Home of the Global Geek News Podcast
Posts tagged Sony
Global Geek News Podcast #45
Nov 24th
Here are the shownotes for episode #45 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!

Stories:
- Smoking near Apple computers creates biohazard, voids warranty
- Netbooks have higher failure rates than laptops
- Google’s Chrome OS, the next big thing or Google’s great blunder?
- Microsoft: Azure to go live in January, for pay in February
- Bing captures 10% of the search market in the US
- Banned Xbox 360 modders unite with a class action lawsuit against Microsoft
- New York tests Xbox-based alert system
- Sony to expand the PlayStation Network into Sony Online Service, sell music, books and videos
- “Unfriend” declared word of the year
- Digg CEO Adelson: “I don’t think people expect to pay for news anymore”
Tip of the week: Office 2010 Professional beta available for download (FREE!)
Fan Global Geek News on Facebook and follow it on Twitter!
Host: Jeremy Bray & Wesley Faulkner
Special Guest: Randall Bennett from TechVi.com
For more news, check out the Global Geek News Blog
Global Geek News Podcast #44
Nov 10th
Here are the shownotes for episode #44 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!

Stories:
- nVidia denies x86 chip rumors, pushes Fermi back to 2010
- Got friends? Now you can thank Facebook
- Myspace traffic drop costs News Corp. $100 million
- Sony’s PSPgo sells 28,000 units in Japan on launch day, physical media points and laughs
- Inventor of cell phones say they have become too complicated
- Apple’s hypocrisy continues, approves Mein Kampf for the App Store
- Why you should think twice before dating an iPhone user
- Comcast’s new throttling plan uses triggers to throttle bandwidth
- Secret anti-piracy treaty turns ISPs into cops or pirates
- Anti-piracy group throws in the towel, pirates walk free
Tip of the week: 100 Open Technology Courses
Fan Global Geek News on Facebook and follow it on Twitter!
Host: Jeremy Bray & Wesley Faulkner
For more news, check out the Global Geek News Blog
Global Geek News Podcast #39
Sep 30th
Here are the shownotes for episode #39 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!

Stories:
- Sony sets the PSP Go up for failure
- Expect PS3 shortages this Christmas season
- Two more Pirate Bay appeals judges accused of bias
- Ignoring RIAA lawsuits is cheaper than going to trail
- France gives final approval to three strikes law
- Feds weigh cellphone bans for bus and truck drivers
- Netflix CEO hopes to stream to PS3, Wii, iPhone
- US wants UK hacker to pay for the security holes he exposed
- NSW seeks to build unhackable netbooks for students
- Moronic pervert to officer: “Hypothetically, what would you do if you found child pornography?”
Major announcement: Global Geek News is giving away a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate!
Tip of the week: Save $50 on an Xbox 360 Elite with a rebate
Host: Jeremy Bray & Wesley Faulkner
Expect Playstation 3 shortages this Christmas season
Sep 28th
Greetings Readers!
If you are hoping to pick up a Playstation 3 for the 2009 holiday season for yourself or somebody else, you better do it while you still can because shortages are being predicted.
Thanks to the record pace that the PS3 has been selling at since the price drop to $300 and the release of the PS3 Slim, Sony Executive Jack Tretton says that if sales continue at their current pace, there will be shortages of the PS3 sales this holiday season because demand is outpacing supply.
It is baffling that Sony didn’t expect such a surge in sales when a new unit was released and the price was dropped. Considering everybody had been hoping for a price drop for the past year, they should know that it was going to make for a huge boost in sales so they would have made production great enough to meet demand through the holiday season.
There is no news on when the shortage will happen but I know why Sony is planning it, free publicity. Whenever a major consumer product has a shortage, it gets a writeup on all of the major sites which is good for the company and the product. This is the only reason I can think of that Sony would pull something like this. By creating a shortage, you give the appearance that the hottest item of the Christmas season is going to be the Playstation 3, even when it might not be true. Despite the fact that I understand this practice, I still find it horrible because come Christmas time, some kid isn’t going to have the PS3 he was expecting because Sony wasn’t willing to ramp up production for the holiday season.
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
Follow Global Geek News on Twitter!
Sony sets the PSP Go up for failure
Sep 28th
Greetings Readers!
As many of you know, I am a longtime fan of Sony’s PSP and I was initially looking forward to its sequel which turned out to be the PSP Go, but unfortunately it appears that Sony has set the portable gaming device up for failure. There are three primary ways that Sony is setting the PSP Go up for failure which are the focus of this post.
