DualShock 3 finally coming to US PS3s among other new bundles
At its annual retail and publisher conference Sony America has announced that new PlayStation 3 and PSP bundles will be hitting retailers beginning in April.
They company also announced that the wireless DualShock 3 controller will finally be available in North America starting in April for the MSRP of $55 USD.
The first new bundle will include the 80GB model, a DS3 controller and “Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” for $499 USD.
In June the company will be releasing a special limited-edition PSP bundle that will include “a copy of the God of War: Chains of Olympus PSP game and a “deep red” coloured PSP handheld with a silk-screened image of Kratos on the back of the unit. The Pack will also include a UMD of the movie Superbad as well as a PSN voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops.” The suggested retail price is $200 USD.
“Working closely with our retail and publishing partners and sharing our hardware and software roadmaps at Destination PlayStation gives us a great opportunity to outline some key milestones for the year,” said SCEA CEO Jack Tretton.
“In response to incredible demand, we will be manufacturing more 80GB PS3s for North America and the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots 80GB PS3 bundle is an ideal way to offer that continued value to our consumers.
“With Blu-ray having won the format war, our stellar software line-up and a broad product portfolio, we will continue to drive the incredible momentum we’ve been generating since last fall,” he added.
YouTube is back in Pakistan
Just 3 days after it blocked access to the popular video sharing site, Pakistani officials have lifted the ban on YouTube, citing that the “anti-Islamic” video clips had been removed.
The so-called “anti-Islamic” clips were trailers for an upcoming movie by the Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilder. The movie allegedly will show Islam as a fascist religion and that has proven to incite violence, especially towards women.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) issued notices to all 70 Pakistani ISPs telling them to ban access to the site, but that ban has since been lifted. As the PTA says, the “totally anti-Quranic… very blasphemous” video has been removed despite the fact that other Wilder clips still remain available.
Dreamworks “stuck” with Toshiba, HD DVD
Dreamworks Studios has announced that they are still “locked” into an exclusivity deal with Toshiba to distribute their movies on HD DVD only and would continue to do so until Toshiba tells them differently.
“We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through,” DreamWorks Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg said.
“As you know, we have been well-compensated for our support. It really is in their court at this point to really declare what the next step will be. We’re poised either way to jump into the marketplace when the conditions are right to do so,” he added.
Katzenberg’s comments seem to imply that all the past rumors were indeed correct and Dreamworks and Paramount were paid over $150 million USD to go HD DVD-exclusive for 18 months. It seems however that Paramount had a different clause in there contract because they recently dropped HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray.
Sony PSP Go!Messenger finally arrives
After it announced in mid-January that Skype would be heading to European PSPs, Sony has confirmed that the wireless communication package Go!Messenger will also hit European PSPs by the end of the week.
The package, jointly developed by Sony and BT lets users “send voice, video and instant messages to other Go!Messenger users from any wireless Internet connection, and will work over wireless Internet - including that provided by the 2,500-plus BT Openzone hotspots around UK city centers.”
The service is free in theory but you will need to purchase the PSP Go!Cam, which is a mic and video camera, if you want to use the package.
“Enabling more than 8.5 Million PSP users across the SCEE region to communicate with each other, through Video or Voice chat, truly confirms the always evolving nature and potential of PSP,” said PSP European marketing manager Stephane Hareau.
Wii dominates consoles in Japan again
According to new data figures from Enterbrain, the ever popular Nintendo Wii has dominated the Japanese console market again, outselling the next closest competitor, the Sony PlayStation 3 by an almost 4-to-1 margin.
As of February 24th, 331,627 Wii units had been sold in Japan, compared to 89,131 PlayStation 3s.
The PS3 has been closing the gap recently but the blockbuster hit “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” eliminated that, at least for the month. The game reached one million units sold in 11 days, and has now sold 1.33 million.
As always, the Microsoft Xbox 360 lagged terribly behind in the region and shows no signs of improvement.
iPhone finally coming to Ireland
The mobile phone carrier O2 has announced that it will be the exclusive carrier for the popular Apple iPhone in Ireland following its successful launch in the UK last year.
The official debut for the device in Ireland is slated for March 14th. The device will sell in O2’s retail stores and also through “Carphone Warehouse” retail stores. The smaller capacity 8GB model of the iPhone will sell for €399 including VAT. The larger capacity 16GB model will retail for €499 including VAT. Obviously the device will work with both Macs and PCs.
