In response to earlier reports of the increasing market rarity of the 20GB PlayStation 3, Sony Computer Entertainment of America has officially confirmed that the less expensive variant of its console will no longer be offered in North America.

Due to the overwhelming demand for the 60GB model from both retailers and consumers, we have ceased offering the 20GB model here in North America

said Dave Karraker, senior director of corporate communications for SCEA. Sony has also indicated that the 20GB model, while discontinued, will still be supported by software and services, such as warranty.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs for short) have recently gained a lot of momentum. Games such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars continue to suck in subscribers, who enjoy the games so much they sometimes lose almost all traces of a social life to play these games. The maker of Guild Wars has shown interest in getting their MMORPG onto consoles, which would greatly expand their market. However, one of the makers of Guild Wars also says that their current focus is for the PC platform, and they currently have no plans on getting the original Guild Wars onto a console. Perhaps the sequel will find it's way onto Microsoft and Sony gaming consoles.

Regardless of whether or not Guild Wars actually follows through, they do show a market trend of moving games towards consoles to tap their rather large market share.

After impressive initial sales figures, it looks as though Sony's new console isn't quite such a hit in the UK as it first appeared it would be. Using data collected from 7000 UK retailers which account for 90% of the software market, Chart Track today announced that PS3 hardware sales fell by an enormous 82% compared to the first week, with sales of Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm falling by over 60%. Unsurprisingly, SCEE is yet to comment on these disappointing figures. Meanwhile, the PS3 also seems to be struggling in Japan alongside Nintendo's new Wii. Since the PS3 and Wii were launched on November 11th and December 2nd respectively, the PS3 has notched 812,000 sales - only around half of the Wii's 1.95 million units, quite a significant gap considering the PS3 had a month's head start.

One of the PS3's key features is built in access to wireless internet. Unfortunately, upon review by the British home secretary John Reid, this feature isn't as nice as it sounds. If prisoners were to somehow get a PS3 in their hands, they could use the PS3's wireless powers to send messages to other cell-mates, or worse, to the outside world. And so, to avoid new, high-tech, and extremely-high-cost escape plans, Mr. Reid is banning all PS3's (and PSP's, which share the same capability) from prisons in Britain. It is quite possible other countries could see this as a model, and also lock wireless devices from their prisons.

While Microsoft added the Xbox 360 Elite to its gaming console lineup whose best feature comes in form of the 120GB hard drive Sony's 60GB Playstation 3 Premium now looks quite 'old'. Kotaku now comes with a story regarding an updated Playstation 3 model. A PDF document was found earlier this month which states a 80GB Playstation 3 is planned. Kotaku adds that Ken Kutaragi, known as "The GodFather of the PlayStation", had a 250GB model in mind. Maybe the 80GB PS3 when introduced will serve as the Basic, the 250GB PS3 as the Premium model.

Along with the release of PlayStation 3 in Europe, gamers in Japan and North America updated their Sony monoliths to system software version 1.60. Along with the much needed background downloading, the update brings to the PS3 the ability to help find a cure for cancer with its Folding@home client.

According to the most recent Folding@home client statistics sorted by operating system, the PlayStation 3 leads all other platforms by a huge margin. The PS3 has 367 current TFLOPS, while the next closest is Windows with 151 TFLOPS and more than ten times more CPUs.

When it comes to pure performance though, the PS3's Cell Broadband Processor is still no match for ATI GPUs for protein folding. The GPUs on Folding@home sit at 41 current TFLOPS, which come from only 700 processors. If there were as many GPUs folding as there are PS3s on the network, it can be extrapolated that GPUs could reach 876 TFLOPS.

Below are the current stats:

Sony has been a little behind with the new generation of consoles - in the time between Sony releasing the PS2 and PS3, Microsoft has entered the console market with two Xboxes and Nintendo has begun to recover from the disappointment created by the GameCube. However, Sony has finally launched the PS3 in Europe and Australasia, kicking off the global console wars between the 'next-gen' machines. In London, any gamers who turned up to buy a PS3 at midnight found themselves getting a free taxi ride home - and a free 46" HD TV to compliment their new console (a move which is estimated to have cost Sony £250,000), whilst 50 gamers in Berlin got their hands on a free PS3 by throwing their Xbox 360s at a wall. However, Microsoft didn't want all of the glory to belong to Sony - the company managed to rub some gloss off Sony's launch events in both London and Paris. Sony fans waiting outside the Virgin Megastore in London's Oxford Street were given chairs by Microsoft with a website address written on them which led buyers to a site mocking Sony for being late, whilst in Paris Microsoft drove a boat covered in Xbox 360 logos up and down the Seine near to a Sony boat which was acting as a temporary PS3 store.

Despite intentions for a large number of stores to open their doors at midnight in order to begin selling Sony's new console to die-hard Playstation fans, this has been forced to change after local authorities feared that police won't be able to cope with the crowds. Because of this, the only shop in London set to open at midnight to sell the PS3 will be Virgin's Megastore on Oxford Street - not a single HMV store in London will be opening at midnight. Throughout the rest of the UK there are still plans for 50 stores to open their doors at midnight, but this number is gradually shrinking as other areas follow the example set by London. GAME is advising that customers who have pre-ordered a PS3 contact their local branch to check whether it will be open or not. The main problem that police fear is that young gamers may find themselves being mugged of their new £425 console.

Sony has published its list of Playstation and Playstation 2 titles that will work with the European version of the PS3, with 72% of PS2 games claimed to be working on the new console. The list should be available here, but unfortunately it is no longer working so Sony may be amending the list. The v1.6 firmware announced earlier today will allow 1,782 of the 2,451 PS2 games available in Europe run using emulation, although it is claimed that many will not work 100%. According to Sony, games such as Kingdom Hearts and Twisted Metal Black run with "noticeable issues" (which have not been published). Removing non-essential USB devices and avoiding 60Hz mode (NTSC) may help to solve some of these problems, as well as limiting the number of players on one console to seven. President of SCEE David Reeves said "We will be adding additional titles to this list in future firmware upgrades, but as we have made clear before, in the future our resources will be increasingly focused on developing new services and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, rather than on delivering PS2 backwards compatibility."Update: the link now appears to be working again

After a day spent in preflashing my new Sony PSP, it seems appropiate for me to inform you that an upcoming system update of the PlayStation 3 firmware to version 1.6 will give users the ability to download files from the PlayStation Network in the background. Currently, PlayStation 3 owners must halt all activity and remain focused on the download progress bar. Any attempt at another operation on the console will cancel the download, which is non-resumable. Another recently announced feature to be included in the 1.60 update is the introduction of Folding@home functionality, giving owners of a PS3 the opportunity to use their new game system to help find real-life cures to diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and many cancers. Version 1.60 will also improve the Web browsing ability of the PS3. The update will bring zooming and new resolution settings for easier surfing, plus a full-sized keyboard on-screen for more convenient text entry. The release date of the new firmware is March 22 2007.

Most of you have probably heard by now about Stanford University's amazing software, Folding@Home. Folding@Home allows users to run complex scientific experiments on their computers whenever the computer is idle. Sony has officially announced that anyone who has bought their powerful console can run Folding@Home on it. Support will be coming through a firmware update, and users can configure Folding@Home to run just like they would on a normal computer. Sony boasts that their PS3 can run Folding@Home roughly 10 times faster than anyone with a mainstream computer chip. An associate professor at Stanford says that he's "thrilled" to welcome all the PS3 users into the, for lack of a better term, "fold". If you decide to start using Folding@Home, with either a computer or your powerful PS3, please join the techPowerUp! Folding@Home team

Today at CeBIT, Logitech announced it will support the European launch of PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) computer entertainment system with a line of products that includes the new Logitech Cordless Precision controller for PLAYSTATION 3, the Logitech ChillStream controller for PLAYSTATION 3, the Logitech Cordless MediaBoard keyboard for PLAYSTATION 3, the Logitech HDMI cable and the Logitech USB Headset for PLAYSTATION - these products are specially designed to enhance gamers' experience with Sony's new gaming platform.

We already wrote about the somewhat crippled PAL version of the Playstation 3 numerous times. Finally some Germans got first in reviewing the unit focused on backward compatibility and describing their findings over here.
To sum it up: 11 out of 12 games do not work! And they say the games in question were all quite new and popular (even the games made by Sony won't work). The reviewed console had the firmware rev. 1.50 installed which will be the release firmware for all the PS3 delivered on March 23rd. Only the future will tell how fast Sony will bring a new more compatible revision.
Here is the list of the tested games, Eragon being the only success.

- God of War
- MGS 2: Sons of Liberty
- MGS 3: Snake Eater
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Guitar Hero 2
- Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
- Okami
- GTA: Liberty City Stories
- Eragon
- Final Fantasy X-2
- Ratchet & Clank 3
- Lumines Plus

If you dare to read the machine translated german story yourself click here.

According to DailyTech IBM is from now on producing the Playstation 3 powering 'Cell' processor in it's Fab in East Fishkill (N.Y.) using a 65nm process. Interestingly this particular chip factory is the same where the microprocessors that power Nintendo's Wii come from.
The shrink to 65nm will help reducing the cost (Sony is still losing money when selling it's console) and the power consumption of the system as well.

Sony's most recent cost-cutting move was to remove the Playstation 2's Emotion Engine from the European version of the PS3, sparking fierce criticism due to the loss backwards compatibility - of all the PS2 games released in Europe, just 1,000 of them will work using emulation when the new console is released (admittedly a more impressive figure than first feared, but still well below the total number released). However, Europe may not be the only one receiving this special treatment from Sony. According to a report in Japanese newspaper Nikkei, Sony's money saving plans could be seeing the modified PS3 being sold in North America and Japan, where current consoles ship with the Emotion Engine. How much this will alienate consumers is unclear, as half of PS3 owners would be able to play nearly all PS2 games, whilst the rest have a much smaller choice until Sony improves the emulation software. Either way, Sony must value the lower production costs higher than the sales it could lose for aggravating potential customers.

Senior industry executives have revealed that Sony is planning its latest online service for the new PS3, Playstation Home, for this autumn. PS Home is intended to improve upon the current offerings from Microsoft and Nintendo, letting players create online identities to record various achievements in different games, and unlocking a number of 'prizes' for gamers. Phil Harrison (Sony's president of worldwide studios) is expected to give an official announcement later today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Playstation Network used by the PS3 at the moment has often been criticised compared to Microsoft's Xbox Live service, but Sony will be hoping to get back on a par with Microsoft once Playstation Home is launched.

Update: anyone wishing to read more about this service should view this DailyTech article.

It's common knowledge by now that the PS3 that's going to ship to PAL territories on March 23rd does not have the PS2 processor in it. This was, until now, expected to seriously reduce the compatiblity of the PS3 with PS2 games. Fortunately, the reduction of PS2 game compatibility is nowhere near as bad as most of us probably thought it would be. The PAL PS3 will be compatible with over 1000 PS2 titles on launch day, and will gain more compatibility as time goes on.

Anyone who connects to the PS3 network this morning will promptly discover that they need to update their PS3 firmware. Too bad it doesn't really do too much to games. The main changes are...

• An added ability to resize the video chat window.
• The ability to attach a USB camera to the PS3, for video chat

We will probably see a substantial PS3 firmware upgrade come March 23rd, when we will see the console released in PAL territories.

Sony has released the first information regarding Playstation 3 game prices in Europe, bringing some good (well, arguably) news for a change. The price of both Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man has been confirmed to be €59.99 in mainland Europe and £39.99 in the UK (more or less the same). Games which will be downloadable from the Playstation Network will have introductory prices of between €2.99 and €9.99, with other content (such as game items) starting at €0.99. Some consumers will see this as good news from the view that it is cheaper than Europe's Xbox 360 games which cost as much as €75.00 (£50), but that still works out to be just under $80, whilst in North America gamers are only paying $60.

Since its launch back in November last year, the PS3 has suffered shortages in a number of areas with Sony struggling to meet demand. However, the company is now claiming that production should equal demand by the end of May - for North America anyway. SCEA chief Jack Tretton said "April or May is when we feel like we're going to catch up to demand and have product fully in stock across North America and stay there." At present the PS3 is the lowest selling console compared to its main rivals, the Wii and the Xbox 360, with high costs and supply problems being the main culprits. Whether or not Europe will suffer any shortages is unclear, but the removal of the Emotion Engine from European consoles has prompted a slightly hostile attitude with consumers arguing they pay more and get less.

Sony has dashed the hopes of millions of PS3 users hoping to get an after-market controller for the PS3 that would have rumble. They did not incorporate rumble in their next-generation console not because a lawsuit prevented them from doing so, but because they felt rumble was a "last generation feature", and that motion sensitive controllers are for the current generation of consoles. You can read Sony's actual quote by following the source link.

As we reported on Friday, The version of the PS3 that will ship to PAL territories has lost some PS2 hardware, which will drastically reduce the amount of PS2 titles compatible with the PS3. However, in an unofficial blog, Sony has said that this reduction in backwards-compatibility isn't all a bad thing. They removed the PS2 processor that is found in the American/Japanese PS3 only to meet the strict PAL standards, and the models that are PAL-compatible will have a PAL sticker on the front. Sony will also work hard to update firmware to allow more and more backwards-compatibility with PS2 games. On March 23rd, Sony will maintain a site with a nice long list of compatible PS2 games. You can visit this site when it goes online here.

Gaming consoles are getting more and more popular these days. That is not only because the integrated hardware is fast and games will be compatible for years but they are much more than a stupid gaming box. You can play movies utilitzing CDs, DVDs or even Blu-Ray discs, surf the net and whatnot. But what about their power consumption? All these shiny features won't come for free, do they? Now the guys from HardCoreWare come into play. They took a PS3, a Wii and a XBOX 360, fired them up with different tasks and compared the power consumption to a mid sized gaming rig. You will be surprised with what conclusion they came up with.

When Sony launches the PS3 in PAL territories on March 23rd, it will not be the same model as the one that was released in America and Japan last year. A spokesperson from Sony says "The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models". This is because Sony made some changes to hardware dedicated to emulating the PS2. The hardware that was dedicated to emulating PS2 games is being used to accelerate native PS3 games. This will especially come in handy as Sony moves on to making games purely for the PS3.

Australian retailers know just as well as we do that the PS3 will come to Australia and other PAL territories on March 23rd. Harvey Norman Bondi Junction decided to take advertising to a new level. In what they call "an innocent mistake", Harvey Norman took an Xbox360, a piece of cardboard, and called it a PS3. Of course, they weren't selling the "display model". Good thing too, considering they were caught by their own customers. Harvey Norman probably used an Xbox360 and a piece of cardboard to advertise the PS3 due to the lack of Australian availability of the PS3, as well as the price of getting an American/Japanese one to Australia.