No More Linux for PS3s

Firmware 3.21 will disable the ability to install other OS onto the “fat” PS3 including Linux from April 1st, Patrick Seybold, Sony’s Senior Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media, has said. This means that you will no longer be able to get Linux on any of the models of PS3. But why has this decision been made? Hit the jump for more info.

Final Fantasy IX to Hit PSN

A producer form Square Enix recently twittered something that could lead us to believe that Final Fantasy IX for the PS1 is coming to PSN in the near future. The translation of his message on Twitter is : “Regarding an FF9 download release, everyone is so passionate about it that I’ll be proposing it at the next board meeting. Look forward to next week!” Despite whatever Sony of Squeenix says, this is more than likely to happen. We have already seen FF games on the PSN such as FFVII, FFVIII, and FF Tactics. The logical reasoning would be that Square would like to continue the trend because (obviously) they like the numbers 7, 8, and 9…or maybe they were just good games. Either way I am excited, not necessarily for myself (due to the fact I kept all the Final Fantasy games throughout these years) but because so many more people can experience what RPGs were like when they were turn based. No price point has been considered, until now (boo ya), so it’s obvious to say that the game will be somewhere around the price point of the other games, $10. Look forward to this and check back for more details.

Via Joystiq

The PS3 Bricks It.

An unkown error has hit the Playstation 3 causing mass panic and chaos across the globe, especially in this guy’s house. It’s even made the radio over in the UK.

It’s called error 8001050F and it’s been affecting PS3s in 3 main ways:

• If you try to sign in you get the following message, “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
• If you try to play certain games online or even some single player games such as the new Heavy Rain you will receive this error message, “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”
• There have also been reports of data being lost from PS3s, including game data and trophies.

Sony official statement:

“We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.”

You can keep to date through Sony’s Twitter feed here or the Sony Official Blog here. Until Sony has this fixed I guess you’ll just have to glare angrily your new copy of Heavy Rain or MW2 until this problem is fixed.

Update – Sony has fixed the probelm, now you can go back to playing Heavy Rain .

Episodes From Liberty City Coming to PS3 and PC

It looks like the exclusive licence of the two GTA DLC packs: The Lost and the Damned and the Ballad of Gay Tony have expired as it has been announced  that both packs will be coming to the PS3 and PC. You will be able to buy them both separately on the Playstation store or from Game for Windows – Live. Or you can pick up the retail version that will feature both of them as Episodes from Liberty City. They will be available from the 30th of March and are expected to cost the same price as they did when released for the Xbox 360, $20.00 each.

PS3 Motion Controller is said to have a 10 game lineup this year.

According to a Nikkei report the Playstation motion controller, or the “Arc” (please do not let that be the name) will have “around 10 or so games”. This is exceeding my expectations by around…10 or so. Lets just hope they are not all PS Sports games, or crappy mini game collections.

Via Joystiq

CoD Experiment – Stage 1

Yesterday I finally completed stage 1 of my CoD Experiment in which I’m teaching my brother how to play MW2. So what did I actually do? Well the aim was to get teach my brother all the names of the buttons on the Playstation controller so that he knows, when I yell at him to press R1 to shoot, he’ll press R1. So I created a sort of map of the Playstation controller complete with labels that would serve as a guide to the buttons. I would test him on the names of these 20 buttons until he got all 20/20. But first I had to persuade him to take part, perhaps with a speech telling him the future benefits of learning the Playstation controller? Some how I didn’t think that would swing it, so instead I offered him the only thing 5 year olds really want, candy. I told him every time I tested him he would get one piece and if he got all of them right a whole packet. The first time I tested him I didn’t remind him of any of the button names before hand and he scored 13/20. This was mainly because he got the L and the R mixed up. The second time I went through all the button names before hand and then asked him them 5 minutes later. This time he fared slightly better getting 15/20 but again he mixed up L and R on the triggers. For the next attempt I went though all the buttons with him and while he was being tested I gave him hints like sucking in breath and saying “um”or “ur” if he got something wrong and he managed to correct his mistakes finally scoring 20/20. However I wanted to make sure he remembered the button names so repeated the test 5 hours later and I was delighted to find he again scored 20/20. A success then! Great but this stage was by far the easiest part of the experiment so keep your eyes out for stage 2 when he’ll actually get into the game.

The Saboteur: Review

The Saboteur in a nutshell: Nazis + alcoholic Irishman + stealth + 1st grade coloring class.

The Saboteur is about an Irish race car driver Sean Devlin driven to snapping SS officer’s necks before blowing up bridges by the Nazi invasion of France and the murder of his friend. He escapes to Paris where he meets Luc a former writer, who is now a major player in the Resistance. The doesn’t get much more complex than that, just another revenge mission with explosives Click the jump for the rest of the review.

Not Another MW2 Exploit!

Another exploit on the Xbox 360 has left many level 70 players back down to level 7. The user “Noctis Everto” on the Infinity Ward forum posted this very worrying story:

Uncharted 2: Review

The new big purple elephant for PS3 gaming is Uncharted 2. To kick things off, Uncharted 2 is EXTREMELY pretty. Most people will say its on the edge of uncanny valley, I say, “close”. When you first jump right into the single player story, you immediately get cast into a hard situation, one of which I will not spoil. The way Naughty Dog presents the Intro of the game is amazing. The story of Uncharted 2 is one of the main points to keep playing. The story is full of twists and irony that just keeps on tying itself into a knot that eventually unfolds into something amazing. The main mechanic is platforming with a side dish of 3rd person shooting. The platforming is done very well and adds a new dimension to combat and level crawling. The shooting needs some work but the upgrade system and boosters really help to go through the game. While in the single player, there is always at least one other person with you, but they really don’t help, they just make the enemies hunch over to give you a chance to shoot them. There is a pretty big variety of weapons, in which you can dramatically change the play style. The upgrades and boosters, as I mentioned earlier, really help with…well…killing dudes. Next is the multiplayer. The multiplayer works, that’s basically all I have to say. Your boosters also carry over to the multiplayer, and the maps are interesting and work well with the ten player limit. There is also a co-op mode which is pretty much horde mode. There is some objective type stuff, such as; get the treasure to the chest on the other side of the map. Co-op is, in my opinion, one of the reasons to play this game. At the very most, the worst thing about this game is the shooting. The shooting isn’t bad, it just isn’t on par with the other big third person shooters. Everything other than that is amazing, and the game isn’t focused on shooting, so that’s ok. Story, multiplayer and co-op are all reasons to get this game, and hey they are the only thing in this game, so that is why Uncharted 2: Among Thieves deserves Game In A Nutshell’s very first 10 out of 10.

PS3 Slim, and PS3 Price Cuts

Just announced, is the PS3 slim, yes you all guessed it, a PS3 slim. What is up with Sony and Slim, do they have something against fat? The price of the new PS3 will be $299, 299 euros, and 29,980 yen. It will have a 120 gig hard drive an not compatible with PS2 games. If you want exact details, go here.