It's bad enough when companies like THQ and EA implement programs to combat used games, but it's even worse when platform holders like Sony consider it. Speaking to GI.biz, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe CEO Andrew House said that Sony is taking "a serious look" at implementing something similar to EA's Online Pass for its first-party games.

"On the principle of making online portions of the game available or unlocked from the disc-based release for a fee, we're broadly supportive of that," House said. "And we're exploring actively the same option for our own content."

House admits that implementing such a program would be seen as contradictory to the free precedent set with PlayStation Network. Read More

A Japanese IP court has ruled against Sony Corp. today in a lawsuit with a former employee who claimed that the company didn't compensate him properly for technology he created that was used in the PlayStation. Japan's Intellectual Property High Court has ordered Sony to pay former employee Hidehiro Kume approximately 5.1 million yen for his invention; "a technology used in PlayStation game consoles."

The decision reverses a lower court decision ruling that rejected Kume's demand. The 58-year old former employee of Sony was seeking 100 million yen. Kume invented a "small optical pickup" used to play and record data on optical discs for the PlayStation sold prior to and during 2003.

Kume expressed his thanks to the court for the decision, which Sony says it will review as it considers an appeal. Read More

Sony's PlayStation 3 has remained remarkably resilient to piracy, until now perhaps.

An article on a EuroGamer blog (thanks The Escapist) uses a pair of YouTube videos (here’s the first, the other is embedded above) from user OzModChips as the basis for its article.

The movies were made after OzModChips apparently received an anonymous package from Hong Kong, which was sent to various resellers of mod chips.

The process described: Read More

Uniloc, which specializes in computer security and copy protection initiatives, has filed a lawsuit against Sony Corp. of America, Activision Blizzard, Aspy Media—and a handful of other software companies—alleging that the defendants infringed on a Uniloc patent which centers on a system for registering software.

The Orange County Business Journal pointed us towards the lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, on July 29. Additional defendants include Borland Software corp., McAfee, Inc. and Quark, Inc.
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While it sounds like something out of a bad anti-drug ad, an African mineral commonly used in the production of electronic devices—such as videogame consoles—may have consumers inadvertently contributing to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The mineral is Coltan, short for columbite–tantalite, which is described as “a dull black metallic ore from which the elements niobium and tantalum are extracted.” H.R. 4173 (PDF), commonly known as the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, attempts to address this issue through forced transparency.
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Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide studio head Shuhei Yoshida says that the PlayStation 3 is finally making a profit after 4 years. Speaking to IGN, Yoshida says that the company has finally turned the corner when it comes to hardware. The success or failure of a system often depends on this milestone, which took a bit longer for Sony because of the highly expensive components in the PS3 like the Cell processor.

Obviously as components become cheaper - and some elements of the system like backwards compatibility are eliminated or replaced by software solutions - the cost of doing business becomes less of a strain. Yoshida did not disclose how much it costs to make a PS3 system. Read More

If you were waiting to pick up the latest installment of what might be the best baseball videogame series ever created, your purchase of MLB 10: The Show  will not only bring you hours of gaming pleasure; soon it will give support to the fight against cancer.

From June 13 through July 10 (just in time for Father's Day, June 19), Sony Computer Entertainment America will donate $10 from the sale of each copy of the PlayStation 3 game in the U.S. to Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C), which will use the donation to fund research and provide grants to scientists.

Major League Baseball is a founding partner of SU2C and Sony said it was “thrilled” to join them in this fight.

Square Enix and Sony Computer Entertainment of America have been hit with a class action lawsuit filed by a San Diego gamer upset over a glitch in Final Fantasy XIII that can cause PS3 consoles to freeze up and become useless.

The lawsuit, which was filed on the behalf of all similarly situated US owners of Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3, alleges that SCEA and Square have been so busy blaming each other for the bricked PS3s, that they haven't remedied the problem or repaired the bricked units (or are charging users for the repair). Read More

Foxconn is, at least publicly, taking a beating from its clients - whose ranks include Apple, Nokia, Sony, Nintendo and more. Today Nintendo, Nokia and Sony announced in separate statements that they are conducting investigations into reports concerning a number of suicides that have occurred at several Foxconn facilities in China. Companies like Nintendo and Sony use Foxconn to manufacture products and components cheaply. The company owned by Hon Hai Precision Industries employs approximately 430,000.

