PlayStation 3 music and video download service VidZone is to launch this summer in Europe, allowing users to download music videos on demand and at no cost.

London-based firm VidZone Digital Media currently offers its service from its own website, with support from Sony BMG, EMI and thousands of independent labels. The ad-supported PS3 service will allow users to view direct streamed music videos, interviews and behind the scenes footage from the company’s catalogue of more than 25,000 downloads.

"VidZone is not just about giving music fans access to thousands of music videos, but offering a completely interactive and personalised music experience," said VidZone CTO and director of digital business development Michael Russo.

The VidZone application will be accessible from the PS3’s Xross Media Bar (XMB), allowing users to select individual videos, save a video library or create custom playlists. Downloads and playlists can also be managed and initiated via the PSP.

"Music has always been popular on PS3 and now VidZone is set to transform the way we view music videos by letting you completely tailor your experience and is just one more reason for PS3 to be the most valued player in your living room," said Isabelle Tomatis, hardware and platforms marketing manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Support for VidZone had originally been announced in August of last year and was intended to go live in the first quarter of 2009. Although now confirmed for the summer, an exact launch date has still not been given. VidZone will only be available in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, German, Spain and Australia.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...mmer-in-europe ...

PlayStation 3 music and video download service VidZone is to launch this summer in Europe, allowing users to download music videos on demand and at no cost.

London-based firm VidZone Digital Media currently offers its service from its own website, with support from Sony BMG, EMI and thousands of independent labels. The ad-supported PS3 service will allow users to view direct streamed music videos, interviews and behind the scenes footage from the company’s catalogue of more than 25,000 downloads.

"VidZone is not just about giving music fans access to thousands of music videos, but offering a completely interactive and personalised music experience," said VidZone CTO and director of digital business development Michael Russo.

The VidZone application will be accessible from the PS3’s Xross Media Bar (XMB), allowing users to select individual videos, save a video library or create custom playlists. Downloads and playlists can also be managed and initiated via the PSP.

"Music has always been popular on PS3 and now VidZone is set to transform the way we view music videos by letting you completely tailor your experience and is just one more reason for PS3 to be the most valued player in your living room," said Isabelle Tomatis, hardware and platforms marketing manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Support for VidZone had originally been announced in August of last year and was intended to go live in the first quarter of 2009. Although now confirmed for the summer, an exact launch date has still not been given. VidZone will only be available in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, German, Spain and Australia.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...mmer-in-europe ...

Sony Computer Entertainment will now be publishing Terminal Reality's Ghostbusters title in a surprise deal signed with Atari today, just one month before the game was set to ship, GamesIndustry.biz has learned.

The game is set for a June 19 release alongside the Sony Pictures film, but only on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 platforms, which will have a period of exclusivity lasting several months until the PlayStation Portable edition is launched.

It is unclear exactly what will happen to the Xbox 360, DS and Wii versions of the game, although GamesIndustry.biz understands that Atari may look to publish them at a later date.

This will be the third publisher within a year for the Ghostbusters game, with the former Vivendi title being dropped by Activision in the merger last summer, before subsequently being picked up by Atari.

The troubling economic climate has hit Atari hard, with investors keen to see a quick return on investment - despite the company's core business plan relying on a more long-term view of a radical shift to online publishing.

The company accelerated the sale of its distribution business earlier this year in order to appease investors, and the Ghostbusters deal with Sony - so late in the day - will look to many like another sign of trouble.

UPDATE: Atari has said that with Sony publishing the title, the game will reach a wider audience on release.

"Atari is committed to maximising the launch of the Ghostbusters videogame across Europe," offered Jim Wilson, VP of Worldwide Marketing for Atari.

"In partnership with both Sony Pictures Consumer Products and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, we have a unique opportunity to add new game products and expand marketing opportunities to reach Ghostbusters fans in Europe."

A PSP version of the title is due this autumn.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ers-from-atari ...

Disney’s Interactive Media division has seen a 17 per cent fall in revenues in its second quarter, with a lack of new self-published titles blamed for the drop.

The Interactive Media division was created in June 2008 and comprises both the Walt Disney Internet group and the video game-focused Disney Interactive Studios. Revenues for the division fell to USD 129 million (EUR 97 million) for the three month period ended March 28. However, net income was down by only 2 per cent to USD 61 million (EUR 46 million).

Although no figures were provided for the individual groups within the Interactive Media division, a decrease in revenues at Disney Interactive Studios was said to have been offset by increased revenues from the company’s mobile phone business in Japan.

Lower marketing expenses and administrative costs also helped to offset the fall, as well as the continuing success of the Internet group's child-friendly Club Penguin and Toontown massively multiplayer online titles.

The fall in revenues for Disney’s video games business was contrasted with that of a year ago, when the release of adult-rated license Turok helped to boost sales. More recently Disney has relied more on its own internal media tie-ins, such as High School Musical.

The possibility of a Turok sequel is currently unknown, following job cuts at internal developer Propaganda – as well as Fall Line Studio. Non-traditional Disney titles such as Black Rock Studio’s driving game Split/Second and the first project from Warren Spector's Junction Point are still in the pipeline.

