Tag Archives: ps3

PlayStation services being restored this week

PlayStation services being restored this week Over on the PlayStation blog comes news that they are currently restoring the PlayStation Network, with some services expected to be available this week. Sony will be restoring the PlayStation Network by region, after last month’s cyber attack; beginning with gaming, music and video services.

Unsurprisingly the company has announced new security measures to better protect customers’ personal details, and a customer appreciation program to smoothen over understandable discontent among PSN users; which includes a month of PlayStation Plus free.

Sony has also made known that as many as 10 million credit card accounts may have been exposed in the attack on their network, making it far and wide the biggest security breach in the company’s history.

Playstation Network shut down to prevent piracy bonanza?

An interesting rumour has appeared on reddit.com that the ongoing shutdown of the Playstation Network is down to the release of a piece of custom firmware called Rebug which, with some hacking, essentially turned a normal retail PS3 into a dev console.

Apparently this gave access to Sony’s private developer PSN network. Once there, the authenticity of info provided like credit card numbers was not checked and a huge potential for piracy existed.

Well, it also turns out that some people over at NGU found out that you could provide fake CC# info and the authenticity of the information was never checked as you were on Sony’s private developer PSN network (essentially a network that Sony trusted).

What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network. Now, before you go freaking out about the latest information posted about Kotaku, no ones personal information was accessible via this hack. Not to say they couldn’t get it, but no one is admitting to it being available. Anyway, that’s the real reason for the PSN downtime.

The reddit poster, Chesh420, is a moderator from PSX-Scene.com and he points out that his theory is speculation since Sony haven’t given an official reason for the downtime, but he has given a timeline as the reasoning behind the theory:

To those of you saying that this is speculation, you are correct. But, it is speculation based on a lot of facts and the outcome seems to make the most sense.
1. Rebug was released on 3/31/11.
2. First guides of how to use the dev network to get back on COD games on 4/3/11. 3. Word of “shady” sites finding a way to pirate PSN content via the dev networks on 4/7/11 (basing this on posts I had to delete on the website).
4. PSN goes down on 4/20/11

Sony shut down the Playstation Network almost a week ago and as of yet, it still hasn’t come back online again. The latest update on the official Playstation blog is from yesterday (25 April), with no details of why exactly the service has gone down or when it’s expected to be operating again.

In an earlier post the company said they would have to completely rebuild their infrastructure after what they called an external intrusion on their system.

Stick ‘em up, I have a PS3 controller!

Cameron Pittman. Sometimes you read stories that make you wonder just how far the human race has come from the African Savanna.

20-year old Floridian Cameron Pittman, who was already on probation for a previous crime tried to hold up a Sun Food Store with a PS3 controller hidden in his pocket. After receiving a tip, police rushed the building to catch the convenience store cat burglar in the act.

Cameron dropped the remote when officers stormed the store, and now faces charges of strong-arm robbery and violation of probation. The 20-year old now has plenty of time to think about what he did wrong; should have used a NES gun, duh!

The Trinity: Portal 2, PS3 & Steam

Steam debuts on the PS3 with Portal 2 It could be a marriage ordained by the gods themselves. Some details have emerged concerning aspects of Steam on the PS3.

Many PlayStation owners were delighted with the news that Valve planned on implementing their games-distrubution technology across the PlayStation network. Now we can get a glimpse of what is to come.

Portal 2 is going to be the first game to test the waters and see if this is something PS3 owners are going to warm to. The follow-up to 2007′s Portal on the PS3 will have all the niceties of the PC version; friends, chat, achievements etc. You can even save your game on Steam Cloud and continue from another PS3, much like PC users can currently do.

In order to set up Steam on the PS3 your Steam account must be linked to your PlayStation account. After that you’ll have an overlay in Portal 2, giving you access to your friends-list, achievements and all that good stuff. You don’t need to have an existing Steam account, you can simply create a new one if you’ve never used Steam before.

For more info Valve has a short Q&A over on Steam Powered. Don’t forget you can pre-load Portal 2 on the PC right now, in order to be ready when the game is officially released.

If you don’t mind spoilers you can head over to Giant Bomb to see the first 20 minutes of single-player and co-op.

Portal 2 will be hitting store shelves and download slots on the 19th of April (NA) and will be available on PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and the Mac.

Sony rolls out new PS3 firmware (ver 3.60)

PS3 3.60 firmware update now available The PS3 drama continues. It looks like Sony has done what nobody expected and re-secured their console from the recent security breach. Hacker Geohot published the console’s root keys and after that it was believed that Sony’s black-box would never be properly patched again.

Sony it seems was down but not out. In their latest firmware update the company not only offers a new cloud-based storage service but also a new security layer that many hackers feel has re-secured the troubled console.