Some reports have suggested that many of these companies are aware of the low pay, pressure, and bad working conditions that employees of Foxconn face; after all auditors and other company officials frequently check on production quotas and other matters that affect their supply chains.. Earlier in the week Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard issued statements saying that they take working conditions "seriously" and plan to do their own investigations into these matters. Read More

A 17-year old from Latrobe, Pennsylvania was sentenced to 12 months probation, 250 hours of community service and ordered to pay Sony Computer Entertainment $5,000 for his role in crippling the electronic giant’s gaming website on November 16-26, 2008.

An investigation conducted by the FBI and Greensburg Police led authorities to the boy, who apparently took the website down in response to being repeatedly kicked off the PlayStation Network for cheating while playing SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals online.

The teenager reportedly used hacking tools to harness infected computers around the world and directed the botnet “to clog three games on the PlayStation site, causing it to crash and go off-line.”
 
Sony had sought over $33,200 from the teen, but Judge John Driscoll ruled that such an amount would be “too excessive” for the boy. Driscoll wrote in his order that, “the juvenile seems to have accepted personal responsibility and agrees he should be held accountable.”

Sony’s decision to remove the “Install Other OS” feature from its PlayStation 3 via an April 1 firmware update has resulted in a class action suit filed against the electronics giant.

Anthony Ventura filed the complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on April 27. The complaint labels the disablement of the feature. "... not only a breach of the sales contract between Sony and its customers and a breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, but it is also an unfair and deceptive business practice perpetrated on millions of unsuspecting consumers.” Read More

Research agency Millward Brown has released its annual list of the Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands (PDF).
 
The top five overall in the BrandZ Top 100 are probably not too surprising; Google tops the list, followed by IBM, Apple, Microsoft and Coca-Cola. Nintendo checks in at number 32 and Intel is at number 48, while Sony is number 94.

The report also broke out a section specifically for videogames. It was noted that the category was down 3.0 percent in year-over-year results, a shift blamed on the economic downturn. In a bid to spur fan-boy debates perhaps, specific game machines were also ranked by brand value, with the Wii taking the top spot, followed by the Nintendo DS, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP and PlayStation 2.
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Sony’s latest firmware update (3.30) for its PlayStation 3 beefs up some of the console’s trophy attributes and prepares it for 3D gaming, but the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) contained some wording that alarmed UK website Thinq.

A Thinq author actually read through the whole EULA, which is dated December 10, 2009, and expressed concern over Section 3, which refers to Services and Updates. The passage is included below: Read More

Sony’s recent decision to remove the “Install Other OS” function from its PlayStation 3 console through a system update could entitle European PS3 owners to a refund.

Via Engadget we learn that a NeoGAF forumite invoked an obscure European consumer protection law to earn a refund from Amazon. Moderator “lapetus” cited the directive 1999/44/EC, a “a consumer protection law that requires goods to be ‘fit for the purpose which the consumer requires them and which was made known to the seller at the time of purchase.’”
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Sony’s next PlayStation 3 firmware updated, scheduled for release on April 1, will remove the “Install Other OS” feature.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog announcing the new firmware (version 3.21), Patrick Seybold, Senior Director of Corporate Communication and Social Media, stated that the removal of the “Install Other OS” functionality was due to “security concerns.”

Seybold also wrote:

In addition, disabling the “Other OS” feature will help ensure that PS3 owners will continue to have access to the broad range of gaming and entertainment content from SCE and its content partners on a more secure system. Read More

Maine has passed a bill that will require manufacturers of consumer products to practice “product stewardship,” or to take responsibility for the collection, recycling and disposal of unwanted goods.

Called the Act to Provide Leadership Regarding the Responsible Recycling of Consumer Products (PDF), the bill is one of the first of its kind, and could have an impact on the producers of a wide-range of goods, including console-makers Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Miller-McCune.com reports that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, by next January, will draw up a list of products it believes should be covered by the bill. A 30-day public comment period has been incorporated into the act as well.
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While political attack ads are common place, in the U.S. anyway, it’s still a bit out of the norm when publishers take each other in their marketing programs and today we offer two such examples for your perusal.

