe, said Guillemot – a positive for Sony as well as the industry as a whole – as it now becomes a more attractive purchase to a mass market consumer.

"It's also going to be a smaller machine, and I think this will help Sony and the whole industry - because everybody will react, and so we'll be able to see it come to the mass market," he said.

Gibeau agreed that the new price will allow publishers to reach more consumers. "Getting into that price point is just going to expand the market for us, especially in Europe. We have a lot of PS3 games, we're a good supporter of Sony, we believe in the platform. We've got a lot of PSP games coming, and frankly we also support the PlayStation Network with direct-to-consumer releases.

"So we're strong, committed partners of Sony and I'm extremely excited about the Slim - I think it looks great. And the price point will be hot."

Lower prices will help the current console market sustain a longer lifecycle, said Gibeau, meaning publishers and developers can concentrate on existing hardware rather than invest in future technology.

"The good news is that we still have a lot of price points to go yet - Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony - which points to a longer cycle for hardware this time around. And again, for us it's great, because we don't have to go out and build a whole new set of engines for next-gen," he said.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-ps3-price-cut ...

Imagine Publishing has posted ABC results for some of its gaming magazine portfolio, indicating a stable performance from its Xbox 360 titles.

X360, the company's flagship Xbox 360 title, recorded a marginally increased ABC of 26,092 according to the latest figures - a 0.1 per cent increase from 26,068 in the six months ending December 2008. Meanwhile its other unofficial Xbox 360 title, 360, saw an 11.4 per cent drop in sales, from 12,939 to 11,518.

With a rise from 13 issues to 17 issues per annum for 360, the magazine still saw an overall sales increase though - with Imagine's combined monthly Xbox 360 magazine circulation now standing at 37,610.

The publisher declined to reveal figures for its Games TM and Total PC Gaming titles, as well as Play, which it says is on a 12-month audit.

"It’s great to see we are growing our Xbox 360 reader base and are still the number one choice for the independent Xbox market," commented Imagine advertising manager James Haley.

"Videogames is a very challenging market at the moment - the closure of Future’s PSW highlights this. Our results are extremely encouraging, offering a solid, transparent platform for our advertisers to showcase their products and engage with their target market at a critical time in the year."

Earlier this month, Future Publishing announced it wouldn't be posting ABCs for the period January - June 2009 due to cost-cutting measures.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-360-portfolio ...

Sony's European president Andrew House has said the firm is confident the high price of the PSPgo will not put off early adopters of the system, although he admitted there is a significant gap between the current PSP-3000 model and the new digital handheld set to launch in October.

The PSPgo will retail in the UK for GBP 224.99 and Europe for EUR 249. However, Sony hopes the free offer of the highly-anticipated and long in development Gran Turismo for PSP will help sweeten the deal for consumers.

"I think, clearly, there is a delta there between PSPgo and the existing PSP-3000," offered House, speaking to VG247.

"We, at least for Europe, were very keen to put an initial offer in place that would reward the consumer who jumps on board first. Therefore, I think the offer that we announced yesterday, that those initial purchasers will be able to get GT for PSP absolutely free. I think that goes a long way to addressing that," he said.

And closer to the launch of the console, Sony is likely to announce plans for users who already have a library of UMD games to port them to the new handheld, although full details of any deal are still under wraps.

"We’re also looking at some other plans further down the line that will come together for launch around people who have existing UMD libraries and what we can do to incentivise those as well.

"So, I think that and a combination of what is a really very attractive portable device leaves us feeling fairly confident where we are right now," added House.

Sony also hopes the PSPgo can attract a younger audience, with the recently announced European PSN vouchers a way of ensuring teenage consumers can buy digital content without the need for a credit card.

"Because as PSPgo, as portable device, potentially brings in a younger audience than there has been on the PSN to date. Clearly, we need to have a solution to those two things that will still ensure that at retail stores there is product that people can see, and know what’s hot and know what they want to buy.

"I can turn to my 14 year-old and say 'You’ve got your own money, you choose what you want to buy on the network so go buy a voucher.' So, I think that was another important message," said House.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...gh-pspgo-price ...

Art has updated his entry into the Neoflash Summer 2009 coding comp

Hi Guys,
Here is my application entry for the Neoflash coding competition.
Since there are no other entries yet, it looks like I'm first so far.

Nickname: Art
Project name : AVEC
From : Australia
Division : PSP APP
Original entry : YES
Support Motion : NO
In last NEO Compo this project have won in the top 10 : NO

Description:
AVEC V2 GPS Vector Map Viewer for PSP





AVEC is a Vector map viewer capable of displaying and navigating maps
in the common Polish format maps.
The 1.50 kernel version can also receive location from a GPS device and
display your location on the map.
If the map file has street information, the program tells you what street
you are in, or lookup the name of a street selected with the crosshair.

The 1.50 version should be installed to GAME150. If you have a GPS setup
for MapThis! it will be compatible since it uses the same GPS routines.
The newer firmwares version should be installed to PSP/GAME352 or
PSP/GAME5xx, etc.

YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR0hPYrSNOs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvhbknIGrpM

See my personal AVEC webpage:
http://www.freewebs.com/defxev/AVEC.htm

Download Here or Here (depending on firmware version) and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

JamesC has posted an entry into the Neoflash Summer 2009 coding comp





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A_Noob has posted an entry into the Neoflash Summer 2009 coding comp

Ok, Well Seems I have not long before I need to finish, but I thought I might post some progress.

Basically it will be a KILL anything that comes at you game. I have only been able to put 20 or so hours into this. So I may not be able to finish it completely in time.



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Kasumi has posted an entry into the Neoflash Summer 2009 coding comp

Nickname: Kasumi
Projet name: Lakeside
From: United States
Division: PSP GAME
Support Motion: NO
Original entry: YES
In last NEO Compo this project have won in the top 10: NO

Lakeside is a project I've been working on for a while now. I'm a bit sad because there's next to no gameplay at the moment. I'll try get something up for tomorrow though. It's a very cool little map editor right now though.

A video of one of the maps.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VuDGJpVROE

A video of the sprite Editor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAtGmIDEeGI

There are videos of other parts of the map editor, but they're much different now.

Please at least read the readme. If you want to use the map editor, read everything else. I rushed this link up in time, but since I most likely still have tomorrow there's some other documentation I need to add. (Features to come, and more known bugs) And I'll try to get a demo with REAL gameplay done by tomorrow. No promises on that.

For now on the map that's loaded when the game is started there are only really a few things you can do besides talk to everyone.

1. Find all three enterable buildings. (Yep, just three).

2. Get the one item available

As for the included maps, Mapset 0, map 1 is a way to see the tiles in each set. Mapset 0, map 2 is my script test room. (Disable the Map Editor after its loaded to see the text). Alternative Open Map 6 with the debug menu so you don't have to enable and disable the map editor. If you read through the text there and see how it works, it may help understand the scripts. Or... it may just confuse you.

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