PS3 hacker Youness Alaoui a.k.a. KaKaRoToKS has examined the new firmware and come away with the opinion that Sony has indeed applied a decent enough security layer (for now).

For now, it looks to me (at first glance) that the PS3 has been re-secured, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be broken again from scratch..

You can find all the details over on the PlayStation website:

An update to the PS3 system software was released on 10 March 2011. If you update your PS3 system, the system software version will be 3.60 and the following features will be updated. In order to download PS3 system software version 3.60, you will need a minimum 185MB of free space on either the PS3 Hard Disk Drive (System Update) or on removable storage media (PC Update)

How far would you go to get back your stolen PS3?

I think I saw this guy in a L4D map..

According to police in Evansville, Indiana a 45 year-old man sporting a fake beard made with black marker brought a sword to his friend’s apartment in a drunken attempt to get back a games console he alleged was stolen from him. The drunken master allegedly swung his sword a number of times at his victim.

Ricky Lee Kalichun painted his face in order to travel incognito and intoxicated. The 45-year old claims to have been the victim of grand theft console, and a couple of games to boot.

Kalichun is currently in Vanderburgh County jail, charged with intimidation with a weapon and public intoxication.

I don’t know which brand of the special forces this guys trained with, but I think he got a bum deal.

According to the affidavit, a man called police about 12:24 a.m. and reported that Kalichun tried to attack him in the hallway of an apartment building at 315 SE King Blvd.

Police said they found Kalichun on the fourth floor with a camouflage coat and black marker markings on his face and immediately arrested him

Evansville man arrested after alleged sword attack

More PS3 deals, prelude to Black Friday

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

Amazon continue their prelude to Black Friday with another daily deal. Today’s offer is a free PS3 title when you buy any 2 “greatest hit” games.

Titles on offer include; Resistance 2, Gran Turismo 5, God of War: Collection, LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition and many others.

The offer starts in approx six and a hours from now.

Music streaming service coming to PS3

Qriocity An iTunes challenger has been announced for the PS3. Details were announced on the official Playstation blog. Millions of songs will be made available through the service, which will stream songs from the cloud, meaning there will be no need for users to download music files.

The service … can be accessed via PS3, BRAVIA TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, Blu-ray Home Theatre systems and VAIO computers, with one single account and without the need to manage digital files.

The system sounds promising, especially the single account and not having to download digital files part.

Sony have gone with the mouthful ‘Music Unlimited Powered by Qriocity’ as the full name for the new service, but something tells me most users will call it Music Unlimited. It is slated for a release sometime this year.

Details on exactly when and in which countries ‘Music Unlimited’ will be released have yet to be announced.

Music Unlimited Powered By Qriocity Coming To PS3 via Spong

Gaming Stu on this week’s gaming news

Every week we pose a few questions from the week’s gaming news to Gaming Stu, Ireland’s hardman of iRacing.

This week, Stu has been staying up til 7AM every night playing
iRacing, getting aggravated by noobs who don’t play by the rules.

His eyes are bloodshot and he’s pretty angry, so I hand him a page
with my written questions, make my excuses and leave.

A few days later the answers arrive by mail. Here they are:

Stu, Sony has released the legal hounds on the makers of the PS
Jailbreak mod that allows people to play pirated discs on the PS3.
Meanwhile, the modders are basically saying ‘we didn’t do nothin’. Who
will win, the faceless multinational corporation or the crafty
hackers?

Something tells me the faceless multinational will win, they usually
do. Also a lot of players won’t want to risk getting banned.

Stu, last week we heard the news that Halo: Reach had leaked to the
internet, and this week unboxing vids popped on YouTube. This kind of
thing seems to happen whenever a new Halo is released. Are Microsoft
just boneheaded when it comes to security or is it really an elaborate
publicity machine, too huge for our puny brains to contemplate?

I really can’t see Microsoft being that lacksadaisical when it comes
to security, either way that game will be huge. Never liked the Halo
series personally but by God the great unhosed seem to.

Stu, the PS3 has sold 38 million units since 2006 but the PS2 sold 146
million units between 1999 and today. Can PS3 catch up by 2016?

I’ve been fairly impressed by what I’ve seen of the PS3 and it still
hasn’t fully realised its potential. I think it can easily sell more
than the PS2, but that doesn’t mean it will. The new Playstation Move
may help it along though.

Stu, a bona-fide college course called 21st Century Skills in
Starcraft is open now in the University of Florida. Discuss.

Seems like a good idea. Applying your game skill to real world jobs
could be incredibly effective. It’s a very detailed game, probably a
lot harder and more complicated than most jobs.

