Once again, it's that time of year. The post-holiday lull in market activity where everyone is either waiting for the "next big thing" or watching for the market's next move. According to The New York Times, the gaming market is very easy to see. Xbox360 is in the lead, Wii's are selling like hotcakes, and PS3 sales are steady but slow. Sony had a very interesting comment in regards to the current console war. The senior director of corporate communication in Sony Corporate Entertainment America:

Wii could be considered an impulse buy more than anything else.

It should be noted that Sony's President of Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison said something very similar about the Nintendo DS...18 months ago.

TOKYO - Although Sony is blaming its faltering profits partly on PlayStation 3 price cuts in Japan, a senior executive said Wednesday that further slashing prices may be in store for the just-launched video game machine. Pricing is among the factors Sony Corp. (SNE) is studying as it expects to break even in its money-losing gaming business next fiscal year, said Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara, stressing that no additional price cut has been decided. "We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right," Yuhara told reporters at Sony's Tokyo headquarters.

Immersion's various legal battles with Sony over the force feedback controller are numerous, to say the least. While it good to see from a legal standpoint that Sony is not ignoring court orders by putting force feedback in their controller, it sure isn't good from a gamer's standpoint. SplitFish stated in a press release today that Sony doesn't have to have a vibration-less controller. SplitFish actually announced that they would be very willing to help Sony develop a force feedback system completely different from Immersion's solution. This means that if Sony wants force feedback in a future SIXAXIS revision, they could very well have it, if they accept SplitFish's offer to help.

Analysts were predicting that Sony would soon announce profit losses of nearly 50%. Sony is very happy to say that this is clearly not the case. While competitors like Microsoft and Nintendo helped to steal away possible console profits from the PS3 and PSP, Sony excelled in...just about everything else. Movies produced by Sony yielded spectacular profits. Combine that with "encouraging" sales in the television show and digital camera department, and Sony "only" took a 5.3% profit loss from last year. Sony admits that if they had sold the PS3 at prices closer to production costs, they would have made a lot more money.

One of Sony's most promoted features in the PS3 is it's backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, when the PS3 was first released, it hardly could boast this. Classic PS2 and PS1 games would be presented as garbled lines of text instead of something playable. In a firmware release that brings the console to version 1.5, Sony has fixed almost all compatibility issues, with exception to a very small amount of isolated cases. Any older game you run on the PS3 will be presented with a higher clarity than on the PS1 or PS2.

Sony looks like it will be first to release a computer based on Intel's new Core 2 Quad processor, with the Vaio R Master. The CPU itself runs at 2.4GHz (it's a Core 2 Quad Q6600) and the PC also features up to 3GB DDR2 memory, 3TB worth of SATA drives, a Blu-ray drive and NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500 graphics. Quite a fast machine all-in-all, but with a price tag of over $8,200 when it hits markets on February 10th, this might not be within everyone's price range. Dell and Gateway have already begun building systems based on the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processors which also feature four cores, but the Core 2 Quad is the mainstream equivalent.

When the Sony PlayStation 3 was released to the United States, people queued for days, and even shot each other over the next generation console from Sony. Sony has managed to ship 1 million PS3s to the United States, however, people just aren't buying them. Some people blame the high price of the console, others blame a rather lackluster collection of launch titles. Whatever the reason is, the PS3 simply isn't doing well right now. While PS3s are filling space on store shelves, the Nintendo Wii has become very successful, due to having reasonably good supply, a low price, an interesting controller, and a great set of launch titles.

A couple of days ago, we announced that Sony had won an Emmy at CES2007. After the gaming community collectively gawked at Sony winning an Emmy, Sony decided to print a press release announcing how the PS3 was the pride of CES. Unfortunately, there was some misunderstanding as to what Sony really won an Emmy for. Sony had indeed won an Emmy for their controller, like Nintendo did, but it was not for Sixaxis. Instead, Sony won an Emmy for the Dual Shock controller. Dual Shock is a feature not available on the PS3...at all.

