Sony Corporation has reported a net loss of ¥15.5 billion ($191 million) for the first quarter ended June 30, compared to a profit of ¥25.7 billion for the same period last year.

The company said sale and profits were down mainly due to the impact of the Japanese Earthquake in March this year, although operations affected by the disaster are recovering faster than expected.

Sales of the PlayStation 3 dropped to 1.8 million units for the first quarter, down from 2.4 million for the same period last year.

Sales of PlayStation 3 games were up to 26.1 million units, from 24.8 million last year. Despite the slump in hardware, Sony still expects to outsell last year's PS3 total for the full financial year, forecasting 15 million sales compared to 14.3 million. Software sales are expected to be static at around 148 million games.

Sales of the PlayStation Portable were up on last quarter, from 1.2 million to 1.8 million, while PlayStation 2 sales dropped from 1.6 million to 1.4 million.

Sony's Consumer Products & Services division, which now includes PlayStation products as well as TV, home audio and video, mobile products and digital imaging, reported operating profits of ¥1.7 billion ($21 million), down from ¥28.5 billion last year, primarily due to a decline in LCD TV and video cameras.

Sales in the division were down 13 per cent to ¥732.3 billion ($9 billion), due to low sales in the US and Europe and competition in the PC market. The company made no detailed comments on the PlayStation business.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...es-hit-USD191m ...

Rhythm Heaven Wii has topped the Japanese chart in its first week on release.

As reported by Andriasang, the latest entry in Nintendo's quirky rhythm action series sold a healthy 118,173. It's due out here later this year.

The top 10 also saw new entries for Capcom brawler Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes at two, No More Heroes: Red Zone Edition (released as Heroes' Paradise in the West) at three and the PlayStation 3 version of EA's Alice: Madness Returns down at number nine.

Here's the full top 20:

Everyone's Rhythm Heaven (Nintendo, Wii): 118,173 NEW!
Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes (Capcom, PSP): 82,798 NEW!
No More Heroes Red Zone Edition (MMV, PS3): 40,313 NEW!
Inazuma Eleven Strikers (Level 5, Wii): 36,555 (Life to date: 110,782)
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2011 (Konami, PS3): 35,739 (153,498)
Taiko Drum Master Portable DX (Deluxe) (Namco Bandai, PSP): 35,694 (115,910)
Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2011 (Konami, PSP): 27,158 (100,405)
Noora and the Time Studio: The Witch of the Misty Forest (Atlus, DS): 24,481 NEW!
Alice Madness Returns (Electronic Arts, PS3): 19,994 NEW!
Wii Sports Resort (Wii Remote Plus Pack) (Nintendo, Wii): 18,666 (421,465)
Puyo Puyo!! (Sega, DS): 14,877 (49,78)
Little Battle eXperience (Level 5, PSP): 12,098 (268,973)
Wiimote Plus Variety Pack (Nintendo, Wii): 11,817 (39,347)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (Nintendo, 3DS): 11,273 (267,647)
Pokémon Black & White (Nintendo, DS): 11,147 (5,249,434)
Sniper Ghost Warrior (Ubisoft, PS3): 10,772 NEW!
Alice Madness Returns (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360): 9093 NEW!
007 Goldeneye (Nintendo, Wii): 8920 (67,783)
Star Fox 64 3D (Nintendo, 3DS): 8626 (41,102)
Steins; Gate (5pb., PSP): 7576 (116,593)
The 3DS held on to the hardware chart top spot, selling 31,826 – well down on the 46,637 it managed last week.

The PSP came in second with flat sales of 26,854, followed by the PlayStation 3, Wii and DS. Here's the chart:

3DS: 31,826 (Last week: 46,637)
PSP: 26,854 (26,551)
PS3: 23,343 (23,322)
Wii: 17,114 (14,237)
DSi XL: 5258 (4693)
DSi: 4921 (4384)
Xbox 360: 1546 (1734)
PS2: 1475 (1405)
DS Lite: 155 (131)
PSP go: 14 (14)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ven-3ds-on-top ...

New Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack Annihilation headlines this week's massive PlayStation Store update.

Xbox 360 owners have had it exclusively for the past month. Available from tomorrow on PS3, its five new maps will cost you £11.49.

Looking for something a bit cheaper? Sony's massive summer sale reaches Europe this week, with more than 30 downloadable titles discounted over the next seven days. Highlights include Popcap's Peggle, Hothead's Swarm and Telltale's Sam & Max and Back to the Future.

EA is launching its own range of reductions, focusing on racer Burnout Paradise and multiple entries in the Need for Speed series. If you've yet to pick up the pricey DLC for last year's Hot Pursuit for example, you can now pick up the bundle pack at a cheaper price.

For one week only, gamers can get highly praised shooter Section 8: Prejudice bundled with both its downloadable Map Packs. There's also exclusive in-game armour for PlayStation Plus members and the first 1000 Plus members to purchase it get the original Section 8 free.

European PS3 gamers can finally download L.A. Noire's PlayStation 3-exclusive Traffic case "The Consul's Car". In North America it came as a free download with PS3 copies of the game. In Europe, you'll have to pay £3.19. Xbox 360 owners will never get this add-on.

The EU update listing is currently missing Dragon Age 2 DLC Legacy. It appeared as scheduled in this week's US update and is also available on Xbox 360.

The full listing, courtesy of the EU PlayStation blog, lies below:

Summer Sale Special Offers - available until 3rd August

Slam Bolt Scrappers (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Swords and Soldiers (was £6.29/€7.99 - now £3.19/€3.99)
TerRover (was £8.99/€11.25 – now £4.39/€5.49)
Peggle (was £6.29/€7.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Acceleration of SUGURI X-Edition (was £4.79/€5.99 – now £2.39/€2.99)
Anarchy: Rush Hour (was £5.49/€6.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Tales from Space: About a Blob (was £9.99/€12.99 – now £5.10/€6.49)
Swarm (was £9.99/€12.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Blacklight: Tango Down (was £9.99/€12.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Dragon's Lair (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.99/€4.99)
Moon Diver (was £9.99/€12.99 – now £5.10/€6.49)
Crazy Taxi (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £4.79/€5.99)
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Sam & Max' The Devil's Playhouse (was £19.99/€24.99 – now £9.99/€12.99)
Back to the Future: The Game (was £15.99/€19.99 – now £7.99/€9.99)
Bionic Commando Rearmed (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Final Fight Double Impact (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.99/€4.99)
Super SF2 Turbo HDR (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
Flock! (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £6.29/€7.99)
1942 Joint Strike (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.99/€4.99)
Commando 3 (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.99/€4.99)
Age of Booty (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.99/€4.99)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.99/€4.99)
Ricochet HD (was £6.29/€7.99 – now £2.39/€2.99)
Wakeboard HD (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £4.79/€ 5.99)
Hamsterball (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Mahjong Tales (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Smash Cars (was £11.99/€14.99 – now £4.79/€5.99)
Magic Orbz (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Cuboid (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
Sky Fighter (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
EA's Summer of Speed