Remember the ill-received F.A.G.S. video designed to tout Modern Warfare 2? It decried grenade-spam in the game and featured Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels. Well, EA has created a spoof of the F.A.G.S. video designed to highlight its new release Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Sponsored by F.R.A.G.S. (Friends Really Against Grenade Spam), the spot has its own MLB hurler—New York Yankee CC Sabathia—and takes dead aim against MW2.

Sabathia offers that, “In Battlefield: Bad Company 2 grenade spam isn’t going to prove quite as effective as one might find in competing games of this particular genre, not with destructible buildings, adrenaline pumping weapons and more vehicles than you can count.” Read More

David Jaffe can breathe a little easier today. According to the embattled developer, Bissoon Dath v. SCEA and David Jaffe, a copyright infringement lawsuit over various themes in the God of War series, was dismissed by a federal court judge last week. Read More

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a disabled gamer against Sony Corporation of America, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Online Entertainment which alleged that the defendants denied access to their services for people with disabilities.

The suit was originally filed by plaintiff Alexander Stern in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last October. The dismissal notice (PDF) was handed down on February 8 of this year.

Stern had argued that, “his visual processing impairments prevent him from fully enjoying the video games manufactured by Sony, some of which are played on gaming systems with internet connections through which players in different locations can communicate and play with or against one another.”

The court noted that, “According to the Ninth Circuit, to prevail on an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Title III discrimination claim, “the plaintiff must show that (1) she is disabled within the meaning of the ADA; (2) the defendant is a private entity that owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation; and (3) the plaintiff was denied public accommodations by the defendant because of her disability.”

In its ruling, the court stated, in reference to point number 2 above, that Sony is not a “place of public accommodation” and was “therefore not liable for violating Title III of the ADA.”


|Via The Hollywood Reporter|

With the release of SOCOM: U.S. Nave SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 for the PSP this week, Sony has implemented a new way to fight piracy on its handheld.

As detailed on IGN, those who purchase a physical copy of the SOCOM title will need to register the game on the PlayStation Network using a supplied voucher code in order to play SOCOM online. Those who download the game digitally will have their copy automatically registered in a background operation.

Anyone who purchases a used physical copy of the game will need to pay Sony $20 for a PSN entitlement voucher to play it online. A note on the back of the game box states: “Includes voucher for online play. The voucher can be redeemed by only one PSN account and cannot be transferred or sold.”

Sony’s Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller answered a few questions from IGN about the new scheme.

On whether this technology might also make its way to the PlayStation 3 in the future:

As with many programs, we're investigating future opportunities, but we have no announcements to make on it at this time.

How does Koller think PSP users will react to the new tech?

From our research, this will be received quite positively. Remember, piracy affects more than just the creators of the game. It also affects the consumers who purchase titles expecting a high-quality gaming experience.

As part of its annual awards, the National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviewers Corp. will honor the founder of GamePolitics with a special award.

Dennis McCauley, who also wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer in addition to manning the helm here, will be receiving a special Honorary Award for his “contributions to the gaming community and gaming journalism.”

Additionally, 209 nominees were announced across 47 categories for awards designed to pay respect to the interactive entertainment industry’s best in the fields of art technology and production. Sony led the way with 47 total nominations, followed by Electronic Arts with 28, Activision with 20 and Eidos with 18.

Game of the Year nominees include Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Batman: Arkham Asylum also led the way among games in total nominations, with 17, followed closely by Uncharted 2’s 16 nominations.

A voting body of 640 journalists and writers picked the nominees. Winners will be announced on February 27.

Congratulations Dennis!

We will have to find a new nickname for professional plaintiff/serial suer Erik Estavillo, as he is dropping all his lawsuits.

Estavillo wrote that his medical conditions, particularly symptoms related to panic disorder and Crohn’s disease, contributed to his decision to abandon the cases. He indicated that the long wait for cases to be heard was starting to get to him, causing his doctors to advise him to walk away from the lawsuits in order to improve his health. Estavillo also provided us with some individual reasons for dropping each case, mostly due to those being sued making improvements or fixes which seemed to appease Erik.

Estavillo had sued Sony over being banned from the PlayStation Network following Resistance: Fall of Man online gaming sessions. He had alleged that Sony was ineffective at stopping players under the age of 17 from playing the game and that banning him from the network amounted to theft, in regards to his PSN pre-paid points. Estavillo wrote that a signup page for PSN appears to have been added, which requires a parent or master account to add a new account to a PS3, addressing his concern of younger kids playing the game.