As a whole the Walt Disney Company saw revenues fall by 7 per cent to USD 8.09 billion (EUR 6.08 million), compared to the same period last year. Net income was down by 46 per cent to USD 613 million (EUR 461 million), but these results were slightly above market expectations.

"We had a difficult second quarter due to the weak economy and other factors," said Robert A. Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. "At the same time, we remain focused on our core business strategy and believe our creativity, brands and businesses will serve us well as the economy recovers."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rop-in-slow-q2 ...

During yesterday's conference call discussing the fourth quarter results for Electronic Arts to its investors, CEO John Riccitiello revealed that the publisher believes the current hardware cycle will be an extended one, and that there is no need for new hardware in the immediate term.

"Although we are in uncertain times, we continue to believe we will have an extended hardware cycle and we continue to see robust growth with our various direct service businesses," Riccitiello said in the call's closing remarks.

During a question and answer session immediately after the talk, Lazard Capital analyst Colin Sebastian asked for clarification, commenting "I know at least one of your competitors had already talked about making some R&D investments upfront ahead of the next generation," referring to recent comments by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

"I presume you're talking about some comments from one of our French competitors very recently," said Riccitiello. "I think there's always going to be new aspects - new handhelds, and new peripherals, and new things that are coming out - that involve investment from companies like ours. And there is I think an increased rate of change provided for by first parties. I would look at, frankly, the iPhone as a new platform in the handheld industry."

According to Riccitiello, while EA thinks there is continued justification for investing in new platforms, the company does not see a traditional next-generation hardware shift any time soon.

"If you're looking for good solid reasons for investing in R&D against new platforms, the market is providing us that," he said. "However, I would point out that what traditionally is viewed as a new platform is when the industry, in a consolidated or collective way, steps forward with a more powerful CPU and GPU combination, more processing power, traditionally married to different choices on medium," specifying cartridges and varying disc formats.

"And those big changes are not something that we're seeing the need for in the immediate term, nor do we expect it in the immediate term."

"Frankly, we can do high-definition gaming today that you can show off on the best available monitor that you can spend thousands of dollars for, and that's already provided for," he continued. "I think that arms race...well, I can never say that it's done, [but] the relevance of doing that faster and faster, as it had been traditionally done through the late 80s and the 90s, seems to have subsided."

"And so we're projecting, relative to the core tech we develop for, for that to be a very extended cycle."

Last month, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot revealed that his company was investing research and development into the next generation of hardware.

"What we see is that on handheld and on consoles there are lots of things that will happen in the next few years," Guillemot said at the time. "That's why we consider that it's important to recruit now, and train people, so that those investments will come in the next few years. I'd say that some of the needs will come in one to two years, to start working on products."

No traditional next-gen platforms have yet been announced, and given Riccitiello's statements today - and considering EA's close relationship with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony - expectations are low for any major next-generation hardware announcements at E3 in June.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-any-time-soon ...

Yes folks, we're back to the drawing board. Again. With a litany of wireless technologies floundering about and struggling to find real traction in the market, a cadre of market powerhouses have joined up to take wireless streaming to the next level -- or so they say, anyway. The newly formed WiGig Alliance aims to use unlicensed 60GHz waves in order to stream just about anything you can think of: HD video, images, phone contacts, instant messages, audio, etc. This "unified" approach differs from most other alternatives, which generally pick one niche (1080p video, for instance) and stick to it. If the more than 15 technology firms have their collective druthers, the WiGig specification will find its way into everything from set-top-boxes to telephones to home stereos, ready and willing to stream to other WiGig-enabled devices at a moment's notice.

The group consists of household names such as Microsoft, LG, Dell, Samsung, Marvell, Nokia, NEC, Intel and Broadcom (just to name a few), and when we spoke to executives about the announcement, they told us that plans were to have the specification available to member organizations in Q4 of this year. The sad part is that this likely means we won't see shipping products with the WiGig logo for another year after that -- if we're lucky. We can't argue that some stability would be nice in this volatile sector; after all, we've been waiting for promising products like Belkin's FlyWire to ship for well over a year. The execs we spoke with couldn't speak on behalf of the partner firms in terms of what WiGig products were looming on the horizon, but as we alluded to earlier, the playing field is wide open. Honestly, we'd love for this to take off and finally give high-bandwidth wireless applications the support it needs to flourish, but as we've seen over the past few years, the road ahead ain't an easy one to walk.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/06/h...ng-over-60ghz/ ...

Finally the day has come when PSP 3000 Owners can Join those of us and play homebrew, Davee has released his ChickHEN Homebrew Enabler, heres the full details:


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Finally the day has come when PSP 3000 Owners can Join those of us and play homebrew, Davee has released his ChickHEN Homebrew Enabler, heres the full details:


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Finally the day has come when PSP 3000 Owners can Join those of us and play homebrew, Davee has released his ChickHEN Homebrew Enabler, heres the full details:


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...