Kodak sued Sony back in 2004, claiming that Sony had infringed on it's patents on digital camera technology. Since then, Kodak and Sony have been counter suing for the control of 10 patents. Sony and Kodak have officially settled by starting a cross licensing agreement, so that both companies have the rights to use the same technology.

While a lot of people would think Nintendo should win an Emmy for their controller, the people at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences decided otherwise. The Sony PS3 controller won the Technology and Engineering Emmy Award at CES 2007, while Nintendo didn't even get an honorable mention. Sony's XBR interface is also being nominated for "Outstanding Innovation and Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for the Best Use of Personal Media Display and Presentation Technology". The actual Emmy will be awarded later tonight.

Despite having upset some users by forcing Blu-ray upon anyone who buys their latest console, now Sony are taking it a step further and planning an updated PS3 which is not primarily intended as a gaming machine, but for multimedia. The new version of their console will feature improved anti-vibration on the Blu-ray drive to make it quieter, 512MB XDR memory, an improved PSU and two HDMI connectors dividing the audio and video. The appearance of the console may be very different to the standard Playstation 3 but it should still play all PS3 games. The Playstation itself has always been made by Sony Computer Entertainment, however this may be direct from Sony and will probably be very expensive.

Sony will offer a video download service in the first quarter of 2007 for its PlayStation Portable (PSP) game device, the Financial Times reported in its online edition. The scheme involves downloading video content to a PC for one-time transfer to a PSP. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment developed the service to work with Sony's memory stick storage platform, the report said. A 4Gb Sony memory stick has the capacity to store 10 feature films. Sony is also negotiating with vendors like Amazon.com, Movielink and CinemaNow to provide the new service.

SanDisk and Sony today announced the development of a new Memory Stick PRO-HG format, compatible with the existing Memory Stick PRO format. The Memory Stick Duo sized card extends the maximum storage capacity by up to 32GB, and boost performance by increasing the internal core clock from 40MHz to 60MHz. As a result, the maximum data rate has jumped to 60MB/sec - three times that of the Memory Stick PRO format. Minimum write speed for Memory Stick PRO-HG media is listed at 15MB/sec. The first Memory Stick PRO-HG media will be available in January 2007, but there is no information when the format's maximum 32GB storage capacity will be reached.

Sony released today new system software update version 1.30 for PlayStation 3 consoles. This is the second update released since the PS3 official start three weeks ago. Among the key updates is support for a Blu-ray Disc remote control, and the ability to select the output format for BD/DVD video through an HDMI cable. If you plan to update your PS3 system, to software version 1.30, please click here.

Bluetooth VoIP Kit HBV-100 - A high performance kit for lower cost calls via the internet.

The Bluetooth VoIP Kit HBV-100 is the perfect way to stay in touch with friends and family over the Internet. Comprising a Bluetooth headset HBH-PV705 and a Bluetooth USB Adaptor, you can get all the normal benefits of using a Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headset - freeing your hands while you talk, long talk and stand by times, excellent sound quality and comfort among others - while making low cost internet calls.

Sony has started offering old Playstation games for download to Playstation 3 owners. These games are meant for the PSP, so you need to own both to take advantage of this offer. Games cost $5.99 and can be downloaded from the PlayStation Store accessed through the Playstation 3. The current games offered are: Cool Boarders, Crash Bandicoot, Hot Shots Golf 2, Syphon Filter and Tekken 2. Sony will release another wave of games later this month.

There has been a recent shuffling of people in the corporate level of Sony. Among the most notable changes is Ken Kutaragi's status. He is stepping down as president and CEO, becoming chairman and CEO of Sony. Kaz Hirai has taken the position of president and CEO of Sony, and took "an international designation as president and COO of Sony Computer Entertainment International (SCEI)". The move comes days after hints of Kutaragi being the source of PS3 delays and production problems. However, according to a press release, Kutaragi will continue to oversee all of Sony, and will use his executive powers to help accelerate the development of the PS3 business.