The different service plans will be available from O2, with the cheapest beginning at €45. Each plan will have anytime minutes, text messaging and a 1GB data bundle at least.
More details when they become available.
Guides Updated
Recently, we have begun notifying you of the recent changes or updates to Afterdawn in an effort to keep you all informed.
For those that missed it, we recently expanded Afterdawn to Sweden, marking a third language for the site.
We have also added a number of guides aimed at playback of all types of video files on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Finally, the staff has been updating the Glossary section since the beginning of the year with many Glossary items added and others completely revamped.
Now for the new news
In an ongoing effort to improve and update our P2P guides the staff has completely revamped a couple of the most popular P2P guides, with aims to update all of them.
Using and Maxing out your download speeds with uTorrent- This guide has been completely updated even down to the structure of the guide. uTorrent is the most popular torrent client so we hope this will be of use for many users and torrent fans.
Guide to using Vuze (Azureus 3.0) (BitTorrent Client)- This guide has also been completely updated. It will now walk you through every step of using Azareus or Vuze to download legal HD content or normal torrent files.
We hope you will check all of these updates and have a great weekend
70 percent of Finnish youth are ‘criminal’ pirates
A new survey published by the The National Research Institute of Legal Policy shows that about 70 percent of teenage Finns have used or currently use file-sharing applications to download copyrighted material.
Online piracy was far and away the largest form of ‘criminal behavior’ among the Finnish youth. 6 percent smoke marijuana or has, 11 percent have participated in a fight, and 15 percent have stolen something from their school or someone else.
29 percent of those who reported downloading unauthorized content also admitted they download movies or music every single day from file sharing services.
Finnish pro-piracy group Piraattiliittothe said, “There is an almost unanimous call from the readers to legalize private filesharing. The overwhelming change in the national opinion from anti-piracy to pro-piracy is somewhat surprising, even for us at Piraattiliitto.”
The Finnish copyright lobby however said the results of the survey were “alarming” and they are looking to pass new laws that will “allow copyright holders to force ISPs to pass their threatening emails to the alleged filesharing customers.”
Canadian convicted of filming in movie theater
Richard Craig Lissaman of Calgary has become the first Canadian convicted under new movie pirating legislation for his decision to film the movie “Sweeney Todd” at a local movie theater last year.
Lissaman pleaded guilty on Friday and was sentenced to 12 months probation and a large fine of $1500 CAD.
The guilty party is now also banned from going to any movie theater as well as from owning video recording equipment (including a cell phone with the capability) while he is on probation.
Judge Skene said that Lissman’s crime was comparable to someone shoplifitng a cart of meat knowing that they will resell it for a profit.
“You can say he and his pals will watch the movie, but he has an item that is more supportive of taking something to be used to make a profit,” said the judge.
“It’s not a simple theft of an item for personal consumption.”
The motion picture industry was delighted by the ruling and admitted they spent six months investigating before having the authorities arrest Lissaman.
“Canada is a hotbed of movie pirating, which is a billion-dollar loss to the movie industry,” Mark Christiansen, executive vice-president of operations for Paramount Picture’s motion picture distribution.
“The perception is that Hollywood stars are the only ones hurt by this, but it affects everybody who works in theatres.”
Virginia Jones, director of policy and legal affairs for the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, added, “We would have liked to see jail time, sending a stronger message. We hope this is just a starting point.”
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HDTV penetration at all-time high
According to a new Leichtman Research study, one-third of all Americans now own an HDTV, putting market penetration at an all-time high. The number has doubled from 2006’s figures.
Just over 22 percent of all US homes purchased a new HDTV in the last 12 months, and about 48 percent spent over $1000 USD for their new TV.
“About 40 million U.S. households now have at least one HDTV set, and LRG forecasts that this number will double over the next four years,” noted Bruce Leichtman, President and principal analyst of Leichtman Research. “While more people than ever before have HDTV sets, educating consumers on HD programming remains an issue.
HDTV prices, whether they be for DLP, LCD or plasma screens, have been dropping exponentially over the past two years and 42 inch screens with full 1080p HD resolution can be found for under $1000 depending on the brand.
The study also says that 33 percent of current HDTV owners own more than one HDTV and that of the 67 percent that don’t, 30 percent are planning to purchase a second TV in the next year.