First, the biggest problem facing the PSP Go is the price. Considering the PSP Go plays the same content as the original PSP, there is no reason that Sony should be selling it at $250 when the original PSP which will continue to be sold, sells for under $170. While the original PSP was $250 when it shipped, those were very different economic times than what we are in now and the general rule I go by is that if a portable gaming device is more expensive than the most popular gaming console, it is overpriced. While it is great not having to deal with UMD disks that are constantly breaking, I don’t think that justifies the cost when you realize that the screen is also smaller and and despite your expectations that the battery life would be better since there is no disk drive, they are actually about the same as the normal PSP. Oh, and the battery is not removable which is another strike against the Go.
Of course the price point of the system is only one big factor in the overall price of the device. The fact that you will need all new accessories is going to be another major expense tied to the device. If that wasn’t bad enough, it looks like the games will cost more to download than they do in UMD format for the original PSP. Are you kidding me? I am going to have to pay more for downloadable games than for games with considerable production costs? I should be saving money because I am not in need of boxes, instructions, disks and whatever else, not spending more to get less! I am tired of paying more and getting less. Speaking of paying more and getting less…
Did you think I was finished talking about how much more you are going to have to pay to own the PSP Go? If you thought so, you would be wrong. In the ultimate slap in the face to everybody who already has the original PSP, the UMD conversion plan that Sony had once announced has been cancled for “legal and technical reasons.” PSP owners, myself included, had thought that the price to migrate would be fairly cheap since we could convert all of our PSP game collection to digital versions for the PSP Go. Instead, the greedy fools at Sony now expect us to pay for our games all over again. I guess they figured that if people bought all of their music again when they migrated from cassette to CD that we would be willing to do it when we “upgraded” from a PSP to a PSP Go. They would be wrong in that assumption.
I had a lot of hope for the PSP Go when it first was announced but I think that hope is pretty much gone. With the launch of the PSP Go later this week (Oct. 1st), Sony has set the system up to fail miserably. It certainly isn’t any competition for the lower priced DSi or even the iPhone. I had planned on getting the PSP Go on launch day just as I did with the PSP, but considering the overall cost of the device, games and accessories, I now have no plans on purchasing the device. If you can’t sell you system to somebody like me that collects game systems regardless of whether I play them or not, you have real problems. Get ready for all of the PSP Go is a complete flop stories.
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
Follow Global Geek News on Twitter!
Amazon's VOD success depends on distribution deals
Aug 6th
Greetings Readers!
The streaming video market has become rather crowded in the last couple of years with services like Hulu and YouTube, but the video service with the most potential is Amazon‘s VOD service.
Amazon’s VOD (Video On Demand) service has been around for a while and has a huge library of tv shows and movies including some of the newest releases yet it has never gained much traction in a world dominated by Netflix. If Amazon hopes to really compete in this market, it needs to do more than advertise its service (which it doesn’t do a very good job at anyway). Amazon needs to through its weight behind the service and make sure that everybody is aware of it and it is accessible as possible. How can they make it accessible? Amazon needs more distribution deals with hardware manufactures.
Amazon currently has deals which allow its service to be accessed on Roku boxes, Panasonic Blu-ray players, TiVo DVRs and Sony Bravia TVs, but they have to do much better than that. Amazon needs to push for a deal with every TV manufacture instead of just Sony and their Bravia line. With many people upgrading to new and better TVs after the DTV transition to take advantage of the new HD content, there is a huge opportunity for Amazon if they work to put themselves on all internet connected TVs. Same thing with Blu-ray players, Blu-ray is starting to gain traction and Amazon needs to do its best to get on more than just Panasonic players if it wants to get in on the ground floor before the mass exodus from DVD to Blu-ray begins. As far as TiVo goes, that is a great move for them but they should also work towards being on the DVRs offered by cable and satellite providers.
Amazon has the huge opportunity to grab a huge chunk of the streaming video market if they are willing to do what is necessary to put their service in front of as many people as possible. They have started moving in this direction, but so as Netflix and others, so if they want to put themselves in a dominant position, they must act now!
Finally, I think they need to go mobile with their video on demand service. Apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and such should be coming too. Many people like to watch videos on their phones, so if you have a way to stream videos to a phone, even if it is over wifi, you are ahead of the competition.