Burnout Paradise Big Surf Island (was £5.49/€6.99 – now £2.39/€2.99)
Burnout Paradise Boost Specials Collection (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
Burnout Paradise Cops and Robbers (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
Burnout Paradise Legendary Cars Collection (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
Burnout Paradise Party (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
Burnout Paradise Time Savers Pack (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
Burnout Paradise Toy Collection (was £5.49/€6.99 - now £1.59/€1.99)
NFS Hot Pursuit Game Modes Pack (Armed & Dangerous) (was £5.49/€6.99 – now £3.19/€3.99)
NFS Hot Pursuit Lamborghini Untamed Pack (was £5.49/€6.99 - now £3.19/€3.99)
NFS Hot Pursuit Porsche Unleashed Pack (was £5.49/€6.99 - now £3.19/€3.99)
NFS Hot Pursuit Super Sports Pack (was £5.49/€6.99 - now £3.19/€3.99)
NFS Hot Pursuit Three for All Bundle (was £15.99/€19.99 – now £13.99/€17.99)
NFS Pro Street Extender Pack Premium Car Bundle 1 (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
NFS Pro Street Extender Pack Premium Car Bundle 2 (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
NFS Shift Exotic Racing Series (was £7.99/€9.99 – now £2.39/€2.99)
NFS Undercover Boss Car Bundle (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
NFS Undercover Exotic Car Bundle (was £3.99/€4.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
NFS Undercover Collector's Edition Upgrade (was £7.19/€8.99 – now £1.59/€1.99)
NFS Undercover Muscle Car Bundle (was £3.99/€4.99 - now £1.59/€1.99)
...

There may be a fair bit of industry clamouring for the next generation of consoles - but the creator of one of the most technically impressive games of the year certainly believes PS3 can still achieve more.

Speaking in a monster new interview with PSM3 (which you can read in full here), Brendan McNamara - the boss of LA Noire creator Team Bondi - was asked how much "raw power" he believed was left in the current gen.

McNamara replied: "I wouldn't profess to be an expert about either one but I'd say from our point of view with the PS3, we think it's got - with Naughty Dog's new game - people just get cleverer and cleverer about it. Like what percentage of the raw power are they using up?

"What you can do on SPUs on PS3 is pretty amazing so we think there's still a lot of life left in it. We'd certainly still like to do another [game] on it, so..."

And we'd certainly like to receive one, sir.

LA Noire, published by Rockstar, was a huge sales success for Australian studio Bondi, topping US sales in June.

The second downloadable content pack for L.A Noire, Reefer Madness, was released earlier this month.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ty-is-amazing/ ...

Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward has played down concerns over would-be critics who attempt to link in-game events and real-life tragedies. Here's looking at you, Daily Mail.

Asked by msxbox-world if he worried about how players and non-gamers will perceive the Russian assault on New York depicted in Modern Warfare 3 given the city's history of terrorist attacks, creative strategist Robert Bowling said:

"I'm not too worried about it because the conflict that's raging in Modern Warfare 3 is very different from any real life scenario because this is a war, this is a full-on Russian military invasion of the entire US that started in Modern Warfare 2.

"They have already disabled Washington DC and the war has just organically been progressing off the East Coast and the New York is a major city that would... So this is very different because it's full-on military fighting through the streets, so I think that's going to be very clear once people play it and get hands-on and see what type of conflict this is, and then it spreads to the other major cities."



Modern Warfare 3's global brand of warfare will also be visiting London, Paris and Berlin, among other locations, leaving tube trains derailed and who knows what other carnage in its wake.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ferent-to-911/ ...

Epic Games isn't presumptuous enough to draw up its ideal specs from the next PlayStation and Xbox, but it knows one thing: it wants more memory.

The tech and software firm has been very vocal in recent months about its desire for the industry's next-gen machines to match top-end PCs.

It was a point driven home by its astounding Samaritan demo at GDC in March, which showcased Unreal Engine 3's new DX-11-compatible capabilities. If you haven't seen it yet, we very much recommend you do so now.




When we asked Epic European boss Mike Gamble what the firm wanted from the next-gen, he told us: "Basically, Samaritan was our request to the hardware manufacturers - that's what we'd like to be able to do. Beyond that we don't really know anything."

Senior technical artist and level designer Alan Willard agreed, adding: "There's always that question, nobody has knowledge for sure until the manufacturers say 'here's our minimum specs'. We obviously have things that we'd very much like to see but until the major console manufacturers come out and say 'here's what we're thinking' we won't be able to make any concrete plans."

However, when asked how they'd feel about consoles that offer little more in the way of raw horsepower and more in other areas, like AI capabilities - as discussed by Ubisoft - both execs made it clear that there was one enhancement Epic would be petitioning for above all.

"I think our biggest request from any new console will always be more memory - more than anything else," Gamble told us.

Willard added: "Yep, that's something we lobbied for with the Xbox 360 and PS3. We talked to them and went: 'Hey, here's what we can do with this and here's what we can do with that. Give us more memory and we can do better.' That was a win for us and that is something that will always give us a bigger platform to work on."

PlayStation 3 contains 256 MB of XDR DRAM main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory, whilst Xbox 360 offers 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM.

When asked if there may come a stage in the future where gaming graphics could became 'too real', Willard said:

"It's to problematic to make something that's...well, nobody wants to go home, sit down and play their own life, I think that's one of the mistakes that a lot of people assume. You want it to look good, you don't want it to look real. Yes we want to make characters look really good but if you look at BioShock Infinite those characters look fantastic - Gears of War's characters look great. They're not photo-realistic, they're not meant to be. They're meant to be interesting, fun and great game content."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...s-more-memory/ ...

Sony has said that adding 3D support to PSP games played on PSP via its new 'PSP Remaster' program is easy and may be supported in future.

The Remaster Program, announced in May, will see PSP games remade for PS3 with added HD visuals and save-game transferring support - essentially letting you choose to play your games on the big or small screen.

Teiji Yutaka, a developer on the project, told Famitsu magazine: "There's a group within the Software Solutions department that specializes in 3D graphics," adding, "When they first saw the Remaster project, they suggested that they might be able to insert 3D graphics inside there."


According to Yutaka, they did it and it was a piece of cake. "They managed to implement it with hardly any hit to performance and processing speed at all, and I don't think that would've been possible without the processing power of the PS3," he said.

Colleague Tadayasu Hakamatani chimed in: "There wasn't much rejiggering we had to do to make 3D work, but some games need to be reworked because the way they're programmed prevent them from working in 3D out of the box. It's possible to add 3D graphical information to games via the PSP Engine OS, though, so support can be added without a lot of extra burden."

The first PSP Remaster-enabled game is Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Ver., which hits Japanese shop shelves on August 25.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ble-says-sony/ ...

You'll be able to watch fighting game tournament Evo 2011 in PlayStation 3 virtual world PlayStation Home, Sony has announced.

The largest fighting game competition in the world begins on Friday and runs to the end of the weekend.

It takes place at the Rio Resort in Las Vegas, and will be streamed on the official Evo website, but will also be beamed into the PlayStation Home Theatre, as revealed by the US PlayStation Blog.

Players will duke it out on Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II and Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition.

Expect Street Fighter world champion Daigo Umehara to play an important role alongside US champion Justin Wong.

Korea's Poongko and UK champion Ryan Hart will also appear.

Watch Evo in Home on Friday and you'll get a limited edition Evo t-shirt for your avatar. Watch on Saturday and you'll get a special fighting stick companion item. And watch on Sunday and you'll nab a replica of the Evo trophy for your Home personal space.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...aystation-home ...

Battlefield 3 creator DICE believes that the hack which brought PSN to its knees in April will lead to the service becoming stronger.

Speaking in a full interview posted over on the PSM3 blog, the studio's boss Patrick Bach was asked his view on the security breach.

He replied: "I think its good that the problem is getting sorted now so that similar things won't happen again. However, of course, it's hurting us here and now but I think in the long-run it won't matter, and it'll actually create a better online service for PS3 owners.

"I think it's sad that it happened, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Everyone has to just live with it, I'm glad it has been dealt with, and I'm not worried about the future."

PSN was taken offline for just under four weeks by Sony following the security breach, but has now been fully reinstated across the globe.

DICE's Battlefield 3 will be a popular multiplayer addition to PSN when it released in October. DICE believes that the PS3 version of the game will be "very similar" to the PC SKU - despite allowing for fewer online players in more "compact" maps.

The all-new PSM3, out now, is chock full of great content, including a stunning 12-page special preview of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-the-long-run/ ...