Gaming Stu's Igniq sponsored iRacing Car

Gaming Stu in his Igniq-sponsored iRacing car

Stu, a new console called the eBox is coming out next year in China.
Meanwhile, the Xbox hasn’t even been RELEASED there yet. What gives.
Why can’t I go and play Gears of War at the Great Wall if I want to?

I reckon the Chinese would prefer a home built console to be sold as
opposed to an American one. They call it red tape but I think it’s
more than that. Microsoft shouldn’t be too worried though as the eBox
is aimed at the family market like the Wii. Hardcore gamers might not
find anything of interest to play on it, but I’d still like to see
what it does.

Stu, my colleague on Igniq Gary is currently making the ultimate
gaming rig to end all gaming rigs. What advice can you give him as he
builds this monster?

Any advice I could give would be redundant. I’ve read the specs and by
George it’s a monster. I want it now… now!!

Previously:
Gaming Stu on: Molyneux, Lineage II addiction and new fangled PSPs

Sony: PS2 The High Watermark

Playstation 3 Sony are aiming to equal the PS2′s sales record by 2016, says Sony Computer Entertainment boss Kaz Hirai.

In a new interview on MCV, Hirai pointed to the record breaking 146 million PS2′s sold since 1999 as the goal for the PS3:

“The high point, looking back at our console business, has been PS2,” he told MCV.
“For PS3, that is one level of success we’d like to emulate and hopefully surpass at the end of the ten-year lifecycle.”

The PS3 has ‘only’ sold 38 million units since its release in 2006, but MCV report sales have increased year on year by 57 percent, and that Sony are hopeful the upcoming Playstation Move will help to boost sales even more.

Further, Hirai has ordered a restructuring within SCE so the company has a more international focus.

Fortress PS3 Hacked With a Lowly USB Flash Key?

A new video is doing the rounds apparently showing a Playstation 3 hacked with a USB dongle to be able to play backup (read pirated) discs.

These things should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when the original site is down under the weight of all the traffic and interest this story has generated.

But the video looks genuine and will certainly cause Sony some headaches if the method proves to be user friendly.

Info from the source of the mod, PS JAILBREAK:

PS Jailbreak is a USB plug and play solution that installs in seconds, keeping your valid warranty seal in tact.

Easy to use installer and GUI takes you step by step.

Compatible with all production models FAT and SLIM. Supports all regions: USA, JAP, PAL and KOREA

PS Jailbreak disables forced software updates and will never brick your console.

Supports all games (it does not allow backups of bluray movies , dvd movies , or past consoles games)

Square Enix Rapped for PS3 Footage in Xbox 360 Ad

Square Enix has been rapped by the UK Advertising Standards Authority for using PS3 footage in the TV advert for Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360.

The blunder was noticed by one solitary gamer who noticed the difference and complained that the images used in the ad were of a higher quality than could be produced by the Xbox 360.

Square Enix The ASA ran a detailed analysis of the ad, running the two versions of the game side by side on screens with an identical set up.

“We noted that there was a discernible difference in the picture quality of the two – the PS3 image in video sequences appeared sharper and colours were more vivid than those of the XBOX 360.
“We considered that, because the ad promoted the game on the XBOX 360 platform, it should have featured footage derived from that console.

Square Enix admitted that PS3 footage had been used, but argued that they “did not believe any average viewer, or indeed avid gamer, would perceive any difference in the output unless reviewing the materially forensically’.

In the end the ASA concluded that the ad was misleading and ordered it not to be shown again.

The Telegraph via Gamesradar

Breaking News: Mass Effect 2 Coming To PS3 in January

PlayStationEU has just informed us that Mass Effect 2 will find its way onto the PS3 in January of 2011. Bioware’s followup to 2007′s action role-playing game was released to PC and Xbox 360 earlier this year in January. The game itself has been a major success story, scoring over 90% on most review sites with sales passing the 2 million mark within the first week of release.

After the events of the original game, Commander Shepard is killed in an ambush by a mysterious alien species called the Collectors. Shepard is revived two years after the attack by an enigmatic organization called Cerberus, and is tasked with finding out more about the Collectors and why they are abducting entire human colonies. Shepard must build a team in order to accomplish what seems to be a suicide mission. Many elements and locations from Mass Effect return, in addition to ones new to the series.

You can find more game info, trailers etc over on the official site.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Compilation coming to PS3?

Mortal Kombat Raiden UK online shopping site ShopTo.net apparently revealed an upcoming Mortal Kombat pack that hasn’t been announced yet.

According to the now-deleted listing on their site, the game is coming on November 12th and will include Mortal Kombat 1, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat.

The game was listed only for PS3 and had a Playstation Network logo, leading Eurogamer to speculate it might be a PS3 exclusive.