Erik has also sued Microsoft over a red ring of death on his Xbox 360 and Nintendo over a Wii system update that rendered his homebrew channel unusable. Estavillo said he just learned that Microsoft is not charging 360 owners to fix a console that received a RROD and that he has found many websites that would easily allow him to re-install the home brew channel if he so chose to do so.

A suit against World of Warcraft maker Activision Blizzards had alleged that characters in WOW walked to slow, thus enabling the game’s publisher to continue to reap monthly subscription fees as it took long periods of time just to travel in the game. Estavillo notes that now, it appears that WOW avatars walk much faster in Ghost mode.

Another factor in dropping the suits was that Estavillo could not afford to pay the process server fees needed to serve the people he had subpoenaed for some of his cases. Those subpoenaed by Estavillo had included Bill Gates, Winona Ryder, Depeche Mode’s Martin Lee Gore, Lady Sovereign and Krayzie Bone.

Estavillo will also drop his most recent case, which targeted a variety of gaming and popular websites for libel.

Fears over a God of War III banning in Australia can be put to rest as the title has received a MA15+ rating from the Classification Board, effectively clearing it for release.

GameSpot had word on the title’s rating, noting that content descriptors on the game’s packaging will cite “Strong violence, sexual references and nudity” as being part of the game.

In light of Australia’s lack of an R18+ rating, God of War III’s developers had been sweating out whether or not the game would be deemed suitable for release.

Additionally, a God of War III: Ultimate Edition will be offered for sale in Australia for the price of A$248.00.


Thanks Ryan!

As part of its annual Guide to Greener Electronics, Greenpeace has issued detailed ratings on just how well electronic manufactures are doing in the race to become environmentally friendly.

Nokia rated first overall, with a 7.3 rating out of 10. Of the console manufactures, Sony fared the best, coming in with a 5.1 ranking.

Microsoft and Nintendo game in second to last and last respectively, with ratings of 2.4 and 1.4.

Nintendo actually showed improvement when compared to past years: the company earned a 0.0 score in 2007 and a 0.8 score in 2009.

Details from the report on Nintendo:

Nintendo scores most points on chemicals; it has put games consoles on the market that have PVC-free internal wiring. It has banned phthalates and is monitoring use of antimony and beryllium. Although it is endeavouring to eliminate the use of PVC, it has not set a timeline for its phase-out. It continues to score zero on all e-waste criteria.

The full report (PDF) can be viewed here.

Erik Estavillo has outdone himself once again, this time subpoenaing a pair of rappers to testify at his civil lawsuit against Sony Computer Entertainment America over his banning from the PlayStation Network.

Those to be summoned are Louise Amanda Harman, better known as Lady Sovereign (pictured left), and Anthony Henderson (aka Krayzie Bone) of the group Bone, Thugs & Harmony. The pair were subpoenaed because Estavillo desires to, “highlight how rappers are not censored/banned/or punished for ‘cussing/trash talking’ on private property i.e. clubs, concerts, music channels/events or award ceremonies.”

Estavillo previously promised to be done with filing lawsuits. Today he indicated that these would be the last of his subpoenas. Musicians, actresses and billionaire titans of industry around the globe can now breathe a little more easily.

In a bid to improve science and math comprehension for U.S. school pupils, President Obama has launched an open competition designed to encourage the creation of digital media-based learning experiences.

Launching December 14, the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition is being undertaken in conjunction with the MacArthur Foundation, the Humanities, Arts and the Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) and National Lab Day. Two categories are offered in the $2.0 million competition—21st Century Learning Lab Designers and Game Changers.

Game Changers will task entrants with creating content, using the PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, which incorporates science, engineering and math. Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) are backers of the competition as well, with the former donating 1,000 PS3 systems and copies of LittleBigPlanet to libraries and community organizations in low-income U.S. communities.

Jack Tretton, president and CEO of SCEA added:

“When leveraging the innovative technology of LittleBigPlanet and the PS3 system, both advanced and novice gamers have access to an open canvas to learn, build, and explore entirely new kinds of gaming experiences. There’s no better training ground for anyone interested in digital media.”

Winners will be announced next spring. Winning LittleBigPlanet levels will also be made available to the public.

A Texas-based company has filed a lawsuit alleging that a group of game makers violated its patent related to voice recognition technology.

Filed on November 10 in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, plaintiff Bareis Technologies, LLC names Ubisoft, Inc. Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc., Electronic Arts, Inc. and Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. The lawsuit revolves around a U.S. Patent for “Optical Disk Having Speech Recognition Templates for Information Access,” which Bareis owns.

The games specifically called out as infringing in the complaint are Ubi Soft’s Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Jungle Storm, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2, and Tom Clancy’s EndWar, SCEA’s SoCom: U.S. Navy SEALs, SoCom II: U.S. Navy SEALs, SoCom III: U.S. Navy SEALs, SoCom Combined Assault, EA’s NASCAR 06 and NASCAR 07 and Disney’s Phonics Quest.

The plaintiff is seeking a jury trial and “all damages caused by the infringement of the ‘407 patent, which by statute can be no less than a reasonable royalty.”

A disabled, visually-impaired gamer has filed suit against Sony Corporation of America, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Online Entertainment claiming that the defendants are denying people with disabilities equal access to their goods and services.

The suit was filed by plaintiff Alexander Stern on October 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Stern seeks to “put an end to systemic civil rights violations” allegedly perpetrated by the defendants.

Stern claims to have sent both physical and electronic mail to officials at Sony requesting “minor modifications” that would remove the barrier to gaming for disabled people. In the complaint, Stern says that a Sony representative told him that “Sony would not offer any modifications whatsoever for persons with disabilities.”

Among other actions, Stern is seeking an injunction to prohibit Sony from violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, a declaration that Sony owns, operates and maintains equipment that discriminates against the disabled, unspecified damages and to have his lawyer’s fees and expenses paid for.

The plaintiff added in the complaint that games such as World of Warcraft do support access by disabled and/or visually impaired people by “providing visual cues through several simple third-party modifications.” Stern notes that other accessibility features are available and have been implemented by “companies whose resources pale in comparison with Sony’s.”

The suit also names “Does 1 through 10,” as the plaintiff “does not presently know the true names and capacities of the defendants.”


|Via GameSpot|

A California gamer whose lawsuit against Sony Computer Entertainment America was tossed out of court last month has filed an appeal.

Resistance: Fall of Man player Erik Estavillo originally filed a complaint against SCEA on July 6th of this year, alleging that Sony suppressed his free speech rights by banning him from the PlayStation Network. Estavillo further claimed that disabling his account amounted to a theft of his PSN pre-paid points and that SCEA was unable to stop users under 17 years of age from playing.

A judge dismissed Estavillo’s lawsuit on September 22, 2009, ruling that there was no plausible First Amendment claim for relief.

The appeal was filed on October 19 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Update: Estavillo also filed (on October 14th) a civil lawsuit against SCEA in Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara seeking $180,000.

Estavillo tells GP he is representing himself in these cases and, in light of his PSN ban, is playing the Wii (Metroid Trilogy) and Xbox 360 (Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe). Estavillo said that he loves playing as The Joker in the latter title and may be “a bit obsessed” with the character, adding, “I plan to wear a purple suit during my court trials. No joke!”

Following a PlayStation 3 system software update that rendered his console unusable, and a $150 fee from the manufacturer to fix it, a Florida man has filed a class action suit against Sony Computer Entertainment America.

John Kennedy v. SCEA was filed on October 3, 2009 in the San Francisco Division of the Northern District Court of California. The plaintiff alleges that he purchased a PS3 unit on January 8, 2009 before installing the fatal update (Firmware 3.0) in September of 2009.  The suit notes that while “as a general rule, Sony ‘encourages’ PS3 owners to install the latest version of system software, Sony required users to install the Firmware 3.0 update.”

Kennedy added that a Sony forum featured “many” complaints about console failures due to the Firmware, enough that Sony responded with a “Firmware 3.00 Q&A” FAQ.  Also stated is the fact that Sony released a 3.01 version of the update a little over two weeks after the release of 3.0 in order to “improve system stability,” but which, according to the complaint, “not only failed to address problems introduces by Firmware 3.0, it caused new problems,” including the malfunctioning of the PS3’s Blu-Ray drive.

Courthouse News, via Gamasutra, has the full complaint in PDF form.