The competition in this space is in its very early stages and Amazon is on the position of either being left behind or taking the lead. The potential for profit is there, will they strike before its too late?
Hulu stops working on the PS3
Jun 29th
CrunchGear is reporting that Hulu no longer works with the Sony Playstation 3. I have heard numerous accounts of this so far although there seems to be no definite answer as to what is going on just yet. I have heard several reports speculating that this could have been broken in the latest firmware update (2.8). I have also heard reports saying that they have dugg deaper and found that the PS3 is being specifically blocked by Hulu. When you try to watch a video on Hulu, you get this message: “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconveinence.”
Personally, I have only used Hulu on my PS3 a couple of times because it is not a very good experience on the PS3. As fas as I am concerned, it isn’t a great loss but I am sure there are a few people out there that liked to use the PS3 to watch Hulu content. I have not verified this myself but I will when I get home from work and then report back on tonight’s recording of the Global Geek News Podcast.
Of the stories I have read, nobody has been able to get a comment from either Sony or Hulu on this issue yet.
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray
E3, the best Electronics Entertainment Expo in years, mostly
Jun 10th
Greetings Readers!
As promised, I am here to share my thoughts on this year’s E3. I’m not going to address every game that was talked about, but more of my thoughts from the main press events, so here we go.
Lets start off with Microsoft. This event was mind blowing! I found myself sitting in my chair several hours after the event still saying “holy crap!” The past couple of years have been a rather big disappointment from all of the major companies but this even alone makes up for all of it. Before I address Project Natal, which was the main “holy crap!” moment from the event, lets talk games and Xbox functionality. There were a ton of great titles that were announced at this years Microsoft press event, including Forza Motorsport 3, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, Crackdown 2, Metal Gear Solid Rising and even a Beatles version of Rock Band. These were great announcements as many of the major titles including Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2 and Metal Gear Solid Rising were completely unexpected. In terms of games, it looks to be a very bright year for the Xbox 360. They also announced some great new additions to Xbox Live including Last.fm, Facebook and even Twitter integration. This will do wonders for making the 360 become apart of your social network life. They also announced better quality video streaming which is awesome too. Finally, the biggest announcement was Project Natal. This is Microsoft’s one-up on the Wii motion controller. When this is released, you will be able to interact with your 360 and games with no controller at all, just by moving your body. If that wasn’t cool enough, it can react to voice commands. I cant say enough about this, so head here to check out the demo of it.
Nintendo was the second person to present at this years E3 and it made for a great opportunity to take a nap. After the stellar event from Microsoft, Nintendo could have put just about anybody to sleep. The major problem with Nintendo’s press event was that it was largely old news and not the announcements that people were hoping for. They spent a fair bit of time talking about the Wii Motion Plus which they announced and showed at length last year but doesn’t come out until this week. Nothing spectacular was shown with this, just another demo of Wii Sports Resort which was also announced last year. The Wii Fit was also talked about at length and they announced a new expansion for the Wii Fit with some new exercises and stuff for those that still use the Wii Fit, all 2 of you. Other than those disappointments, this year was the year of Mario. A number of new Mario titles were announced including a new Super Mario Bros which allows up to 4 people to play at once and Mario Galaxy 2. Other than Mario which didn’t seem to overly excite many people, the only other major announcement was a new Metroid game. While it looks interesting, I am not a Metroid fan so I can’t say it had my jumping up and down and it didn’t seem to get that big of reaction from the crowd. There was no news about a Zelda game or anything that people were expecting other than after the event, one of the Nintendo people said one was in the works. Generally, it was a complete snooze although a 4 player Mario does look interesting.
Finally, the last to present was Sony. Unlike Nintendo, this one was pretty exciting too although just slightly below the Microsoft event. They demo’d a bunch of major new games that nearly all look amazing including Assassins Creed 2, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and even my personal favorite, God of War 3. There were a ton of great looking games announced but they took a back seat to the two major announcements, the PSP Go which I have already blogged about here and here, as well as their own version of motion control that looks like the Wiimote’s uglier, more powerful cousin. While it kicks the butt of the Wii motion control, its not quite as impressive as Project Natal. Overall, they put on a great event.
Between Microsoft and Sony, this was an amazing year at E3 which Nintendo gave everybody a great nap opportunity. This certainly looks to be an exciting time for gamers over the next year and I can’t wait to play the many games that are coming out. What did you think of everything that happened at E3 this year?
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray
